The heavens break in rivers lit by flame,
the scattered stars bow low, their crowns of shame.
Beneath their weight the trembling earth is torn,
and voices vanish where younger dreams were born.
The oceans burn their silver currents lost,
dark smoke lifts to wrap the sky in frost.
A rider moves across the night in red
while whispers lift among the countless dead.
Mothers defend their sons with quivering hands
as iron footsteps mark the broken lands.
The seer cried out but none would heed their song.
a shadowed reign had gripped the earth too long.
Amid the ruins, one faint spark remains
a gentle light that bear all the chains.
Though heavens vanish and every fate derides,
the human heart keeps burning through the tides.
To live bound by “integrity”, where rectitude derides you? It’s starkly accustomed. I enrooted, enclosed by academics--the desolate nature of my sentience consuming my interior. Nether perfection defenestrates my subsequent--and I’m so damn tired. Extort my studies till blood seeps via my retinas, weave my pencil till the anathematic led ruptures; a mere standard in our education. Sacrifice my youth as to my future, conglomerate extracurriculars till my collapse, lay none betwixt within life and school; label it as a system. Shut up, shut up all of you! My exertion incapable of being compensated for—silence, silence, all of you! Toil seldom for me, subsequently bequeathing my labor… Discard my passion, coerce me to fill the perforated gaps in tuition—quiet, quiet, all of you! Refrain from protesting till your own encounter, and perpetually weep!
Shut up, all of you
My future prioritized
Discard my own youth
It slithers and slides..' It hints and nudges..'
Derides! sheds skin. Confusing identity.'s
Yet some intently see ' in conundrums and
Delusions scattered seeds and such patterns
of un-reason.'
Painters strive for the perfect stroke
Comedians look for the perfect joke
Writers seek to engage or provoke
P0rn stars strain for the perfect poke
Students grind, hoping they won’t choke
Trump derides his conviction as a hoax
Yachtsmen yearn for the perfect boat
Social climbers aspire to be bespoke
Politicians pretend to be regular folk
Workers yearn to throw off their yoke
Golfers train for a consistent stroke
Flyers pray their Boeing isn’t broke
Stoners want the ultimate toke
A smile is what I want to provoke
.
.
A song for this:
Good Luck, Babe! by Chappell Roan
O, why did I fall for you, O' sun,
When my soul is nestled in the deeps?
Agape and afraid, my eyne mosey deeper still; they run,
Yet on the colder current your warmth invitingly sleeps.
The distance that defies the divine betwixt us
Somehow is no occlusion for you to reach me,
But gods 'gainst me guarding your gates, and hope's quietus,
Make my valentines reaching you an impossibility.
Somehow still, suffocated in these sorrowful seas,
I seem to mishear the rhythm of your limpid light
As a melody yearning to find the lost keys
To my manacles and enrapture me with your sight.
When finally I undo these tethers for you,
The cosmos Herself derides my dolorous deeps
Laved in a longing that over millennia grew,
And shrouds your smile with a prejudiced eclipse.
But I see you clad carnally in that cerecloth--
Why?--stoking the gypsy in me with your misconstrued call.
Why did you build that stairway of light and masquerading troth,
That I so eagerly took, thus perishing in a fall?
Written: November 17, 2023 For Charles Messina Contest
___________________________________________
In peace of mind and unwavering pride
Draw out your inner disgruntled callow
Expunge ailing masks and set them aside
Shackled and phony leaches start shallow
Untamed freedom leaves a rage of delight
Lightning strikes when volition avails reign
As the noise of fists and yells echoes fight
It implies launching rough assaults again
This momentary gladness won't last long
Dark distress derides its way to the fight
And celebrates its mocking with zest strong
Frenzied fractured fragments into full-sight
Constraintis like an itch that chafes the mind
Shields the vile impulse that we must all bind
gladness won't last long
expunge ailing masks aside~
untamed freedom roars.
Shackled leeches start shallow, rage of lightning strikes~constraint chafes the mind
I have decided to be more Christian
less anything else.
A tiny Jesus-voice,
or a bug inside my head has said:
'enough is frigging enough.'
Since Christians are derided, abused,
and killed without even a headline.
Since I am not 'saved' and don’t need to be,
since I will always stand for the
guy with the sweaty shirt collar,
the woman who has faith in her womb,
the dog under the fat man’s table
the individual not the rabble.
I have decided to join a church.
I am not going, just joining
no one needs to know,
it will be just my little chapel for one
and no one else.
And if some intellectual buffoon
with a simplistic degree in applied logic
derides my secret belief,
I will enlighten that pitiful person
with a curse horrid enough
to make the very devils-own blush.
so proud of your country
were taught to honor others
mark of an adult
stand with great pride
no matter how big or small
all are one, do admire
how small you become
joke not of others homeland
smallness, just derides
11-5-2020
My flesh and blood
refused to follow me
refused the notion of the flood
fought for right, not for me
Duty served
country proud
Now we two sons confess
we have transitioned to the dress
Father hid all the witnesses
to the truth of his two creations
from the watchtower he decried
the beauty, compassion and love
all he derides
Stem the tide your pride rides
To a puerile pinnacle
In a vain belief it makes sensational strides
When like a locust your spiracle
Exhales carbon dioxide
To catalyze photosynthesis for red roses in your green garden
While your pride derides advice and pays a hefty price dockside
For endeavouring to harden
The thick skin your pride grows
Any time advice draws nigh
To plant seeds and grant benefits in rows pride throws
Away preferring to conjure up delays
In opening the hermetic door
To the bunker where pride slays
Emissaries of advice on a cold floor
Where to smithereens pride crushes advice
Slices its fragments into a powder every hour
Inviting a swarm of lice and an infestation of mice
To overpower and devour harbingers of advice deploying devastating power
Advice harbingers couldn’t summon
In the face of impending death
As Pride brags ‘Advice, come on
So I increase my wealth, exterminating your health.’
Through telepathy
We mingle
With each other in empathy
Though single
In status and name
Society derides
Arguing we carry blame for the lame name
Detractor X rides
On interaction thrown
Into denigrating debate
To malice grown
Venomous of late
In a conundrum
With neither head nor face
That beats a war drum
Beaten aloud on the surface
Where ripples wander
Agog pandering to a swing of mood
That entertains a gender
Discourse when a knock on wood
Doesn’t suffice to calm down tempers
Driven the edge of anger
As sobriety scampers
For cover the longer
Distrust thrives
Amid longing
That arrives
When feelings
On edge snap me awake
In the middle of a dream
I can’t mistake
For life on the rim
That spins my poise
Displacing it from its centre of gravity
When a persistent noise
Draws my mind to the reality
That you and I
Forever together
Are meant to tie
Tightly like birds of a feather.
ELIJAH MCcOY
Elijah McCoy
African black Canadian American
Inventor of mechanical lubricator
For steam train engines
Catch phrase "the real McCoys" derides from him...
2/11/18
written by James Edward Lee Sr.
Pain, which of my pains derides me more
The pain of love that no longer flows
The pain of suffering along life’s weaving path
Or the pain of knowing you’re no longer here
No longer here for me, yet still exists
Painful memories revolve in my hurting brain
Why can’t life be a simple act of breathing, living
Not a painful burden to be shouldered alone
Pain in the heart can be one a surgeon can help
Yet knowing deep down the knife cannot cure
The pain of knowing, of living a dream
Why not let me die……. pain no more
When I lay there pale of skin,
Creases of pain no longer line my face
Don’t cry for me as I have lived ……
No more to cry out in inhuman tones….
…….all is at peace……
Penned 12 November 2016
Contest: Shooting Blank Verse - John Lawless
Melancholy
A black bile veil becomes the widow -
Her euphoric beauty, now cursed.
Onyx gloves cover her silky soft hands.
Her tears, like wax, permanently fixed.
An imminent dark cloud covers her heart.
It never rains, just simmers in sadness.
Stoicism plays its game, never again smiling
The widow derides all tidings of gladness.
2nd place winner
Contest:Melancholy
9/25/2016
Our ties are conditioned
to change, I concede,
But loss of love infuses vice
She staggers from
sensuous embrace
to unsavoury tryst
A single day for her
endures derision
and fuses with spite
Permissive intrusions on
her formative grace
ensure a slow descent
Idyllic consumption of faith
melds with disgrace
And discarded life
is piled upon nameless symptoms
My beloved maiden buries creed
She tippy-toes between star-rays
in recurrent mists
Thrust by uneven electives
to the throes of inquest
Finding those with a sensitive nature...
unbearably kind
They judge and spew soundless expletives
Clamour for unreachable life infinites,
She senses
that hope beyond a steep pier
is indelibly true...
but putatively quaint
She dives for cover
when senses engage
Derides her stilts
when
time is lost
And sings my praise
when night invites
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