I sense here some things sinister—a scent
of sulphur, sulking in a sultry pit;
a serpent’s hiss, expressed from space unlit;
a warm spell spilling from some seething vent;
I find now some things filthy—foul ferment
foaming, frothing; a gaseous, gurgling slit
discharging fetid, festering, sour spit;
malignant mold in cold, cracking cement;
So languid, loath, obtuse I trepidate
on into the black bowels of my home.
Gagging back a nausea’s tepid bubble,
shivering a shudder that won’t abate,
discover I a gory catacomb.—
Woah… I see well now how bad my trouble!
Slow down, Democrat!
Another Trump Bump;
speed again controlled --
your downhill throttle,
your Radical in a green
bottle...corked, the lessen:
Don't Drink and fanatically
drive --
All US gears back in Thrive!
Our Nation having had full,
of your screwy, Woke Jive --
You've been overwhelmingly
voted out, to unclog the Nation's
impacted, suffering Republic Orifice;
The People have loudly spoken~
showing the exit-corridors,
to Left Politicians lacking acceptable,
sane, moral borders --
American has taken a huge laxative dump
Bowel corrected, clear for freshly discharging
those newly elected given firm, purging orders!
Up the shore the rhythmic tide strides.
Twice a day, the army marches in succumbing.
Then retreats, tail between its legs, discharging
Its grip and flooding embrace, releasing, disengaging,
It's ebb and flow, a never-ending sleep-breath sigh.
The tide's hidden master and conductor is the moon.
A general seldom seen leading the troops on the battlefield
Rending the tide as irresponsible, willful and unaccountable.
A creature wail-fully uncaring, inconsiderate, wayward in consequence.
In the woe betide comes, seeping into the castle moats and holes dug by kids
Flushing away the fun of seashore frolics,
dampening the joy and the shrill of beach laughter
reminding us that there has to be a morning after,
After the coming,
someone, not me
has to
clean up
the
mess
and ebb
to bed.
each spoke of the wheel
fulfils it’s intended purpose
discharging it’s role in silence
without any vanity or pride
recognising it’s a part of the whole
29-May-2023
A push-button blood alarm
scans the receptivity of softly ticking ears.
It is the ever-wakening
never snoozing
internet jungle calling.
Fasting birds as large as velociraptors
insist on being called parrots,
a raucous conversation hardly heard
as it filters through
3-D printed flugelhorns.
A cell awakes vibrates within an ear socket
demanding its early morning diaper change.
Little silver bells are clanging,
A sub-audial cacophony of eager voices
discharging their erotically-charged salvos
Devices cry to be fed.
Now subliminal texts tattoo
a finger pulsing moment.
Thumbs are itching to be mugged, in-plugged,
abused in a bath of warmed-over news.
The scaly parrots are now too loud to hear,
we are near
our minds nailed to a printing block
and tapping impatiently
as reality is swiped this way and that.
The racetrack is galloping,
white rabbits are being
yanked out of top hats so rapidly
we can only blink our replies
in a hand-held, wide-eyed chameleon sky.
Ibrahim saw Abraham try to spit
But about the rudeness thought not a bit:
Herdsman coarsely attacked with a spittle
And it had no meaning or just little,
Whereas it was Abraham’s wished battle
Against his teeming hundred cattle
just placidly grazing on his farmland,
For gratitude discharging dung on sand!
Ibrahim, the black like burnt kettle,
Would, confronted, give a fight of mettle
And might, at last, on farmland just settle,
Abraham leaving to helpless rattle
On a subject of stampede by cattle
And Lord God knows that’s as bad as fatal…
With each fresh eye contact fresh spittle:
Abraham for big ones not little;
For the sure- to- fight Ibrahim herdsman
whom no folk might ever beat man to man.
Now he’s going for a treatment
That might swallow much liniment
And lick up copious supplement ;
About this, no long argument …
Watching was I Sir Cecil hop,
Not once, not twice, in real pain stop,
His discharging sweat sadly mop
And his injured feet sometimes drop;
All these in the next street flop,
A watcher to pity The Fop
And arrange A Medic on Top…
And there was to be one stop
To curiously look at some crop
Before in the rain a dared bop,
As though briefly rung Jackson’s Pop…
Cecil to Patients The Cynic
I saw just head for a clinic.
Blood no longer flows
Through the stented arteries
Pacemaker discharging
Time too has legs;
And they march forward incessantly;
While discharging their duty, they let us know…
How silently minutes and hours pass by;
The clock on my wall tells it to me.
How to be active, and kindle the lives of others,
By ever spreading the tick-tock sound on all sides…
And how to awaken the people fast asleep,
By striking the hours at regular intervals;
The clock on my wall tells it to me.
Time is so smart;
It’s not at our beck and call,
All our attempts to arrest it prove futile…
Instead, it’s we who have to run after it;
The clock on my wall tells it to me.
Title of the poem: “GADIYARAM CHUSTE TELISINDI’
Author of the poem: My own composition in ‘Telugu’, a South Indian language.
Inspired By A Translation Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Malabika Ray Choudhury
Date: 29-11-2021
PLACE: 1st
Oh, Death where is your ring?
How many more moons will crown the vault of Heaven
Ere’ your folded, flesh-starved fingers
Surround bells that toll
Will you approach, hearing my cries
Rising from the depths of despair
Begging for you specter
Longing to taste your stale breath
Across my lips
Cruelly ignoring my last song
Tarrying within the darkness
Of wicked reverie and irrevocable return
A sneer scintillating deadly desires
Oh, Death lay bare how long
Ere’ the blade in my hand’s
Querulous path draws forth
Crimson streams freeing the scars of misery
Discharging the captor called Opium
Come, whisper caustic rhymes in my ear
Exhaling breath tainted
With the stench of annihilation
Usher me into your bosom
Persuade my wavering hand
To carve away
Etching an endless trail
Of miserly shame
Doing what the gods denied
Doing...
What I have been unable to do
Persecution
Your spewing blasphemy like a teenage rhapsody.
Full of spite, while you delight in the atrocities of vulgar and hate.
Nobody wants to be your mate!
A false bravado; like Watergate.
An obnoxious image trying to intrigue the nations.
While your entire family goes under investigation.
There is no liberation.
Just a low rate politician wanting more recognition!
While everyone suffers, and the homeless community rises.
There is no immunity in your words.
People fly away from you, like a flock of birds.
Do you understand? How absurd?
We are discharging waste matter through your lies, and allegations.
As you're full of it ; standing by the ditch filling up the graves with Jews to persecute.
I don’t have the abbreviations for your biggety behavior; as you victim shame women. We were handed a great big lemon.
In your bosom concealed, you are a fighter:
Who doesn’t a single matter take lighter;
The closest chap to you making a big mistake,
As you wouldn’t care what it‘d take
Inside your bag, some folk is about to drop dead
Like some hapless character in novels read:
A murderous slashing of his windpipe
Or a jugular discharging services of the same type.
Soon traced to you, sun handcuffed,
A strong belief you should be in a prison overstaffed;
In others a polite advice to you by the police
To go and hire a very smart lawyer
Be you Humphrey, Allen or Eunice
Or for that matter Tom Sawyer…
Unless it didn’t land –a dagger
Even bloodless angels would stagger!
You’re to slap a customer
Stubbornly sticking to a thousand
For an article clearly worth ten thousand
And he to it, not a new- comer:
Buyers, after receiving your warm Hello’s
Trying to force out your hot bellows,
For which you could a head clout
And its owner disgracefully walk out!
You may customers slap
Who deny others a gap,
In your shop remembering The Armageddon
Or strenuously proclaiming’ The kingdom’:
Who purchasing spirit poison
And no more picking up what would one’s lips moisten;
One’s butchered interest hurrying to a grave yard
Ta later rise with The Saints, very hard!
You should a customer slap
Or his knuckles rap
After touching an edible
And in minds this becomes indelible:
What could’ve sold itself before the fingering,
Another buyer’s decision eternally lingering…
Aye, the ungovernable customer
Making sentences and no comma!
Partly debating the price of a good
Partly eyeing your wife and swinging her mood:
Be ye right handed,
Connect your sparks-discharging slap to his left cheek,
For there it is urgently demanded:
The Peppery Hot for one full week!
I dance,
Always I dance
But, what is dance
I don't know
Yet, I think
I dance always
I'm walking,
I'm running,
I'm watching,
I'm hearing,
I'm speaking,
I'm whispering,
I'm feeling,
I'm thinking,
I'm reading,
I'm writing,
I'm smelling,
I'm eating,
I'm drinking,
I'm discharging
everything of these
I think a dance
where shaking limbs balance goodly
my heart
I dance,
Shaking limbs balance me,
Balance my heart
Cause, my heart fall in love
- Monday, July 8, 2019 Chattogram
MY LIFE IN VERBS
by
JOHN M. ARRIBAS
Nothing, Something Treading, Swimming, Navigating, Vibrating, Penetrating, Dividing, Multiplying, Forming, Shaping, Moving, Kicking, Exiting, Crying, Breathing, Seeing, Sleeping, Being.
Suckling, Creeping, Crawling, Walking, Talking, Running, Growing, Playing, Adjusting, Adapting, Complying.
Enrolling, Attending, Learning, Reading, Writing, Socializing, Growing, Formulating, Postulating, Rejecting, Rebelling, Calming, Weighing, Accepting, Working, Earning, Idling.
Enlisting, Training, Deploying, Ambushing, Engaging, Killing, Wounding, Bleeding, Shaking, Praying, Repairing, Convalescing, Moving, Discharging, Homing.
Enrolling, Attending, Studying, Learning, Graduating, Working, Earning, Managing, Enriching.
Searching, Finding, Wooing, Marrying, Parenting, Guiding, Counseling, Bragging, Encouraging, Steering, Babysitting, Gloating, Watching, Glowing.
Retiring, Cruising, Visiting, Traveling, Tiring, Resting.
Aging, Slowing, Aching, Suffering, Failing, Ailing, Fading, Dying, Stiffening, Freezing, Cremating, Scattering, Nothing.
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