The season’s subtle winds bring change, from the skies
to the mountains, bearing an autumnal overcoat
boasting gold, orange, and scarlet, gradually
hushing to a dying chestnut brown.
Soon, the warming of spring will throw back its head,
laughing at crocuses and daffodils daring to
bloom above winter’s malingering snow.
The pulse of dawn captures me in its taciturn wake.
Above, the trees shed the last of their death and
blend in with the persistence of the evergreen.
I slowly bend and bleed with the horizon’s edge and
hold summer by the hand, laughing and
giving autumn a nod, knowing he’d be back
one day.
What God(?) is this
That walks warmly alongside death
A malingering menace
Feasting on the pain of life’s limitations
A sadist, reveling in life’s clinging pain
Supping on the angst of agony’s doubts
Holding trembling hands
Promising nothing.
Who’s God(?) is this
Erasing the lines of life’s lunacy
Denying the agony of love’s departure
Reveling in the emptiness of alone
Offering no choice but death’s mystery.
What god?
I ask with venomed breath
Would slay youth
Extend a lifeless life
Of endless need
Prolong the hollow need
Of a God(?)
Who walks warmly alongside death.
It amuses me when people ask
“How are you?”
Fortunately for us both
They never ask
“Who are you?”
For that answer relies upon a deep dive
Into the hollows of a heart
The scorched remains of a soul
A lonely walk
Through the darkness of youth
The crumbled “joy” of innocence
The malingering residue of defeat.
Do not ask who I am
Just leave me to further become
The residue of resurrection’s raw madness
Mysterious displacement of matters where
Spring forgets like fumbling fingers in blossoms
arresting visions lingering colossal
~jewels rule pastimes
Then Summer entertains those withering loss
call a drummer accost this way in breaths pools
beached conch shells malingering orange descends
~warms young beater's suite
A lifting Fall of memories beset heaps
across retiring boughs release the neglect
obliged astir spiced slumbers of golden birds
~chop resounds a weigh
Jack Frost recalled when Winter stalled -- cold resolve
blue glacier iceberg Irish temperature
pleased those icy treats cool in rime or freeze in
~luck pulls north-south poles.
Male bees are useless layabouts
Gather no nectar or pollen
Can't feed themselves
Have no stingers
Yet World War III
Will be fought with a swarm
Of a billion, billion drones
Some made of cardboard
Mind how the malingers
Have risen, supplanting
Planes, ships, tanks, missiles and subs
The only ounce of energy I'll be expending today
is having picked up a pen to scrawl these lines...
"I have declared this to be Dolce Far Niente Day."
Enjoying the sweet life, doing nothing by design.
I'll be spending time as I desire lazing in a chaise,
pretending I'm vacationing in the hills of Tuscany
whose orchards are heavy with grapes I must praise
for the mellow flavor of the fine wine offered me.
I will indulge myself enjoying their sweet bouquet,
malingering while listening to Chopin's Polonaise.
It's my intent to hold an annual Dole Far Niente Day
and have it last 'til stars ignite the night sky ablaze.
I will enjoy pampering myself with nothing more to do
but gaze on the clear blue waters of the Ligurian Sea.
Nothing will be hampering my idle nor twist it askew,
for I'll pay no heed to misgivings while in this reverie.
No more writing for I've taken good measure this day.
Pool waters are calling me, where I'll float peacefully
as twilight darkens. I'll take pleasure as I gently sway
in a hammock, content to stare at the moon dreamily.
The wondrous sea captivates my soul
as I sit beneath the malingering palms
I can close my eyes
and dine on imaginations from its offered sounds
I can listen quietly to the soft throb of the waves
as they rush to shore
changing from dark blue to light blue to white
before vanishing in the sands of the shore
along a red thin line on the horizon
a sailboat slowly moves
the sails are pushed by the wind toward the sunset
pelicans glide in the distance
between voluminous clouds of white and gray
then fall like spears into the sea
seagulls arrive like thieves to steal fish
their squeaky sound belies the struggle for life
between the hunter and the hunted
the scent of salt air fills my attention
with every breath I take
I look out at the sea's great expanse
and have a sense of smallness
filled with wonder
the power of all this I feel deeply
my soul touches time and space
in a union of serenity
from the sea's immeasurable beauty
4/7/23 Writing Challenge "S" Words
sponsor Constance La France
"SEA"
The insurrectionists of January 6 are NOT patriots!
They are criminals of the lowest amoeba-types
Most patriots were at work improving the G.N.P.
Not carousing and malingering to air their gripes.
Can you imagine an American president colluding,
Encouraging rabble-rousers to storm the Capitol,
Giving tacit approval to hanging his vice-president?
In my opinion, his behavior was clearly lunatical!
And, he is still clamoring for the nation’s attention
Bloviating far and wide, spouting despicable lies,
I’m flabbergasted that so many are on his team
Celebrating and cheering on our nation’s demise.
A long-time presidential aficionado, I hasten to say,
That Donald Trump’s picture among our presidents
Is utterly disgraceful, a travesty of the worst kind,
He should be prosecuted to law's fullest extents.
Written July 30, 2022
What man is this,
Who may not kiss
And not want to spit
Out the taste of carrion,
Not want to wrench
The steaming stench
Of carnality
In billowing bellows
From his lungs
Not want to cleanse his tongue
Of all that it has touched,
Or hands fingered
Lingering in a malingering mind
Where pleasures pleading
Leads him, blind
Yet leaves behind him, needing
And impeded by his needs.
Standing redundant
in an echoing wind,
renewing your vanity
with deference to all
At home on the fringes
where truth is an orphan,
you line up your enemies
canons shot at the wall
A general of
a malingering army,
whose entitled thinkers
lay truth in the grave
The devil is calling
his pulpit awaits you,
the olive branch hollow
—your memory enslaved
(Saint David’s Pennsylvania: November, 2020)
Beautiful Eyes
Yin and yang had resolved the conundrum of diametrically opposed promises
No longer one sided her receiving end glimpsed into the barrel of a shiny gun
Far from being a passive shooting star only her lop side held the heavy metal
One hand gently stroking the trigger the other one where the third eye would be
Was it her divisions that started the apocalypse of that pleasant oracle of intent
Or civil unrest’s cacophony transcribed by all the screaming voices in her head
How hollow are spiral’s suggestions when everything points one way only
It is only hysteria her usual neurotic malingering perpetual self harming way
But when kaleidoscopes of irresistible chaos painted holograms in her mind
She resolved third eyes were just metaphors and confusion the basis for change
2017
Haywire ghetto, lingering corpses, malingering sunshine,
Malignant malediction, staccato with disseminating stench,
Portending: ichor, insipid blood and wenches.
Juxtaposition of aphotic with aphotic; incognizant iniquity.
Noxious oxygen, attenuated jasper, jejune jardiniere:
Zion.
Smoke: implicative cornice,
Sherry or vitriol?
Ours, a world, that feigns polo in alcohol!!
-Pin Dew (30/04/2017)
PTSD, this is nothing that's new,
it's just a new label to stick on you
They now blame it on the wars today,
unless for your trauma they have to pay.
Then all of a sudden, it changes it's name,
and you are accused of the malingering game.
So you lost an eye, arm or a leg or two,
that's happened for years, it's nothing new.
No one over the years ever tried to explain,
when you scream and shout they say your insane.
You could fight and yell until you were numb,
then they hid you away in the insane asylum.
Now in the 21st century, they start to see,
that your moaning and griping is reality.
Your suffering can't be swept under the mat,
too many now shouting, we deserve better than that.
We were beaten, spit on, blown up and abused,
why should we take this, we're not the accused.
We did our duty as we were ordered to on the day,
now all we ask for is a sense of fair play.
Years ago when into a corner we would flee,
from years of molestation and depravity.
Whether your a child or have already grown old,
you have a story that needs to be told,
If your in authority listen to me please.
This pain hidden inside is not a disease
© Dave Timperley 19 August 2016
My name is John--the work horse
And I was teamed with Prince.
We could easily do a job at which
An Arabian horse would flinch.
Prince's work is over now.
He's buried in the pasture.
I am too old to work so hard,
According to my kind master.
He tells me I must take my ease
And to just enjoy my leisure,
That he is going to retire
And be a lazy old geezer.
But he still drives the plow team
And I just follow after.
I try to mind his gees and haws.
He doubles up with laughter.
When he keeps his promise to retire,
I will stop working too.
We'll spend our time malingering
Beneath the skies of blue
Written Feb. 29, 2016
Sweet moments
Wind howls angst;
Nobody home
Water fountain
Meeting point chat;
Malingering moments
Magazine print debris
Recycled collage;
Emergent art form
Bits and pieces
Visual imperfections;
Beyond patchwork
Tall lallang grass
Sharp blades cut;
Oozing blood chlorophyll
Weather park bench
Witness to people passing;
Message in the wind
Lake side pagoda
Willowy sun burst;
Stillness meditation
Train ride to nowhere
Staycation retreat;
Ordinary gladness
Wind on water
Murky mirror;
Pagoda dancing
Flash of insight
New wordplay arrives;
Muse on the move
Leon Enriquez
23 August 2014
Singapore
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