Photograph by Diane Arbus
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Languid Eyes
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Stranded, a beached bride
She — bequeathed to tempered tears
Languid eyes turn steel
While he collects bleeding hearts
On a macaroni string
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“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
― Anaïs Nin *
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Untitled, Rhode Island, 1975-1976, Artist Francesca Woodman
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Resigned
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I drew a line in the sand
The tide washed it away
I continued this inane behavior
Most of the day
Once the tide resigned itself
Receded — Reseeded
I tried again
I drew the line
I became — the line in the sand
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It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out; it’s the grain of sand in your shoe.
— Robert W. Service *
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Please take a moment to listen to Deep Purple, and view more of Francesca Woodman’s amazing photos.
Untitled 2011, Artist Kristamas Klousch
Oh!
Control — who has it?
When up for grabs, who takes it?
It’s a giveaway!
~
This is the question
We ask ourselves
When all goes awry —
What went wrong?
Oh, never mind!
Scarlet Pumpernickel
Grand Duke
Lord High Chamberlain
It’s all sourdough, you know
Like a colorful cartoon
Singing off-key
A lovely Looney Tune
I’m counting backwards now
Tomorrow comes the snow
The rules are ill-defined
They keep changing
You never know the game
Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow
There is no safe-word
To prevent the strangling
While you pretend
That you’re hanging
With Anne Cécile Desclos
Oh my dilettante
You don’t even know
You’ve got it rearwards
Laughing — onwards and upwards you go!
I’m counting backwards now
Tomorrow comes the snow
Engaged, Entwined, Entangled
A perverted bad version
Of repeats, left on preheat
Fahrenheit — 1800 degrees
Preening, Preparing, Pretreating
No Rescinding-Restraints
Rehashed Swanson’s TV dinners
Always asking permission
Mother may I — be a willing victim?
With a pretty please, Sugar-Sweet
Your mission, self-inflicted
To be even less than —
Was that the reason?
I’m counting backwards now
Tomorrow comes the snow
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“Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man * *
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Brief note, this is actually a social commentary on the death and victimization of the individual. The more rights we give up due to our own complacency, a false sense of security, the more “THEY” will take away.
Aspidistra, Artist Russ Mills
The Harvest
If metaphors could speak
This is what they’d say, and —
They’d say it in this way:
The Coats are coming
To take us away
A race, a chase — to the death
Their button-down shrouds flap
On Methamphetamines
While our speed propelled
By insomnia’s slug, Blue Lunesta
I was running
We were running
Fast and furious
Bare feet on scalding sand
Scrambling — static white noise
In cast iron frying pans
Always on edge and the ledge
Catch me if you can
The Angels looked on
Never once blinking
While continuing to paint
Pockmarked-scars
On heaven’s ceiling
Pretending nothing was wrong
The plumage bearing down
We lived as crossed live wires
Downed by Power Lines
Get with the program
We had no monopoly money
To pay for our freedom
Thus, nothing to redeem
No time to smell the roses
No time to see the sights
No time to watch the evening’s stars
No time to tell you how I feel
No time — to even say good-bye
Faust’s frostbite came upon midnight
For warmth we huddled round the glow
Of a lone cigarette cherry
Along the immaculate shore
No conjugating with anything
Calling our names
Least of all — white bright lights
There would be no going
Backwards, Forwards or Towards
No — not tonight
We religiously kept moving
There was a time we prayed
To die in our sleep
Things changed
Taking a turn for the worse
Now we’re fully awake
Aware of the harvest
Rise at first break
To an ammonia inhalant —
Mourning’s Sunrise Revival
Pushing on
My God, by foot!
The race, the chase
Started once again
Against time
Against an Unnatural Order
Each moment ticked
Its breath a second closer to death
We all die — a little each day
This, the final judgment
The Coats were serving today
No sound sounding
No reading or reading
No hearing or hearing
Before the epitaphs were read
We did our best to avoid the light
The calling, the culling
But in the end
Were we on the wrong team?
The Angels looked on
Never once blinking
While continuing to paint
Pockmarked-scars
On heaven’s ceiling
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“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” — Voltaire
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This was written as a companion piece to, Shark-Skin-Suits. It was important for me to use the same artist, Russ Mills, to convey a similar feeling with imagery, as well as include an emotional film clip from Sophie’s Choice.
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Artist – Russ Mills
Requiem
Kanshi
September 19, 2015
I
Requiem in black
Art of attrition
Now — start counting back
Pray for contrition
Lack of regret — slack
Not my decision
It’s the One-Eyed-Jack
Wild card admission
II
Everything in Spades
From newly dug graves
To the UV Nightshades
Does the Henchman crave
A nice fashioned blade?
Heads off, a quick wave
Souls have been betrayed
Sad, so-so depraved
III
Mass starts with the Harp
Instruments and Men
Tugging on the heart
Of the strings again
Picking them apart
Ignorance is feign
What about Descartes?
Ending with — Amen
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“I have the choice of being constantly active and happy or introspectively passive and sad. Or I can go mad by ricocheting in between.”
— Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
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Air, Artist Isaiah Stephens
Pretense
Tanka Set
September 09, 2015
I
Shadowed solitude
I contemplate love’s meaning
Elusive these thoughts
These vows are always changing
Broken — for better, for worse
II
How is love defined,
In print, Merriam-Webster?
Perhaps creation,
Y-Chromosomal Adam
And Mitochondrial Eve
III
While in the moment
The bouquet — Milk Weed Thistle
Love wears its disguise
Holds us hostage for ransom
Lust, passion meet abandon
IV
Upset Red Bordeaux
A crimson stain left behind
Can blood be hidden?
Pretense can’t be blotted out
From those we know and once loved
V
I can distinguish
Yet refuse to extinguish
Distrust, disrepair
Dread, plight offers no mercy
Decay, blight each day, Merci!
VI
What lasts forever?
Acid comes whenever
Tears fall from the sky
Greyed daylight begets twilight
Darkness slams down on us — Why?
VII
Guilty plea of love
Emotional injustice
Treason is a crime
Atone, we must feel the felt
Leaving sanity behind
VIII
Some are quickly swayed
Hoax, lurid attention gained
Have you read John Locke?
Replacement parts for the heart
With whatever walks and squawks
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Andrew Hozier-Byrne is a very talented musician. He is always very clever with his lyrics, and It Will Come Back, is no exception. The song is asking someone to do the right and merciful thing, a beautifully sad song.
Handwritten
Artist Florian Nicolle
Cleaning Keys 🔑
November 05, 2014
Is the key to the heart —
Like finding a needle in a haystack?
If we are lucky and find the key
How careful do we need to be —
While attempting, to unlock the heart?
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We were busy cleaning keys
We were cleaning refusing to see
Who we were — and what we should be
We were busy, busy, cleaning keys.
Shiny pristine glistening keys
Pretty and slippery — into the lock
Unable to talk, unable to speak
We were busy, busy, cleaning keys.
Too busy to see, as we slipped away
Too busy, we kept cleaning our keys,
Soon they no longer fit the lock.
Hearts don’t care, if keys are clean —
We could never get back,
The things — we lost.
Une immense espérance a traversé la terre
Une immense espérance a traversé ma peur
Translated
A great hope crossed the land
A great hope crossed my fear
I have finally finished something new, due to the heat I planned on revisiting two older poems first, they are companion pieces, Leaving Note and Cleaning Keys. I hope that everyone has a wonderful weekend, take good care!
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DPchallenge – Oh, The Irony More on Love Lost “Iron on the Line” .
Daily Prompt – By Heart More on Love Lost “Slam of the Wings” .
Artist Florian Nicolle
Leaving Note
November 01,2014
Once a note written
It flames the tradition
Of reading it all the time.
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Talk of leaving each other
For days, months, even years.
Yet, kept up the charade
Stayed,
Eventually
Something gave —
Just didn’t think it would be you.
There was a note on the table
An oddly folded scrap of paper
Weighted down by a once shared pile of keys.
One thing for sure — true advice given
A leaving note should never be written,
Written, it should never be left
For the one — left behind.
The note, a prison
Fed bread and water
Captive to Blue-Words-Penned,
Only to be read, again and again
Keeping the hole in the heart — Alive.
Now a prisoner to words
Guarded by a scrap of paper
Condemned by the Shade-of-Blue.
Unfolding and folding,
Unfolding and folding,
Unfolding and folding,
With a sadness of Grace.
Folds now Frayed-Felted-Seams
Creases worn-soft with time
Placing the note preciously
Into a special place in my mind.
When the feelings too great to embrace —
Breakout the poisonous leaving note,
If only to self-punish
Rake open old wounds
Resurrect any doubts about —
My Leaving Note, my Blue-Inked-Master
To be read, again and again.
I hope you take a moment to enjoy, Paolo Nutini!
“A tragedy need not have blood and death; it’s enough that it all be filled with that majestic sadness that is the pleasure of tragedy.”
— Jean Racine
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I have finally finished something new, due to the heat I planned on revisiting two older poems first, they are companion pieces, Leaving Note and Cleaning Keys. I hope that everyone has a wonderful weekend, take good care!
DAILY PROMPT – Pace Oddity
The Last Temptation 2011. Mixed media on maple board. Artist, Brian M. Viveros
Tanqueray🍸
September 21,2014
Zebras and new moons
Wild times, cool tunes, no lies
Okay, let’s go
Line ‘em up boys.
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Shot glasses
Whiskey chasers in lipstick
Wearing lingerie poolside
Drinking Tanqueray
Pimentos sucked out
Spent olives tossed aside
Gloved cocktail mittens
High heeled glass slippered kittens
Perfect for dripping skinny dippers
Strings of pearls, sun-dried
Not for girls with parasols
But tainted painted Cinderellas
Bottle blonds with black roots
Tool belts for loose tools
Smoke rings and rings with bling
Easy on eyes, but who really sees?
Hard and harder to forget
Games of neglect and disrespect
Cheese puffs and potato chips
Bags of Poker Chips
Boxes of illegal — Cuban cigars
Lustful secrets and secret keepers
Perversions of the palate
Blindfolds and tourniquets
Tattoos, piercings and body brandings
Odd games of ownership
Sparkling cars with large back seats
Thoughts and fetishes fill the heads
Of the watched and watchers
Of the washed and washers
Scathing dreams and shattered pasts
Crooked paths and rusty words
Everything tastes — like tin cans.
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“Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.”
― Sylvia Plath
The heat is not giving up, here is another old effort. Let’s keep traveling down the same path with Brian M. Viveros! Lou Reed fans, Walk On The Wild Side, YouTube in the first comment, enjoy! DAILY PROMPT – Delayed Contact
Fucker, Artist Brian M. Viveros
Shit-Kickers
April 22, 2015
Can heartbreak
Make us distant, unattached
A disenfranchised spectator
Watching from some obscure sideline —
Or just Mentally Single?
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Come on girls!
This isn’t the Mustang-Ranch
Grab the Bull by the Horns
Remember to use both hands!
Watching for those Buckin-Broncos
In Backs-Seats or Truck-Beds
Of the El Camino Royal Hotel
Cheers Boys! Bring it on!
In Small-Towns’ Down-Towns
Where Cowboys meet the Asphalt
And Marlboro is King!
Hoe-Downs Go-Downs
Small-Towns, USA
Watering-Holes Friday-Nights
Throwing back rounds of Six-Shooters
Moving from the icky-sticky Formica
To the Parking-Lot-Brothel
Under dark skies
Lit-up by Moonshine
White-Lightning
And other things enticing
Car-Lots of Paradise-Parties
Road-Rash and Vinyl-Burns
Good times, Good times!
What have we learned?
Small-Towns’ Main Streets
Betty in her truck cab
Has Great-Gatsby-Racks
Stacked with her favorites rifles
Both, Long and Short Shafts
Cowboys don’t take kindly to
Mechanical Bull or Cialis
Betty wonders
If she’ll be Walkin-Proper
Come Sunday’s Church — Mourning
Dick likes his Levi’s fly front junk rubbed
Rubbers, those are for Sissy’s
Twin Sister Missy, ’cause she’s no prissy!
While Missy’s busy with Dick
Sissy’s wearing
Camouflage and Maybelline
Dripping in pearls
Round her neck —
Gifted with love from Chet
A liquid lasso, soon to be dry
Ah, the Wild-West!
Oh, so pretty!
Where Cowboys meet the Asphalt
And Marlboro is King!
Babette in her Barrettes
With dancing do-si-do eyes
Allemande right to the car
Kicking off Shit-Kickers
Tearing off Pearly-Snap-Plaids
Petting coats under pants
Fucking-Around
Going-Down
It’s Party-Town Down-Town
Hoe-Down Friday-Night
The Preacher, he’s no different
The same, They save
In this Small-Town
He’s got a thing for Bernice
Does it matter she’s his niece?
The Salon Beauty Queen
So good with her Clients
She takes The Preacher
To Pleasantville
With a snap of her wrist
And the twist of her hand
While in the front seat
Of his Winter-Rat
Monaco’s Monte Carlo
Come Sunday
Bernice will be Blessed
With the Rest of the Vermin
Forgiven their Sins
While in White-Gloved-Hands
Sleeping on pavement
Against Grease-Stained-Curbs
Safe from certain kinds of Tornadoes
Gives a whole new meaning to
Shit-Kicked to the Curb
Less than desirable
That’s for sure!
Six rounds for six shooters
Loads-of-Wads left in Gun-Barrels
I guess that depends —
The Mustang-Ranch-Girls would ask,
Are you a Stallion or a Pinto-Pony?
God Bless the Wild-West!
Where Cowboys meet the Asphalt
And Marlboro is King!
This poem about a getting piece of ass, literally KICKED MY ASS, for about a week or two, damn! I just felt it was time for some humor, to break away from the totally serious and just poke fun at the ridiculously serious instead! If you think no one knows what’s going on, think again, you can’t hide forever. I hope that you have a good laugh! Thank you, Small Town, USA! I love stereotypes, tintypes, and a good Doppelganger! I hope you enjoy the music video, Twist and Tug, by Hugo. Also a quick note, I’m not just being flippant, if you know gun terms, then a lot of the words make sense, I could have used a hoe lot more, butt…
Since I love Hugo, one more music video and final thought left for you in the first comment. Enjoy the rest of the week! — Pepperanne
All It’s Cracked Up to Be Right, does anything ever turn out as expected? And for that matter do you really ever know what’s on another person’s mind, or better yet what their deep dark thoughts are? Especially, if you never ask!
Revisiting some old poems during this heat wave, hoping it will cool off soon!
field of thorns 