Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Shea Nov 2018
My mind has left me
Nothing but puddles
For me to clean up
After a downfall.

This is the downfall
Of us all
Or it's just me
Falling to pieces
As I see this world
Getting nothing but worse.
Amanda Kay Burke Nov 2018
Look at the eyes in my own reflection
Young yet full of so much pain
I wear invisible armor undetectable
To keep guarded from love's aim

Padded heart is cushioned well
Securing feelings when I fall
My ears braced for the eventual goodbye
Ready to crash each time you call

My eyes prepared for the tears to flow
Deep purple bags will appear again soon
My emotions are made of glass
Worn smooth by tides pulled by the moon

Can't ******* hesitation?
Interest can be a dangerous game
Take your hand with the expectation
It will end like others, always the same

Plucking my disappointments from within
Send to a distant land
Tempted to chase after them
But how can I run if unable to stand?

I turn desire to doubt
Open doorways to uncertainty
Shut the ones with stability on the other side
Negative mind will cause you to flee

You can't say I didn't give you fair warning
What did you expect?
Closed off from the world for a reason
Built walls around my heart to protect

Hoping for the best, fearing the worst
Your infatuation appears too good to be real
Trying to stay strong but I am falling hard
Please let me know if this is how you truly feel
Sometimes I wish I was a mind-reader
Oshit Kul Ratan Oct 2018
The moon shined upon her
Yet she was upset
The cold breeze kissed her
Yet she felt nothing
The flies lighted only for her
Yet she was dark
For she had lost love
Which died with her dreams.
Her love died with her dreams.
Lucius Furius Aug 2018
How distant my Swabian* youth seems now.
I made a glider which really flew, you know.*
Not far, but yes, it carried me! I soared!
  
Some accused me of being a showboat,
of tooting my own horn. . . . I learned early
that the laurels don't go to the meek or the bashful.
  
Yes, I was a ****. Those aristocrats
on the General Staff* belittled the Fuhrer--
but where had they gotten us?
I liked his enthusiasm and optimism.
We were in a hole; he led us out,
got the economy going again,
restored the Sudetenland and Danzig.
(Danzig where Lucie and I had been married!)
  
I thought Poland would be the end
but when we attacked in the West
I didn't shrink away.
My troops and I were the very spearhead:
strike quickly; do the unexpected.
  
Who was I to deny
Germany's world-wide destiny?
  
The African war agreed with me.
The open space gave a latitude to my strategy
lacking in hilly, forested Europe.

The victory at Tobruk is often cited
as the height of genius, military.  
I, myself, prefer what preceded it:
the retreat into Tripolitania--
salvaging men and tanks, shortening supply lines,
lulling the British into complacency;
turning and stinging at Agedabia.

El Alamein: the Fuhrer and I part company.
"Victory or Death", he cabled me.
I disagreed: my men would not die senselessly.

We were desperate for gasoline.
Ship after ship was sunk trying to deliver it.
(Lax Italian security, no doubt.)
  
We were outnumbered five to one.
I favored withdrawing immediately,
consolidating troops in Europe.
The Fuhrer wouldn't hear of it.
  
I flew to East Prussia to confront him.
He'd grown pudgier, more strident--
wouldn't give an inch.
I sensed that not just Africa
but the war as a whole would be lost.
The weight of the forces against us was crushing.
The only question'd been their willingness to fight.
That had been answered at Stalingrad.
  
I fought on in Italy and in France,
hoping to convince the enemy
that the price of taking Europe--
especially Germany--
would be too high.

I really thought we had a chance
to stop them on the beaches.
But now that we've failed, our destruction's inevitable.
  
I've tried to make the Fuhrer see reason:
surrender to the British and Americans;
don't let our country be overrun by Russia.
  
He condoned ******--
ordered me to **** the French Jewish soldiers
who'd surrendered at Bir Hacheim,* for instance,
(I didn't) -- and much more. . . . And yet,
and yet, I couldn't quite bring myself to wish him dead--
and certainly never took part in that plot--
though, yes, I knew of it . . . after a fashion. . . .
Defending myself to that group would be hopeless. . . .
Lucie and Manfred must be spared
the humiliation of hearing me declared a traitor.

I bestrode the plains of Africa--
Rommel, the invincible--
always with the troops where the battle was most critical.
I was crafty and brave,
dared to act when others shied away.
I was the apple of the Fuhrer's eye;
idol of the German people;
scourge of the British military.
All the world applauded me. I lost--
but only when outnumbered overwhelmingly.
  
Now I sit in the back of this Opel*--
an outcast, a criminal--
waiting to take a cyanide pill.

We failed to assess properly
the will of other nations to honor treaties
and preserve their freedom.
And, more basically:
Were we right to force our rule on other people?

Icarus-like, we flew too high.

We were bold and strong
but it seems, in the end,
in the end, not supermen.
Swabia: A region of southwestern Germany (around Stuttgart) which had been a dukedom in the 10th to 13th centuries.

glider: In 1906 Rommel, age 14, and a friend built a full-size, box-type glider.

General Staff: High-level officers with formal military education. Rommel, having come up through the ranks, lacked such training.

no doubt: Rommel was correct in thinking that the British knew the exact destinations and sailing times of Italian supply ships, but was wrong as to the source of their information: it was coming from German ("Enigma") radio transmissions which the British had learned to decode.

beaches: Rommel was in charge of the defense of the coast against British/American invasion.

Bir Hacheim: A fort at the southern end of the "Gazala Line" (in Libya) which Rommel outflanked in his attack upon Tobruk in 1942.

hopeless: The army's Court of Honor (Field Marshal Keitel, Generals Guderian and Kirchheim) had been presented with evidence of Rommel's involvement in the plot on ******'s life (false) and his attempts to arrange an armistice with the British (true). With ******'s approval they had given Rommel a choice of committing suicide (and having his treason hushed up) or of going before the court (and, no doubt, being hung in public).

Manfred: Rommel's son.

Opel: The car which the officers who presented Rommel with his choices had driven from Berlin.

Hear Lucius/Jerry read the poem: humanist-art.org/audio/SoF_020_rommel.MP3 .
This poem is part of the Scraps of Faith collection of poems ( https://humanist-art.org/scrapsoffaith.htm )
Anonymous Jul 2018
I feel lost in a sea of words,
That have stitched themselves to the roof of my mouth
I try to explain what I’m feeling but nothing comes out
I feel the weight beginning to crush me,
Making it harder to breathe
Sowing my lips shut-
shutting down like the rest of my body
Everything feels like so much,
But then nothing at all
I’m lost in the confusion,
Do I have something to say,
Or am I just my own downfall?
Bismay Mohanty Jun 2018
A name that lionized once
Exemplifying crystal goodness
Dwindles now amidst the crowd
For an instinct extravagance
Who loved once, now fear
The name that lies in darkness.

‘The culprit’ now reminisces
All that made his past.
Endurance long did he face but
Long didn’t his freedom last.
Joy comes slow and with struggle
Folly! He wanted it fast.

The culprit earlier envied people
With love, money and other wealth
Unlike winners, he failed to stand alone
In himself he did lose faith.
Burning desires made evil rhetorical
Pity the age evil ignite stealth.

Forbidden fruits he dared to reach
Stranger he felt on being a deuce.
He cherished at the illusion
Of walking on a supreme avenue.
Everything comes with a price, he forget
Now the Devil waited for his revenue.

Blindfolded by the espy of interim wealth
Wealth of humanity has become a fiction.
Just of the self he kept ruminating on
Never thought of the innocent’s malediction
He who snatched several dreams by his desire
Awaited for him the much deserved destination.

In his cell, his sleep now breaks
As the moonlight seeks him in murky.
The joy in seasons are lost forever
Burning passions depleted of intensity
Time passed with thoughts of past and future
Alas! Immature insanity changed his destiny.
Talia Jun 2018
I was your slave
to every end of your lust
I'd be punished if I were to misbehave
but this addiction to you was a must
you said it was forever
I was too naive to know that it's never true
I've been addicted to every part of you since November
and way beyond that, and you never had a clue
until that one fateful autumn day
when what you said started it all
and what I said, was no misplay
little did I know what I answered would result in my downfall.
Next page