Everything I do seems to find a way to mock me.
A jeering derision to the paradox of my delicacy.
Each impulsive haste of emotion knocks on the wood of my wretch.
A doleful stimulation to invigorate the louse of my lassitude.
The inertia of my cunning shrewd howls against the odium of my filth.
Against the odium of my haste.
The odium of my humility.
And the odium of my unadulterated abhorrence.
I find myself comparing the speckled illustrations of my masked exploitation.
One of a noble morality.
One of a sinful salvation.
And one of the reprehensible dignity I carry within the reality of my reviled anatomy.
The reality of my depiction.
The reality of my void.
Every word of degradation invokes the ice of my celestial petition.
A celestial plead for an implosion so grave; it dares to uphold a cathedral of my indented dejection.
My fortitude of a sunken dejection.
My poverty of an exiled dejection.
My deception of a gouged dejection.
I am nothing but the prolonged corpus of my own vile vulgarity;
I am nothing but the corrupted potency of my own induced pallet;
I am nothing but the misdemeanour of my own cholerised pertinence.
Avoiding the girl-scouts
I hasten out of the store
trying hard not to see the people
huddled in their thin coats
as they wait for an infrequent bus.
This ice-chilled evening
with its stark revelations
is like the nag of an irregular heartbeat
sheathed like a thorn in my shoe.
Later, by a warm fire
sitting in an upholstered armchair,
a despondency chews at my breastbone,
it is a reaction hard to pin down,
to objectify,
a lingering presence.
My mind shifts through a symbolic iconography
effigies depicting:
a lost and hungry dog,
an ill-treated child,
a stranger I refuse to call brother,
places long deserted,
places found far too late.
A love unpicked from a now withering vine.
That same presence
sets a table and chair before me
that I may write, try to explain
this tumbleweed of unnamable sorrows,
a phantom, that even in happier times,
I recognize it as a coarse impression
akin to a grating scar
beneath a tender tongue.
Tomorrow may emerge as a frail old lady,
struggling with full shopping bags,
head bent to a cold uncaring wind.
Many might offer her a lift
but in my present brittle mood
I probably would frighten her,
so,
I don’t.
Always remember Meraki
In a time that is fleeting
And will soon be gone
In the moment I am alive
And my soul at peace
Oh how often we forget about sonder
A raconteur can only say so much of the old days
Of the Lassitude that came by the hour
Some cope under the gaze of a life epiphany
And others fill their nights with mellifluous sounds of the classics
Or a tryst under the tenderness of the night sky where for once all is Pristine
Written: January 21, 2024
____________________________________
Its lack of meaning is puzzling
The smile on my face
The pure one is evanescent
I ditched you in afar space
Nobody cares of my anguish
Or even witness my tears
They presume I'm laughing
Yet I regret not having you here
Nobody grasps how inure it is
They believe me to be fearless
I'm told it won't harm me
Yet, I suppose this is witless.
Vivid feelings for you turn idle
They believe I was set free
Still, it's as if chains bind me
I am tangled in the mystery
Nobody feels I need you badly
They expect I can handle it alone
But they don't grasp I'm bawling
In a state of utter lassitude
Today, I lost something dear
I lost something unreal
The core of my soul has left lately
My loss has devastated me
My beliefs have vanished
Once I felt adducible, I lost
I lost my core convictions
In sadness, I cry—why me?
clouded omens across code
the objective fact of the atmosphere here
starves even the most modest
ambitions of fish outside their home waters
journey of yearning mundane
day-glow gradients of green
scales gasping
toward the summit
regret etched in the eyeball
a penumbra casting its subtle shadow
lips rest in swags of exhausted lassitude
beleaguered
by their own bland arguments
against the reality
hung above a feckless mountainside face up
blind to the gallows scaffold
too much air in the jagged aspiration
of escape
the breathless canvas of a departing day
Slump
(Shakesperean sonnet in Iambic Pentameter)
Sobs, muted sobs, night's harvest of remorse,
spread from the core and dribble through the eyes,
in search of solace on this woeful course,
of bygone suns that shall no longer rise.
Cries, muffled cries, those nightmares of despair,
rise from the pits to choke a gloomy soul,
and waken corpses from commitments’ lair,
where pledges gather dust in a black hole.
Yet this numb, downcast, and lethargic mood,
returns with vengeance early every morn,
like pleasant warmth of summer lassitude,
no matter the night’s ridicule and scorn.
Regret piles up, like mail we never read,
To foster apathy and sorrow breed
Placed 4th
10.15.2022
Submitted to "A Brian Strand Premiere Contest"
Fly in orbit, fly in creep,
Margin on the edge of sleep,
Feast your portion from the best.;
I would bargain blood for rest!
Leave your frantic fantasies bare,
Sculpted onto empty air.
Fly, you have not heard my plea.
You zoom in on my ear, my knee.
Rousing from my noonday haze,
My lassitude becoming rage,
I tell you, fly, cease now this play!
But here you come again my way!
Oh, brother of this feeble flesh,
Darting, dodge this trapping mesh!
'Til once the blow! Swift undoes
The circle into circle, buzz.
Alike with life our end begun,
Histories in speck and thumb.
(with a respectful nod to William Blake)
apathy grows, dread heavy in the heart
laziness lingers on the spirit’s light
sluggishness gestures - cloudy, dimming hope
idleness, lethargy, dark shadow’s plight
Sin of Sloth Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Margarita Lillico
July 9, 2022
Avoiding the girl-scouts
with their cookies.
I hasten out of the store.
I am too soft now to wait
for a bus
in the dead of winter.
It's a fragility, it is a lassitude,
it’s a small uncertain privilege.
Shoes laced together,
hang from power lines.
I drive by,
car windows locked.
Walking with a full shopping bag
in the dark and cold
- an old woman.
I would probably frighten her
if I offered a lift.
I drive on by.
Transcendence
Winter strides past halcyon autumnal daze
On sweeping ariels of barren hues
Brittle bones of blue with fiery breath
Sun drench soul icicles marrow like nebula stars
When decrepit doldrums descend
As winter Daphne slowly returns
Her satin clusters, in chilled fragrance, bloom
Then flood lassitude with transcendence
To intoxicate icy vapors of wistful wandering.
Early harbinger ascends above the solstice
When vernal visions transcend hibernation
Dormant malaise and feeble sight,
Blurred by floating cataracts of blizzards,
From dark welkins raw melancholy’s cadence flutters
To glimpse enchantment in hindsight -
The sweet scent of butterflies and bees -
As Daphne coaxes a threadbare season
Into a blackberry winter of vernal vitality.
1-11-22
Contest: This or That
Sponsor: Edward Ibeh
Title chosen – Transcendence
Blackberry winter is a synonym for spring.
Welkin is a synonym for sky.
I have two pots of winter Daphne by my front door. They bloom in January.
Crumpled Wings That Fly
I hold close your crumpled wings,
Trebling fear that traps your flight
Quivering in the grip of songless things
Night crushing pinions swallowing delight.
Your caged heart beats wildly next to mine
Wrapped in brokenness - numb to soft caresses
Dazed in listless trances - faint lassitude entwines
With suspended starlight longing to refresh.
Nestle your broken parts in this healing downy nest
Fold your wings in layers of respite sleep
Swaddled here - swathed in love's sweet arrest
Stir to stretch for your new blessings keep.
With arms wide, released to the new sky,
Expand diamond studded wings to fly.
5-13-21
Contest: Embrace and Release
The streets fiercely stares
Adding to my misery and fears.
While the police brings the tears
Shooting with the gun and their stares.
In our world, things work in reverse
Drifting slowly and never clears
As office bandits drink to cheers
While documents go damn with smears.
We thank the head of state who cares
To see we rot without heirs
For with no dime and without affairs,
Our lives waste through the years.
Semi clad lasses walk, undaunted by stares
While the synagogue no longer prepares
The soul but steal the wares
Of the plebeians with little shares.
Robbers in broad daylight erect stairs
For they, living in their own spheres
Proudly put on airs
And gag in stupor on various beers
Just like a God forsaken sentry
Who in poverty would for money permit entry
And in lassitude gently await purgatory,
For 25frs, I would gladly sell my country
© Temajung Michael T.
In Fear of the Thunder
David J Walker
Come to think of it
We have not heard the sound of thunder
Rumble through the country in
the long time found in the
passing by
Nor seen streaks of lightning strike
The ground, the sound of thunder
Parting sky
Come to think of it
The ponds and playa lakes
Are cracked and dry
The mills that catch the wind
Are standing still
While distant clouds of
Lassitude forget to fly
Come to think of it
The prayers for sunny days
Were prayed without a thought
For what or why
The rains must need come
Accompanied by the lightning
Even in fear of the thunder
The Cenotaphs Inscription
David J Walker
And when you find your path
To heaven
Looking back is not an option
Navigation flowing through
The heart
Reason set apart
from the gross
Realities of the earth as the domain
Of the second son of God
Yet
here we trod
And there we trod
As angels of lassitude
Hoping we are hovering
Believing if we touch the vulgar ground
We are grounded
Bury my heart in the clouds
The rest may be left beneath
The inscription on the cenotaph
Forgotten in the round
Oh sapience of musings, oh savior of poetic art!
How longingly I seek you out to inspire my ballad
When lassitude of the night envelopes my mind
And grimace of dawn darkens shrouded in fog.
Oh lyrics of melodies, oh harmonies of music!
How eloquently you speak in articulate dreams
When wordless melancholy poignantly echoes
And voice of emptiness confiscates my themes.
Oh redeemer of words, oh language of feelings!
How musically you evoke rhythms of symphony
When broken phrases languish in depleted ink
And haze of confusion subjugates my euphony.
Oh oratory of wisdom, oh intellect of vocabulary!
How metaphorically you divulge motifs of imagery
When ineptitude of simile diminish comparability
And wordplay disappoints in misplaced analogies.
Oh allure of meaning, oh enticement of literacy!
How singularly you elevate cadence of my poetry
When decaying thoughts linger forever miserably
And creativity encounters nothingness of drudgery.
October 5, 2020
Placed 1st: When there is no inspiration poetry contest
Sponsor: Silent One
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