Winding down the years I realize that the ache
of my youth has not subsided, it festers in a cystic
formation of angst and ecstatic reverie,
two sides of the tarnished coin that rolled
from the loins of my parents.
These confessions that I have been scribbling down
on lonely paper,
these wounds, these amulets of love
that I protect my mind, my heart, my body with,
they are the only weapons of self defense
that I have at my disposal.
I have been witness to the rancid pulse
of political puppets,
I have watched the doors of my childhood
become locked,
but I have also listened to the tolling bell
of an undeniable truth
and as the tears continue to fall
I will not dismiss the harmonic moan
of my inner yearning.
Thus, I come to you in all my nakedness,
stripped bare of egocentric calamity,
wet fleshed and womb nurtured in variations
of innocence and oblivion.
I put flame to the devil’s valentine long ago,
I renounced authority’s concrete countenance
and sought another avenue lined with the passivity
of thought soothing flowers
and the unstained mysterious moon that enhances
the suffering behind my rib cage nightly.
Oh my yesterdays found me teetering
on cliffs of sorrow,
allowed me to face the virginity of embryonic skylines
and as I waded through city streets of unholiness
I sought the metaphysical vaccination
that would hopefully bring forth some clarity.
So I will continue to sing my song
and whether it be a noose of anxiety
or an unexplained commiseration
with an undefined godhead
at least I will pass over knowing that my voice
was never silenced.
***********************************************
Ah . . . to remember awakening from the desolate dawn
of society’s deceptive trance,
to respond to the echo of surrealistic guitars
and vaginal affection,
eyes, mind and body vibrating across a translucent
horizon of possibility.
I read the prophets and poets who tossed aside
their road weary crutches
and walked determined into the horrifying hostility
of a global band of thieves
and I polished and nurtured my once hollow pen
and joined the fray.
The battleground littered with the remnants
of sexual inequality,
the score cards of various dogmas and leaves
decaying beneath the tree of knowledge.
No direction home, the crucifixion of the human spirit,
the false promise of some mystical golden gate
of escape, all funded by the demonic hands
of an illusionary banker hell bent to protect
his trash can existence of Machiavellian manipulation.
But some us longed for the scent of dew caressed roses
and not the putrid stench of moldy handbills.
It felt so complete, so futuristic to embrace our own
confusion and address it with a meditative magnanimity.
We undressed before a greenstone goddess of truth
and danced naked across a field of freshly planted songs
and the sensual seeds of poetry.
But, as usual, I repeat myself . . .
today I open my window and can still hear bombs
exploding on the Gaza strip,
the tears and blood of innocent children
continues to stain the sand beneath their feet.
Yesterday is but a distant memory
and it’s time for a renaissance renewal of those days
when we looked forward to the future
with one million doves floating behind our eyes.
So stare into your television screen
and bear witness to the hollow eyes of the bland
who try to repossess your dreams,
recognize the locusts attacking the wheat fields
of the soul.
The streets and park benches are littered
with nondescript newspapers of pain,
we continue to write and read glorifying exposes
of the defeated human spirit
and as our beards grow white and long
we hide behind the robes of a misunderstood prophet,
still grasping silver coins in our cracked
and dried out palms.
It’s time to replenish the lover’s bed
with petals of compassion,
not with bread crumbs scattered by a hand
that has been holding you down
in its credit card clutches.
It’s beginning to get late,
and the threnody of the past continues to moan
its weary lamentation.
While we mumble down historical halls of vacant light,
while the non pious puppeteer manipulates
the strings attached to collective spine of humanity,
while the harmonica of harmony blows itself dry
inside a recording studio of oblivion,
we stay stranded upon a ragged cross of own making.
So smash those television screens of soulless faces,
replant the barren wheat fields inside you
with fertile fingers of hopefulness
and sleep where the old hobos once slept,
inside romantic freight trains or beneath a kaleidoscope
of midnight stars.
Stare into the eyes of your children
and erase the fear you see reflected back at you,
soothe the stress from their lipid limbs
and then grab hold of the incandescent mantle
you were born with
and begin once again to initiate the coming
of necessary change.
***********************************************
Yes, I shall not be silenced . . .
I will continue pounding upon my bohemian drum
until the last breath flutters weakly
from my battered lungs.
I will howl in Ginsbergian juxtaposition,
taste the Shelleyian rhapsody from a romantic pool,
whisper Asian tinted phrases beneath
the cherry blossom at sunrise.
This pen, this paper, these rudimentary thoughts
that float within a random canoe inside my head,
they will provide me with a constant release
from all the wounded people who stagger before me
like living replicas of paintings by Goya and Bosch.
Let it be said that in my spiritual naivety I tried
to make a difference in this sorry old world
and that every word I scratched from the stoney
circumference of my mind
was etched with a finger of compassion.
Author notes
A somewhat long piece of verbiage after a month of my pen gathering dust . . .
In a list
- Beautiful Words by Beautiful People I Know • next in list
- My Favorite Writes By Other AP Wordartists • next in list
A contest entry
- Give me more! by ASmileForYou.
700 points, ended January 7, 69 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - Make me feel.. by perfectsunset.
625 points, ended May 17, 38 entries
Honorable mention
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
1 - 21 of 21
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Very lengthy, but definitely worth
the read. You spun so much detail
with your words, creating lucid
visuals with depth & underlying
meaning.
Amazing poem !
Best of luck & thanks for entering
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Absolutely stunning. Written with so much more passion than I could ever muster. I hope you don't let your pen get dusty again because you should keep writing.
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you will never be silenced....
your vulnerabilities, your strengths,
your passion and heart...all this and
so much more....you have given to
me, to us. I wish I you really knew
how your words ripple through me...
Love, Lane
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Lane . . . Your comments oftentimes have a way of touching me in that almost secret, sacred spot where the embryonic formation of poetics is initiated . . . To know that my words ripple through you is indeed a blessing to me . . . You help make all these years of trying to express my inner person worthwhile and I thank and love you for it . . .
Marc
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And you came back with a bang, Marc - welcome back, poet - your voice is so sincere and deep and natural....it can not be silenced, my friend. Your poetry always takes me to a place that i feel but somehow have difficulty expressing - so thank you for YOUR VOICE: unsilenced, uncensored...keep on making a difference, dear Marc!!!
~ Nicolette
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Good to hear from you Nic . . . Ya, been away, but hopefully I'll be back sporadically over the next couple of months . . . kinda busy, tryin' to put together another book . . . will see how it goes, what avenues I find myself wandering down . . .
love you guys,
Marc
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Welcome back, my good brother.
This needs to be read as loud as those distant bombs, as insistently as taxes or death, greed, or hunger.
Truth seems out of fashion in this sooty maelstrom of industrial doom, this hell-bent dervish that threatens to crush our get in the death throes of a planet overcome by a bipedal virus.
We mustn't give up, yet even I am loath to pick up the pen to scribble notes to nobody, verses of self abuse that will never compete with poems about nothing much that the MFA factories pump into the political landscape of insignificant words with all the concience of a venerial disease.
Yes! I cried in the reading of this,
croon on, you bard, with a pen that writes so hard,
because I fear that I'm growing tired.
The world, and man has earned my ire
and my pen is growing mired,
like feet, in the clay
that will soon have it's way
with a significant poet
in an insignificant
day.
It seems, I have opened the devil's valentine
and have been consumed by the empty flame
of lame saints, crippled by the wars, the shame.
This Piece REVERBERATES!
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Oh you sound so weary Rob and Christ I can feel your pain!!! I too sometimes feel like throwing in the poetry towel because who really gives a shit in the long run anyway. People would rather read Hallmark fluff than anything of real substance . . . But remember that St John Perse once said that "poets are the guilty conscience of their time" so I guess it's up to us to be almost invisible reminders to the few who read our words, our tirades, our raw and open human agony . . . It is because of people like you, with hearts and minds not blinded by the lobotomizing sheep suckling societal malaise that I carry on . . . I embrace you in your poetic suffering . . .
Marc -
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I think it may be time to throw in the towel. I'll probably finish assembling the second volume from the two thousand pages of unpublished, and published, crap, just to make sure a couple publishers reject it, and then just do what I can in my own little microcosm. The pen is heavy, and the readers, few.
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I swear, if ya do, I'll pick the towel up & throw it right back atcha. "Too few readers"??? Ok, it's the holiday season, so people haven't been online as much...but what about Marc, Dan, Kathleen, Karen, Carol, Chez, ME...??? I'd rather have an audience of a few staunch, avid (rabid, even) fans that an entire stadium of sycophantic robots without minds of their own. Yes, dammit, the pen IS heavy...so are the thoughts that make me continually lift those weights. I didn't have any readers for over 30 years. I didn't miss the inane comments of people that never (really) read or understood it. I DID, however, miss the camaraderie of Souls such as you. If you stop...I swear, I'll hop on a covered wagon & join your lil' microcosm. Then I'll hug some sense into ya. Or wrassle ya. Whatever it takes, Rob. Geez. Tryin' to give me apoplexy or somethin'??? 
*sings to the both of ya from "Abbey Road":
"Boy, you're gonna carry that weight. Carry that weight a long time..."
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I diddn't mean here, darlin'. It's just an apothetic universe of late.
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'k. Allllll betta now. 
'T'ain't the universe, Sweetness. Just the flotsam & jetsam floatin' 'round in it. 
Your star will never dim. WE won't allow it to. Sweet Pea
P.S. How's Rickie Lee doin'???
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Ya, I know . . . unfortunately the readers are few . . . I got five boxes of unsold books gathering dust upstairs . . . But get that manuscript to me because it will be published, even if I have to do it myself . . . YOUR VOICE WILL NOT BE SILENCED, eventually a few will listen. Like I have said to you in the past . . . we write for future generations . . .
Marc
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I put flame to the devil’s valentine long ago,
I renounced authority’s concrete countenance
and sought another avenue lined with the passivity
of thought soothing flowers
and the unstained mysterious moon that enhances
the suffering behind my rib cage nightly. "
- - i hope i dont end up requoting this entire wordcraft but this is the first section that just made me shudder in myriad of emotions
"and sleep where the old hobos once slept,
inside romantic freight trains or beneath a kaleidoscope
of midnight stars."
- - that line gave me such nostalgia
"I will continue pounding upon my bohemian drum
until the last breath flutters weakly
from my battered lungs.
I will howl in Ginsbergian juxtaposition"
- YES YES YES YES
"from all the wounded people who stagger before me
like living replicas of paintings by Goya and Bosch.
Let it be said that in my spiritual naivety I tried
to make a difference in this sorry old world
and that every word I scratched from the stoney
circumference of my mind
was etched with a finger of compassion."
-- ya know it has been entirely too long marc; lines such as that are morsels your fellow poets here have come to crave. Beat that drum and scratch those words for your compassion is never overlooked.
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Thanks man . . . You know sometimes I fear that the drumskin is wearing a little thin, seems like I've been pounding on it for so damn long . . . I'm not really sure if this scribble is in its final form, I got a whole wack of pages that I'm trying to make some sense of, have been thinking about a massive piece, trying to formulate it in my head and the above may end up a part of it . . . not sure yet. Anyhoo, been away for the last little while, so it's good to be back . . .
daisy chains and incense bro . . .
Marc -
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far from scribble my friend. There is no room for self doubt when it concerns this write. Hope you dont change whats in place too much, but if ya make any additions and decide to make it a "Howl" type epic be sure to shoot me a copy. All bs and fluff aside, this is truly a golden write man.
let it flow, let it flow,
Adrian
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Adrian . . . don't take the word scribble too seriously . . . I write very rapidly and make very few alterations . . . thus I call all my pieces scribbles lol . . .
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ahhh, yes those are often greater gems than the ones you have to meticulously extract. I find those less and less these days and grateful when they do come in like a blitzgrieg of pathos in a poetic telegram from a schitzoid muse
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"I put flame to the devil’s valentine long ago,"
I love this line, this visual...although the entire piece is immaculate, as always. Marc, anyone who half~way knows you is quite aware that your finger writes with compassion & your heart writes with both anguish & ecstasy. 'Tis yet another amazing penning, Dear Scribe. One that needed to be written, one that needs to be heard across the landscape of Man. Bless you & yours, my Friend. I leave you with this quotation, Sweetie. ~ Swan
"A poet is an unhappy being whose heart is torn by secret sufferings, but whose lips are so strangely formed that when the sighs and the cries escape them, they sound like beautiful music... and then people crowd about the poet and say to him: 'Sing for us soon again;' that is as much as to say, 'May new sufferings torment your soul.'"
~ Soren Kierkegaard
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Good morning Swan and may you headaches be gone . . . I love the Kierkegaard quote!!!! It speaks to me with an intense clarity . . . Hope to be more active on AP than I have been of late . . . I gotta lot of catching up to do . . . However, things are happening rapidly around here, I'm working on a massive manuscript and listening to a lot of music . . .
Marc
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There is a lot here. I reread through a few times, trying to pick all the references out, and I still see them.
The expression of self, I think, that I see fighting through the words is refreshing - it does not whine, nor is it abrassive. An honest write, I think.
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