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Jami Samson Oct 2013
Shopping outfashioned hunting and gathering,
Processed beats fresh,
Groceries replaced fruit trees,
Malls superceded forests,
Churches outnumbered temples,
Countries dissolved to territories,
Places devolved to areas,
Paths broke down into highways,
Commodity converted to currency,
Laborers submit to machinery,
Masters engage in humbug,
Apprentices reduced to students,
Knowledge downgraded to education,
And education is deducted to a show of grades,
While schools are the stages,
And the corporate world is the bigger runway,
With work slumped to employment,
Wisdom demoted to profession,
Where in jobs are the only future,
Careers are the only success,
Clicking and pressing buttons are skills,
Computers are correspondent to brains,
Information refers to news reports,
Intelligence means up-to-dateness,
Browsing is preferable to reading,
Studying is in demand more than learning,
Viewing things flashed on screens yields awareness,
Transportation is to traveling,
As buying is to the three basic needs,
And needs embody worldly possessions,
Worldly possessions define happiness,
Happiness is due to selfishness,
Selfishness is traced to the lack of love,
The lack of love draws from the lack of faith,
Because faith stands for religion,
And religion stands for membership,
Where politicians are the gods,
Celebrities are the preachers,
And the preachers are the enemies,
While networking is equal to friendship,
And connection equates to communication,
Experiences require photos,
Memories necessitate uploading,
Souvenirs can be downloaded,
Smartphones are substitute to pets,
Gadgets are toys,
Holding controllers is playing,
Watching TV is exploring the great outdoors,
Internet is recreation,
And technology is a way of life;
While humans are scientists,
Nature is a guinea pig,
And the earth is a laboratory,
Where prices are misidentified for worth,
Processes are miscalculated as progress,
Impoverishment is confused with improvement,
And getting more is mistaken as getting better;
And then we wonder why
Homes have become houses,
Family members have become boarders,
Nations are separate species
Composed of tired and hungry citizens,
Children are monsters
Who are biochemically rascals,
Teenagers are zombies
Whose adventures lead to delinquency,
Adults are robots
Who just clang when touched,
And life is not so simple
As how it is said to be.
#41, Oct.14.13
Martin Narrod Apr 2014
She had stopped crying.
All evening in her black-mesh coup de voodoo.
On the plane she had been crying
For her Summer pal. Yesterday she had been to market
Big brown bags and white bags, little pink bags filled with crimsony scents,
Capricornia, looseleaf newsprint, postcards, and colored pencils,
She had hands full of handles, bags bundled, stitched in strict Saturday fashion.
He could barely break a step, he could fake dance with her feet on his tip toes.
She was only three quarters the perfect size to fit inside his frame.
The grand disappearing act. And she was only ifs and suicides.
A stranded ray of sun-draped hair on a cooly porcelain forehead, the segments were all just wrong,
Something so wrong, trembling heart cries over a mute coo through a flattened tongue.
The sickle tongue, dodgy on Tuesday's, She had a simple mug, oh! But so cute and soothing, the nape
That wrapped around, my arm lapped its hands in a clapping ginormous duck's bill!
Lapping rhythmically. Thwack! Thwack!
Like no crying I had ever heard. Nor Earthen beauty I had never seen.
Her little lamb legs lumbered over, her awkward thinness and long limbs spilt on top of her,
Her tiny shoulders searching for support from her hips. White aurulent doll head on a stick,
She had sad defeated eyes, whimpering, pathetic,
Too small, and she shuttered and she shook,
And she shivered out every teardrop her body ever made. And she fell back on her bottom, and looked
Up as if to see a white steed standing with her guy striking a poised hand down to her,
He split down the middle, stammering, broken pieces of words crumbling out of his mouth
With eager intentions. He was too weak
To give her his feet, or pull her up in, he hadn't the gumption. He was fully occupied standing,
He wept too; then shuffled a little
Towards where she had fallen. He knew she wasn't right
She couldn't get the devil out of her piercing blue pupils, she couldn't
She lied.
Then she just piled on top of her knees and fumbled as if to rise like a demure lamb trying to rise off its Newborn legs, she just curled her legs,
So stiffly built, and narrow footed, built with such inequality to her siblings,
She got in the way of herself, a little lamb that could not manage.
Too whittled for him, he tried, he really tried, but three years had drained his strength, no real help.
When he sat her upright on her bottom, she opened her eyes, and for a moment smiled, grabbed for His hand but then after awhile she was lost, she lost interest, her pupils wandered.
He was orchestrating everything.
A real project, much more urgent and important. By nightfall she could not stand. It was not
That she couldn't smile or laugh or love, she was born
With everything but the will to live -
That cannot be destroyed, just like a love.
Melancholy was more important to her.
Life could not get her attention.
So she died, with her handles still in her hands, green grass stains her legs.
She did not survive another warm summer night.
And then he wept uncontrollably again.
"The wind is oceanic in the elms
And the blossom is all set."

2

The boy has come back
From the seashore, and atop the plateau.
The woes of women are like a genocide
In the morning, when the killing is over,
And the heat begins, and the bodies lie,
And stark life moves for its sobbing bones,
The curved women move with fire.
Father Father Father the girls
Are weeping, and crying and I cannot resist that gentle frailty
They are shucked in their skin suits rising from their soporific slumbers
In decadent leathers and frou frou dresses. They cling to bold faces,
Nothing can escape that cold crying of women weeping for their princes.
Blood-letting rage cannot overthrow the meadow from the pebble brook,
As a laden head bleats its tarnished tongue across a milky breast, it cannot
Escape the sounds of blue-stained teardrops cascading across the plains,
The sounds of woolbirds braying while their skins are sheared against the
Sluicing sound of water rushing through the flume.
All summer they have lamented, gorging on melancholy, tottering their cotton pyramid heads,
Shaking their cries in deliberation, bald skinny victim women screaming out!
Cotton-mouthed clams yaffing, hearts in panic, wholes of bodies clambering in a *** of woe.
They roost useless, pollard and wethered, jealous
Squinting out the last droplets of desperation from their eyes, screaming their mouths in awful
Togetherness, this cacophony of tortured tongue-song
They curdle the last notes of despair out under knotted breaths
With every inch of strength left inside them, they bray this way and that.
Their mothers scream out in wretched despair, ahhh!
On distant cliffs, on scrawny legs
Their stiff pain goes on and on in the September heat.
"Only slowly their hurt dies, cry by cry,"
Whipped bodies toting wergeld on a shore.

The Day She Died

Was the gloomiest day of the new century,
The first of calamitous, unfortunate autumns to come,
The first dying breath from piceous lungs.

That was yesterday. Early morning, soft rime droplets
Frosted to every blade of grass, not like any other
Earlier June day we've ever had. In the deep twilight
The syzygy announced the moon and demoted the sun.

The Earth-crisp frost nuzzled snow droplets.
Black bands of ravens whipping. Martens littering
Fresh kills of red-eyed rabbits on stark white stale
Summer lawns. A fox grayed, its cold bones
Mapped by ravaged feasts. A possum prowling
In a spot of tawny light.

The concrete spread into a maze
Of black veins ripening in the acute niello
Destitution of its widening cracks,

And when the summer left
It left without her. It will have to accept,
In the paley dim light of this vengeful wilderness -
She is gone.
But for now the warmth has not returned but a naked, half-pomegranate
Rotten moon for us two.
And a great vacancy in our memory.
Written for Britni West
-JCM-  Jul 2018
Thief
-JCM- Jul 2018
Lost faith sometime ago
Scooping you up
In those planes
Where moon touches earth
Found an angel riding shotgun
Pearly white grin
Cleanse me of my sins
Wanna be devoted
Don't wanna be demoted
Trying to be small
Sneak into your heaven

-JCM-
Don't be enticed by the attraction of a crowd.  It's more important to walk alone, than to show-off, be rude and loud.
Don't allow your peers, to constantly pressure you, because they say you're not their friend.  Watch the amount of trouble they cause, especially, in the end.
Life is given, to gain much knowledge, in this very large world.  Not to mess around, and be funny, impressing every boy and girl.
Don't get left behind, watching your so called "Friends" get promoted.  They will be the ones to laugh at you, while you are being demoted.
Ellie Taylor  May 2017
Ana
Ellie Taylor May 2017
Ana
Hi, nice to meet you,
I'm Me
And this is Ana,
who is also Me
There was a time before Her,
but it was so long ago
that the memories are fuzzy around the edges

She was so quiet,
I didn't even hear Her come in
I turned,
and She was simply there
She was so soft
Her voice a mere whisper
among the surrounding chaos
When I floundered,
drowning in the dark ocean of My reality
She was there
powerful, capable, calm

I am Her, and She is Me
We were powerful, capable, calm

So powerful, so capable, so calm
victory over oneself
Where She was once quiet,
She became thunderous
once soft,
now unyielding
It happened so fast,
I didn't even notice I was no longer steering
That I'd been demoted by a jury of Me

We live together in this prison of Ours;
swimming endlessly
in the turbulent waters that is Our stream of consciousness
like a boiling ***
The vessel that We inherited
through no choice of Our own
is in a constant state of disrepair

And there is One Thing on which She and I can agree:
I am Her, and She is Me, and She and I will die as We.

Et tu, Brute?
Becky  Oct 2010
Disillusionment
Becky Oct 2010
Disillusionment encompasses the night.
Your warm breath tickles my ear,
Firm hands caress my skin
leaving no part of my body untouched.
All other distractions, extraneous characters,
everything else is irrelevant.
It is just you, with your smooth dark skin,
comforting embrace,
and those entrancing brown eyes,
and me, with my silky pale skin,
soft curves,
and sad but hopeful eyes.
It is just us and our apprehension in this room,
isolated from reality.
You indulge in my coquettish laugh,
and I take solace in the warmth of your touch.
The contours of my body complement yours
as we both try to savor this feeling of ecstasy.
But the hourglass runs out,
and this moment is fleeting.
The illusion is shattered
when the protagonist reappears,
and I am demoted to understudy.
I am left to replay this scene
in my disillusioned mind
hoping to one day again feel
the softness of your lips
pressed against my bare skin,
but until then, I will replay these events,
ignoring this void in my soul
and embracing the momentary nirvana.
Nat Lipstadt Jun 2013
In the Poet's Nook: Perhaps I should write less

Surrounded by a movie set of waves,
A just stiff enough, warm-to the-wet-finger breeze,
Temperature just touches 80 Fahrenheit,
Our shirts wind-ripple, the sun rays tipple
Our minds into a clarity of euphoria dots of surreal stipple,  
One would never think to drink or smoke again.
Surround-sounded by waves rapping,
Pushed~pulled by the gusts, delivery messengers of
Air bearing, air aborning, of every flavored life's seedling needed,
We would freeze life as is, forever, unhesitatingly.

A cool woman from whom I sip, rip, and to her,
Tender my life, comes to kiss-visit me in the nookery,
Feeds me peaches, cherries, and a fruit as yet unnamed.
Called by some my muse, I call her my fuse,
For the disparities, the troubles I but hint at,
And all that is life-good under her roof,
Comes together here where there is only
Cerebral and sensual, for there is nothing else of import,
Even the not-good, tempered gently, and put aside.

You and I,
We know but small of each other,
Yet we reveal so much -
If I could summon you here right now,
All would be clarified,
No request denied,
Yes, every tear, every tear, would dry itself,
Promise.  From experience, promise.

Wish we could compose side by side.
My perfection would be made more perfect
By its sharing, especially with those
So hurting-pained, suffering, I cannot all absorb it,
No longer stand this influenza wave of affliction,
Especially when I.Am.Blessed.

Come here, where I can promise slow and steady healing.

How can I make you understand what I write,
Where,  here, I write, all comes so easy,
Every glance a poem formed,
Every phrase a title to a poem to be served,
Every conversation overheard, wind-lifted brought,
A seed, a germ, a word~worm hooked to the pole crook of
My finger saying,
See man, time to get more
Rod and reel, ink and paper,
Go, and catch us a few poems for dinner.


The snapper weakfish word colors are
Running past my-by the thousands,
We will need a woven basket to catch but a fraction,
Of what you see, more than more enough to share,
Only Happy Poems for all.

It is in this rhyming way, I view the world,
That is my freedom, my-present essence,
How the poems come, how thy flow,
Peaking, I cannot berate, rarely eat,
Sleep a thing of the past (as you be aware, beware)
There is poetry in simply everything.
                                                     ­     
A long time ago, I wrote a long poem that began like this:

Excited utterances, acerbic witticisms, utter stupidities,
elegant inanities, can and most assuredly will be used,
both evidentially, and eventually, about you
in the court of poetic justice,
as inspiration, original source material,
proofs of our collaboration with the enemy,
whom Pogo fathomed long ago is...Us

As I drink in my good fortune,
The enemy is clearly just me, overwhelmed,
Unable to choose, unable to distinguish,
Unable stop, out of control, I need perspective,
Both the scars and the successes, scar-e me

Perhaps I should write less,
Or take a mental rest,
Is not brevity what's in this year?*

But in this *not-half-but-all-the-way
house by the bay,
Where lying about, in the Poets Nook, is the souls cure,
There is inspiration ammunition galore,
Brevity is but a demoted D list celebrity.

I need you to be at ease,
So my happy days can be full completed,
Meantime the pen is grounded,
I should put-poetry-writing aside and just think,
Read~Rocking the writs those little babies you send to me,
For my mouth to mouth inhaltion and
Return to them, children, the elements of a
Nook's Recitation of Resuscitation.

June 2013
To better understand this poem, see: https://hellopoetry.com/poem/390340/time-to-get-serious-in-the-poets-nook and also,
https://hellopoetry.com/search/poems/?q=a+man+in+search+of+his+style..

early poems on HP when I knew how to write. As many of your know, the Poet's Nook is a real place;  three old and weathered Adirondack Chairs, overlooking the
bay, the beach, and serenity;
All invited to compose alongside, even the old grouchies who complain correctly, I wright too long(ly)
Ben Brinkburn Feb 2013
With space colliding
and consciousness demoted to
electrical charges
the beep of a car horn can

break you from a reverie of
spinning atoms and cracked coffee cups
in ****** cafes in
broken towns where

news of invasions flicker across screens
and disinterested teens discuss apps
and buildings collapse and governments
speak of

fascism being a ***** word something
decidedly non-PC
something slanderous
how dare thee

We are not Nazis
we are just looking out
for you

they know what’s best for you so
drink your coffee and
enjoy your technology
just don’t
say the wrong
words
Elizabeth Hynes Apr 2015
I was happy
Yes, I thought I was the messiah
I thought I was a celebrity
I thought 'gee how every one looks at me'
Now I know my thoughts were wro.g
And I have been demoted to
Nothing. No one.

I am more interesting since being locked up,
'it must have been scary'
They ask me
I say yes
But I mean no.
You told me once
          of the distinctive jingle
          that announced my station
when I could steal away
for a few moments
     to speak
     to see
     to connect
Over that long distant airwave
You told me I was one
          of two
          the other your son
who you wanted to know
was on the other end
so you could be certain
to take the call
I wonder
     have I now been
          dismissed
          replaced
          discharged
­          reassigned
     to a lesser status
Or would you still get a tingle
if you heard my jingle?

— The End —