?

Do you poem for distraction from things best left alone?

Perhaps for the attraction of creating something all your own.

Does it drive you like the devil is behind you, lashing tail?

Does it take you on a journey far away, have you set sail"

Or are you more prone to anchor your ship on solid ground,

with form and perfect meter, submerge in sonnets 'til you drown?

Do your poems tell stories, perhaps appeal to emotions?

I would like to drift here on these vast verse-ified oceans.

Answer this with your own poem just to keep it flowing.

My intentions here are thus: Im lost. Where was I going?

LOL

Going back over pages and pages of verse,

Having left behind shackles for better or worse,

Holding my own, with some measure of success,

There is something missing from life I confess:

That which was once the only tendril of hope

That I sheltered in daily so that I could cope.

Here in this electronic network of friends

At Yahoo Answers.

Our connection transcends

What words can convey. The best would be love.

It cradles beneath and soothes from above.

I found this extraordinary group a decade ago,

And I miss each and every one of you so;

Alas, my time is taken by work and the cost

To my spirit is great- a capitol loss.

Right now I could be out taking care of the mundane,

Suppressing the nostalgia, swallowing the pain-

Instead I reach out with a "Remember when"

If you know me leave a line or two to tell me how you've Ben;

And if we are strangers, tell me something about you!

Because people are priceless gifts. I send my love to all of you!

*feels some sort of something*

MISS YOU GUYS!

A crowd of people gathered closely in the park,

Wearing colored beads to name the ones they'd lost.

All had come from places where the land was sere and stark,

Or sailed upon the waters where hopes and dreams were tossed.

Orange and green and purple strands, one for each that died,

Sharing hope from deepest sorrow, beacons in the night.

Yet my heart was stricken with sensed grief each time I spied

Someone bearing the mighty burden of a strand that was pure white.

These brave souls releasing doves in their loved ones' names

Made me feel connected to something beyond this;

I grew more wise, and calmer- I will never be the same,

Watching the flocks soar away, happy just to exist.

After being a part of the Walk in Remembrance with Hope for Survivors of Suicide Loss.

He came from where the two red suns set as one;

I met him where the roads all turn to dirt.

I was contemplating how things come undone,

he was lying in the sand, and he was hurt.

His skin was like an old salamander's hide,

his eyes were staring off into the void.

He began to stir as I took him inside,

and with startled grace his weapons were deployed.

He pointed a poison stinger at my heart,

then he scanned me with a magnetic field;

for a moment, my mind came apart

when I met his knowing gaze my fate was sealed.

I fell in love that day with a man from space,

his terrestrial visit, alas, was short.

Now the child in me will have his face,

and I was simply a token of his sport.

I never even knew his given name

or why he was so very hard to resist.

He disappeared as swiftly as he came

with a stinging pain from his last kiss.

The child will reach the stars someday,

seeking vengeance upon his sire.

The child has huge eyes and is quite grey,

fond of setting everything on fire.

Something Profound

It’s an abstract concept;

A nuance, a gist-

A fleeting suggestion

That everyone missed

It was in the lyrics to songs

That I played on repeat

Spelled out in messages

That I had to delete.

If someone had seen it,

Had heeded the call,

Had known why I always

Kept my back to the wall,

Why pain made me smile

Why I walked way too fast…

But no one kept up,

As I was chased by my past.

And I could never escape it

They said just let it go.

Like it wasn’t embedded

Body mind and soul.

I’d have to unravel

Each strand of DNA

No pure black-or-white,

Right-or-left, matter is grey.

My unreplicable sequence

Is not coded to norms,

I love the destructive

Nature of heavy storms,

The tingling when the lightning

Bolts get much too near,

The static flowing in my hair

The cracks that hurt my ears.

It’s not that I’m self-destructive

(Anymore) Something profound

About the power of this universe,

Is how quickly we could drown.

I’m fine in the fire

And don’t remind me that I’m 50

I don’t want nursing when I’m ill,

I know they’ll have to try to ‘fix’ me.

Like I should start to live my life

By what the majority believes,

They haven’t seen my flashback dreams

Where I can’t run and I can’t scream;

Not because I’m bound or threatened

But because I don’t want others to know

What happened to me behind doors

That closed so long ago.

superheroes never initiate,

they wait for bad guys to launch sinister plots

then bust out of mundane existences

in a cape and black tights that reveal muscles

but never THAT one

they are smooooth aroiund the bend

am I the only one that ever noticed?

perhaps they left the man-tool

with the spinster aunt, or the butler

lois lane was a dominatrix

and we all know about batman and robin

fat chance catwoman,

go claw your way out of ultra-feminiity

and turn your purr into a roar

forget that we were put here for

our progeny

will we all die out

before we travel to the next galaxy?

I bet the supervillian gets there first

and he wears armor

and groupies

where is your teenage daughter?

his balls are the size of Jupiter...

if he shoots that weapon

Big Bang Theory. Proven.

Meanwhile cowering from the Kryptonite

that exposed his faked machismo

Superman begs lois to whip him with the pink leather strap

she obliges smiling

with a hand-rolled cigar gripped in her sharp teeth...

The intimacy of a secret shared

A furtive glace

While unaware

That I, having known you

In the same sense, long past

Feel the bonds of your distant obsession

Grow strong, cutting the wave like a surfer

So I run from the place where the crests break on the sand

Reach higher ground, trying not to show my tears

Trying to suppress the fears

That surround me, amplified like this place

Of isolation is an amphitheater

Once I wrote symphonies

With sexuality and tenderness,

Felt your caress like a melody

We harmonized

But the discord of a hidden thing

As you taught me, made me believe

The hidden thing haunts at the place where waves form

And poisons the waters

In such fluids I drown

And the song is an echo

From the belly of the whale

Where her unborn young are trying

To renew the lost connection

Intimacy

I caught you in a moment of it, tied the ends and adjusted the knot

But as we swam together

A hook dangled; as I fought

To get to you

Could not

And now you hide the secret

That is shared in other dimensions

You swim and surf without me

And I collect old seashells, few and mostly broken

I hold them to my ear and hear

The sounds of your absolution

STUPID CUPID

(a Valentine’s poem by LCF 2016)

Your arrows are dull little boy

Your bow is now merely a toy.

Can’t kill a dove

Much less inject love

Into a heart that you aimed to destroy.

Your shot fell too short to stick in

Love without forgiveness, a sin.

Your silver lined puffs

Smashed into the bluff,

Diverted by sudden cold winds.

Cease fire! This heart you’ll not pierce;

Its shell has grown thick, its beat fierce.

No longer played fool

Or slave to love’s rule

The storm ends, the sky at last clears.

THE UGLY BROTHER lcf 2017

Donny was born at 5:59 and Johnny at 6:02;

Hard to tell them apart wrapped in baby blue.

Mom had little letters embroidered in their snugs

(And Donny screamed every time she gave his brother hugs)

They got matching train sets, and toy boats with little sails;

Donny like to knock Johnny’s train right off the rails,

And never let his sibling sail his boat in the bath…

But Johnny would just flash his guileless grin and laugh.

When they were 4 years old, they got a babysitter;

When she tried to put them to bed Donny fought and bit her

Johnny kissed her boo-boo, his big eyes filled with tears.

They went through many sitters over the next few years…

In middle school, Donny excelled at lots of sports;

But had a few black marks on behavioral reports.

Johnny got good grades but didn’t make a lot of friends,

Donny always kept on top of the latest trends.

Serenity and grace, my sword and shield;

Mindfulness and reason choose my fights.

If I understand and empathize, I yield;

Every soul on Earth has equal rights.

Mindfulness and reason choose my fights.

I bear the scars of battles I have lost.

Every person here has equal rights.

I stand for this, no matter what the cost.

I bear the scars of battles I have lost.

The ghosts of fallen allies haunt me still.

I stand for them, no matter what the cost.

Their spirits help me manifest my will.

The ghosts of fallen allies haunt me still.

Bravely they once battled by my side

Their spirits help me manifest my will.

I speak of them with reverence and pride.

The bravest souls once battled by my side;

To honor them, I protect the innocent;

I fight for them with reverence and pride.

I bear the banner of the dissident.

I honor those who protect innocents;

My enemies are those who corrupt laws.

I bear the banner of the dissident;

I gladly risk my life for the right cause.

My enemies are those who corrupt laws.

If they fail to empathize I will not yield.

I gladly give my life to the right cause;

Serenity and grace, my sword and shield.

60 MPH by LCF 2016 (for 5 more hours)

The feeling I get

careening down a dark road slick with rain

windshield wiper metronome

melodic squeal of tires

I revel in terrified delight

knowing a slight turn of the wheel

could stop all possible futures;

in that moment, no worries can assail me

the bills that I can’t pay,

the aches and pains as I wake,

the people I can never please no matter how I try

fade to insignificance

as I watch the headlights of the other cars

and the reflecting arrows

all happening in slow motion

at 60 miles per hour

I know it is not polite to ask for gifts from friends you have not seen in a long time, but I would like to be asked for one and btw yes I got the urge after Caz's question. Miss you guys!

They also have a clause saying that the holding fee and credit check cost cannot be refunded if you pass the credit check and refuse the rental. Also when I asked to speak to a manager, they said there was not a manager because she had just retired.

The boy could see the bottle getting closer

Below the empty holes within those eyes;

Fingers clenched around the ashed remains

Of the past, burned into skinless cries.

Sounds, like sugar in the blood, getting thicker,

Undissolved- seeing red, too hot to wrangle;

Branding iron fist, big mark on small jawline,

Fractured filaments in flashback, oddly angled.

Brittle bones gnashed, behind toothsome snarls,

Malnutrition, breathing dread in frothing spittle.

A dangled doll, broken; and now..... he says 'so sorry'

With an earnest grin that splits him down the middle.

The father dies, the damaged son carries on the curse,

Doing to his own son what his father had done worse.

Scheme a sordid scene, revenge and war,

patented impending doom du jour.

marching endless sea of ordered troops,

scavengers fed fowl kept clipped in coops .

Dress the brass in tactless shabby blues,

nom de guerre, new alibis assumed.

execute plan 'x' in section 'y'

genome locks and neural networks die.

Rocket to the moon or south of Rome.

Cosmonauts create a cache of clones.

Evolutionary trade secrets are sent

to bigger solar systems, trillions spent.

Contained within a space-junk littered haze,

The coda of the sun sonata plays.

Cat Revision of String Theory

(It’s a bit of a yarn. A tall tail. Outside the box. Skinner’s and Shroedinger’s)

They say that dreams are self-contrived:

Mine are the eight lives I have survived.

I still chase my tail, and I don’t care how it seems-

I’ve faced trial by fire, in those dreams!

Consciousness, so far from thoughts

Controlled so carefully, these plots

Are rows of six foot holes, then mounds,

Unsettled, quaking, shaky grounds.

Conception smiths our coded bits,

The feeble fetus forms, forgets,

And learns to follow lesser desires,

Repress the surging inner fires.

They say it’s silly that I feel feline;

That there is madness burning in my mind.

Curiosity kills, they advise…

I’m just biding my time- counterclockwise.

Human is just a shape I chanced to wear

When the feral kitten left its astral lair.

I still want to follow those creatures with wings,

Who aren’t held to ground by theories with strings.

Tick-tock, talk about time, future, past,

Divining our answers on devices, forecast

To swindle us out of living with purpose,

By promising us happiness can be purchased.

I don’t buy in, I’d rather fall to bones,

Trampled by masses as they rush to cast stones,

Judging, demanding we slave, struggle, pay.

Life is a big ball of yarn. I must play…

I managed to come back at last,

and saw some familiar names were cast

on the pages like old times.

This is just a greeting. BUT IT RHYMES!

I'm back...

COLOSSAL LOSS

It gathers swiftly overhead, from all sides,

Roiling clouds in every hue of gray…

So many more than fifty shades.

This storm reminds me of you.

Holding back until, with a flash, the sky is rent;

Lash-whip blasts, bolts that break the walls…

The apocalypse or a continental avalanche;

Thor’s Hammer in the power of a clenched fist.

The storm doesn’t last long; despite all the fury

Released into being, mindlessly and without mercy,

It subsides as suddenly as it set in-

I am left drowning in your emotional floodwaters.

A chasm, rifted earth where my garden once grew,

Mud and roots, tiny shoots that won’t live to bear fruit;

But I will grow others from these seeds I held on to

While your colossal torrent was ruining the rest of my world.

Longing for but knowing the folly

Of knowing you are never sorry

For hurtful words and cold, dark stares…

For thinking only of your own affairs.

Long lonely nights when I am here;

The different loneliness of being there.

You were always someplace I couldn’t reach,

In need of a lesson I could not teach.

So we go our separate ways

Yours secured, mine a haze

Of uncertainty or a possible fate

That I came upon a bit too late.

But at least I have a chance

Of returning to the dance

Of life, while you shun belief

And stand, alone, denying grief.

Nothing is beautiful enough, it seems,

They Photoshop landscapes,

Edit out nature’s touches

If they adversely affect the desired effect;

You can make a killing Arctic wasteland

Seem like a magical kingdom

For unicorns and mermaids

Maybe they existed once

And were banished there

That’s why they’re dead now.

They capture the ruins

Of temples dedicated to various deities

And make the architecture stand out

Like no blood ever ran in rivers in the courtyard

After the impious and the blasphemous

Were slain to appease some sanctimonious faction.

Fractional expressions that leave the sum of the whole

In an answer book that is accessible

Only to the few initiated into the administrative fold.

Is burning the flag treason?

Not if you were burned by it first.

Countless victims of a sovereign’s ideals

That were not well thought out,

We wave banners not in defiance

But in complacency

Or ignorance.

Soldiers return from a war

Waged upon our minds

And pocketbooks,

The cost economically minimal when compared

To the spiritual fees paid by the warriors.

They are treated like debtors, never free.