Wednesday is brought to you by …
Artist Mike Mitchell’s awesome portraits of iconic movie characters from Fargo to Reservoir Dogs, Zoolander to Django Unchained.
😍
”Stifled”
1.Pardon my angry disposition but this heat has broken my sanity.
When August comes let me die, lest I swell like rotting meat.
Did I not once have a wonderful scent?
Did my colors not once seem to you vibrant?
Did my talents not once bring praises?
Did my heart’s heart not once love with all?
Now I can see youth ending,
I make the appropriate notes,
Writing the history of youthful desire, play, the endless spring and fall.
Will one day it seem as if it never happened at all?
2.`Our words created us,
will they now destroy us?
or a of lack of words?
3. I can’t sleep
when sleeping is all,
that comes when i call,
to black and blue sheets,
wound around my feet,
better to walk bare through crowded streets.
4.I cannot say what has brought this plague down upon us again.
Light dimming out in an old 20’s style house,
all is freezing or over heating.
Books burn
as well as wicker chairs,
doomed to a million afternoons,
of silence.
Carelessly forgotten all at once!
So rest here,
close your eyes.
Sleep. Rest.
5.This madman will surely murder me if he finds me,
He has said as much.
He will fire bullets into me one after another-
he will be pleased with this.
My death is his aim-
though caution whispers-I am unafraid
at the time my heart was in the right place.
Let him come…
6.I bet you look beautiful in the city lights,
all thrown, at once, around you,
like a thousand fine neon furs,
or holy water rings,
shimmer in the reflection cast by cars,
as they pass us on the wet streets.
This is life,
our ”place in time”,
To be meak or to be bold,
to squander or to let go,
Time will tell? Time has told!
7.The week had nearly spent it’s spell,
and magic wished you well,
under strange stars,
and unknown shapes, lonely shadows.
Like slow drugs or the way time passes while imprisoned
fences upon fences,
walls upon walls,
the clinching of fists and weariness of spirit,
to live life in segments of seven,
will destroy one completely.
8.A boy no more,
but not a man.
Half made-halfhearted
half finished.
The world slowly grinds,
and stars do not gaze down at us!
Life goes on however one feels about it.
9.While wading through waters
without age, without course.
I saw a pearl sitting next to an insect,
on a moss covered rock.
Ruby’s dream of dazzling, glorious,
delicate, radiant colors,
that darken in the dismal dew
that forms at the deserts edge.
10.Living so close to a world
so splendidly and soberly drunk on itself.
Like a curse declined,
By a strange new rhyme.
11.I’m half asleep but I’m halfway home,
I’m as tired as the road is long.
12.Will June be kind?
Will fate make up its mind?
Am i already out of time?
Rarely sleeping still.
Fighting small battles and great battles,
one rarely knows which is which at the time.
13.Stern mixing of blood,
the sudden clashing of voices against a wall of silence,
the greatest wall of silence (in this particular world).
Gold and grand,
jeweled and crowned,
this struggle could birth a thousand Suns,
Moons, Peoples, Civilizations.
The dust shall be mine army,
all clad in bright uniforms,
riffles and swords adorned with ruby and rare jade.
the honesty of breath,
of lungs moving.
The slow drinking of wine,
the invocation of the muses,
words that can be cruel,
cruel and beautiful,
countless times.
14.Just so you know
your never coming down.
this wont end,
this isn’t a phase,
Get used to it.
The thief has ascended
and we all know there’s Hell to pay.
Suffering and staggering and stifling,
words that become the heaviest of burdens.
The hero descends
and will return
or wont.
15.Stifled communication,
Muted music made still,
frigid, frozen, made to lie down.
Ice replaces thick fiery blood-
that same blood was once the envy of dragons,
princes, and blazing Suns.
A poet kings’ blood of fire,
sheds blood and heat and molten phrases,
cooled by the deep setting of eyes,
and misshapen smile,
of a Greek Goddess, a muse,
some elder poet spirit looming,
eager beauty so terrifying.
16.The beast’s head is seven fold (with halo)
And will not sleep.
Numbers do not bother it,
nor science or philosophy.
17.Cannot or will not stand.
Abandoning all composure,
wringing hands, knuckles white
eyes hardened by reckless visions
The treacherousness of dreaming
wild and wondrous dreams,
that spill over and paint
‘jagged and helpless hues’
18. A wayward soul in a wayward man
among wayward men (on a wayward world)
19. Splendid castles of corruption,
of every shade of summer,
Obscured by foggy dreams
that writers place with paintings on the walls.
Splendid palace of submission
will I submit,
will I relent?
See, the spell was NEVER broken
though flesh and the absence of flesh caused me to founder
upon mighty unsurvivable waves.
20.He sensed the vibrations from a great distance,
He stood alone, though many watched,
solemn, waiting.
He’d chosen his solitudes with care,
in silences saints and sages would not dare,
in places the bravest would have wept, and fled.
-there he remained with his resolve
fool or genius,
for better or worse,
each opportunity to despair was victory,
each passion a dagger to wield,
lest it be turned on him,
each breath a victory!
21.Counting stars, giving names to shapes
that no one else can see-
we pretend we are ‘Adam & Eve”-
in a wicked, wretched garden,
ruined by lust and by knowledge.
We were meant to paint this place.
New colors for new eyes.
22.Lay bare before me all that was,
all that came before,
let us burn our clothes
as if they were our skin,
let us shed one life and live again!
Let us sway in the moonlight,
a choir of surf-low booming-behind us.
23.An old man slouched in a chair,
he looks like old clothes,
he no longer sees,
with eyes or any other of the blistering senses.
Like Oedipus gone mad,
without Antigone to protect him
No one to see to a noble grave.
What deeds are done?
No poets will sing of me.
24.Pictures of worthy pleasures sought
wretched heart throws off its toil,
shrugs off this canopy,
this tent of storms
that rages always!
Jubilant city night
come to my aid,
let me seek my only fortune,
my way to myself
and back again.
25.All the calm we’ve gathered
suffered and shattered
amid storms that are meant to be heard,
that want to be heard,
No faint-hearted storm or dreamer-
-A woman.
—————————————————————————————————-
The End
The Man in the Moon
The man in the moon swallowed me whole,
Just as I began to admire his soft glow;
There he was, knowingly smiling over
The scary affairs of my teenage cares.
Apparently, I should mention
My attention was too much,
The perfect remedy for pro-love prevention.
Just in case it was neglected,
I must warn you,
Affection to your reflection sways you
To believe your giggle is perfection.
But when you are presented with rejection,
You’ll step back with a confused expression,
Wondering what happened to his original affection.
Now, I proceed.
I concede
Wooing the moon is harder than
Shaving a true hippie on ecstasy or PCP
In the middle of the sea.
Why do I love someone who constantly
Turns around and hides himself
Whenever seconds pass
Only to tease me with peeks of his soul?
Oho what a divine mystery!
He’s a maze with infinite doors,
More complex than hallways,
More intriguing than apple cores, skin pores, folklores, or antique stores.
But
He wears a different face every day,
Masks of white, amethyst, and grey.
And
He seduces a variety of personalities,
Of intellectual minds, of our kind.
With his charm that, more than good, does harm
To us; who have put forth increasing
Efforts to make his eyes glitter,
We who pride ourselves on mental capacity, titter
With giggles,
Because we cannot think of a better reaction,
We are so consumed with him.
Freedom from the man in the moon’s
Enticing effect came only when I saw:
His redundant, repetitive cycles of beliefs and views,
Only sometimes were they new;
His aloof disconnection from others,
Even when I carefully showed the best parts of my soul;
And
The Fact
That so many others found him
Captivation, enchanting, and beautiful
Without the knowledge or understanding
Of his desires, values, or issues,
Of his dreams, sorrows, or needs.
Ignorant, blind, obsessive aspects of infatuation
Sicken me.
Now, for the better, I relay with
Content at this little success that it is
Much easier to tease, to debate,
To befriend the man in the moon
Now that I can resist his effervescent
Glow.
Still, I acknowledge, anticipate, and dread
The algae, the residue of my ephemeral love,
The waves and cycles of my affection;
Still, I crave a lucid connection to his mind, to his soul,
For I know enough
To embrace his being as consistently
As the sea kisses the sky.
But hardly does he ever show all of himself to one,
But always does he offer smiles and woos to all;
So, patience is my haven.
Empathy is my understanding;
Distraction, my refuge, my remedy.
Eventually, the man in the moon
Might attempt to love me
Fully.
Who knows with such an
Inconsistently predictable being?
Turning Pages
The cold distance between two hearts,
Once beating simultaneously, in unison -
A small disconnection,
A simple malfunction,
Unforeseen miscommunication amidst unvanquished certainty -
Muzzled, tightened grip,
Cloaking an angst shell of a body,
Harvesting repressed emotions,
Alluring a passive tongue -
Releasing an outpour of an outcry in an outburst,
Retribution -
Freedom released from with-in,
Healing of a contorted soul…
Commence.
