A listless wall-clock tocks.
Pedestrians sleep-walk to their garages,
strung out nightwalkers arrive home
to unwind main springs.
Neighborhood cats want in and dogs out.
Pet-free I arise
to pee.
Hung upon marshmallow bones
I roll back onto the perspiring mattress,
Its pillows are still drunk on mind-fog.
The slamming of distant doors
tweaks fine ear hairs.
The clock stops to rethink the notion of time,
hands flop out of its face,
those hands will never reach the floor,
not until bare feet repossess the rug,
nor until my toes can hack their way through
its pile weave jungle,
only then
will the wall commence to tick,
and a thick-tongued world clock in.
The urge to disappear.
Fall off into a volcano
Erupt and saturate the surrounding land.
Suffocate myself quickly in sand.
repossess my life and leave this empty, broken shell.
This is goodbye.
There is no hand left to wave -
in the background,
I hear the bells.
Ding, ding, welcome to our final resting place.
Thank you Lord
For a new beginning
Thank you Lord
For the grace to overcome
The vagaries of the old year
Show me the way to go Lord
For you are my divine compass
The way the truth and life
Thank you father for the new year
Lead me father every inch of the way
For the roads are strewn with mines
They are strewn with demonic entanglement
They are threatened by the desire to look back
And be turned into a pillar of salt
I move forward with confidence
Assured You are with me always
And no one can be against me
On this journey of righteousness
To repossess what rightly
Belongs to me
Hello Nigerian youth!
How are doing?
I salute your courage
I salute your resolve
To take back your country
Bedeviled by evils of unimaginable proportion
That threaten and becloud your future
You are leaders of today
Making you believe otherwise
Tantamount to fraud
Say no to divide and rule tactics
A booby trap to keep you subjugated
Stand firm and say no to intimidation
Your strength is in your numbers
Your strength lies in your innovative spirit
Your strength lies in
Your youthfulness
Your strength lies in your resilience
Today is your day
Rise and take what belongs to you
Arm yourself with your PVCs
Vote wisely and repossess
What belongs to you
It is now or never!
We took the bridge of San Luis Rey
And stood on the beach at Manila Bay
We bellied down in the soggy lea
And creeped across the churning sea.
In every clime where men were chained
We stormed the walls until we gained
For every man--freedom unconditionally
We sang the songs of victory.
We then came home to repossess
A measure of our happiness
We met our sweethearts at the pier
And shoved our lives into high gear.
We raised our sons to face the task
To strongly covet the patriot's mask
We taught them how to raze and bomb
And sent them off to Viet Nam.
Now we wonder, but we trust
Their cause, as ours, is just as just
We want our sons to know this part:
War's task is close to freedom's heart.
[from The Lady in the Pink Hat, Candor Press, 1969]
Crashing waves pound the shore dashing wildly up the sand
until exhausted, they reach their limit then,
bubbling, drift back into the sea.
Like lovers that rush towards you with ardent intensity
until they get so close, it scares you.
Slowly, you let them drift away.
Ideas that pour a thousand times from your young mind
until grownups gradually dash your hopes,
you slide to mediocrity.
Paris, Rome, a short romance, marriage "I'll love you forever," they said
until they found another.
Four years it was; you never knew.
Children bought up with love, wonder, and excitement
until inevitably, one by one, they leave.
Drifting further away from you.
"Buy this buy that we'll let you have the money, the payments good, it's all fine"
until the crash, the loss.
They repossess your house, your home.
Pats on the back, "well done for 30 years you are a credit to the firm"
until you got replaced.
You're 52 and out of work.
A fresh new wave pounds the shore dashing wildly up the sand
until it touches the tips of your toes;
you follow it back to the sea.
Just because I had a job
Doesn't mean I was gainfully employed
Or could afford my college degrees
Or even to eat, to sleep
So working low wage jobs 2nd shift
Was one way to look as if
I was head above water till I got too sick
I too was homeless
But for my car
Which they could not find to repossess
Only because it was my last link to hope
But this too would be a rope that would hang me
I couldn't afford the car either
Nor gas, oil, parking let alone insurance
I found ways to bathe
At the gas station
the laundromat
Then off to work smelling clean
With a sordid secrete
I too slept with the deer at the park
Where a sign said "Park closed after dark"
But I know God's rules didn't deny me
Park or simple joys of moonlight
Just because the economy tossed
My budget like a salad
And I made a pallet
In the car homeless today
Car-less soon
But not forever
This too shall pass.
They abuse us in
many forms with intent
to strip us of dignity then
snatch away our lives
They return with red and
blue apologies they
watered with white lies
Cohorting us into accepting them
as the prickly thorns once
again draws blood
We sit and expect them to change
They never do
The mistreatment never ceases
No accountability taken
for any wrongdoing
Once we face the fact
America is the biggest narcissist
we'll stop waiting quietly for change
and fight back to ferociously take it
Sink our teeth in their jugulars
and repossess the power
taken from our ancestors
by their narcissistic forefathers
--LaLa DeVille
©6-6-2020
Those feeling unsecured,
who be in brokered deal need,
listen to this vary interesting message carefully
I got what you don’t have,
but what you want financed desperately
You most certainly can get it from me,
this promissory promise
gets my profit lending approval
My actuary guarantee ... you can bank on it!
I’m a giver of usury
And I take no pleasure
in taking your vital possessions —
The necessary things you and yours
need to survive
But I most assuredly will repossess them
should you not comply
To the fine print agreement
that was co-signed on the dotted line
I’m a giver of usury
For every dollar you borrow from me,
I will want two returned,
vary quickly
I am bound by the loan shark code of honor,
to bite the hand
which fail to repay me
This is the default judgment
agreed upon by you, with much debt gratitude
Signed in sweat and blood
to receive the money
In the long run,
I made you so short-term happy
In deed, I am a giver of usury
Where a year seems like an eternity to you
getting through to tomorrow is progress
Never have such words rang so true
You were a paddle less canoe
Caught in the rapids under stress
Where a year seems like an eternity to you
Day after day you have to come through
Fighting the white water with finesse
Getting through to tomorrow is progress
Rapids after rapids come into view
A mind in turmoil the waves caress
Where a year seems like an eternity to you
That inner strength you must renew
the doubting mind may cause distress
Getting through to tomorrow is progress
Subdue your fears your dreams pursue
Reassess your future those dreams you repossess
Where a year seems like an eternity to you
Getting through to tomorrow is progress
How does one measure love in scope or scale?
For if such ledger ever was designed
Then logic would over the heart prevail.
So in this way must love be ever blind.
If love be love it cannot count the cost
Or repossess what it in ransom pays.
Expecting such is love already lost
When worth decides whether or not it stays.
But if I must assign it some amount
Let time together be the cost we share
And by that measure, as for love's account,
Let us not leave a coin of it to spare.
I'll precious count each moment yet in store.
My love, I offer all to you and more.
8.17.18
In muddled games of 'hide and seek'
Announcing past stuff I recall
Recollecting states of hand me downs
Where I am never sure at all
Conversations in my childhood
My only clue those photographs
A comic book of joke existences
Long day summer blue-sky laughs
Now that I come to think of it
As more and more I try to do
These misty steamed up memories
No longer let me think them through
How do I know what makes me up
Among my route maps misdirected
Like headlines of my past passed by
In cutting rooms of things rejected
A shopping bag less missing items
Where absent minds can’t repossess
Something needed from that other room
I know not what and cannot guess
Left Behind and Cannot Find
What had happened is we left it behind;
Then it no longer where we able to find;
Frost cold felt,
And did melt;
When found send back if you don't mind.
Jim Horn
chess · guess · less · mess · press stress · yes
address · assess · caress compress confess depress digress · distress excess express impress excess express impress obsess oppress
possess profess · progress · recess · redress · regress · repress ·
success · suggests · suppress · transgress · undress · unless
acquiesce · coalesce · convalesce dispossess · happiness
nonetheless reassess · regardless repossess nevertheless
I sit here looking at the road ahead
With a bold vision saturated in my head
I have a strong platform on which to stand
I am moving gingerly on this delicate land
clearing the debris and obstacle along the way
I am making a monumental headway
Eliminating all the distractions around me
I have repossess absolute authority
My mind is clear and my judgement is sound
The road ahead is onward bound
The sound of water is trickling beneath me
And the rubble are swimming above me
I place my foot upon the solid rock
removing that awful stumbling block
The wind raised havoc in the air
And the sun heat penetrates the trees
making its way towards me but it was not
strong enough to over power me
God's power form a barricade around me
and a strong covering to protect me
Naked stones sprouting around
playing hopscotch on the barren ground
The birds have migrated to the other side
And crickets are having jamboree inside
The birds are murmuring in the air
Their guitars are out of tune
and they are all looking confused
I kept focusing on the road ahead
absorbing the energy from the sunlit sky
and the guidance of bright angles walking by my side.
I like the slow times . . .
When all the work is done,
And evening shadows creep
Across the fields;
When somber trees
Stand still and wait . . .
For darkness to descend.
I like the slow winds . . .
That stir the waters
With their playful hands,
And send their ripples
To bathe the tired feet
Of giant firs, that stand . . .
In watch along the shore.
I like the slow trains . . .
That climb the hills
With plaintive, lonely wails;
And send their echoes
Searching through the night,
For sleepy little towns . . .
That lie along their paths.
I like the slow days . . .
When all the time is mine,
And fantasies and dreams
Come calling on my mind;
And anxious thought
Stand still and wait . . .
To repossess my mind.
I like the slow walks . . .
When evening shadows fall,
When times we spend alone
Are silent hours
Of listening to our hearts
Whispering words of love . . .
That only God can hear.
I like the slow times . . .
When you are by my side.
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.