I Rant

My mind weaves a spell,
like a witch it bitches
to the moon, whom, 
doesn't know my reasons
or my powers, in towers
my placid maidens wait in 
rooms that have no key,
the light of day, I say,
cannot escape, it's late
and I am in no mood
to tell you why, I sigh,
for a moment I relent
questioning your worth,
weighing mine, wasting time,
melting candle wax, can't relax,
so in my loudest voice
I madly chant, ok I rant,
but your eyes realize
the elemental fire I vent
is emotion cast, when at last
the light flickers, quick words
sputter, the flame dies,
in darkness comes the rest. 

Mach B 2021

Kitten-zilla

After destroying Tokyo
with your electric breath
you stomped the ground defiantly
and claimed to be Godzilla.
Most everyone ran away 
out of sync with their screams
but I stood my ground
stared you down through
your rept-alien eyes
and inside... Inside I saw
a soft furry kitten that purrs
when scratched behind its ear.
All I wanted was to cuddle you
and protect you from harm. 
It was then I saw your clawed foot
coming down from above.

© 2014 Mach B

A poem’s life

But seriously a poem has a life
like a man through his span
there's a start, some verse, then an end.

But it is born from a seed, not an egg
and a sperm, watch it squirm
from its start, it breaks its casing.

Interlacing words that arise like vines
sometimes quick into sticks
sometimes stones when the poet's mad.

And then an innocent child might play
like it knows where it goes,
instead it becomes an adult.

That is when it tries to find its meaning
which may hide, closed inside,
or is displayed proudly each line.

Then later in its life, when it gets old
it may tire, no more fire
in its belly, but not its soul.

At the end, it's more than ready to go
it lays down on some noun,
a last word that leaves it in peace.

**From a completed poetry challenge in 2012. The topic is...

© 2012 Mach B

Dark Magenta

The world stops like a film frame
when I look in your dark magenta eyes
in the sky at night, all its purple
stolen from the stars by seagulls
who make the wind do their bidding
I look deep into your eyes so dark
where colours dance on flames of light
in the sky at night where stolen purple
rises from the sea to fill the gaps
between the clouds that could be used
as jewels by native Americans
before they knew they were indigenous
when they  loved the land that
rises from the sea to mountains made
of snow white snow or are they clouds
before they're tooled by trickster seagulls
who bid the wind to take them up
to summits unreachable as naked men
then again, in your dark magenta eyes
anything is possible.

**From a completed poetry challenge in 2012. The topic is colours.

© 2012 Mach B

Worry/Calm

Crinkles on my forehead
waves on a sea of skin
signs of tubulence
below the surface

An electrical storm
measured by neuroreceptors
gates to each possibility
open and flooding

Churn from beneath
as bubbly acid attempts
to forcefully escape from
its organic prison

And the eye stares
blindly calm, ignorant
of the clouded wall it's about
to slam into.

**From a completed poetry challenge in 2012. The topic is an emotion and it's opposite.

© 2012 Mach B

period

period

and the new sentence begins
to ramble on and then off we
go to find the meaning of a
world I knew when I was told
to watch the signs I wasn't
older than a child under
covers huddled in the night
afraid of the light, the flame,
the candle burning for the dead
instead I searched for that
reason, another lonely person
who you are on a good day I
say is who they aren't on
bad days when they rant and
shout out an exclamation

point

**From a completed poetry challenge in 2012. The topic is academic words.

© 2012 Mach B

Volcano

Hard emotions
subjected to your stresses
fracture and then melt.

The magma of my mind
churns under pressure
searching for that weak spot.

When my mouth opens
it spews, pyroclastic --
scalding hot words.

But don't worry,
they'll cool to igneous rocks
before they hit you.

**From a completed poetry challenge in 2012. The topic is trending words.

© 2012 Mach B

Presentiment

I run away
when it does seek me out
the mere sound of its voice
I go astray
at the nags of self-doubt
there's never any choice
there's just this wall
that's far too high to climb
which I could never scale
ever, at all
even with all of time
I'd still find I would fail
that's why I run
and that's why I tremble
it's the reason I stress
but once begun
it's painful to dispel
impossible unless
I run away

**From an interrupted poetry challenge in 2011. The topic is fear.

© 2011 Mach B

Subtext

I pretend I'm making sense
to see if you are listening

You pretend to recognize
the nonsense I am saying

And though we're both pretending
underneath our ruse we see

our words can convey nothing
and yet do so meaningfully

**From an interrupted poetry challenge in 2011. The topic is understanding.

© 2011 Mach B

Day 8 – Fast and Slow

There was a man
who both was there
and was not there
not anywhere
both fast and slow
was how he'd go
and maybe he
did disagree
don't you agree
he shouldn't be
while nothing
is necessity
for everything
is just one thing
in myriad
when you are sad
so low, half-assed  
you couldn't care
but please beware
of any dog
that might meow
could be a cow
but in disguise
you may just spy
it in his eye
and not believe
it anyway
cause every day
is being seized
by someone else
who truly sees
the truth behind
our noble lies
but how time flies
when everything
begins ending.   

© 2009 Mach B

Day 6 – Self-deceit

Defects lie, all of iced fleets
to select Ed if the edicts flee,
those feces tiled in sliced feet,
disorganized from self-deceit.

© 2009 Mach B

Prelude – Two weeks of poetry challenge.

On one site I frequent someone decided to start a two week poetry challenge.  One poem a day based on a daily theme for two weeks.  These are my results.  And this is a prelude.

We haven't even started yet
                            we have started
                        but 
                     gold shines unevenly
        those in heaven have abundance
  while those in hell just have fun.

                     we write
                        wrong though it may be
because we have to fill the empty bloody spaces with useless words
             that balance evenly from the stars
                           while above we stare at the past,
                            here below 
                             we laugh.

© 2009 Mach B

Human Songs

You
understand that
which I am
what I've said is
to usher audience
first row center
me or they
watch
with wandering eyes
right up left down
two seats
bound
gagging
my every word
drips over lips
hanging
falling
over shirt
over shoes
dusty with past accomplishments
stuttering
logic problems
made as I go
as we do
in tangible worlds
in tangible words
I sing human songs
I sing human songs
to you

© 1998 Mach B

Regular Expressions

Orange cathartic, greenish mitosis,
elect-rho-chemical alluvial deposits
melting in twilight on wings of alarm clocks.

Imploding Gregorian heroic chromosomes,
eroding circular violet rathskellers 
reading the clouds about earth's holy daemon.
 
Pitiless innovative rabble inductors,
carefully careless chaos controllers
flowing near moonscapes whence arachnids dream.   
 
Reciprocal nightmares expressing halogens,
technical ultra-patristic realisms
bleeding their prayers to monolithic butterflies.

© 1998 Mach B

Air

None is all
and all is none
and one and one are two
and you and me are we
and when it strikes
is when i like
and when is then
and who i am is you
and me and number three
are five and six
and seven men
set out again
to find our way to heaven
and what we found
is not around
and where its gone
is underground
and how is not the question
when why
what we know
where and how
is not the answer
but in err
the air inside us
is.

© 1998 Mach B 

Bare Trees

Anyone says that anyone is when
anything can do anything though
nothing is always nothing unless
somebody loves somebody, but sometimes
nobody knows and nobody cares what
everyone thinks of everyone.

I once thought that now I think
otherwise I am, not what I seem
to be saying but what I am saying
when I say it through me; can you
see through me? Am I through? Are
you through with me? I see you.

Not that!..

anyone cares what anyone is when
everything, and I mean everything,
everybody does for everybody is because
someone is watching someone else. Why?
Some things are better left as something or
nothing is the only thing
anybody gets.
 
© 1998 Mach B

Her Shower Song (Tango)

Remembrance of a youth,
past the sandboxes of time,
past the plastic soldier’s dance,
past the dolls that that spoke in rhyme.
Past the wetting of my pants,

 
I just know there was an age,
where I didn't know an I,
where I didn't know a you.
Where I didn't need ask why.
Where I didn't feel so blue,

 
unless there was reason,
such as diapers that were soiled,
such as feedings over due,
such as food that tasted spoiled.
Such as when I wanted you,

 
and I feel that way again,
even though I'm very old,
even though you might not care,
even though the night is cold,
even though you’re never here,

to revive the dying fire.

© 2009 Mach B

starting and ending seriously

seriously said
serially said
serially sad
surreally sad
sad cereal
send cereal
send serially
send seriously
end seriously

© 1998 Mach B

Auckland

Silver kiwi perched high above the pastel skyline
with hope that it may be noticed from distant shores,
a night blue needle piercing the southern cross in
the starry sky for no reason but to attract the crowds to
the clouds, form a queue to fall to the top on the bottom
of the earth; gravity reversed. Subject to the queen
the citizenry conforms to a nation, hiding their
Polynesian influences in dark corners, sticking out
their tongues in a confrontational greeting, trying
to find identity in a bird whose sole purpose in life
is excretion. City built on seven volcanoes, a wannabe
Rome, awaits its fall into two, sail covered, azure bays.

© 1998 Mach B

Samui

What and why do not mean what we think they mean
on the island of "Good Coconuts",
watch them grow and become one with us.
Hail God of the coconuts planted above
we will not eat you while we live beneath you for fear of concussions.

Green-orange, blossoms drip lemon drops into the sea
against the ever-never-changing shore,
met by the emerald combed-mashed potatoes
holding long conversations with the clouds
in a sky where turquoise rendezvous with emerald at the lost horizon.

Giant butterflies sing silent songs to the breeze
kissing scented flowers, so rare that few know their names,
at night we know they hear our whispers
because they play Beethoven at breakfast in the morning
while watching people pay to ride the big yellow banana,
just so they can get off quickly.

Big golden Buddha trickster serving me lovely inedible desserts,
Can I ride the big yellow banana now?

© 1996 Mach B