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Terry O'Leary Sep 2015
1
Though still within our infancy,
we strive to thrive, but woefully
we flash and flaunt our 'primacy',
display our trophies pridefully.

Our terra firma ecstasy
destroys survival's harmony,
lays waste to life on land and sea.
Mankind, thy name is vanity!

By doubting Nature's regnancy,
defying laws with levity,
we strain our spheroid's symmetry
(perhaps a fatal fallacy?)

for, swallowed in the 'world of we',
we feed on vain insanity
with thoughts beyond eternity -
so strange when looked at mortally.

No use to seek a remedy
ensconced in ancient prophecy
for if not handled skillfully,
as clay we'll pay the penalty.

                              2
The Moguls rule with cruel decree,
control the crowds like puppetry,
pursuing greed addictively
with no accountability.

The wind, it reeks of Royalty
(awash in waves of perfidy)
while blowing ’cross the peasantry
(eclipsed in clouds of treachery).

The Queen, well steeped in snobbery,
sits, preening proud Her pedigree,
on throne of sculpted ebony
while sipping Sect immodestly;

to sate Her Regal Majesty,
a caviar clad canapé
is served with golden cutlery
by maidens bent submissively.

The King is bailed from bankruptcy
by Knaves who hoodwink artfully
the down-and-outer evictee
who wallows in their lenity.

Forsooth, the Money Monarchy
exalts the dollar dynasty
engaged in highway robbery
by Peacocks plumed in finery.

Yes, Jesters and the Fools agree
to truckle to duplicity
and laugh about it witlessly.
Long live the peon's penury!

                          3
To champion an oddity
(like two times twelve is fifty three)  
one reaches to theology
through paths of circularity.

In bygone trials of travesty
the doubters, draped in blasphemy,
endured the pain and agony
inflicted by the papacy.

Inspired by the Trinity
fanatics bent cosmology
in geocentric fantasy
while Bruno burned for heresy;

and aged women, randomly
accused of wicked witchery
by justice framed in infamy,
were racked and shown no clemency

That epoch of credulity
(when savants fostered sorcery
and practiced ancient alchemy)
arose in dark age quackery

as clerics dripping piety
(while raging, raving rabidly)
pervaded thralled society
with callous inhumanity;

'repent', they bellowed, 'verily,
forsake the world's iniquity,
live lives of want and chastity,
and give your gelt to God through me'.

                    4
The Masters make a mockery
of freedom and democracy
by holding down the uppity,
released from shackled slavery,

now fettered in a factory
else strewn across the Bowery,
still chained in bonds of bigotry,
immersed in seas of poverty.

And colliers, tapping balefully
in sunken-mine solemnity,
yet thrum a mournful monody
some call the digger's elegy.

To children, pale and raggedy
(behind a day of drudgery),
the boss man, oh so gallantly,
bestows a penny, niggardly;

though some are fed (belatedly),
their eyes recede in apathy
while bellies bulge, inflatedly,
with mothers watching, wretchedly.

When met with health adversity
or broken bone infirmity,
the pauper dangles helplessly
with no insurance policy;

and those engulfed in lunacy
are ailing blobs left floating free
in ******-dream obscurity -
a mired madhouse odyssey.

Ignoring mankind's unity,
the rich and poor dichotomy
breeds dismal doomed finality,
eventual nihility.

                        5
Renewing days of chivalry,
wild warriors fighting valiantly
bring freedom neath the gallows tree
while blending blood and burgundy

to toast the slaughtered enemy,
and so convince the colony
to cede with smile on bended knee
and yield her diamonds, silk and tea.

At first they call the cavalry
and then again the infantry,
so proudly primped in panoply,
with arms from finest armory

(embraced in hands so tenderly
bestow benign atrocity) -
and soon atomic weaponry
will extirpate posterity.

                          6
Misusing high technology
(to feed the face of gluttony)
depletes our Rock of energy,
now slowly dying thermally.

Our gadgets breathing CFC
fuel ozone holes' immensity
while cloud bursts, raining acidly,
wilt woods in their entirety,

and rivers, tainted chemically,
polluted biologically,
refill our cups methodically
and drown our souls organically.

Adjusting genes mechanically
may well blot out the bumble bee
annulling fruits' fecundity,
but brings big bucks reliably.

We wager perpetuity
to revel momentarily
in shadow-like obscurity
ignoring the futility,

but if we bet unknowingly
on fickle fate's contingency
and thereby act haphazardly
we're doomed to lose the lottery.

                 7
The modern day bureaucracy
abuses trust egregiously ,
embeds itself in obloquy
and offers no apology.

It paints the past in reverie
to camouflage the tendency
to strip away our privacy
which paves the path to tyranny.

With earlobes lurking furtively
that listen surreptitiously,
and eyeballs peering piercingly
we've lost cerebral sovereignty,

and those who dare to disagree
must hide away in secrecy
else crowd a black facility
(with water board anxiety).

                  8
Yes, sans responsibility,
our marble in this galaxy
will crumble in catastrophe
ere ever reaching puberty…
HeWhoExplores  Dec 2018
Nihility
HeWhoExplores Dec 2018
Nihility

The place where all but anything occurs.
Where order and disorder have no meaning.
Where dreams are chased but left unattended.
Where solace is never found, and with all the right reasons.
Where pride is hindered, hurt and paraded with hate.

Nihility
justoneman  May 2019
Love Songs
justoneman May 2019
I’m sick of all these love songs
Written about another
Sonnets and odysseys
Desperate for a Lover

I want to enjoy the silence
Nihility subdue
Equally alone
As I am with you

I try to reflect Compassion
A metric of good health
Psuedo-neo Truism
Learn to “Love Thy Self”
Larry dillon May 2023
All the pain a man could muster in his lifetime:
Compressed to a minute.
Then, send it scattershot through the airwaves.
A morose melody. A lovely female voice inflects....
"May I override your rationality and reason?"
Imprints a depression on the mind;
a rope around the deckhand's neck.
Does her voice now command your neocortex?
Yes, but deeper still: it denigrates.
Instills an insistence toward apathy:
existential treason.
musical notes denote a debt to be paid.
They accept just the one currency.
Trade melancholic fervor for nihility...
A payment must be made.
Posit the ship is a sojourn in deep water.
Feeling A sorrow you can't adjourn.
How quickly you will learn:
Jumping overboard
CAN be an act of kindness.
A slave to that recalcitrant sorrow.
Jetsam yourself to lighten the load on your psyche:
It's ideal over facing another tommorow.

Seafaring folk
assume a siren's song is beautiful.

I felt The Earth shake when she sung.
There goes the air from my lungs.
What more to give? Here.
Borrow my body and tongue.
Sitting in the auditorium
of my own soliloquy.
This state of mind is anti-reverie.
Your falsetto sonnet showed memories.
My family.My mishaps.
An altercation out of ennui-with my father.
Before he left,that last thing he said to me...

But.

Why WAS he levied into conflict
over Antioch?
On a whim prescribed, of course;
The pope demanded A crusade on sin.
Father died inside the walls of Jerusalem.
Bled out fighting alongside other mortal men:
Father, is your heaven more beautiful,
than your grand daughter's grin?

Captain has seven sailors hold me still.
I am suppressed inside the fo'c'sle.
He counts down from sixty:
"Let us see if time sets him straight."
A siren's enthrall doesn't agitate long.
Yet,
Even after the weight of it lifting,
it leaves you forlong.
Sometimes-I still feel-
underwater...is that where I truly belong?

Seafaring folk
assume a siren's song is beautiful.
                          I know better.

A violent storm materializes from otherwise
sunny, fair weather.
I guess the myths of the Tempest here are true:
It attacks ships sailing near the fabled
isle Revenir.
Until then,for my own safety,
I had been enroute to the brig.
"All hands on deck
(including me and my captors)
Secure those loose rigs.
Batten down the hatch.
Cap'n is going to steer us-
Right through this Tempest's heart!!"
Steady now.
Or his hubris will tear the ship apart.

I felt indifferent as waves
pummel us relentlessly.
Contrite as our vessel
won its war with the sea.

                   I jump overboard.

Instant remorse.
Father, can your God please alter my course?
A mistake.
This can't be my legacy.
I'm sinking.
Because of what a siren sung.
I can't breathe. Feel water filling in my lungs.
Siren,take what you won
then leave me undone.
I'm sinking.
Is this how I meet my end?
Shimmer from the sunlight fades
as I descend.
Sinking.
And I'll never be found...
My fear, my flailing. My failure to float.
the ocean swallows it all,
ingurgitates my hope.
Is this how you felt?
Facing your ill-fated destiny?
Father.
You always tried-and failed -to quell my misery.
That last thing you said...
Preaching your god's salvation as remedy.

                        I'm sinking.

All along its been my sorrow
that's drowning me.

-
A story of a sailor's mind being taken by a siren's call and how it exacerbates his already present, internal, buried grief.

Part 1 in the Revenir series.
CRobinson Sep 2019
Sundering into nihility
Undecided if I should
  I think it's for the best
   Can't go on
    I think it's for the best
     Don't give up
      Eventually, it will get better.
If you or a loved one are experiencing suicidal thoughts, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 24 hours, 7 days a week: 1 (800) 273-8255.
Cunning Linguist Nov 2013
I don't know why I find death so enthralling;
Or the calling of culled nullified angels more charming than alarming
Salutations to an array of all things macabre and flooding the streets with tidal waves of shock

The blood in your veins
was already cold as ice anyway
before draining away in the embalming process
Your entrails always showed
the manner in which you vested with finesse;
Enthroned in a tomb of frozen snow

Hell burns frigid and unremissive
Your every thought - piercing incisions
While I puzzle together these pieces of the grander picture
The polarity of her stigmatic enigma
Demeanor meandering to and fro
Gandering to pander every whim
Throwing glances left and right
At each of my fellow gentlemen

Rays of light cast from the windows
Outlining my silhouette in the shadows
Low moans bellow in a tour de force
As I peer through your soul
You have but a split second
So spit or swallow,
and choke back your tears
As I bring your worst fears to life

Hell hath no fury like mine reckoning
My discourse beckoning;                              
Imperiously        
imperiling
         and deafening

Channel these demons -
Screams echoing in melodic discord
Face stoic, in lieu of remorse
Wallowing in the shallows and wailing for recourse
The *****'s lament holds no candle;

From the summit,
without substance -
She plummets
in shambles
At free fall speed
she meets the grounds embrace;
but it breaks away

Calm before the storm
Then once more your life flashes
As you reach for the light
hiding in the tunnel's flip-side
Only to realize its not of the Heavens
But a raging Inferno

Neural impulses spiderweb across time
Each one precisely in line; memories -
Absence of your vindication aligned hand in hand
with every secret you buried in the sands

O'er the new rage
Of the golden age noir
Compulsively laying without delay
Fashioned like it's going out of style
"Now **** me something vile -
M a s t e r  r a c o n t e u r"
Make my trials worthwhile
Purveyor of *******
Undeterrable provocateur;

Inclined to bide my time while finding the finer aspects of slaughtering swine
Her squeals, reminiscent
lulling me to unconsciousness
Forever more I remain in denial
Whittling ever closer to nihility
While begging assuaging intoxication to ease my conscience

In the blink of an eye;
Destiny manifest is slathered in spattered inklings of splattered blood red
On a platter shall I present her head
A trophy for my sempiternal Lord of the dead
Why admire the intrinsic birth and death of nature as something beautiful and palpable
When all that exists is worth perishing
I've given up on humanity
A once vibrant pool of endless possibilities
Is reflected in a dismal void steeped with pitch
Justin S Wampler Jun 2015
My longing for knowledge
is quelled by belief that
knowing nothing is
infinitely more freeing
than knowing it all.

Faith in blissful ignorance,
God is an endless abyss
and we are all teetering
on the pungent brimstone,
praying for a gust of wind.

— The End —