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Salvador Kent May 2021
You were here before…
Searching for something,
Your hands fumbling from spine to spine
Inferno, Paradise Lost, Michelle Obama,
Bertolt Brecht. Glance to see a figure serving coffee,
You will amount to nothing. You or I?

Life is a series of disoriented imitations…
Strange noises slip from your throat,
Strange because… you see…
You're intelligible. Bertolt Brecht.
Something more absurdist… but no…
Sisyphus. Observe him push a boulder
Over and over… Sartre…  ****.

Why do you believe a reference
Reflects intelligence? Stupid boy,
You're a pseudo-intellectual.
Why rage against the standardisation
Of mediocrity if you yourself are
Mediocre. Why use enjambment on
Lines previous for convenience?
See the banal intolerance of your poetry?

You were here before,
Stroking spines… whatever that means…
This was about a feeling…
But even that is null.
Bertolt Brecht rots and laughs…
A small child picks fruit.
Reference to Inferno and Paradise Lost, two texts about the fall of man, and his conflict with evil.

Reference to Michelle Obama, I will not elaborate.

Reference to Brecht, theatre practitioner who emphasised detachment.

Sisyphus, used with the implication of Camus' absurdist masterwork "The Myth of Sisyphus".

Sartre, existentialist philosopher. Life is meaningless until you find your own meaning. My understanding is that Camus differs. A juxtaposition.

The passage of time is a strange thing, so is my state of mind.
Max French Feb 2021
Soft bedding shielding my body
From the axis of frigid air that thrives
Off the edge of everyone's bed.
But as always my mind is
Wrapped up in something else.

The cord attaching me to
The sail of blood and bone
Tugs deep at my ankles and legs
And moves me off, and out
Into the waking world.

And when did the world wake up,
Breathe heavy and rub yesterday's dirt
Off its dry and heavy eyes?
Lifting itself from a cold pillow
To pirouette the day away 'round the sun.

I question it only because
It feels, most days, like the planet
Is sleepwalking.
Shuffling and spewing nonsense,
Just like me.

At least I got to write this down
Before I go back to bed.
Todd Paropacic Jan 2021
If you score it like baseball,
It’s nothing,
A perfect game
For both parties,
A marathon
With no ribbon at the end.
I’ll push that rock up the mountain,
But it always rolls away.
Playing tennis with a wall
Often ends in self defeat,
But I get lost in the heat
Of competition.
I have a premonition
That I’ll break it down,
Chip by chip,
Brick by brick,
But rubber’s got nothing
On masonry.
A poem about the grind of trying out life, testing yourself against yourself, and the futility of measuring up to anyone else.
Samara Nov 2020
Ophelia and Persephone
my kindred women
& forlorn spirits

I wish to embody the
eccentric melodrama
of their complete life
the grandiosity
the tapestry of all
that life is
and should be...
meaningful
void of any
and all
.
.
.
silence
Zhavaed Haemaed Nov 2020
Existence, consciousness ..

who are we and what do we do ..
A puff out .. a drag of cold air, racing .. racing .. head full of existential thoughts  . ..
Living, a wine glass .. a shot of warmth down my throat  . . Emotions these running flow of consciousness .. why do I think it all ?

Lying, in the dark .. an athem of sort, in silence reforms .. ideas and lack of them .. and thoughts, a void is born !

Internalising emotions .. finding my thoughts so alive in this darkness  ..
Hurriedly may I pass away to a lack of form ..

Insanity .. beckons me .. and what more can I do but nod .. meaning, I seek meaning. And not an iota of cognition is ever got.

Tired, I am tired of life as I know it, the bones ache, the thoughts become nonsensical and we deliver as we are meant to .. not very sure, not very sound .. in the air . . drifting slowly, and surely .. towards an end.

What is this eternal rack of hell that we are accustomed to... What is this longing for something that has passed us far by .. who am I even, floating aimless .. who are we, under our skin tight hides.

Disaster in the waiting, a last beacon calls to the inward eye .. and I see, albeit shrouded in dark .. nothing. Alas, no meaning.. an absurd, surreal delusion called Life.
We are buffeted by the brutality of constant demands
That erode the inner steel we put up
To block out the absurdity of life.
Always looking forward, to what?
To time ticking down
As we move inexorably to unity in our everlasting darkness of nothing
The stupidity will hit us one day
A tsunami of regret
Why did I keep the madness at bay
instead of embracing it and taking it out to dance.
Daisy Hemlock Aug 2020
milk is just grass
stupid questions
what's music?
*** is weird
there must be more to life
spider
can i brush your teeth?
i'd smile for you
even though you don't deserve it
Samara May 2020
Quiet in my velvet dreams
gleaming with beauty queens
ultraviolet veneers
under crystal clear chandeliers

Awake. Never quite getting the reckoning.
Instead you're beckoning
me to your charade of promise
but I'm stuck in the forest
where you're my Charon
following me to the limestone,
dragging me back to the gates
and I know you mean well, but it doesn't resonate.

I've abandoned all hope and entered
Feeling like I've surrendered
What is it I will remember
when we get to November?
Biting my arm
in moments of harm
or
braiding my hair
with you just being unaware?

It all seems silly
like a grand facade really
where I can't see why anyone
can buy into becoming a chameleon.
Why take it so serious
when it just feels delirious?
What is it we're racing to
at the end, it's the same view.
Who is it for?
I really must make sure.

Waiting for my Virgil
To guide me through the hurdles.
He's no where to be seen
as I choke on my amphetamines.
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