MESSAGES IN A BOTTLE
Inspirations in Poetic Prose
by Branch Isole
Copyright © 2010
Smashwords Edition
eBook ISBN 978-0983574446
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher.
Mana'o Publishing
Hampton, VA 23666
O
rder
copies of this eBook at
www.branchisole.com
www.voyeuristicpoet.com
Author, Poet and Storyteller Branch Isole observes and comments on the motivations of our world both clothed and bare. Writing of issues and emotions often experienced but not always voiced, his style and presentation cast reflective identity against a backdrop of personal responsibility choice or avoidance. This is ‘Voyeurism Poetry’.
Messages In A Bottle contains adult themes and language, some of which is erotic or sexual in nature and presentation. Messages In A Bottle is intended for mature audiences.
Voyeurism Poetry ~ looking out, seeing in
“Many write of things known or experienced, I comment on those seen and heard.”
"For the writer, the author and especially the poet the key is to get the audience reading,
keep them reading, then make them want to come back for more."
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Contents
America
Anticipation
Beast With Two Backs
Birthday Wish
Blur
Brothers in Arms
Carl’s Bad Kid
Conversant
Dementia
Desperate Pleadings
Detached Retina of Your Third Eye
Enabler
Equalizers
Father and Son
Fire Dancer
Forgiveness
Games
Good Until
Guilt
H_ng m_n
Has Been
In the Wake
Influences
It’s A Crime
Jezebel
Last Ride
Letters
Love’s Child
Massage Me
Muse
My Generation
None So Blind
Omnivision
Paradise Portals
Printed in Red
Remembrance
Sailor’s Garden
Silver Streak
Skin Deep
Sleeping with You
Soul Resignation
Spurned Exes
Surely “O”
Tempered Temptations
The Saint
The Traveler
Things To Do Today
Third Person Singular
Thus Sayeth the Lord
Tourist Trapped
Wasteland
Whale’s Tale
Introduction
In the 1950’s it was common practice in many schools to require students to write.
During those years at some point in most middle grade academic careers it was both the task and bane to have been asked or assigned to write an essay along the lines of “What I did on my summer vacation.”
A summer’s activities often proved to be interesting to recall, yet difficult to explain.
The assignment always seemed more an exercise in tedium and embellishment in order to meet the required number of words, than relevant story retelling. It wasn’t that the summer was boring; it required a grueling effort to get the words down on paper.
Looking back, those attempts at more than penmanship were opportunities to express creatively, both the real and imagined.
Everyone has a story to tell. Too often however, our children dismiss themselves and their value as individuals for an iconic emulation of the latest or most outrageous pop culture idolatry. This is not a new phenomenon; it is the way of our world. How we express it has changed. No longer does there seem to be an individual identity built upon a young person’s discovery of him or herself and their world.
It has become easier to merely copy an existing entity with added emphasis on being more explicit, perverse or deviant in behavior exhibited lock step with the ‘in your face’ attitude of reality TV.
Today, youngsters from the earliest stages of understanding are often encouraged and/or desire themselves to become a branded identity prepackaged behind the scenes by agents and gurus regardless of the short lived possibilities such an endeavor may actually offer. And then what? Passé at twenty three?
Every child possesses a set of attitudes, beliefs and perceptions about themselves and their world. They should be encouraged to leave a written legacy to the future in their own words, which sheds a tiny light on who they were and why they believed they were here. What an impressive collection it would be, with all its foibles, errors and nonsense within an innocent expressiveness. Placed in time capsules or space capsules, their original thoughts and stories would be part of the future’s landscape.
From cave dwellers’ graphics, to written records, to high speed communications, people have always had something to say. Those in the past who were recorded were read and therefore had an impact and made a difference in and to their world. Their words lived on, after they were gone.
Today, virtually everyone has access to and can be recorded or documented in order that their words too may live on.
And why not? It sure beats “What I did on my summer vacation.”
Branch Isole
the Voyeuristic Poet
“Can’t keep my eyes from the circling sky
Tongue tied and twisted just an earthbound misfit, I.”
-Gilmour, Moore, Ezrin & Carin-
from “Learning To Fly”
on ‘A Momentary Lapse Of Reason’
© 1987 Pink Floyd Music Publishers, Inc.
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America
Jamaican mon with blood ‘O negative’
tests HIV positive
how long will he live?
Russian woman
abused and is beaten
her husband full of vodka
he has not eaten
Puerto Rican machismo
struttin’ his stuff
Irish green
can’t get enough
Scot’s own whiskey
makes his lass frisky
Frenchman’s escargot
he remembers Brigitte Bardot
The Lady a Celt
selling her pelt
Young man of Italia
in the contraband trade
Both work the street
dreams of ‘being made’
Mexican Low Rider cruisin’
East African losin’
Lonesome Greek snoozin’
Native Indian boozin’
A melting pot
of simmer and sizzle
Stirred and
Mixed,
with human swizzle
sticks
Cars in garages
Chickens in pots
Reality TV to watch
“I’m not a have not”
The world’s great ‘Mulligan stew’
all Red
White
and Blue
Folks back home
if only they knew
Many here chasing
streets paved with gold
waiting and wondering
what next they’ll be sold
The American Dream
The Cream of the Crop
Each, every and all
waiting their turn on top
And in their quest
for material bliss
New problems, yes
they do exist
Hurdles and sink holes
stumble and swallow
any and all who would
yet still wallow
A few will be prized
by wanton dreams
Most mesmerized
by survival scenes
The rest paralyzed
by human schemes
No way to hold back
the oncoming tide
of a questing humanity’s
USA ride
From all the oceans
yet do they flow
Both joys and miseries
soon to be known . . .
For between the shores
of this mighty land
it is here
all believe,
“I can”
Anticipation
My heart stops each time the phone rings.
The catch in my breathing chokes
as I wait to hear your name identified out loud.
We’ve spoken and spat of our secret.
Proclaiming acknowledgement
of our lust’s initial shared understanding.
Me insistent. You half-hearted.
Your insecure threats hang over me.
Their preponderance
as if a guillotine blade
prepared to be loosed,
waiting to cleave the momentary pause
between bouts of anticipation of you
and the guilt of a characterless vow
made to my spouse.
Revelation doggedly shadows
our movements in public.
Darting clandestinely, wondering,
if the entity which is us
will accidentally be exposed
by friends or acquaintances
from my other life.
You torture by innuendo
when we are apart
and tantalize with orifices
as we copulate.
You don’t own me,
I proceed willingly
into the slavery
of your sexual proclivities
and yet
aware we have no future
our abuses continue.
Beast With Two Backs
The beast with two backs
came to my room last night
Unable to turn
from its mesmerizing sight
I watched it,
with frightful delight
Contorted
Confused
its fluids ran
splattered
and oozed
Over the sheets
onto the bed
Bathing completely
its four heads
Oh how I dreamed
wished and prayed
I too might be
swept away
To be one with its growl
howl and screams
Totally immersed
in its heated extremes
Both drawn to
and disgusted
by its gleaming skin
wondering,
should I join in?
Watching the performance
salivating on the show
a wink and a nod
to let me know
Then asking,
how far I’d like to go?
“Come”
the smiling beast said
“Come”
get on the bed
“Come”
let me have you too
“Come”
I’ll consume all of you
I stood,
frozen in time
stepping forward
only in my mind
I sat,
fantasy dissolved
from the room
I wanted to crawl
“Wait,”
said the beast
“before you go
Answer me this
for I want to know”
“Shall we return
tomorrow night?
Or have you seen enough
of this carnal sight?”
Walking away
the scene continued to play
over and over