In the bottom of a drawer,
where rusted nails and screws gather dust,
never used to mend the house
we swore we’d build together,
my dreams lie waiting.
In the back,
with the dried-up ketchup packets
we thought would stretch the hard days,
but never opened—
you’ll find remnants of hope
wrapped in crinkled edges.
Tossed in an overfilled closet,
crushed beneath the weight
of your unpacked clothes—
the pieces I kept
after you left—
they’re hidden there too.
And in the basement,
where clutter grows like ivy,
where portraits we barely recall
prop up the cobwebs—
those fragile threads of time—
don’t let them fall.
I think I left part of me
down there as well.
Scattered like puzzle pieces
from a hurried Christmas morning,
left unfinished as we rushed
to places we never wanted to go.
Or maybe they’re like the tire tracks
carved into the mud from journeys
that never mattered,
etched into the earth
and fading into memory.
This is the Kingdom of Forgotten Things.
When the owls are out of town
his studded boots kick-up featherless hoots.
He is the creak and groan of tired wood,
The splutter of an old aircon
yet more;
all inexplicable noises belong to him.
He crawls through crawl spaces to prop up places.
A chunky phantom who tinkers with gurgling drains.
He's the one who unplugs the unpluggable,
then trips the fuse box at night while you pee.
I hear him stumble bent between rafters,
imagine his bum crack mooning cobwebs and shadows.
He wheezes through long unheeded chores.
A maintenance ghost
grumbling as he bends over a beer belly,
that unseen plumber who rattles shaky pipes,
working hard on his night shift,
He's a clatter in the crapper,
patching up leaks between colliding worlds,
nudging our sleep as we cover ears
in our fretful dreams.
Lean not on gurus, for God search
Why prop up middleman
Sitting on high and mighty perch
Our credit card they scan
God within intimate
Here now immediate
Go in now, do not wait
Power, they abuse
Lean not on gurus
01-December-2021
Quietus
All of the failures are mine
All the successes are theirs
I cannot stop ordering wine
I keep rearranging the chairs
Don’t stop
Don’t stop
Don’t stop beating yourself up
Should you go to Malaysia,
You best prepare to be caned
If you listen to Erasure
May need to have your earwax drained
If you prop up yourself as a hero,
Better get yourself a high steel box
‘Cause here in the Land
of Absolute Zero,
They only listen to the aftershocks
Don’t stop
Don’t stop
Don’t stop beating yourself up
‘Cause that wouldn’t be right
He gave her a book....she used it to prop up her iPad.
John G. Lawless
5/11/2021
Certain scenes can be taken for granted,
Like clouds blanketing, our sunny sky’s,
Intuition gut feelings, cannot be ignored,
Suspicions important, not vacant denial,
Where contrasts fade into each other,
Fuzzy bits, become more difficult to see,
Hidden foundations, prop up our planet,
Shoreline mountains, form under the sea,
Black and white blend, greying each other,
Cutting corners, saves bundles of time,
Rules can be stretched, til finally broken,
Yet some laws so vague, they intertwine,
Today enjoyed eating a big juicy apple,
Til chomping soured, on a rotten core,
Doesn’t mean, in future I’ll slice all open,
Just to guarantee, I’m fooled no more,
Two people hold hands, in the distance,
Appears innocuous, such a loving display,
But hold on, let’s look a little closer,
It’s actually a child, being taken away,
Vagaries of life are insanely disparate,
Harmless to you, but curtains for me,
One ingredient, not printed on the packet,
Tiniest interactions kill, yet build reality.
By
David Kavanagh
Prosthetic language can never fix
a Poems broken joints
Only inspiration can set
the break for sure
Crutches and canes to prop up verse
severely disappoint
Perception falling on its face
—a crippled lost poseur
(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2019)
Flow into your heart’s serenade
If happiness should glide and slide
Away the lemonade
You struggle to hide in a ride
Into booze or a cruise
Into screams and streams
That pretend not to bruise
Your fragile ego as the steam of dreams
You entertain and maintain
Despite evidence that your last dance
Meant to ascertain your whims to retain
Forays into maybes and buts balance
The reality that the rhythm of ceaseless pursuit
Of stubbornness runs counter
To underlying the suit
You don in your eagerly awaited encounter
With fate in which cry as you may
Catalyzes a conundrum that punishes the procrastination
You prop up at the dismay
Of stakeholders whose destination
Glides away into El Dorado territories
Where unhindered they pan gold nuggets
Despite the absence of factories
That meet exacting targets
Which you fail to meet
In the wake of the uncertainty
Evident in every tweet bereft of wit
You post to drive a wedge between your fiction and stark certainty.
BLUNT CONSCIOUSNESS
Fast asleep
Blunt consciousness
“What the hell was that?”
The colorful lady passed out
face down
framed
her wire cut
The wall with laceration
a larceny to my sleep
The dead of night
this cold Spring
my husband in Spain
I prop up the painting
that stares at me
the rest of the night
as the sun clicks its nails
upon the ghostly night
Daylight always smiles
upon scary things
somehow making things right
and my honey will be back
in my bed tonight
4/21/2018
BLACK CLOUD
Mourvédre* cluster overhead
weight of Everest
capped on nerves
suppresses colors
squeezes eyeballs
behind dark sunglasses
lightening drills through temples
attempts to prop up
one’s globular head
with isometric fingers
grape stains on cheeks
relieve pitch of crystal
shattering the oppression
kaleidoscopic relief
10/15/2017
*Mourvédre - (mohr-ved-ra) - dark red grapes
The rest of us
caught here
in the web
of a foreign arachnid
We prop up
his appendages
and force feed
his proboscis
Those of us
blinded here
by his pure
dark whiteness
Grope and slash
in the excrement
of his dying
putrefaction
In a world
good for others
they concentrate
us in harm
And our children
play in the backyard
of beyond
forever like
the rest of us
"Respect" is a word many people use
"Respect" is a word many people abuse
Most people spend their life to learn it
Most people spend their life to earn it.
So they can all say "look up to me"
and prop up their false identity
But respect doesn't come by achievement or funds
or looks, or houses, or car type or chums.
You find "respect" hanging on a cross
not by the gains but by one's loss
You find "respect" between sky and land
with a different crown on a crucified man.
If you hedonistically entail to wage a war
If you are possessed by the longing to eradicate
If you fathom the nitty-gritty of the havoc
If you need to endorse your prerogatives in life
Leave free reign to your rational mind
Pull out of this inequitable,rotten,imbecile game
Ditch and this greed for pogrom gloss over
Thwart your apex for evil and hatred tame
Morph into something humane and peace prop up
Vent your indignation on war trivialities
Elect to live off the grid and continue to fly
Then without beating about the bush poverty target
Let wisdom sink into your depraved,wicked soul
Designate your catbird seat among peace devotees.
she became a new york city
street corner fixture
acted like its the only place to be
acted like its the place for the persecutor to begin
after all all men are guilty
none are forgiven
so she painted false hearted judges
to prop up her proposition
to subvert the natural truth
she lied when it came down to the last hours
but i was unsurprised i had seen her coming
the deception was the rationalization
means to the end
just because you can lie means you should
integrity means so much more when
there is no shame in the game
so once again i ask
just because you can lie means you should
isn't it about change
or was that just part of the lie
i walked away
on a north bronx street corner never to return
no regrets
she had sold herself at every chance
for two bits silver
for a lies chance to shine
but i will not be there to suffer the consequences
just because you can lie means you should
isn't it about change
or was that just part of the lie
It’s noisy in here
The engines don’t shut down till midnight
That’s when the sweating begins
The deep human subsystem checks in for the morning
Orange lights permeate the dust that rains down
And people move like ghosts in the fray
No one talks they just move in slow motion
Like a bad Tarantino film
It’s shift change in the data mines
The operation folks wait for the elevator up from hell
Chet Baker streams out bits and bytes of the blues from his trumpet
While the next shift downs their power drinks and coffee.
Drones and ants.
Moving from server to server to application to application
When does it end?
Where did it begin?
Taking it off boss
Need a drink of water boss
Yeah get some water there boy
Internets down.
Corporate is screaming they can’t get their dose of unimportant email.
Get a ladder and prop up the Exchange server.
AC is down in the data center.
Call Buildings and Grounds they’ll know what to do.
Google it Bob.
Google it now.
There’s water on the floor
The whole damn town is about to blow
Where’s the Calvary? At the Alamo?
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