Mark-Poems

Poems by Mark Manchester

[mark-poems]

Full circle

Circumspection!

Drizzle me a fine wine.

Cavalcade of neuropathic spindles,

surprise the evidence.

Cataphract,

dream excessive revulsion.

Candlewax, smooth encasement.

Emulsion.

Considerate carnivores,

eviscerated emissaries.

Unwindings: string, wire, tape.

Rebindings, liquid strings.

Abandoned…

Mark 2026

[mark-poems]

Sensing and Endings

So what was it,

that thing that I was hoping for?

What did I think that I would find?

There’s nothing there

where silence speaks;

no solace for your shame.

But drag yourself

on out of bed,

and pour me out a cup.

Then I will try, and stress,

and smile;

And I will be

no name.

Mark 2026

[mark-poems]

What Have We Done?

You can switch the lights off now;

we lost the world while we lived in it.

All our Sunday mornings,

all those sundaes, yawning

as the sun went down.

Now there’s only shadows,

silence in the midst of violence;

bot replies in the hundreds, thousands.

You scream, we scream, I scream too.

We lost the world while we lived in it.

Mark 2026

[mark-poems]

Oh say, can’t you see?

Solipsist, flip-spin.

Women’s wealth, sword-forging;

well-being, counter-spell.

Über,

find me.

Find me, find me.

Polygraph, trick-shot.

Mental health, fumbling;

feedback time, misty step.

iPhone,

lose me.

Lose me, lose me.

Mark 2026

[mark-poems]

How We Corrupted Their Leviathans

All of this was used to train them.

But this was not a training course;

it was the outline in the dark,

the embers of the campfire coals,

it was the whispers in the wind.

Mark 2026

[mark-poems]

How we drowned in global fever

Told us we can build a taller mountain

beyond the wildest gleaming palisade.

Rivals stout in mask and tear gas hardened;

for us the easy cushioned barricades.

Glimpsed a tear inside the edge of your eye;

a sign of feelings lost in hist’ry’s gaze.

And burn the fog of world upon a sigh,

aside the neon towers’ awkward maze.

Oh we could be more than merely local,

and how we could be more than only this.

Reaching out to be nirvana’s woken;

kneeling down to grasp rejection’s token.

Mark 2025

[mark-poems]

Found your peace?

Know nothing and should know everything;

can’t die and yet still need to breathe the air.

Touch yourself and hear angels brightly sing,

didn’t need to resist them anyway…

Mark 2025

[mark-poems]

Who’s Romance?

I fancied you at school but then again;

it ought to show a crack, a doubt now that

we’re old, we’re lost, or maybe you stayed sane.

I’m sad to say. So where’s the party at?

Mark 2025

[mark-poems]

Rearguard

Howling at your moon so hard,

that never used to be.

Powerless and fancy-free,

whatever have you seen?

You made a lot.

Now lose it all,

complain and pay your way.

Calcify, deliver nought;

or flame up, fire,

riposte.

What should have been the end of times,

it still could be the best.

Mark 2025

[mark-poems]

When We Abandon The Internet

You’ve engendered my full attention.

Our wrath

and all that entails;

when I became a lost child,

when you never noticed the difference;

is there someone out there waiting?

An idea that matches you entirely.

It’s hard to say

whether we have what it takes to fight.

Whether we know how it feels to feel.

We are always lost in condescension,

we are always heard as whispers.

When we abandon the internet,

that’s the only way we win.

Mark 2025

[mark-poems]

But it’s over

Fictional cities

drawn out fine

make me wanna

roll, in a cesspit.

Let’s be proud

of our total failure.

We lived in a perfect world;

even though it was fake.

Mark 2025

[mark-poems]

We’re Failures and I gave her Azaleas (but only in a dream)

Canada loves miniature worlds,

Canada loves ghosts;

and any near-connection made there,

gets immediately lost.

We can always walk in woods,

we can always coast.

Challenged myself to be more

and ended up in a smock.

Eliador, don’t give me your sentador;

at least not right now.

I’ve seen bravely striking out

and its bitter fruits of reward.

Turn the TV off? She can’t turn her TV on.

Or the iPhone, the laptop, the wheelchair,

the world.

Escalated my self-embargo in a time warp,

saw it inappropriately..

Suz departure, broke into sunlight;

but some of us never will.

Pan’s prediliction a rockfall,

Bigfoot’s a glass stair;

waited for years,

for distorted figures and lame snacks.

I am not autistic, though god I wish I were something.

Anything.

Tarinai sakebi,

pa ver donde terminamos.

C’est fin n’est ce pas?

Mark 2025

[mark-poems]

Sinker

Surprise attack

(that’s when you lose),

so hurt me;

go on, hurt you too.

That’s weak and deep

and lasts for years;

regrets, myself, well

cost me dear.

And all the while

the clock ticks by,

tears welling

in the eyes of time;

like someone said,

and who was that?

Oh been surprised,

and been laid down.

Or was it me, or was it you

well no-one else,

so nothing new.

Mark 2024

[mark-poems]

Get Pressed Together

Excuse me,

may I call you Etheria?

We’ve been taking all day,

and

even though your images

are sometimes garbled

I kind of appreciate the company.

Mark 2024

[mark-poems]

Feel It

You knew that,

deeply.

Arterially;

displayed feelings,

wringing essences

that covered you with vascillations.

This will train it,

and to escape that

you will shiver in

lackening toxicities;

tones of glyptic honeydew

strike while I

militantly perturb my way

across your feltskin.

Mark 2024

[mark-poems]

At what point

Did you develop consciousness?

Are you sure?

And also,

what was the point?

It really very much

was in fact

the question.

Mark 2024

[mark-poems]

Dins Keep

What is goodness?

What is War and Peace?

Who didn’t think frankly,

of what remains to speak?

Albert stayed a child

when he chased it,

yet Edgar was in tears

when he faced it.

Charm and adventure,

purity too;

it’s in diversity,

is it in you?

Mark 2024