there's a part of me
(small, angry, wild, blood thirsty)
that knows for certain
every aspect of hurt
all my illnesses
are the rational response
of rational life
to being put in a cage
told that functioning
within a poorly designed
machine is the goal
to which all life should aspire
i sometimes wonder
if i should let that part out
hand it control while i rest

#Poetry #Writing #MastoPrompt #Chōka
Thanks @tanweerdar for the prompt - function.

i love all the ways
you wrap your arms around me
gull-winged for hopeful
soaring through assorted skies
tree-branched, thickly leaved
for shielding from rain blatter
stone-boned sheltering
from shattered stars skyfalling
fog vague, barely felt
to encourage exploring
skin, muscle, blood, bone
for gasped pleasure grasped from time
paused, hung, never releasing

#Poetry #Writing #MastoPrompt #Chōka
Thanks @tanweerdar for the prompt - confine.

with crystals, gems, rocks
there are known planes of weakness
(serious people
have studied this in some depth)
not so human minds
which, lacking standard structures
react uniquely
when force is applied to them
(serious people
have studied this in some depth)
learn kindness, concern
how to break a fall gently
learn to listen hard
learn to speak less, and softly
unless you're a dick
if so, i suggest learning
to take a punch in the throat

#Poetry #Writing #MastoPrompt #Chōka
Ta @tanweerdar flawed

"it's like baking bread"
said the young salesman
(he didn't know he was in sales
he thought he was a true believer)
"accept how it is and become
one with the loaf"

i reconciled myself to the fact
that he was a moron
defeated him in single combat
ate his innards with a spoon
washed the grey mold
from his skull
lit a candle within
to light my way
towards balance

#Poetry #Writing #MastoPrompt #Chōka
Thanks @tanweerdar for the prompt - reconcile.

listen, hear them howl
bloody-jowled jowly no marks
trained to hunt their prey
by soft men with soft bodies
turning tricks for cash
like mangy beaten curs beg scraps
their baying for blood
in their decrepit dog house
a symptom, perhaps
their proud unearned certainty
as dangerous as rabies

#Poetry #Writing #MastoPrompt #Chōka
Thanks @tanweerdar for the prompt - bay.

each word is a step
take a breath at each line end
build slowly, ascend
dragging ev'rything behind
in case I might need
some sharp-edged echo of loss
to shave a thought clean
or blunt-force recollection
to bludgeon phrases
crest the peak, inhale the view
free the ill-knit beast
to fly, or fall, as fitting
pause, watch a moment
before collapsing again
let the valley's grip
haul me bodily down slopes
thornbush thick, to start over

#Poetry #Writing #MastoPrompt #Chōka
Thanks @tanweerdar - valley.

I dreamt cold stone halls
lined with pictures of items
returned to places
my ancestors took them from,
where careful essays
told each tale of robbery
the cost in blood, bones
or money earned from murder
or brute enslavement
and cultures left less culture
than they created
and I stood silent, humbled
by their achievements
mourning their loss, learning truth
however little and late

#Poetry #Writing #MastoPrompt #Chōka
Thanks @tanweerdar for the prompt - museum.

screeching cat dog things
mangy yellowed hunger bombs
gang-swaggering mob
owning the territory
disdained, mocked, outcast
metaphors for weaknesses
in humanity
because of humanity's
weakness for judging
the surfaces of the world
as if they spoke truth
claiming beauty as moral
and difference as evil

#Poetry #Writing #MastoPrompt #Chōka
Thanks @tanweerdar for the prompt - hyena.

I lost my focus
sacrificed my momentum
to necessity
the grubby need for money
food on the table
power in the wall sockets
a roof against rain
I spent myself on travel
and meetings and shit
I couldn't care less about
aside from the cash
cold and hard, oddly massive
heavy gravitys
spiralling to contain me
as if by design
exhausting my thinking self
to leave the animal, mute

#Poetry #Writing #MastoPrompt #Chōka #vss365 prompt - 6th June - chronicler.

the trophy display
tells you this is somebody
displaying trophies
you could assume many things
about this person -
that they're successful, needy,
competitive, lost
in glories polished weekly
but far in the past,
or that these are literal
trophies from victims -
knowledge isn't that simple
it's not a medal
a single reward, a truth
limited and solid
but a prize far more subtle,
requiring endless tending

#Poetry #Writing #MastoPrompt #Chōka #vss365 prompt - 4th June - prize.

sort of lose myself
this many-bodied body
edges amorphous
terror of forced consensus
it should be easy
but sinking makes for panic
how will I betray
that I'm not like the others
put my game face on
get swept along concourses
I don't need to tread
but go along with the flow
for some human warmth
and the brief sense of safe loss
of control, of self, of pain

#Poetry #Writing #MastoPrompt #Chōka #vss365 prompt - 2nd June - crowd.

kneeling in the grit
stones once part of river beds
or bundled down hills
by fast flooding mountain streams
or crushed by giants
of steely oiled horsepower
sieved, sorted and sacked
categorised for commerce
your fist brings me back
to our own playground quarry
we grind each other
tiny and dull and broken
and socialised to be small

#Poetry #Writing #MastoPrompt #Chōka
Thanks @tanweerdar for the prompt - gravel.

a celebration
of humanity's richness
and complexity
I love it, though I'd prefer
to live in a world
where it's not necessary
for anybody
to fight every second
to freely draw their next breath

#Poetry #Writing #MastoPrompt #Chōka
Thanks @tanweerdar for the prompt - pride.

certain tastes, scents, sounds
or fingertip sensations
throw me back through time
Marcel got a monument
of finely spun words
out of something similar
but I get shivers,
chills, nausea and muscle cramps
that rising panic
the dread you bestowed on me
mixed with my need to please you

#Poetry #Writing #MastoPrompt #Chōka #vss365 prompt - 1st June - bittersweet.

slipped my beating heart
in the pocket of your jeans
"romantic," you said,
"bloody, messy, now you're dead"
we mooched towards brunch
mocking love's body horrors

"I miss cigarettes -
not nicotine - just that weird
first drag bullet-time
I miss all the rituals
that slowed the world down
when we were younger and dumb"

older, dumb, we rest
often, so you can, silent,
wrestle through each wave of pain

#Poetry #Writing #MastoPrompt #Chōka #vss365 prompt - 31st May - amble.

hamster in her wheel
dumb metaphor in motion
my futility
externalised too neatly

what freedoms in dreams
sketched while playfully moving
might she be living?

while I, free, but her warden
choose her plastic toys
to dream my situation
volunteering for stasis

#Poetry #Writing #MastoPrompt #Chōka #vss365 prompt - 30th May - scurry.

tree branches swaying
breeze-stroked pale willow waving
swimming in sunlight
and there's bend enough and flex
enough for dancing
if you want to call it that
once you moved that way
and everyone who watched smiled
which was your intent
unlike, perhaps, trees aswim
in billows of air
what do I know about trees,
or air, or their dreams
I just miss watching you, free
moving without agony

#Poetry #Writing #MastoPrompt #Chōka #vss365 prompt - 27th May - lissome.

Medusa's serpents
symbiosis, mutation
powerful, true, but
(because there's always a 'but'
for our heroines)
imagine not knowing love,
making boyfriends hard
though not for mutual joy
chilling girlfriends' hearts
with your soft-eyed flirting glance
until that bastard
Perseus, god-spawned dullard
stole Medusa's strength
her rare beauty, for his own
made her his weapon
for subjugating others
at the cost of her own life

#Poetry #Writing #MastoPrompt #Chōka
Thanks @tanweerdar for prompt - writhing.

Adam fell walking
following Eve or Steve or
Stan the serpent man -
he of the seductive tones,
former choirmaster
to the old heavenly host -
but, if truth be told
it was that sick old horndog
who groped an apple-
assed fellow hiker's assets
she slapped him, of course
no harder than he deserved
he overbalanced
rolled to the foot of the slope
to rest broken-necked
half-buried in tumbled scree
"for Lilith" the hiker said

#Poetry #Writing #MastoPrompt #Chōka #vss365 prompt - 26th May - fell.

they come at you hard
if you won't limit yourself
they come with weapons
handed down by broken men
who knew no better
they blunt-force, traumatise you
destroy you, leave you
numb to ev'rything, perhaps
aside from anger
which remains mandatory
for all manly men
if you're lucky they'll leave some
of your true, whole, self
if your luck holds you might meet
someone who'll free that true self

#Poetry #Writing #MastoPrompt #Chōka
Thanks @tanweerdar for the prompt - helpless.