Poetry Pantry

Pariah

/ Just Barry / 11 Comments

Pariah

As an artist, he spins artistry – I wholeheartedly admire
But lustful seed; malicious need, delicious greed fueling his fire
Misdeeds come to light and overnight, his blights birth a pariah

Setting his art apart in heart makes me Descartes to his pariah
His harmful slips trumps craftsmanship, ripping all I admire
Provoked folks were broken on his yoke, and where there’s smoke there’s fire

Using muses won’t excuse abuse; can’t recuse flair from our fire
Through introspection, we selectively reject the learned pariah
Yet we learned the life-affirmed abuse of the abuser I admired

This known pariah grown from man’s own fire of cruelty, I admire
***

Written for imaginary garden with real toads Fussy Little Forms: Tritina. This is my second attempt at this tritina form.

Also shared on Poetry Pantry #424.

Background: There is a gifted poet who I admired and wanted to emulate a great deal. I won’t mention his name here, but some of you may be familiar with his work. He basically came from nowhere, grew up in squalor, as his people were oppressed and all-but-erased by the US government. He was physically abused as a child. But he eventually fell in love with language, pulled himself up, and rose to prominence as one of America’s dynamic new literary voices.

But tragically, he then used his newfound influence to sexually harass aspiring writers looking to him for mentorship. Obviously, my heart goes out to the women he victimized. Also, I feel like a fool for admiring him in the first place, and in some small measure, for still admiring him today.

I’ve been grappling with this for several months now. His actions were abhorrent and unacceptable. But I also cannot ignore the abhorrent conditions that birthed and probably informed his actions. Hurt people hurt people. Should this man be erased for happening to others? And what of the others who happened to him when he was a young innocent child?

I don’t have the answers, but I just feel sick about the whole damn thing.

Equanimity at Equinox

/ Just Barry / 8 Comments
erico-marcelino-235160-unsplash

Photo by Erico Marcelino on Unsplash

Equanimity at Equinox

Guided by an autumn chance near-exchange
They both felt compelled to crane their necks back.
Backtracking, their gaze raised swift interchange.

Faster than light flew unspoken feedback.
Wordless vibe flowed as they knew they should know.
Even so, their paths diverged from sidetrack.

Though they lacked the knack to drink in the flow
She craved his sunrise, he thirsts for her past;
Their passing repast teased as afterglow.

The smile they shared, brief, yet spirits were vast;
Lifetimes compressed to one heartbeat phase-change.
They blushed with the fall, two leaves falling fast.

Their outlier fancy the mean dubbed strange
Guided by an autumn chance near-exchange.
***

Shared to Poetry Pantry #422.

Longest Night Yields to Wolf Moon

/ Just Barry / 9 Comments
earth and moon

Image source: https://science.nasa.gov/

Longest Night Yields to Wolf Moon

Knowledge,

for a time,

lagged behind us

on the longest night

when we would celebrate,

sacrifice animals,

indulge in wine, feast,

and flesh, ignorant of the science,

the moon’s tidal-shifting dance,

stabilizing the magical tilted trance

that allows for being,

for celebration, sacrifice,

indulgence, feasting, and

blissful ignorance.

 

Knowledge,

through exploration,

measurement, and study,

having long ago cast aside sheep skins and

rosy veils of ignorance,

reveal the illusion of

Sol’s seasonal retreats and returns,

our angles, no longer dangled,

steeped in superstition and myth,

but no less necessary for our

existence, and thus,

still worthy of celebration,

sacrifice, indulgence, feasting,

and heavenly knowledge.

 

And yet!

Knowledge continues

to reveal new truths,

unlocking doorways to cosmic realities;

the longest night, the redundant,

recurring, cyclical cycle of ending,

beginning, rendered trivial,

infinitesimal against infinite

intergalactic backdrops.

 

Knowledge stands before me

in this January doorway,

rendering me insignificant,

raising the curtain on liberation,

beckoning me to wonder at

what has yet to be unlocked.

I will feast upon her

in a drunken stupor,

all the while, a wizened man

howling at the new year’s Old Moon.

aaron-thomas-201016

Photo by Aaron Thomas on Unsplash

** *

(Mild nudity in video. Mildly NSFW.)

Written and shared for the prompt, Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Doorway(s), posted by Susan. Feel free to stop by and read other poet’s entry to this prompt

January is my birth month, which hasn’t held much significance in my life in quite some time. Susan shared some intriguing knowledge on January’s origin that compelled me to take another look at it. Per her entry:

“Door” is also the deepest root meaning of January:

 January (in Latin, Ianuarius) is named after the Latin word for door (ianua), since January is the door to the year and an opening to new beginnings. The month is conventionally thought of as being named after Janus, the god of beginnings and transitions in Roman mythology, but according to ancient Roman farmers’ almanacs Juno was the tutelary deity of the month.

Pretty neat stuff! How could I not break the seal on 2018 and scribble a few lines after that?

 

Ode to Good Senses

/ Just Barry / 23 Comments
yoann-boyer-185507

Photo by Yoann Boyer on Unsplash

Ode to Good Senses

I have the greatest nose I know

I can detect strawberry,

Spiced cinnamon

And encapsulating earth-tones

Of her presence

 

My ears are tremendous acoustically

Bringing me songs of her laughter

Cocooning me in the

Comforting confines

Of her cooing voice,

Granting warm pathways to her

Innermost ideas

The percussive reassurance of her

Light snoring, like raindrops

Shushing the roof above us

 

These astonishing eyes of mine

Take in the angles of her smile

At angles where gods and goddess

Are perceived, but pale in comparison

To the sight of her in flannel pajamas

Doubled-over, compressed

Tickled, in-spite of herself

By our silly whimsy

 

My body is buoyed by

A buffet of sensation

Of touching and tenderness

Of her connection

We cuddle and exalt

Life with definition

We touch and connect

And flush as cells rush

We infuse and blend

Molecules, use, renew

Our fire, chemically tuned

To our new, sacred element

We touch and forge,

We kiss, and sparks tell

We embrace, and I face the folly

Of oneness within our absurd bliss

 

I taste supernovas

Of past lives

On her lips,

Elemental fire-quenched eclipse

Craving her flavor rewrites code and creed

I drink her in abundance; she is

More than I needed and never enough

 

But there is something more

Within her, beyond perception

Greater than inhaling her presence

More tremendous than her vibrations

Transcending her astonishing spectrum

More buoyant than her touch

Beyond infinity of her taste

 

I cannot smell, hear, see, feel, or taste it

But I know it to be the purest form of her

As great as my fine senses are

I am grateful to find

Something greater in her.

** *

Written for Wifey, on her birthday on November 12.

Shared at Poets United, Poetry Pantry #378.

 

 

My Ghost, No Longer at This Address

/ Just Barry / 29 Comments
20171028_185244

My doorway.

My Ghost, No Longer at This Address

Upon my untimely death,

a chaotic redundancy

as death is untimely

 

except suicide,

which I don’t currently abide,

but that’s another vibe…

 

I request my epitaph be

“Life was often confusing,

difficult, and demoralizing,

but I laughed a lot,

so maybe it wasn’t all bad.”

 

Verbose, yes; feel free

to edit before placing

on headstone, or urn.

 

I have no preference

on my corpse’s disposal.

If I’m right, it is

only an empty shell anyway,

 

as sturdy abandoned houses

that once hosted countless

Christmas dinners

are no longer homes.

 

The phenomenon

or mechanism of me

is long gone from here.

** *

Written for imaginary garden with real toads FASHION ME YOUR WORDS ~ Lets build houses. Also shared at Poets United’s Poetry Pantry #377.

As we’re close to Halloween – widely regarded as the point where the threshold between the living and the dead is at its weakest – I found myself thinking less of home building, and more of ghosts, including my own, leaving their bodies (their homes for the duration of their lives) for the first time.

 

But Much More Than That

/ Just Barry / 16 Comments
frank-cordoba-387751

Photo by frank cordoba on Unsplash

But Much More Than That

Red-shifted light is

moving away from us at

unimaginable speeds.

 

Nature’s senescence

will overtake us before

we could conjure a method

of overcoming physics.

 

Red hue of dim light

surrounds us now, painting your

rosy silhouette kneeling

upon tangled plum bedsheets,

 

facing away from

me, preening your neck to peer

my darkness, closing behind

you, smiling coyly with

 

licentious lips that

I imagine must taste of

bourbon and fizzy ginger,

its bubbles catching a faint

 

gleam in your eyes as

I fall into you, and I’m

overwhelmed by a vision

of blue ocean lapping at

 

your sun-kissed skin as

you serenely swim away

from my anchored boat moored at

the edge of my comfort-zone

 

I page through my book,

pretending not to obsess

over your safety as you

let currents increase distance,

 

peeking over your

shoulder, confirming I’d be

there, right where you left me, no

longer in the red. You are

 

to the left of me

and my teasing left you with

the impression that I had

forgotten your name.

 

You tsk me for it

from behind wine lips and we

collapse in rose-hued laughter.

***

Shared at Poets United Poetry Pantry # 376

Warming the Kiln

/ Just Barry / 7 Comments
jonathan-chen-199962

Image source: Unsplash.com

Warming the Kiln

alchemy

elements of strife

calm to see

commonly

coalescing in proto-life

nexus calls to me

 

majesty

warming up the kiln

warning me

patiently

of fires burning within

scorching all i see

 

drowning me

in fires of righteous

grounding me

profoundly

bring clairvoyance to sightless

as we crowd to see

 

pulsing plea

compressing plasma

fusing free

flame of sea

igniting molten magma

the blacksmith emcee

** *

(Warning: Video contains strong NSFW language.)

 

Written in anticipation of one of my favorite hip-hop artist’s pending new album, rumored to drop on April 7th. Kendrick Lamar currently holds the title as the greatest rapper living, and he recently released a single that hints at what’s to come very soon. You might say that I’m a bit excited for it.

 

 

Hazy Sanctuary

/ Just Barry / 16 Comments
tumblr_olrcnyGqBr1szm930o1_1280

Image source: Colour My World

Hazy Sanctuary

Sheltered within the embrace of gentle mist,

climbing the thickest, soft mossy bough,

thinning amongst higher branches,

lost among fractured paisley pink blossoms,

I am born, a balmy parting from swollen bud,

among a cosmos of bursting buds.

 

I am born a specter, breathing ethereal dew,

fated to travel the world

perpetually displaced from it,

questing for my place in the cosmos,

infinitesimal in my insignificance, yet unique

in beauty as the double-helixed molecular barcode.

 

I am born, sheltered within nursery of thought

on reprieve from long winters of barren greys

where the mist bubbles, yielding space to sprinkle

light touches of pastel ideas that dare to open,

revealing flowering layers of imagination

efflorescence in portrait form.

 

I am born in whispers, neck craning to reach

higher in muted sky, patiently smiling

through the blended fragrance of renewal,

with birdsongs reminding me that it is OK

to raise my head and breathe.