Setaside's Poetry.... if you like...

tenaciousA

absolutely

i'm fond of "and" myself


just love it

Yellow

Originally posted by setaside2
TO BE THE HUNTED/alas the hunter

oh the ammo belt snaps tight
cheap
easy
slipknot love at 650 feet per second
be it whomever said love is blind
take aim and be kind
my apple adorns me
bitten
spit
smitten
kicked
if you have the one shot
and feel the need to give
I say aim high motherfucker
For if it isn't the will or the dominatrix
It is the jeans and the sneakers that flow so smoothly down the pavement
through the alley
over the fence
Cracks notwithstanding
Fucking tree in the way

this is so wonderfully fierce

Buru

Your love poem for Kate (DOWNTOWN/a soliloquy) was beautiful, even if at times a bit naive/cliché, but still beautiful.... and sad. I like how you introduce the 2 characters and that there's a marked transition in the poem from when they shared the music/dance to when they started drifting apart, when the music changed and the dancer fell.

some parts I really liked:

She lived a sunshine existence
Painted as a smiling face
In bright pastel

[...]

He was a threaded song who made his way
In no particular fashion
With his walk-a-mile-or-so-with-me attitude

[...]

He played on
Creating the stage
Upon which their lives stood
Their transient audience passing by
Ignorant
To what was being displayed

[...]

She swayed in the breeze
An aspen leaf in the fall
A rising star in spring
He bled music
Committed to this suicidal beauty
He bled rivers
And everywhere there were people
Who looked upwards
Reflective
Questioning
Tasted something sweet
And saw the twinkle of her final twirl
[...]

And the ending ofcourse:

Once again a visionary’s soliloquy
A song and dance
The evanescence of painted footsteps
Evaporating this dawn
As she echoes away into the sunshine
A spherical spiritual space
She resides on a sidewalk of light
And sings her prayer of union

Buru.

Buru

this one is kinda crazy, but I enjoyed it
fast-paced, packed with images of every sort
one idea triggers the next and I like that

Originally posted by setaside2
A new one for everyone... inspiration was a conversation about dreams I was having with someone once. She couldn't remember what the heck she had been looking at and said "maybe it was a hand..." It set me off. Let me know if you like.



maybe it was just a hand
or a secret or a mission or a kiss in an envelope…
a poison inkwell, a letter, a missive, the story of a life unborn or unshared or unknown, it makes no difference...
the direction of the next spring thaw, the flow of a leaf from branch to mud...
spring to fall..
the path love may take as it barrels through the halls of time uncontrollable and dangerous
a handshake, a breath, the last word of the last fairy godmother on the last planet earth
the feather plucked from an angel's wing
the mission of god
the lyrics to the song of youth
the answer to immortality
The last petal to fall from the wilted lily
The tip of an unused crayon
Was it the whisper of a ancient friend lost in time, ages past, lives ago
The secret feeling a children’s novel gives
The satisfaction of a sleeping feline
Curdled cream
The milk gone sour
Pages turning on the hour
A clock to measure the beats of the heart
A device to trap the better mouse
Or the hot air in any given water balloon…
The key, steam, the hot mineral spring
A ribbon on air, the footprint left bare, snow
Falling in cotton silence stuffy and simple
Arrowheads, sandstone, hieroglyphs, dreams long dead
The pavement expands in the sun, cracking to reveal the hidden homes that we have built upon and up and on in order to prove our superiority
The mud: it dries in the sun, the evaporation a last rebellion the wind carries away
The clock ticks its memento, the only thing it remembers, the previous second wiped by the next
A tread, the step, the fall
Ah damn the ignorant thread so graceless and passion free
Even with wings unfurled the angel smokes a Kamel
Wherein lies the loss? The thought? The cab fare home?
The hole in the pocket is only somewhat to blame as the sprinklers fade the brick wall
The fence cracked and burned, the sitters all fled,
On roam, the bats cry sonar in search of sustenance
Who shall teach to read the echo? When will friction kill the snowman?
Perhaps it WAS just the hand, nails sharp and intimate
Maybe it was the nighttime sigh, a dream left hanging from a lampshade
The sheets crumpled to the floor, the trial at an end, the curtains in the breeze
Was it together then? Or was the hand held previously owned?
I’ve left my breath at the last stop, torn loose at the one before
The ticket is unclear and the directions only indicate the color of the car in which I am to sleep.
God help the conductor.
I hear the busboy has a gun.

Buru

Originally posted by setaside2


another great one, and excellent ending too.

TEXTURED SANITY/fault

Someone put this glitter
In the paint in my ceiling
Little tiny multi-colored
Drops of light
Suspended by an unknown
Chemical compound
Slaves to destiny
They wink in and out
With the power of a light switch
The picture of interstellar fate
“The stars are all burnt out, mommy”
Because of an alternating current
Provided by “Public Service”
I lie here soaked with envy
Too hot to hold
Too distant to grasp
I would turn to conventional imitation
But
I don’t smoke
My flashlight’s dead
And the matches I buy
Don’t have the will to burn bright enough
Though with a breath
The flame there is gone
With the stars in the ceiling
The smiling eyes overhead
There are days and nights
When I feel that I’ve been out and
Away for too long
Overexposed
I miss my roof-beam quarks
Flickering there like firelight
In the fading glare of the television
And a madness seems to seep in
I cover myself
With paint
Glitter
And fake the naked in my eye
I encircle the artistry of downtown
Until arrested
Happy and breathless
Leaving my sideshow in the gutters
With the oilslicked rainwash
To reflect the nature of dawn that day
The tears in my eyes get swept away
By machinery and construction
Lost in the dust and confusion of progress
And I wander my way
Elsewhere
Home perhaps
The lost clown
Mad in the head and out of touch
To the point of distraction
As if perhaps I wasn’t
As if perhaps I could prove otherwise
And I have to face down my fears
The glitter in the ceiling
And I blame it on the hundred or so faces
That stare back at me
And look remarkably like someone I once knew
I flicker like firelight
In the fading residue of the television
And it’s not my fault.

Buru

you definetely have a way with words *sigh*
I like your thoughts

Originally posted by setaside2
BODICE/free

watch it...

when birds flock to destiny the pecking order diminishes to just one.

and when they are full, and they are difficult to satiate, they stand around eyeing the remains of your freedom, suspicious of any sort of movement, awaiting the moment that life may return from it's fleeing flight. You are the bait in this modern world of mechanical sight and where man's imitations of nature are vinyl, polystyrene, and tupperware.

the natural cozy is gone. the lightning captured in a cup. no force greater than the push of the air in a subway tunnel, cannonball ejection the only chance for survival.

and if you hit the moon? what then?

I don't blame you little astronaut, your breath was caught in the troposphere.
These days the whirlwinds and dust devils are obligatory child's play as we rush to draw upon each other for the wisdom to predict whether our weather and which witch is which. I drew, I bled, and my needle, my pencil, they litter the sand.
So careless of me.
I had forgotten to allow for gravity in my life or death equation.
Algebraic love. It's so formal, so dedicated.
One is left to trust the one given solution in a multiple choice arena, nothing but twisted numerics and negatives. God bless the wicked blank page,
the tempation of starting over,
the newest of new car scents and the open road.

It always smells as though someone discovered their soul or somesuch, which really doesn't make sense,
you know, because you find yourself looking down at the odometer and it says like "23 miles."
That car hasn't been anywhere but down the paths of your mind.
But then, the idea sets you off about possibilities, man, the future intrinsic to any new purchase...
Was it the excitement? The adrenaline or pheromone rush of owning something so powerful as even a 4 cylinder? The feeling of "I OWN this country by the THROAT. I'm throttling that bastard." You grip the keys and you are in love for the first time, the skies livid with whatever metaphor you would wish to place upon them, the wind in the hair... these things are so trite, you think, so unoriginal, but who can deny the feeling? Who can deny the pleasure and pain of being self and being human and being in love and just DRIVING THAT FUCKER DOWN THE ROAD not looking back once? It's amazing, the feel of things.
It's the vibration, the jerk, the motion, the rerun, the replay. It's being reborn on a leather dashboard. There is beauty to the speed and an elegance in the way it is nigh impossible to tear your eyes from the sights:
The ribbons! The ticker tape! A homecoming hero on his way to lunch. So ethereal, he practically fades in the backlit dust beyond the garden, if only bending to take in the slight, sweet fragrance of the ever-so-common dandelion. Living was never so enthralling. Liberation never so poignant.
Can you breathe?

Caution, carmine, cinnamon, cimarron...

The birds are moving.

setaside2

Buru:

I was naive when I loved Kate... and that poem was written at the height of my realization of this. And that sentence is just grammatical crap right there LOL...

But yes. I loved her in that storybook contemplative fire sort of way. A part of me, though now very small, still does. It is good to remember passion of that level, no matter how altruistic, because without it we really won't appreciate the moments when we really feel alive amongst those we feel utterly dead.

I would not be the same without Kate, for better or for worse, and she should be remembered for that, if nothing else... but of course there are more reasons than one to remember her by.

Thanks for reading miss buru... i am hoping you enjoy them; it seems that you are.

be well,

seta

setaside2

And isn’t it Autumn so Suddenly…

a cascading lilac lily graces the wave
the earth barren and dug
toes of boots worn thin kick and graze
the feathers of the fallen and flightless dove
all things reach for heaven with one hand
with the gift of self enclosed in another
no more hands left with which to give or grant
no last words to fill the heart of a stranded lover
she lies a silent ghost
a locked and capped chest of dreams once sewn
in this loam parched and ornate and unknown
This air we breathe bonding in it's carriage of a last breath shared by many
Her secrets whispered in scribbled pen, late night vibrations and wavelengths
We hear them now, feel them grow
And only here, at this moment, does it begin to rain
a soft and silent downpour, a celestial flow
This land in such dire need
This sprout dying of thirst spreading petals, a frantic lace
Straining for heaven, now outstretched,
both hands crying and sighing for grace
flitting like dampened butterflies.
The tongued lightning tasting
testing
the stumbling passersby wilted in their pain,
unable to see the ghosts they continuously walk through
So many so alone, these withered faces in a hurricane
The wind begins to howl its passion and its fury
its low pressure kick brings the blossom high above a land now creaking
shaking
eroding in flash flood
and she falls
a gliding lily now upon the wave carried away
a ferocious and unforseen pace
the rest of us sit in silence grouped by nations
breathing the last of her air and wondering upon a soul so far ashore
hoping upon hope that this flood will abate and her color will remain
and among all things that her blossoms may continue to bloom in remembrance
as tall and gazing betwixt the living and heavens we all someday ascertain
hoping she came out of the rain.

sultryevening

people in your life will always be a part of you- no matter what happens or how time passes. this is something im learning.
take care Marc

setaside2

J-
i don't know if I am fortunate or not but that particular realization is one I made when I was very very young, say, 6 years old.

it has stuck with me, for better or for worse, through all this and that and the other.

almost a second enitity in and of its own right. someday we shall see where such tangible sensation may take us.

wishing you and your daughter all the best, sir.


be well.

marc

Being Enlightened

Originally posted by setaside2

EARTH’S SHADOW/debate

Your voice could shatter glass
You’d rage about the room
You’d say
“I’m tired of this black eye
I’m tired of all the shame,”
You’d say:
That you might bend the rules
You might tie the noose
But it would be love.
If it’s clean
If it’s dirty
It’s me
With all this black and white around
The logic and restraint
Fade away…
Your voice could shatter glass
The eclipse fell from the night
You’d say:
“This collar’s a little loose
Too much freedom hurts,”
You’d say
That I can’t let you go
You had dreamed I’d stay
And it would be love.
If it’s clean
If it’s dirty
It’s me
With all this black and white around
The scissors have gone dull
The rope begins to fray…
Your screams they shattered glass
My heart fell to the floor
You said:
“that eclipse last night was mine
I stole it from the sun,”
You said
That the light had made you blind
The fire burned you up
And it had been love.
With all this black and white around
My logic and restraint
Fade away…
My voice:
It shattered glass.

I always was fond of this one. I like that it was supposed to be a song, I think. So, you got to singing yet, there, seta?

"Your screams they shattered glass
My heart fell to the floor
You said:
“that eclipse last night was mine
I stole it from the sun,”
You said
That the light had made you blind
The fire burned you up
And it had been love.
With all this black and white around
My logic and restraint
Fade away…
My voice:
It shattered glass." --- The ending is the best!!!!

And I know I don't always comment on how wonderful your schtuff is seta, but I hope you know in your heart that I love it, because I do, my friend!

tenaciousA

Originally posted by setaside2

And isn’t it Autumn so Suddenly…

and she falls
a gliding lily now upon the wave carried away
a ferocious and unforseen pace
the rest of us sit in silence grouped by nations
breathing the last of her air and wondering upon a soul so far ashore

NOT to dissect and say this or that...

just to say that THIS part really speaks to me, personally....


thank you for writing, setaside2

setaside2

B.E.

I am currently working on a new version of that piece in song. I don't know if it will work but I'm giving it a shot.

thanks for reading all.

i hope it's not too stuffy in here.

seta

FinsburyParkCarrots

It's never stuffy in here. I just like to read this great thread rather than contribute. I enjoy your work immensely, seta. Just thought I'd let you know.

tenaciousA

It is good to remember passion of that level, no matter how altruistic, because without it we really won't appreciate the moments when we really feel alive amongst those we feel utterly dead.

hear here

Buru

words...reasons..truth...lies
"discovery brings questions" sometimes I wonder it it's better not knowing at all...

I loved this piece, just quoted the end because it was quite long

Originally posted by setaside2
okay... another one... and I'll let this lie for a day or so...

words of a man walking slowly past

[...]
Have I lied?

Discovery brings questions. Ask any religious scholar fighting to believe. Or any scientist struggling for proof. And even they must ask:

Have I been lied to?

Truth is a colorful perspective and like those fabled issues of love, happiness, etc… I suspect that adding the word “true”(adj.) to such nouns causes them to become hypothetical gestures; things only attainable by degrees or measured by degrees, much like burning paper (urban fires are also rated by the amount of destruction they cause, as are tornadoes, but that is a whole other ball of wax)......

setaside2

Everytime I read this one I get this vision of a man gesturing in slow motion as we pass each other on the sidewalk at midday. he is repeating this diatribe to himself as I turn to watch him fade on by. In all of these visions the actual scenario is silent and yet I can hear him in my head as if his thoughts were my own and as if I hadn't just borrowed them for a moment or two to put them down.

There have been rumors of this man being Diogenes. I do not think so; it is a good rumor but I don't see myself as one who would run into somebody so ascetic these days. Look at me, I'm surrounded by material b.s. I don't know that he'd approve of my situation whatsoever LOL.

Still... perhaps he would occasionally approve of what I think. LOL Maybe.

"Call no man happy until he is dead." Herodotus.

Buru, I love you dearly for wading your way. Much thanks to you.

I am hoping that the rest of you know my gratitude as well? lol please?

seta

cheesy but I always liked this one:

"story to story, building to building, street to street: we pass each other on the stairs."

Yellow

"Strike me, Antisthenes, but you will never find a stick sufficiently hard to remove me from your presence, while you speak anything worth hearing." - Diogenes

:D:D

setaside2

A sadist and a masochist meet in a park.

The masochist cries, "Beat me! BEAT ME!"

The sadist looks at the masochist and says: "No."


:D:D:D:D

godsdice_nisha

g