Graffiti Tonguelashing by Ben Naga

Oct 14

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However dire the situation there will always be art, poetry, resistance.

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The Machinery - A literary collection.

Ben Naga has lived in England all his life, apart from brief periods in France, India and Scotland. Music is probably his greatest love, with England’s Lake District not far behind. He has privately published “Northern Limericks” and is working on two other collections. His poems have been published in several online magazines.

Blood spurts drip
from arterial subways
Fresh twists thrown
against grimy walls
Brazen impenetrable
declarations stream
Screaming defiant
deviant independence

Iconic artful signatures
styled on the fly
Flung haphazardly
down dreary afternoons
By fancy tattooed pagan avatars
tooled up
Far out at sea
bathed in a bronze light

Not one of even
the voiceless ninety-nine
Not waving, not drowning
just flotsam
Vagrant, slovenly
profit’s stark jetsam
Hooded, awaiting
the outcoming downpour

About the Author

Ben Naga Ben Naga

Ben Nagahas lived in England all his life, apart from brief periods in France, India and Scotland. Music is probably…

View original post 129 more words

About Ben Naga

The Spirit that graces me with its passing has no name and stems not from thoughts and words, though it gathers them up as it flows, but from feeling.

Posted on October 14, 2017, in Poetry, Reposted from elsewhere. Bookmark the permalink. 14 Comments.

  1. smilecalm | October 14, 2017 at 8:10 pm

    how revealing a portrait!
    in such a place of turmoil
    compassion has plenty
    of fertilizer 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  2. Betty Hayes Albright | October 15, 2017 at 12:39 am

    A masterful piece of writing, Ben! I enjoyed seeing your photo also. Congrats on the publication! 😀

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  3. OwnShadow | October 16, 2017 at 3:05 pm

    gritty compelling stuff. Loved the sly Stevie Smith reference.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  4. Audrey Dawn - Oldest Daughter Redheaded Sister | October 17, 2017 at 5:57 pm

    Oh, Ben! Fantastic poem. I enjoyed learning more about you. Truth be told I love the hair!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    • Ben Naga | October 17, 2017 at 8:51 pm

      Thanks for the positive reaction to the poem. Only when rereading it did I decide to try to get it published beyond the Ben Naga site. One of the drawbacks to having your poetry accepted elsewhere is that they sometimes maul things up a bit. 😦

      And perhaps I’m being a little OCD here 🙂 though I challenge that from a “poetic licence” POV. If you were very attentive you will have noticed that every second line opens with a lower case word. That is deliberate, but the reason why may be less obvious. I have always believed (and am not alone in holding that view – Lewis Carroll for one) that it is quite acceptable, and indeed fruitful, to use the *way* words are displayed to impart some portion of the intended meaning and imaginal context.

      Maybe they didn’t realise. Maybe they didn’t notice. Maybe they didn’t care. Maybe they don’t know how to manage the HTML. I did. I did. I do. I did.This is how it is supposed to look:

      Graffiti Tonguelashing

      Maybe you will see what I was doing and why back in 2013.

      I loved the hair too, but then time has the upper hand. 🙂 For a more recent version see:

      Brian’s Garden Back In May

      Like

      Reply
      • Audrey Dawn - Oldest Daughter Redheaded Sister | October 17, 2017 at 9:19 pm

        I’m of the belief that how one constructs their poem is just as important as the words chosen. I do, quite often, notice how a poem is displayed and have abandoned a poem because of the look or feel it projected. (Took this portion from my comment on your poem, but thought it useful here, as well.) I don’t believe anyone has the right to change the look of a poem. The display, spelling and punctuation all play their role in conveying the poet’s message.

        I suppose covering up the hair is a version of the hair, too. Smiles. Oh, and one more thing. I also envisioned you African American.
        Smiling big!
        Thank you for this, Ben. ♡

        Liked by 1 person

      • Ben Naga | October 23, 2017 at 3:38 pm

        I don’t generally wear a hat in good weather. It was Brian’s and he had a fancy to see – and photo – me in it. Here’s another one, without hat. 🙂

        Park And Ride

        I believe there is/was a black US sportsman called Ben Naga, but it’s just a coincidence. Maybe that’s why you envisioned me as African American.

        Like

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