10k views, 2x BestPoetryCollection. A nothing from nowhere cast words to a world wide wind |
I had a lover's quarrel with the world - Robert Frost | I'm sorry you got caught in the middle. - me This poet’s words collect, arrange on a kaleidoscope spectrum. The experience of discovery through writing is the truest reward that has allowed me to grow and learn who/what I am — what other people get naturally, immediately, while I stomp around in it. Been blessed, but pushing it — envelope, world and all inhabitants away. Push buttons, find boundaries to trip traps. No clue why cat curiosity, living in your dark. (Bored, perhaps?) Now and then, push dirt out of this hole; someone/thing/entity might envision me how I need to be viewed (if I knew what that was). Cryptic, yes. Try living in my dark, find comfort amid strange, virtual, wonderful walls that tower above, tempt me to scale. Been more than I could imagine or expect here. But, achievements aren’t going on a LinkedIn wall . I dig deeper than I should, often without forethought. Aimless words, brave or veiled cowardice, flinchingly flung, inadvertently hit targets? Get a ‘back off’ shoulder shot when asking your motivations here. Not fair? No prize to eye; not incentivized. Dealt the worst two cards before the flop, do best with what’s in hand. My Pluggers: You are an icon here. You suffer, but you suffer brilliantly. Wow, what a great writer. It’s like plugging myself, but using other people’s (reviewers) words…Review of "Poetic Referendum(s) On Life" Your poetic muse is on fire! Some great emotion, well-balance(d), lovely lyrical qualities -- even the ones that were written out of sadness or anger came through in a clever cadence…It's obvious you've put a lot of work into each entry and the totality of the blog has eye appeal. Published four times with one a literary journal, including… "The Tender Core (Sedona)" I don’t submit because it’s too much work. Truly alone, know no one cares to show they believe/support me. Lip service feeds delusion. I’ve seen a lot of smoldering and snow. Try not be cynical, work hard at openness and consideration — work, sooo…gut thing. August 28, 2006 this blog opened ▼
No specific aim going forward (2014) ▼ This is old…. What? Oh, this? A rhetorical, self-motivational speech I'm working on. Don't just read the parts to construct your theory, as if to confirm (construed out of context) your opinion, mentally-stunted Neanderthal. Therapist wants me to be less negative toward myself. I see it as attacking, rather than being defensive. Fear I will chomp too many bullets unintentionally sent toward the unsuspecting. If you can be triggered for stupid reasons, then I? …just looked like me rolling around on the floor with myself. What Was NEW Who am I, you ask? My mirror knows that question, repeated daily. Just trying to create a little buzz, not boost my ego. #amwriting #poetry #blog #contest #freeverse #award #bestpoetry #freyaridings #lyrics #music #video #YouTube Can you believe it took this long for someone to put a quarter in me and push the button GET ANGRY? Mud 4 My Eye: Is that you, Poo? 💩 Secret Back Door ▼ |
Flurry at twilight, snow capped heads brushed to the stomped upon mat Waves of Autumn wash out, as a fading sun collects black volume. All our warmth in smiles, marrow-wracked, legs gather by the stone mantel The eager quick-claim chairs at her call. Hunger sated with a final feast. Harvest's remainder, shelved through Spring on cool cellar shelves like treasures. Beneath her quilts, reclined, stuffed stiffs chew mints and marshmallow dreams. Confections adorn the fireside table for the tipplers and sippers of hot chocolate milk. 11.3.21 14 lines, free verse
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Life from a limited vantage is all I see out this window, from morning until night, imagining the expanse when he creeps over my neighbor's house and vanishes behind my own, as if I'll follow room to room and spy from each window the offerings of light pouring down that I could inhale, ingest, take for my own until stubborn clouds obscure these visions of hope. when I'm alone in my bed and black creeps beneath the shades, lowered during the day because I could not accept his warmth, I keep praying someday go out and let wet leaves stick to my wandering heels, or wade in a white drift to a covered automobile to clear, sit within and let roar alive and idle, suck the last gas out of me. But, it's not possible because I have no garage to dwell in. 10..29.21 just one of those whatever comes to my head offerings, like so many others. |
Like milkshake melting from your touch upon cold glass, heat the heart of me. Lifting to send me down tender soul, fast coupling a dreamer with you. I would drink you up, too thick to pass through cup I grip by eager hands. In this restaurant, waitress wonders what I want, sitting here alone. Peer her bluest eyes, when I realize and gulp, suck the mixture down. My face forms a frown. Soft, she hands the bill to leave, icy in my gut. So, goodbye to you. Grab my wallet, settle up, when you grab my hand. And then you tell me, smiling, this one's on the house. Twinkle in your eye . I'm about to cry. Not a brain but a heart freeze, stutter my next words, 'can I ask you out?' Tucking the pad in her sash, pats me on the back, "I'm married, but please keep on coming back, because your my best patron." "The next one's on me, and tell me about yourself," when the ice begins to melt. Abrupt, I took leave, the milkshake inside of me, suddenly to pee. Will milk be my friend until the bitter end, because frozen inside me is embarrassment, not having done due process before it warmed? 10.29.21 "when i see your face Hear the laughter in your eyes my soul comes alive!" Fisher aka Kathy Fisher Something inspired by Kathy Fisher Haiku song which used the form for it's chorus. It had a flow and rhyme scheme, where I have forced a bunch of haikus together with some lyrical intent that really are hard to choke down like that frozen milkshake. |
Must I possess inspiration to reach, clutch, lift this quill to stab the very heart of you, stain a page pathetic with dreams...? The dim light emitting from two eyes glares at a cursor pulsing. Could a quill stain a brain stabbed at its very heart? Green it is, but not earthen. Blue and red spew, mix on this clotted terrain. I wish for the season of penning vacuous odes to end. These invisible breezes barely brush a cheek. Inspiration was a cruel mistress. I desire snow now. 10.27.21 1.7.22 edit, add |
iridescent, just a little glowing, throbs in this night. stars cascade on me as I gaze, wishful, hopeful, dream to hold you near. iridescence, just a little flowing through these dark trees, globe eyes spy on me as I leer, lustful, eager to pull you out of this black into my arms to dance. a swirl of light, frozen, streaks a hollow theatre, with just a little knowing I will fill your void in this immaculate, cool air. I inhale the essence, smell your fragrant forehead, taste the beads of sweat. we tumble to a thick lawn, enveloping two daring to become one, in iridescence shared, flowing through us. dawn will renew our lungs but not our hearts until iridescent again. 10.26.21 I just can't tell if readers will understand the expressive nature of iridescence. I learned that humans have iridescence undetectable to the naked eye, and it was theorized what humans would have turned out like if fully iridescent like some of those creatures in the deep parts of the oceans and would we be nocturnal animals. So, I went with it. |
I don't know why people want to fly. We don't have wings. But if I want to try, I'll take a ride, with you, however high you dare to go. I stop to wonder why people need to fly, when they don't own wings. But I'd take a ride with you, if you wanna go, not matter high. People dream they can fly. But they seldom do. Makes me wanna cry, when they fall back again. I'll take a ride because you're gonna try. I'll go with you into the blue. And together, we can fly. I'll never question why. 10.21.21 Lyrics to a song I composed in my head and sang into the steering wheel of my truck. Likely it ends there with all other lyrics I've sung and performed, on the fly-eye-eye-eye. No matter high-eye-eye-eye. But, I always seem to try-eye-aye-eyeah-ayeah. It's a bit simplistic and more chorus than bridge with a repeating melody I couldn't seem to change up, so I write down before I give-give-give up. |
The Tender Grip I had a habit of documenting every little thing you’d do, like the first meaningful, sleepy gaze that studied my eyes staring back, or the first tender grip of my thumb that connected us infinitely, and when I made you laugh, hiding my face to reappear with a goofy peekaboo look. Cradled in my arms in a glider for hours, I wondered which of us was sleepier. I learned patience in the time it took to feed you, gently throttle your back, your tiny tummy upon my shoulder, waiting for that buu-rrpp to finish our session. I’d lay you down in your first playground, guilty because it didn’t feel my best. I worried if you’d sleep, if I’d let you cry too long, needed a diaper change, more rocking, another bottle feeding, or if, you felt alone like me in this big, wide, scary world. I thought, if we’re always together…not alone. The distance from here to eternity, shortened by the connection of our gazes. But your eyes move toward dark horizons, forgetting I can still rock you. How inadequate I feel because you deny these two arms that shelter and heal. 10.7.21 11.10.21 edit 33 lines, free verse |
One day, the garbage bin tipped over and a tin can tumbled free, rolled and rolled and rolled past me; so I shouted, 'go Little can, go! Hopefully, you’ll find some new purpose. One day, while sitting on the shore, alone, I saw a stray beach ball cavorting about, rolling along the tides that dared pull it in, and I screamed, 'bounce little ball! Bounce as far as you go, and hope you find some adoring child who'll play. Now, I look out my window and see the remnants of fall and a near naked tree, when one brilliant, orange, crisp leaf tumbled free from a pile, cartwheeling down my street, and I beckon the little fellow, 'roll, roll as far as you will go, and I hope you find true purpose somewhere in the old women’s garden, or tenderly clutched by a girl’s hand, lovingly adoring you until you are dust. I wonder, If I run Who will catch me. And think, what a prize. 10.15.21 |
Now darker, you deepen, steep within the tides of October. Water rushing out to follow dim skies, leave a gray grass heavy with regret. We didn't live or love like we desire yet. Another season, defective, disordered, beautiful buds whiter wither and fall, clump on clay hardening. Cold to touch, shudder after one last breath from vexing waves of summer death. I stand amid it all and wonder how I can remember you before and not this way. I stand among all, alone, and wonder if my arms will open to receive your tender sighs before I too am sent to the sky. 10.15.21 16 lines free verse with light rhyme stanza ends. We could all reach out to someone, comfort one another, like a community could do. But, if we are not all on the same level of understanding, then some of us fall like petals to that carpet while aiming to fly on tides to some accepting sky. Here, we lie alone, a clutter of dead. Not even swept up, leech the soil in hopes we return whole again next summer. -bk |
What are we doing but wasting time? We could be making a difference in the world and basking in positive experiences ever flowing. But we are surrounded by hate and adversity because something systematic forces us to turn toward one another when there is no one else to turn to, no other place to complain. This growing, negative karma is bringing us down again and again. Even though we have our good times, get our heads above water, there are moments we sink and everything feels helpless. People don't see us the way we intend to be. People like me self-analyze, take different tacks, and get the same or similar responses. I have a reputation. I'm slotted and categorized as this or that and I can see that a rumor mill in my personal life surrounds and encompasses me and I'm not taken face value, but by what other people say about me. It's so frustrating that you want to rage, but know that would feed into what they want and expect from you. They don't acknowledge that they boxed you, they turned you into their raging animal and you have little recourse but to shut it down. A person sets goals, but has to adapt or change them to fit whatever scenario they are in because central master always needs to be fed in the process. You find that you lose sight of what you want to do because of this and try again and again to become ultimately dismayed. Raging against the machine doesn't function when you are just one. No one is yielding but you. So, there is only dissatisfaction with life and aim and where it is going, which is getting more than hazier, but permanently lost. You turn toward your loved ones and they are all asea too. There is no rock to cling to. I cannot imagine burdening myself on another. So, this where I am now. This is who I am now. A person without enough salvo to overcome and achieve personal dreams. A person who just goes through the motions until it's realized there are no shortcuts, cheat codes to get through life without becoming like those who can employ such skills. One romanticizes what is the right way, the beauteous way of achieving in life. Because, so many stories have been written by heroes who stuck to their guns and fought to succeed in ways that seem purely fictional and unachievable. I break here for a little rest after last night's dream where I imagined revisiting my childhood friends in the places we used to play on an ATV that needed fuel and when I stopped to gas I was putting coins in a telephone accidentally and getting crypto currency which I could use to pay for gas. But for some reason, pump number 24 produced a mess where the little bit of gas overflowed the tank and in my panic was told by the clerk that I was never allowed in the store again and thought it was for the mess but because people in the south didn't appreciate my attitude, apparently rude. I was lost, didn't understand, because I thought I was nice to everyone. I wanted answers but the clerk was just doing his job, and I felt that people talk or share public reputation scores somehow without really getting to know me before googling the internet or talking to other people who only see a frustrated person who vents negatively because they cannot figure out how to function in the real world. I thought about this dream for awhile, talked to my wife about it before she went to work. It seemed mostly about work and 24 is my transgender child's birthday, and it makes me feel I cannot communicate or be understood by anyone as I prepare for another day of indifferent arrogance at work. I take my new depression, ADD meds today, but will add anti-anxiety pill to boot. I'm just going to coast for awhile until I can visualize a purpose for me in this life, which seems slim to none. |
Permanent 'to do' on my list, always neglected and wanting for some attention from a father who cannot tend to even himself. The seasons roll by too fast in this empty room, dimming, dulling the wild senses in need for some father to end the day. I'll risk a look out the window and wonder if snow arrived. I'll not unseal that door because father will stand in the way. So many unfinished things, like you and me, kid. So many days to wonder will some parent allow us, play. 10.5.21 my child is going through the throes of something and I'm in my seasonal distress |
They don't have time for you -- can't tend to a dreamer. Stoic stalk lowed, time-trapped sun dial reversing, pelted by dark, cold rain. Gray offshoots slow-tumble in a disposable planter, weathered, neglected, soiled and cracked -- not made for these elements. I feel you proudly sinking, unnoticed on front porch, passed daily summer long, since adulation of her day -- Unmeasured collapse, time-withering slow decay, long before memories of ravaging frost. They finally look at you, can't tend to dreams, mend what was lost, a summer long past. Adulation now gray for a once stoic stalk, torn from pot, repurposed to stiff November earth. Meld with the warm heart of Mother, unceremonious inter(n)ment. 10.3.21 24 lines |
Finality is the last season, how my heart fades, once absorbed in a soul that needed my fuel, fed itself until we extinguished -- a flame supernova-ed, in a black hole devoured. The extinguished could not rekindle embers, long since sparked alive by a lingering hope to live forever, now time-worn. 9.30.21 12.29.21 edit vaporized |
Another dawn sneaked in at the foot of your bed where I wiggled those toes, once merry little piglets, hidden 'neath covers, protected from dread of dark. Nights monsters stirred but did not bite because I was at your side to chase away any fright, soothed. Every day that goes by, I wait by the hollow door for your return, again and again until you don't need me anymore. No monsters but me, I feel, stand in your way. Yet, I realize there are toes that need to be tickled, soothed. Futile, how long I wait until you cry out again in your monstrous night to chase away this fright. I can’t save you anymore. 27 lines, free verse We’re in the throes of something. 9.30.21 10.6.21 edit 12.29.21 edit |
try too hard it hurts more when not good enough when it comes easy I have no control still fear rejection but something needs fill an empty poet's soul I could go insane so when I empty the red ventricles like pockets spilling out on your tables, I learn what was hiding what needs a purge and it's not the words try too hard and they will never understand my best is better but can't find it in a pile laid upon your bed-stand, because it's stuck in the beating vessel plying inward seas, crying for true souls who understand a poor poet like me. 9.28.21 3.28.22 edit a lonely boy/poet listening and enraptured by music from Cannons with new music hitting its stride. Fan forever because of Fire For You (on heavy rotation in my head). Other inspirations: "True Origins of Love Lost (Cannons-inspired)" "Quitting You (Fire For You inspired)" |
In the sepia sea -- nothingness, but a cuttlefish amid clouds watching these thick masses thinning -- russets and golds covering my weary head, bury the green-bladed surface, dying with me. The glow intensifies one more time, before fading over the fence to hidden horizons. I scan the dusks' red warnings. Autumnal tides fumble toward white solstice, pale, decay a heart in personal purgatory, yearning a perfect season rewarm this soul with still-beating heart, aching. 9.24.20 9.24/28.21 rewrite 18 lines |
Finality Is A Season Some float down, as if from heaven, twirling, mating with the air, bouncing on the invisible mattress, slow spin back and forth to meet a calm green scene fading, presenting to onlookers like me. Some tumble through like wild gymnasts frolicking, colliding with hard earth, dancing about obstacles on their course -- hyper, join a swarm of mates to meet a village of cloistered inhabitants fading, appear before bystanders like me. Some take their time, as if mother won't let them mature. Hanging lonely, a child absent after recess, crying for a purpose in this late season, fear natural selection that plucks them from despair, cloying for her arm, hide in her nest, never to meet true heaven on earth, feed sorrowful eyes of witnesses like me who long to join, but serve this perch by the window, now or for eternity. A dull heart fears go out, play, as a final day viewed this way. 9.24.21 rewrite 20 lines Shorter isn't better. |
a pale blue dot, an image from a voyage long ago -- in your galaxy caught departing a planetary neighborhood. from its fringes, I note where you are. one last look, my home planet. you could be a billion light years away. from this vantage, on my ecliptic plane, a portrait of a fading world captured -- caught in the center of scattered light. deflection, I suppose, from bright reduction. a tiny point of light, if you strain to see. home, with everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you've heard of -- every human who ever was lived out their lives where you are -- the aggregate of joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines -- every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, all creators and destroyers of civilization, king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher, corrupt politician, superstar, supreme leader, saint and sinner and followers -- the history of a species lived there -- on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena, challenged by a point of pale light, in the great, enveloping, cosmic dark. In obscurity, in all vastness, no hint help will come from elsewhere to spare pale blue insignificance. this dot spins on axis, fixedly, as if waiting for some deity come down from invisible heavens. a tiny world floating on the perimeter, daring near the center of all creation, functioning to give purpose to anyone who shall pass, miss one so minuscule as a pale blue dot. 43 lines 9.23.21 last two lines hidden because I added for contest and feel foolish now. borrowing a reference and book title from Carl Sagan about beliefs of the existence of God and what man could do to better himself, make this a better place for all who struggle. if it still speaks to me long after I write it, it must be so. |
You've been fighting the chain so long, wrapped around the pole beneath her whitened load, lingering on a line, low. The tether tightens, restricts desire tarry yards among other leashed mongrels, hungry to meet nostrils between buttercups, belonging to neighbors on porches, rocking on chairs with firearms cocked that dare an underfed, blue-eyed mutt, who'd bite your legs if you dare near. You watch them all, idling through time, wondering if the doghouse would ride along, in unbridled thirst for freedom of the agony: wavering trees un-sniffed, the roses to dig, or puddles to slosh and gleaming wheels unchased. What can an animal like me savor from a vision of all scenes contained in limited purview of a punishing society? Set me free, I'll still bite your hand, before I chew the rest of this scenery hungrily, angrily until the catcher arrives, puts a bullet in the salivating head sneering, daring your wrath justify why I must sit and wait for my bones, ache for that pull of gravity to drive me down between the blades of pissed-on crabgrass. 9.16.21 10.6.21 edit 26 lines, free verse I'm not your animal and I can't wait for a chance to show you how sharp my teeth. Tethered so long, it begs the question: would I humbly lie before one who calls themself my master? |