IT’S TIME
Woman gave birth to boy,
Nurture them with joy
Made them man with lots of hope
Man full of force reach the top
Only to create glass ceiling to stop
Dashing woman’s hope.
Cherished breast as infant
celebrated them in centerfold
Grabbing and groping became norm
Define manhood by screwing around
It’s time for women to confront
It’s time for women to demand
It’s time for women to command
Push back Weinsteins n Cosby’s of universe
Searching deep in darkened places,
Reaching into vacant spaces,
I touch only shadowy faces….
Where are you?
Empty caves in endless mountains,
Dusty, dry, neglected fountains,
Pathless, groping I move, hoping.
Where are you?
Past songless birds on leafless trees,
Across waveless oceans, and silent
seas, through fumbling nights that
find no day,
I move and try to find my way.
I’m getting a new computer tomorrow
I love my tech about as much as I love my boyfriend
It’s M5 chip, 10 CPUs, neural processors and GPUs
will mostly idle away as I grope for the right words
but they won’t show their impatience - no -
they won’t sigh and tap their shoes like a boyfriend.
I’m getting a new computer tomorrow
I’ll love it’s bright, starlight, smooth and flawless skin
maybe not quite as much as I do when I’m groping him
but I’ll sigh with delight as I run my fingers over its form
few things in life completely delight and please me
I know one or two - and one of them will be brand new.
.
.
A song for this:
Joburg jam by Pogo
Nobody by Kate Earl
.
.
*every year I trade in my Macbook Air for a new one, it only costs ~$250 so why not? That way I have the latest, greatest tech.
I identify as both
and neither.
I felt myself
With this self.
So why when I walk
Is it an invitation?
I do not exist for you,
Or you,
Or them,
Or anyone.
I exist for me.
As my age has enlarged,
So has the hubris
The stares
And expectations.
I do not walk for you
Or talk for you.
So why are my steps only safe
And my words valid
When accompanied?
Why is touching
Groping
Harrassing
Stalking
Acceptable, or brushed off.
I have my identity,
But the world will always expect
Me to come second,
And to smile while you yell.
Sitting in my element,
Becoming a shiny filament,
Representing a beacon,
A reason for keeping hope,
Peering down the scope,
Adjusting for the slope,
Groping a target,
I cant reach yet,
Waiting with my sight set,
Letting the moment happen,
Snapping at the perfect time,
In a flash You start to climb,
Primed by an explosion of emotions,
Their fire sends you in motion,
Opening up to being chosen,
Traveling across the ocean,
A glowing beam of light,
The beacon in the night,
A sight for all to see,
Exposing the enemy,
Setting souls free,
A bullet from eternity,
Fired from within me,
Exploring it's reality,
Carrying the energy,
Tearing through targets,
Shining brighter so you never forget,
Sitting silent sent it in motion,
The bullet that cut commotion
“The Darkness Can Be Shattered”
by Positive Mark
My Father died, mid-argument.
An email never opened.
I hear him sometimes in the night, when I’m vomiting and groping.
Maybe the next rhyme will immediately restore hope, and
the darkness can be shattered by the ember I’ve been stoking.
This is a matrix, a puzzle with high stakes.
Where twenty of wood has you feeling so good that you cuddle with rattling snakes.
You’re numb with olfactory flakes.
Wake up with your face in her cakes.
A twenty year stretch, where you stick out your neck, as if life has but so many takes.
So tell me what’s real when you swallow that pill.
You came with a nine. Who you fixin’ to kill?
I hate to come off like my name’s Jimi Hendrix, but this is my hundred. I’m ‘bout to go spend it.
I’m taking this dame out to dinner and sports, while you sit in the dark, sucking down them Newports.
And you’re thinking of popping a round in your head?
I hate break this to you Homie.
You’re already dead,
like my Father.
Life is slipping away with each clock tick,
no slowing down until pendulum will stop.
It’s relentless counting seems double quick,
until at last it’s become my time to drop.
Today has arrived finding me downcast,
and groping for words like some half-wit.
My happier times all snooze in my past,
but today will be what I choose to make it.
Long after midnight
in late December
woke one night in total fright
as where I was did not remember
but more importantly
couldn't see
the forest for the trees
and did not recall myself at all
or who exactly was this me
but when I could
it would feel so good
as then I'd be out of the woods
so instead of groping blind
did quite the obvious thing
which then did spring to mind
made my way across the floor
stumbling fumbling 'til I stood
before the full-length mirror
on the wall beside the door
and to behold the sight
with my sore and tired eyes
wisely switched on the light
illuminated lo there was I
in all my glory
I found myself
end of story
Planting my flag atop my sonnet’s peak
and outward gazing at the vales below,
I hear the rambling rivers, feel the faux
flow and fumble of their groping technique;
From high on up, I trace the snaky sneak
of weak words—and weaker metaphors,—slow
conclusions, mirroring the so and so…
I am compelled, my judgement thus to speak:
I declare war on free verse poetry!
Ach! scourge on rhyme, blight on rhythm,—I’ll beat
back the long-winded flood of half complete
thoughts. With respect to whom I name my foe,
if here you hear your name,—at least you’ll know:
In the formless form—I find my enemy!
I can’t rid of the bags under my eyes
The crowfeet despise, all were lies,
Conjured was an illusion of you
Throughout my groping confusion
evasive, flimsy
A-m-o-r-p-h-i-c, innuendos
I was subjected to your derision
dissing me relentlessly
deriding my appearance,
disparaging my intellect
as I stumbled and fell into the abyss
Mocking doesn’t suit my countenance
My lips desert dry, thirsty, parched
An amazon no longer beats its drum
My buoyant nature now laden with coarsened shroud
Leaving a cardboard moon deprived of its shine
Stars like candles blown out one by one
No use waiting for the rising Sun
The end of world does come,
stopped spinning neath heavy ebon clouds
Expectations unreal
All zeal gone, listless is my spirit
along with my illumination
Now you see me
unmasked in raw anguish
I d
r
o
o
p
jowls hang from endless
torment endured
like the drenched and cold, wounded hawk
taken flight, eagle-eyed, a warrioress
more determined and bold, traveling on
with unlimited range
and self-esteemed
This bird,
you
c
a
n
n
o
t c h a n g e
Groping in the darkness of mind, our presence
sinks in murky quicksands of desire, spawned by
ego, finding no peace in inanities …
deaf to soul’s whispers.
Simply shifting from head to heart, we halt the
flow of thought, whence magnetism rises, birthing
mists of bliss in heart by grace, that touched thus we …
ascend in stillness.
The path pathless, yet appears, when we so choose
without excuse, to enter God’s heart unshod,
mirrored in our own, sensed by soul in silence …
transcending earth life.
Every day,
I try my best
To achieve the impossible goal
Of teaching children
Sometimes it’s a puzzle
That I can’t solve,
Where nothing comes together,
And none of the pieces fit
Other times, it’s a dance,
Endlessly rehearsed—
Only the steps keep changing,
And the audience doesn’t care
Sometimes it's a blind search:
An endless groping in the dark
For a light switch that isn’t there,
Or doesn’t work
But then I remind myself
That teaching requires warmth,
And so I take the time to build a fire,
And wait for them to gather ‘round.
Truth cuts deeper
than the surgeon’s blade—
no clean incision,
no practiced hand stitching the wound shut.
Instead, it comes jagged,
its edge raw and rusted,
ripping through sinew and marrow,
leaving us undone,
exposed,
bleeding in the silence
of what we thought we knew.
It does not ask permission.
It does not wait for us to be ready.
Truth falls, sudden and relentless,
like a guillotine at dawn,
its shadow looming
long before the strike.
And when it lands,
what remains?
Fragments.
A hand groping for what isn’t there.
A face fractured
in shards of broken glass.
The sound of a name
we cannot speak without trembling.
The wound truth leaves
does not heal,
not in the way we hope.
It marks us, alters us.
Scar tissue forms,
thick and unyielding,
mapping what was lost,
what was torn away,
and what we still carry.
Truth does not soothe.
It offers no comfort.
It stands,
stark and unrelenting,
pressing its weight
into the hollow spaces
where lies once lived.
And yet—
within the ache of its clarity,
something begins.
Slowly. Painfully.
We rise,
not unbroken,
but whole in a way
we hadn’t known before.
Not untouched,
but real.
Light throbbing in the heart of darkness
Shakes its density and solidity
Dawn lengthening towards morning
Mops up darkness slowly
Shadows vanish
In its brightness
It rubs them off the bodies
Of men and furniture
Lion, camel, orangutan and tiger;
Light focused on cave
Clears the obscurities
Light of reason removes
The stumbling blocks of superstition
Light of knowledge conquers ignorance
Light of conscience deals with narrowness
Pushing it towards broadness and righteousness
Light broadens the narrow space of the heart
Leads it towards benevolence
Pride and prejudice, niggardliness vanish
With the white purity
Of the effulgent Divine light
The light of lights!
It hovers round us
Flashes with higher consciousness
In search of us groping in the dark
Near us comes it giving chance to embrace
Sure it is that we move pulled towards it
Let that light grace us towards fulfillment.
I think hell is like a midnight grocery store.
Shelves filled with burning crucifixes and pestilence.
Bloody-black water up to the necks of Half-souls.
Groping mindlessly in the dark...
Searching for God in brackish hopelessness.
Flint and wooden carts colliding-
Black water biters abound.
The checkout line is a turnstile.
Manned by faceless, dripping things.
Wielding holy punchers.
Eternally pocking your debit card soul.
While howling Who's Next!
Sub Categories
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.