title

By Cacaphony, date

poem

notes

Untitled

By Cacaphony, July 22nd, 2024

Sometimes, lying awake at night,
You're overcome with emotion.
An intractable mix of love and loss
Blended like paint on a canvas
Where the shadows and highlights dance
Together in intricate choreography
That surges like Midwest rainfall
Soaking into your bones in seconds
Before leaving you staring up at the stars,
Water running down your face like tears.

I was reading an analysis of elaboration in late 20th century English poetry recently and I think the influence of it is fairly visible in this one. It's kind of a messy vomit of ideas but it's a cool foray into a little bit more a traditional style of poetry where it flows between ideas freely and the themes comes out a little less explicitly.

Waiting Room

By Cacaphony, May 20th, 2024

I slump in the waiting room chair
Hard plastic digging into my side

A man sits two seats down from me
Fiddling with his wife's ring
The doctors say his heart is broken

I feel relief in the waiting room chair
Because I think that can't happen to me

Something a little bit different, a little bit new. Not my usual style, but it's interesting to try and branch out with new stuff. Been reading some stuff by a more contemporary poet (J Peter Moore) and I tried to bring a little bit of that style into this. I don't think it's particularly good, but overall I don't many issues with it. It also continues to explore some of the themes surrounding love that I've always wanted to dive deeper into but haven't made their way into my poetry too much. I particularly like the ambiguity of the last line.

Love

By Cacaphony, February 14th, 2024

If you look up the entry for Love in the phonebook,
It'll tell you that Love is found
In the soft embrace of a romantic couple:
It's they that it calls Lovers.

Now that is not strictly wrong, of course.
Love is absolutely found there sometimes;
In the kiss of two boys standing in the rain
Or hug between a woman and her partner.

But while many people look for Love there
And do not find it,
Others never even glance there
And they find it regardless.

In the soft smile from a friend
Who knows you completely
Or the kind woman who stops
To help the young man with his first pair of earrings.

It's found over dinners with your family,
Be they given or found;
Or late nights with friends,
Playing games and chatting.

Love finds us all in the end.
Sometimes in the place we're told it will,
And just often elsewhere.
But Love finds us all the same.

Polished up this poem I first posted a few months ago. It's still a little bit rough here and there, but overall it's far more finished. I think it's to the point where it would take a complete rewrite to make it stronger, but overall I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. Like I said with the first draft, it's a very personal poem to me, so I might find myself drawn back to it at some point, but I think I'm finished with it for now. - C, ToP

Graveyard of My Lives

By Cacaphony, January 4th, 2024

Each day I walk through a graveyard,
Filled with my lives that I will lose.
Each time I'll die to carve
  My life
  My headstone
    From the future.
I mourn the countless lives I'll never live;
The thousand roads that I won't take,
The thousand choices I won't make.

Not really sure I like how the flow in this turned out. It does play with spacing and layout a little bit, which is something I haven't done very often in my poetry, but want to try doing a little bit more. - C, ToP

To Take

By Cacaphony, circa December 2023

They'll tell you that humanity only knows how to take,
To take until there is nothing left;
And then keep takin.
Never once giving back.

This may be true.
But do not have the arrogance to believe
That we came up with this idea ourselves.
But from where then did we learn it?

We learned it from the Earth.
The seas and skies,
The rocks and the dirt
That reclaim everything.
For the Earth takes all.

Whether we are buried or burned,
Or left to rot for our sins.
From the poorest pauper
To the richest tyrant,
The Earth takes us all.

The moss that claws into your driveway,
The cobwebs in the corner of your shed.
The leaves that gather on your windshield,
The mold that worms into your office walls.

Everything is consumed by the Earth.
Returning to ashes and to dust.

Our cities will crumble ...

Great example of a poem I started and then ran out of thoughts on. Happens with most poems really, but it's much more apparent on this one. I really like the idea behind it, this sort of nihilistic optimism about the environment and our place in it, but as a poem everything after the 4th stanza is a bit off. It would probably need a pretty significant structural overhaul (not to mention actually being finished) to bring it to a state where it would be a true self-contained expression. - C, ToP

Love

By Cacaphony, November 22nd, 2023

If you look up the entry for Love in the phonebook
It'll tell you that love is found
In the soft spaces between
A couple who are embraced

Now that is not strictly wrong of course
Love is absolutely found there sometimes
In the kiss of two boys standing in the rain
Or the hug between a woman and her partner

But many people look for love there
And do not find it
And other never even glance there
And they find it anyway

In the gentle silence of a library
That embraces you like an old sweater
Or the woman who stops
To help the young man put in his first set of earrings

It's found over dinners with your family
Even if it's not the one you were born with
Or late nights with friends
Playing games and chatting

This a poem I'm surprised I haven't written earlier, because it's very meaningful to me. It's far from finished, it doesn't have a real ending, I think the rhythm is non existent, and there's some wonky stuff here and there, especially the 4th stanza, but it has more heart to it than a lot of other poems I've written - C, ToP

Untitled

By Cacophony, November 13th, 2023

I gaze out across the future
And see a panoramic view
Through a maze of mirrors
And of kaleidoscopic lives

A thousand pricks of light
Scatter wild through my thoughts
Each one a twisted winding path
Each different and their own

They call me soft and brightly
Each beckoning me down
I know I walk on ever forward
And pass most all them by

I really like the idea behind this poem, but I think the execution is pretty rough. At some point maybe I'll take another pass at it, but here it is as a draft - C, ToP

Untitled

By Cacaphony, circa October, 2023

The Carpenter did not work with wood
Most carpenters do, but not this one
In fact, this Carpenter lived a life
Devoid of any carpentry whatsoever.
They never learned to whittle sticks
Sitting on rough benches surrounded by trees.
Or how to build a table,
Surrounded by the sweet aroma of their father's shop.
No, this Carpenter never tried to make anyhting from wood.

Now this is not a bad thing, necessarily.
Most people live their lives
And never make anything from wood.
There's a good chance you've never done it.
Most people don't mind this,
And you might not either.
But The Carpenter is not most people,
And they are not you.

You see, they yearn for it.
They yearn to feel the grain of the wood under their hands
They yearn to smell the sawdust in the air
And to see the dull gleam of polished wood
Under their workshop lamp.

Untitled

By Cacaphony, October 9th, 2023

The joy of just existing
The joy of who you are
When nobody's looking
Not even yourself

It's like sun on your back
When you nap in the grass
Or the smell in the air
Just after it rain

It's pure, untouched
Untouchable
Even if sometimes
It feels unfindable

Find the people
Who can help you find it
And do what you can
To help others find it

The just of just existing
The joy of who they are

Untitled

By Cacaphony, June 19th, 2023

Why do we live
In spite of the constant drumming rain
Of hurt and pain
That fills the world?

We live for the moments
When the sun breaks through the clouds
And the light hits the trees
Just so.

We live for the flowers
And music and dancing
And the love of a friend
Who knows you unmasked.

Untitled

By Cacaphony, April 23rd, 2023

We conquered nature all for naught,
And built our cities full of rot.
We lied and said it's for the best,
And cut down trees with birds in nests.
We laced our poison through the seas
So we could make our shipping free.
We burned the forests down to ash
For cheaper food to save us cash.
We worked until the very end
To leave a corpse we could not mend.
We could not stop our boundless greed,
And left wounds that will ever bleed.
We tried to stop ourselves it's true,
But we could never follow through.

Untitled

By Cacaphony, March 12th, 2023

Not the bright-warm love
Of a sun-dappled field
But the cold dark beauty
Of a windswept moor

Untitled

By Cacaphony, February 8th, 2023

All alone on an empty stage
Facing the audience
Nameless, faceless
If you look just right
Through the harsh stage light
It seems they aren't there at all

Untitled

By Cacaphony, December 28th, 2022

Life is dark and the nights are cold
And the moon and stars are dead and gone
Blocked by the mist that hides the path
Of which way's forward, which way's back

In this darkness candles burn
In cabin windows warm with love
Forts of comfort and of hope
Against the biting winter wind

Like flowers in a barren field
They reach a hand of love and warmth
Building monuments tall and bright
Works of art that cut the night

You find them every now and then

Untitled

By Cacaphony, circa December, 2022

Like a river rushing by you
On and on it flows
You never can appreciate it
Before you know it's gone

Untitled

By Cacaphony, November 4th, 2022

I'll make a fire of my life
To see the darkness cut by light
Once the laterns shined on high
But now they've dwindled low and died

Untitled

By Cacaphony, September 25th, 2022

Painting on a canvas
With a knife carving cutting
Brushstrokes leaving tatters
Where the art of hope should lie

To live is to create
But life is long since lost
Nothing left to give the world
Just take and rend and burn

Untitled

By Cacaphony, September 20th, 2022

We all yearn for love like sailors
On the ocean yearn for land
When rations run low and water runs dry.
A yearn that comes from deep within,
From your bones and from your heart.
But against false hope we harden ourselves
Because we sail on an endless ocean
Built of our tears and sorrows.
One that we know has long drowned
the towns and the hope that we hunt

Untitled

By Cacaphony, August 30th, 2022

Do you ever feel like an asteroid?
Floating in space without a place,
Carried by your momentum
From long, long, ago

Chance brings you to earth;
You fly through the atmosphere,
Burning blinding bright
And making day from night.

But as you shine you burn.
You begin to crack from the stress
And finally break, spinning into a million pieces
Each oof which burns to ash and dust

And the night returns, the asteroid gone.
The people who stopped tog aze
Upon your momentary marvel,
Turn back to their lives,
The meteor already a fading memory

Untitled

By Cacaphony, August 29th, 2022

I sit and gaze out over the sea
Back resting roughly against a tree
On my cheek the mist of ocean spray
And above me branches twist and sway

Untitled

By Cacaphony, July 17th, 2022

Sometimes I sit and think I'm cursed
To walk alone upon the earth
The torn and jagged ink black hole
Tucked in a corner of my soul
I see it my eyes it's clear
When I stare into the mirror
But you can only see my smile
That I can't hold for a short while

Untitled

By Cacaphony, July 4th, 2022

Spinning, circling, tighter and tighter,
They spin and weave like moths to lamps.
Drawn near to it from far away.
They can't resist the constant pull.
They won't resist the constant pull.

What would it be like, you think,
To be pulled, to see your own lamp?
Where they have focus and motivation,
Flying like a planet orbiting a sun,
You wander alone in the dark reaches of space
A slow, meandering path,
Going from nowhere to nowhere again.
No even orbiting the illusion of a star
Or following a lamp that isn't there.

Why fly when there's nothing to visit?
No light shining in the cool evening air.
No sun to give life to the plants below.
You sit and wait to see your light.
You sit and wait to see you die.

Untitled

By Cacaphony, July 1st, 2022

You stand tall against the sea and the spray
Looking out as the revolving lighthouse lamp
Reveals the terrain of the e'er changing waves
One flash, one instant, that's all you get
And when the beam comes round again, it's changed.
Never the same, never predictable
Sometimes you see ships, heading towards the rocks
And when the beam comes round again, they're gone
You watch the rocks, cruel and jagged
Reaching for the sky, as if to drag heaven to hell
And when the beam comes round again, they're gone
Sometimes you see calm and placid sea
Water rippling gently in the summer breeze
And when the beam comes round again, it's gone
Replaced with waves that dwarf your tower
Your refuge against an ever changing world
In your meager shelter you cower, brace
But when the beam comes round again, they're gone

Untitled

By Cacaphony, May 31st, 2022

The world is cold and windy
And you're hunting for a fire,
Whose warmth you long ago forgot
In another life, another place.
Was it even you who felt that glow?
The warmth, the safety
The shelter from the storm?
The memory is an echo of a call.
Did you really sit beside the fire,
Hear the crack and pop of burning wood?
Does the fire even exist?
Or is it just a desperate wish
For something other than this cold.

Untitled

By Cacaphony, May 3rd, 2022

Do you too hear the screams of anguish
As the book of the world is ripped through its binding?
The sound is everything, and nothing
Incomprehensible, and all encompassing
It cuts through you like a hacksaw
And you feel your muscles tear and part
Like the calm before a storm though,
There's no pain, just silent horror

The good doctor's eyes never leave yours
As the bone cutter etches deeper
The screams. Your screams. Our screams.
Does he not hear them?
Or does he not care?
And can you decide which is worse?
When you guardian angel turns against you,
What is left that will let you endure?

Untitled

By Cacaphony, circa April, 2022

A world filled with endless night
A world dark, devoid of light

Untitled

By Cacaphony, March 31st, 2022

WHEN THE SEAS THEY BE STORMY
AND YE SHIP 'NEATH YOU SWAYS
SET HEADING FOR YE HARBOR
AND TIE OFF AT THE QUAY

WHEN THE SEAS BE CLEAR AND FAIR
CALL YE CREW THE SHIP 'T BOARD
STAND READY TO MAN THE CANNONS
AND SHARPEN ALL YE SWORDS

Untitled

By Cacaphony, March 29th, 2022

THERE ARE TWO MONSTERS THAT HAUNT
THE HALLS OF MY HEAD
ONE IS SAD AND THE OTHER IS MAD

Untitled

By Cacaphony, March 27th, 2022

The world cast in shadow
The laterns all burnt out
The politicians march to war
And hate filled men they shout

The rich and the religious
Stoke hate and fear and death
They claim that they will spread the light
And lie with the same breath

Everywhere the lights burn out
One by one by one
You try to carry your laterns high
But from black to darker grows the sky

Untitled

By Cacaphony, March 22nd, 2022

Looking up at the bright-dark moon
My inner peace that won't come soon
Winding road up the endless mount
Heat heavy and head spinning with doubt
Narrow bridge o'er the bottomless pit
Myself hollow and counterfeit
Drowning in the black inky sea
A fate reserved, deserved by me.

Untitled

By Cacaphony, March 10th, 2022

The world through a stained glass mirror,
Rippled like the water on a pond
With a fistful of rocks thrown in.
Distored and twisted like clay.

Peer in, and your reflection stares back.
Note quite you though, the features are off;
The eyes look the same, but they aren't.
The eyes of a stranger stare back.

The stranger, you don't recognize him.
But he is you, he has to be.
He's your reflection after all.
Or are you merely his reflection?

Everyone else, they see themselves
Gazing back from that damn window.
A welcoming, familiar
Face, the face that they should see there

Are you looking in the wrong mirror?
Are you the wrong man, gazing at
A reflection who waits for someone
else to come and watch them, love them?

Untitled

By Cacaphony, March 5th, 2022

The sands fall ever downward
From a desert in the sky
To a desert in the floor
One swallowed by the other
Irrevocable, unstoppable
The sands fall ever downward

The sands fall ever downward
Some ponder the times when one desert was full
Others the time it will be empty
And the other full
But it doesn't really matter
The sands fall ever downward

The sands fall ever downward
Sometimes, sitting from afar
Or perhaps sitting too close
You forget to watch the falling sands, but they fall nonetheless
And soon you will realize how much has since you last looked
The sands fall ever downward

Untitled

By Cacaphony, circa spring, 2022

Ceaseless thoughts inside of my head
The ideas clear like silver glist'ning
As I lay eyes closed in my bed
Or sitting in class feigning list'ning

In my head my thoughts are racing
Sprinting hard adren'line surging
Footfalls that pound heavy and pacing
Not a mar'thon with crowds urging

More like a race against time—or a bear

Untitled

By Cacaphony, February 28th, 2022

The mad king high up in his tower
Drunk on wine and the taste of power
Playing politics like one of his childhood games
Sending soldiers to die in the mud and the rain

An Emotion

By Cacaphony, February 26th, 2022

The urge to collapse
To and die
The urge to run
Fight, energy high
Balance or schism or both

Stepping on a rusty nail
High up in a mountain vale
Abandoned cabin, peaceful lake
The sweet sharp pain that cuts the silence

Flutter like a bird in a cage
Foward back left and right
Everywhere the bars close tight
Try and try and try again
Desperate hope for freedom to fly again

Untitled

By Cacaphony, Feburary 25th, 2022

Wallowing in this falling rain
Not the sharp pound of nails
Or the whimsical soar of birds wings
The steady beat of falling rain
The dull ache of a mostly gone pain
A stagnant pool, not rotten or purtrid
Just lifeless, unchanging
An office abandoned and covered in dust
A factory broken and flaking from rust

Untitled

By Cacaphony, February 24th, 2022

The TV smells of rot
The radio tastes of decay
And gunfire echoes from the newspapers

The dark blood of innocent sinners shot
Madmen with countries held in sway
The chaos of a perpetual war
That everyone else has agreed to ignore

Untitled

By Cacaphony, February 20th, 2022

The facacde grows thinner
And I vanish like a whisper

Untitled

By Cacaphony, February 20th, 2022

A passenger on a captainless ship
Floating the river alone and adrift
I wander down passages rooms and halls
I work all the stations as crew crowd and all
I cook in the galley and dust in the cabins
Cooking and cleaning for no one who's there
I work without purpose
Merely playing a role
An actor on an empty stage
Facing out an empty theatre

Untitled

By Cacaphony, February 20th, 2022

Wound like the spring on a broken watch
Restless without purpose

Untitled

By Cacaphony, February 20th, 2022

You turn on the tv
You laugh or you cry
You have but two options
For all will soon die
Are the madman in a sane world?
Or the sane man in a mad world?

Untitled

By Cacaphony, February 19th, 2022

In the maze of life
We've been given the map
Two lefts and a right
Or was it two rights and a left?
You turn back
And around again
Which way is forward?
And which way is back?
You consult with the map
But of your place you've lost track

Untitled

By Cacaphony, February 17th, 2022

The rubble and ruin of urban decay
crisscrossed by the countless alleyways

Untitled

By Cacaphony, February 18th, 2022

The twisting tendril flames climb high
As the heat burns the words from the page
The blaze unmaking all the books
The fire reaching up for the sky
And the great library goes up in flames
Our knowledge it chars and it cooks
The roof it comes down with a boom and a crash
And all the remains is naught but ash

Untitled

By Cacaphony, February 15th, 2022

What causes this darkness
  Is it me?
  Is it the world?
Through which I can't see

If it's me am I broken?
If it's the world?
  Can it be fixed?