6
I’ve always been attracted, really,
By the other side of the mirror,
To find the white rabbit,
from Alice in Wonderland,
Playing croquet with the queen,
Not knowing where the world is going,
To embrace Juliet and Miss Cunegund,
Seal fishing in Alaska,
I’ve always been attracted, really,
By the other side of the mirror,
Having tea at the madhouse,
to listen to the advice of the silkworm,
The poet lives in strawberry pies.
7
Who stole my Christmas present?
The toy box, the stuffed animal,
Comanche’s headdress,
The red fire truck,
I saw time fly by the window,
She’s not my little sister,
Nor the matchmaker,
Is it Lucille, playing piano ?
Who stole my Christmas present?
Davy Crockett’s panoply,
The pretty steam locomotive, stupid,
The jumping balloon and its dreams,
I saw time fly by the window,
There were four men
searching for truth
They all knew
that sixteen hundred years before
Someone was asked
by a washing hands' man
to say what was the truth.
One of them
is on the tower of Pisa
which is still bending
since then
'cause he refused
to declare the earth is flat
to the clergy men
to the rappers of truth
Several miles away
another one is convicted
by other false truth holders
he has lost his wife
he's lost his goods
he's lost his freedom
and he's Lost Paradise
And Torquato
has been serving
for seven years through
in a madhouse
for his poetry was full of truth.
The fourth man lies
straight and tall
in the middle of a square
where his unfortunate harsh
took the place of the flowers
He seems to warn the passing-bys:
"Please, mind the truth!"
Anxiously he waits for his wife
She was supposed to be home at five
He needs to teach her a lesson
He knows she will after this session
five minutes later, she opens the door
Without greeting he hits her to the floor
He promises tonight he will give her a hiding
Never mind the pleading
He beats her face to a pulp
Bleeding from the scalp
He shows no sign of stopping
and she cannot stop sobbing
He starts kicking her
She is full of fear
She tries to get up
She slips in her own blood
All afternoon he had been drinking
Beating her without blinking
Eventually he relents
Now he can boast to his friends.
He is the boss in his house
A complete madhouse
The sad part is she does not report him
He sits on the couch and hums a hymn.
madhouse of a ménage à trois —
the bawdy chamber of the blitz,
where three depraved darlings conspired in pagan rituals,
their lover's lament a discordant dirge amidst,
detritus of a bygone era,
a winter's eve of wreathed blossoms and withered dreams,
in this sterile hothouse of sentiments,
tender shoots of succulents twisted in grotesque abandon,
vault where love and decay convened in diseased romance,
till the one dawn ecstasy rose like cold air,
and winter's chill singed the hard prickles of their passion,
now vacant bloom, fossil of wounds,
trailing anguished bellflowers in mournful amusement.
I carve a path out for me
trying to make it in this soulless city
confined to a big house
aspirations seem to drag out
sitting in this pink room
trying to catch my breath at noon
This heat is making me crazy
I am not sure where I'm heading
too many questions I don't know the answers to
I have too much time on my hands
too many thoughts swirling
Is this what they call the end of the beginning?
I have no clue
Do you?
Maybe I am inching toward the madhouse
A nasty feeling
a subtle thought
and suddenly it doesn't seem so bad
this notion though does make me sad
I have yet to see, what becomes of me!
you push a pipie
you might pray
your words form
a formula
a rode house
a street
a madhouse
a madman dressed in burlap
a court hearing
a presences
a feeling
a song
a picture from Walmart
a wife
a husband
kingdom push
One hundred years on
Our Waste Land we celebrate
Desiccated and dry as a desert
Within our dehumanised souls
Where the tumbleweed of untruth
Sits with such disconnection
From reality,
Myriad voices peddling the myths of the madhouse
Your untruth is not mine
So far apart are we
Secure yet blinded by our own beliefs
Unanchored and ill- founded
Estranged from the truth
And dead to fact
Our refusal to recognise the denatured race
Of our reckless rush
Towards the day of judgment
Destruction and damnation.
False narratives to gullible audiences play,
Such siren songs solipsistically
Softly sing us to our graves,
Fragmentation our final fate
Emotion eclipsing reason.
Snow sprays off crow wings.
Flurries drift like torn lace curtains
over the blacktop.
The porch rocking chair
is draped like a madhouse ghost.
Nobody is going anywhere,
the side-roads are getting narrower
as cold pinches wind-swirled surfaces.
Every bare tree is festooned
with a year-old loneliness.
There are Christmas lights coming,
and the canned music
of tone-deaf elves – perhaps.
We may gather together
at the holy font of former years
but only if time moves on
away from this day,
only if the highways are not clogged
by lost days and their
dead-eyed nights…maybe,
maybe there will be carols and good cheer,
but only if the lone wolf
and his gun,
for a while have had enough fun.
There comes a headache
when you want to disappear from the scene.
Head still cloudy with last night's drink,
Crumbling decor strewn all over,
Leftover food, stinking in a corner.
Not a chair, not a book,
In the way you had arranged.
And the whole place looks like a spooky madhouse:
Lacking only the cobwebs and cracked walls.
You roll up your sleeves
Scrub every floor,
Polish the silver,
Varnish the furniture,
Paint the walls,
And throw all the garbage out of your sight.
And you sigh.
It will be the same after every party?
"NEVER MISS THE BULLSEYE"
"promise me something?" I told her.
"when I'm committed to a madhouse
come visit me within the first week
and bring me a piece of cake and
a cup of milk. then tell me you're
getting married."
"what? why?"
"just give and tell me everything I
want to hear."
"that's not going to happen... not
getting married."
observe and pay attention to every
bit of detail.
never surrender the point.
even if it is about cake, marriage
or milk.
By: Chicano Eddie
4-11-2017
I am a pitbull.
Why am I here?
They call this a shelter,
But it is hell in here.
I came from a loving home,
And children who played with me.
Never once did I growl,
When they pulled my ears and hurt me.
They call this a shelter,
Dogs bark night and day.
We live in our own filth,
Hoping to be taken away.
My family saw a story,
About pitbulls who hurt someone.
But, I am a sweet dog,
Who never hurt anyone.
In this madhouse shelter,
There are mean dogs who bark and bite.
I wonder what people did to them,
To make them want to fight.
My family was nice,
My children all cried.
But, I was brought here,
Even though I tried.
I see people walk by,
I wag my tail all alone.
I have sweet eyes,
But no one will take me home.
I am a pitbull.
I cannot cry.
I was taken to the shelter.
Why must I die?
Desert Of Overcast Blues
I walked in a desert of overcast blues
sandy undertow wicked and laced with red rust.
Old , worn-out and sad are my feeble trekking shoes
yet onward with flowing tide travel I must.
Treading bastions of false hope and scary tales
heaped with desperate tales I did so want to hear.
Oceans of sweet soothing lies bigger than blue whales
and me unable to stop running from my fear.
Where scolding shadows cry out my deepest regrets
red dust pulling me down into a darkened pit.
There hellish madhouse laughs and wins all futile bets
cutting into my lost soul with every hard hit.
Longing for days, when mere boulders stood in my path.
Begging relief from night's cuts of demonic wrath.
Robert J. Lindley, 5-03-2016
Poem Syllable Counter Results
Syllables Per Line: 12 12 12 12 0 12 12 12 12 0 12 12 12 12 0 12 12
Total # Syllables: 168
Total # Lines: 18 (Including empty lines)
Words with (syllables) counted programmatically: N/A
Total # Words: 124
Sonnet, 12 on 12....
my empty hands sprawled
the healers of magical minds watch intently
as i rush to speak all my madness thoughts
as i spill the visions and voices that come to me in the night
the pour out onto the madhouse floor
stained like blood red wine
sharp taste to the minds electric eye
wrap tin foil around your fingers when you type
lest the alien signature machine sees you in a dream
the healers of a magical mind
tell you of reality that you cannot see
the give you small pills to make it all better
to soak up all the fears
your magic mind speaks inside your ear
tells you not to swallow the pills
that they make your face look funny in the mirror
that they control you with secret machines
in magazines
sit on the bare floor
straight jacket wrapped warmly around you like loving arms
and watch the cursed moon rise neath the clouds
sing in a whisper to the voices in your head
your eyes wide open
to the magical mind
Skin cancer and Ayn Rand
So another sunny day is sinking into the sea I sat in the sun
for a while but it got too hot I do not understand people who
sit for hours in the sun, hot and painful just to get a tan.
I get a tan in the summer this by riding mine
bike around for an hour or so, only lately with advancing years
I easily tires and having had skin cancer I’m careful.
In January,I collapsed, ambulance sirens and so on; I was dying,
too stupid to notice as death is banal. Elderliness is an affliction
that is depressing, the loss of power, when steps
in the hall are obstacles, negotiations of the will, this sounded
like Ayn Rand whose teaching is the antithesis of a just society,
it worth noticing the rich think she is a goddess their inhumanity
have a philosophical point. Ayn Rand died in a madhouse.
I have no political ambitions, but I do believe in quality for all people,
I regret to say it is only just for some people.
I've known love five or six times,most were good gals...
excepting one who lied to me and cheated me and...
(clip-joint Sally)
I,ve paid over the years, not just money but in heart scars,
big jagged rivers of pain, deep and weeping
one such love turned my life in to an occasion,
thirsty, she could drink like a mule...a splendid madhouse,
containing dark unopened rooms and slippery cabinets,
(she had scars too)...I suffered:
and I found flowers by the front door, left in a hurry,
and a crazy world drowned me...anxiety...propriety,
a waterfall of empty gardens: a new man had stolen her away
and when after a time the waterfall had turned to ice I met him
( my kids brought him) and I shook his hand and said,"thank you',
in the splendid madhouse.
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