Category: Abuse

A Poet

Hello Phillip!

It is my pleasure to greet you once again here on my blog. Thank you for agreeing to share your self with me and others!

Phillip and I met on FB as fellow poets. When Phillip writes he absolutely sets the poetry bar higher and one becomes deeply connected through emotionally charged thoughts within his poetic words. There are times, Phillip, I have to switch my energies in order to read your words, to get onto your stratus, and to understand and know what (I think 🤔) you’re thinking or saying. You always say, “wonderful…” etc, etc, etc… Phillip is always pleasant and polite and never has a negative comment for anyone that I know of.

Phillip has given me permission to post his bio and three poems.

So here goes… let’s go down and onto Phillips road and into his heart.

Phillip:

What did I get in life?

My curriculum vitae–the early years–includes being adopted at 2 months old and an ample helping of sexual abuse by the time I was 6 years of age followed by swiftly being informed I wasn’t my parent’s biological child at the ripe age of seven. I could divulge further but at the risk of audience boredom. Mostly I think writing kept me from becoming a full blown criminal who invariably would’ve been imprisoned if I hadn’t discovered my lust for language.

How I first began writing?

I’ve a fetishist’s bent that announced itself early in my life. Around 8 years old I became intrigued by a beer stein on my father’s work-desk stuffed with all kinds of pens. One in particular made from a faux bronze metal especially fascinated me and so I proceeded to steal it and eventually use it. Feeling its heft in my hand compelled me I suppose to do my best to write something important and meaningful. Not sure if I’ve accomplished this goal yet but I keep trying with the same fervor as I did then which makes for roughly 37 years worth of enjoyable effort.

🍂

Apology for a degree in the 

fine arts and belles-lettres: 

Silence 

my mother 

split by an opened mouth: 

words, phrases–a kiss 

sharing the commonality 

of tongues sheathed 

or brandished. 

Propagations whose demise 

comes softly, patient antithesis, 

a minotaur embedded in eventualities. 

Voice of flesh still warm to be 

buried beneath recitals 

of a sabbath night. 

Leave my first floor windows ajar 

near the poor-district thoroughfares. 

Footstep-measures of daily commerce. 

Sounds (zounds!) from distant train horns 

steadily through the rustic-dark elsewhere. 

Vigilant yet nearly four decades hence 

I await one undisclosed who taught rape 

disguised by games wearing pliant innocence 

denied with an adult’s diplomatic irreverence. 

Criminal hopes his thievery will again arrive

a captive this time to my incisive harangue 

on murder emboldened with works cited 

and thesis trenchant as a blood-slick knife. 

PMR

🍂

What drives me?

A drug-like addiction to beauty no matter the medium or genre. When I sense this quality or aspect, feel it in some way coursing through my nervous system, it’s similar to being drawn toward a gorgeous woman but easier because I don’t have to woo a painting or piece of music. In fact, I don’t even have to be clever or interesting and I’m allowed to openly ogle without societal standards booing me for being so demonstrative in my displays of bad behavior.

Unexpurgated etymology of Logos: 

Everyone bears a residual taste 

disgorged out of the first scream. 

Womb-blossoms, saline wounds 

spilled from kisses 

forged in feminine depths

where fires weep and hiss. 

Prayers and impious poems met

like plump lips… mandalas cradled 

between serpentine thighs. 

The subconscious ripened by unplucked urges 

and their near-impossible sublimations. 

Sweat upon globed fruit

feigning dew… 

Mendicants pricked upon thunderous soles. 

Jagged stones cast against a nervous 

system awakened along the glans, 

ablaze-warmed maternal areolas 

lighting one’s way toward 

suckled-dawn 

succor.  

Words preferably encountered with a calm 

eased across limpid waters rippled 

by a single breath. 

Awaiting the response that requires a lifetime. 

PMR

🍂

The other notable thing to mention is I tend to get naturally high when I write. Something about the process opens certain neural pathways that light up my synapses when I scribble and spill ink across the pages.

Six unfinished fragments in search of a poet: 

“Life is full of strange absurdities, which, strangely enough, 

do not even need to appear plausible, since they are true.” 

–Luigi Pirandello 

1.  Wield a blade that winnows 

vanity from inspiration. 

(Bookish youth spent unsupervised 

in the bloodshed depths of the bible 

revealing choice temptations.) 

2. Certain abuses teach 

about inhuman endurance. 

Trauma so severe it forges

thought and flesh 

into one 

quintessence. 

3. A voice tempered by the sun 

speaks brilliance… 

4. Severed egos die 

more quietly than hushed orgasms 

opened beneath the ribald night. 

5. Only so many different diagnosis 

within the cacophonous walls once 

referred to as an asylum… 

So many more strolling freely 

beyond these barred windows 

starless and gap-jawed. 

6. Crystalline body of water outstretched 

undisturbed under downy billows 

mirrored at the midpoint horizon. 

Narcissus dreams before he drowns. 

PMR

🍂

What did I get in life? 

my answer to Phillip: the ability to write like non other. You sir are gifted.

🍂

Phillips last poem and I added late after reading it on his FB site. So, I asked permission to use it as well. Smiles… my favorite Phillip.

🍂

Key themes for a grant in the arts:

Modernity went another direction

my steadfast idleness.

“Path” and other synonyms

for way or route lack denotations

where self never arrives

post-schism.

Alters, personae crowding persona

disguise themselves as burlesque aliases–

they’re rapt quixotic

by a circumcised sun

hung larger than Milton’s

“ponderous shield” trapped

easily in a tramp-sized

parallax compact.

Center stage

(casual motions indicative

of someone who does this routinely):

cheeks brushed sluttishly red to honor

the drag queen, Hester Prynne.

(A for autoerotic gallows–tiny ruses

become necessarily un-tucked upon

the hangman’s scaffold, the deadman’s

last authentic signature…)

Ruins that follow Zeitgeist foreplay.

The bearded gurus

slum street bulletin boards

plagiarized self-help shelves

and nudie mag 900 numbers:

all different circumferences

with the same redundant ratio,

the sangfroid vicious

cycles repeated like cliches,

history and fruitful propagation.

Vivisect the shy reflection.

Autopsy ego

fondled by a listeless id.

Etiquette of the postmortem cigarette

cited from Tropes to Tropism

of the Dawn-Embraced

Male Groin.

“Even night doesn’t want you”

the proposed vanity-press expose

that tentatively, will uncover joyous

impotence in this proposed memoir.

PMR

🍂

Oh Phillip ~ thank you for your gift of writing poetry. We understand the horrible childhood you had and am so sorry for your tragic youthful experiences. There are no words to express the sadness that you endured. It makes us realize that right now there are other children going through similar situations. May God stop all the horrible losses.

Thank you for your gifts.

It’s a pleasure to have had you once again on my WordPress blog.

Thank you so much.

Hugs to you!

BoJenn