"assigning" poems
My 2 Cents
“the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.”
Let me start by mentioning that I don’t usually get involved with political matters, but in this case, I’d say it’s more of a basic human rights matter.
I’m a man, and I’m a feminist.
I was lucky enough to grow up in a home with three women; my mother and two older sisters. Growing up with them gave me an enormous amount of respect for women, (even though I may have lost a certain amount of socially expected masculinity along the way), and their current lives continue to increase my respect for the opposite gender.
My oldest sister is leaving to study abroad at Oxford in less than a week to major in philosophy. Philosophy. She also graduated high school with a 4.0 and was involved in power lifting competitions and is enlisted in ROTC. Simply put, she’s an animal. She’s worked hard her entire life and I’d hate to see a world that put that hard work to waste.
My other sister is working three jobs to pay her way through college and is planning to major in psychology. I’m always envious of her work ethic and level of commitment to not only her education, but to her friends and family as well.
My mother has been my backbone since I was a child. She was always the one I turned to in times of trouble, and continues to be. She works hard everyday, while going through mentally straining marriage problems, and comes home and still asks me about my day. She has given me nothing but unconditional love for my entire existence.
For these reasons, it boggles my mind why anyone would ever be anti-feminism. I am genuinely confused as to why, because their bodies are different, women get less privileges, respect, opportunities, and even money. I just don’t get it.
I am also disgusted that women are seen by most men as walking ****** organs. l will admit genuine guilt to using the number scale to “rate” women. It’s something I grew up with, but now it sickens me. Assigning a number to a woman based on your misguided views on how she should look, whether you would **** her, is something I find repulsive. There’s nothing wrong with admiring the opposite *** but no one gives a **** about your stupid opinion, especially the woman.
I hope someday if I ever have a daughter that she will have the privilege of living in a country of gender equality, tolerance, and open-mindedness.
Anyway, I just wanted to put my two cents in.
I am a man.
I am a feminist.
Peace.
Sep 23, 2014
Sep 23, 2014 at 9:46 PM UTC
He entered our classroom
Quietly
Something in his hand
A slip of paper
Assigning him
to English 11b
English words
Thick in his mouth
He whispered his name,
Jaime Chavez
Jimmy Changa!
someone mocked,
Had one of them for supper
Nice to know you burrito boy.
Jaime Chavez smiled,
And remembered.
He entered our classroom
Quietly
Something in his hand
A book
Shakespeare
Carefully noted
In Spanish and English
Jimmy Changa
Someone mocked
Whatcha got there?
A book?
You don’t need them to cut my lawn.
Jaime Chavez smiled,
And remembered
He entered our classroom
Quietly
Something in his hand
An award
Superior achievement
English 11b
Jimmy Changa
Someone mocked
You didn’t earn that,
******* ****** ****
Jaime Chavez smiled
And remembered.
He entered our classroom
Quietly
Something in his hand
Full scholarship
Princeton University
In English Literature
And something else
A bumper sticker
"God Bless America,"
Which he carefully
tacked to the bulletin board
My name is not Jimmy Changa.
My name, is Jaime Chavez
And he smiled.
Apr 17, 2013
Apr 17, 2013 at 4:07 PM UTC
Off I go
To the ****** ward
For the chasing of elusive words
I round them up and write them down
A poet demanding to be heard
Using only a word at a time
I will never have enough
So here I sit in the silly ward
A word chaser
A nut
The more words I write
The more I want
It has become an insatiable greed
Words I must have them all
Not a wanting
An uncontrollable need
My crime is that I am a word chaser
Many cannot understand
So this is my explanation
As I scrawl with pen in hand
Yes I am a pursuer of words
And all the letters I find
Line them up
Assigning their places
I paint them with metaphor and rhyme
A word chaser yes
Without reservation these faults I confess
Though my hands are no longer tied
The door is forever shut
So in the ****** ward I will remain
A word chaser'
A nut
All right Reserved. Tammy M. Darby.
All Material Stored in Author Base
Aug 26, 2013
Aug 26, 2013 at 9:14 PM UTC
As the water birds lifted from the morning tide,
I found myself being lifted from an unconscious
state to the dictionary by four unfamiliar syllables
like the many poets before me, searching for
the meaning of nomenclature. Interestingly enough,
it could have been me on the other side of a poem
that I would come back to after sundown: an old,
scientific word who first appeared in 1610,
whose roots grew, naturally, like the hidden
interests of a loved one, from the Latin
nomenclatura (the assigning of names).
But instead, I ended up on this side of the poem,
sitting before an empty screen and a dictionary
in a Yankees ball cap and denim t-shirt, slowly
piecing together a poem about a 17th century novel
while trying to include the sudden interest of my
loved one: French parenting literature on healthy
eating, all while slowly tying the loose ends
of a poem without meaning together.
Sep 5, 2016
Sep 5, 2016 at 9:54 PM UTC
If this vast azure emptiness can prove
An aghast endless vacuum measure
Take it for granted, research process sure
It will fuel your thought resources, true.
Mining specks and dots in deep space treasures
Boundless designs shine assigning pleasures
Unfurl within mind in gaseous beams
Overflowing the banks of conscious streams
Filling the utmost sanctum with soft skills
Milling vacuum with colorful quills
Calming the pulses with embracing lulls
Warming all lives with fundamental pulls
Creating a sense of duo, I and you
Love and dislikes and points of view.
Feeling satiety in charity
Finding synergy in activity.
Minting amity in society
keeps you young aged muddling in daring dreams
Deeply engage you cuddling realms supreme.
So what? if this vast thought mine be blanked out
Will the ghost mute vacuum follow suit?
If sense aides guide a slow downward exit
And mind bids the fairy lids to close it
Will the sun bewail, bemoan and eclipse?
Or will the same smile prevail on red-lips?
If souls sunset in seamless sea of mind
Will lights spill out; team up to stay behind?
To form anew a fresh long microwave
To indent a start with a soul suave
A new spectrum to perceive the forces
For the soul that constantly resources
That differently formats transceiver courses
The energy that cannot be destroyed
But that which can be candidly portrayed
On a vast emptiness fluidly stolid
On a continuum vividly solid
On a clean canvas without dimensions
In a brave new world that cannot mention
A name which is beyond comprehension
A frame that doesn't fall on known convention.
Jan 16, 2019
Jan 16, 2019 at 2:30 PM UTC
You know how I work
You know the amount of work I put in
Every hour, every day
Every week, every month
It would be the easiest thing in the world
To slack off, for a change
Or work at a snail's pace
After all, I've worked with you
For a long, long time
Therefore, it would be easy for me to think
That I am indispensable
Or that I can take you for granted
But if I do that
Then I wouldn't be Ashwin
So, coming back to the point
You know I am overworked
In fact, we all are
You have even acknowledged it
At some point or the other
And are trying to set things right
By adding more people to the team
However, for some reason
Things have always ended up going south
At the eleventh hour
While I do appreciate your endeavours
What I would really like
Is for you to appreciate our efforts
On a regular basis
And try as far as possible
To ensure some balance in the workload
So that we don't end up biting more than we can chew
After all, a few people have recently left
You don't want to add to that number, do you?
So, please think twice
Before assigning any new mandates
Especially to someone who hasn't fully recovered from COVID yet
Sep 2, 2022
Sep 2, 2022 at 12:42 PM UTC
I missed you before we ever met
And dread the parting words
You were the pawn shop for my trinkets and baggage
Assigning palpable worth to the unimportant history
One man’s trash and tragedy
Is another man’s happiness attained
I traded my pain for gold
You’re the best story I ever told
Mar 20, 2011
Mar 20, 2011 at 7:13 AM UTC
You admire pieces of me
Soft and beautiful
For the pleasure they can give you
You condemn my capability
Practicality and spirituality
You claim I can’t have it both ways
I can’t indulge my senses and hold power the same
Divine femininity has become synonymous with delusion
In a modern world that will never love me
I am aligned with the moon
I am in tune
With the rhythm of the waves
And the passage of days
You don’t know what I feel
How it is to exist in a world not built for you
Every living soul
Assigning your worth for what you can’t control
All of mankind is built on the principle
That my body was built for your enjoyment
That my life belongs to whatever man finds beauty in my eyes
And peace in my silence
Of course I turn to the tides and the trees and the breeze
To find comfort in their embrace
When you can’t hold me
You mock me for connecting to something bigger than my body
Loving Mother Nature more than the woman that brought
Me into this world
Yet you reduce my strength to beauty
Tell me I am too weak and small and simple minded
To understand a world you built
Out of fear of me
My divine femininity
May 9, 2024
May 9, 2024 at 8:10 PM UTC
Numerology disturbs
my fragile mind
with its meanings
of numbers
which I think
have no real meaning
or use as symbols
or signs
and I seem to have
a built-in bent
ingrained in my head
toward assigning
definitions of meanings
to these homogeneous numbers
even though
my conscious mind
rebels at the thought
so, you know,
when some
sign of a monster
comes popping up
into my life
I get a bit
of a freak-out twinge
but, I know,
nothing ever happens.
Jun 14, 2010
Jun 14, 2010 at 11:26 PM UTC
within the confines of defining
definitions are never lost
it's set in stone, there's no combining
it's a line that you can't cross
throw away your dictionary
it's your thoughts they are confining
like a self discovery loss
it's your mind, but they're assigning
another line that you can't cross
Aug 26, 2015
Aug 26, 2015 at 11:39 PM UTC
Maybe our cars sat
side by side
at the traffic lights,
and you saw me
as the lights metamorphosed,
and I leant against the window
so something else could hold me
like the boy I'd left behind.
Or maybe I stood behind you, bad tempered,
impatient and sighing louder than necessary,
in the supermarket queue,
humming the notes of a song
that later would wrap you in the folds of slumber,
while I, in insomniac hours,
shrugged off dreamland and
wondered if he'd gone to sleep.
Maybe it was the summer
I dyed my hair blonde, and
had a face decorated with freckles,
and the pretendings of a tan.
I was desperately assigning the shapes
in the faceless clouds
to the boy who'd taken my heart
and forgotten me.
I hope that maybe I was the person
who reminded you of you,
on that particular blue Monday,
when you couldn't see
yourself.
Or perfumed the train with
your childhood vanilla, and you remembered
to call home,
and it made your mother smile.
We are strangers, you and me,
but maybe, countries away,
he'll hear my laugh
unfold from you
in giggle shaped puzzle pieces,
and know.
You see, we are the stars of a labyrinthine galaxy,
inextricably connected as we trace ourselves
onto the night sky,
searching.
Jan 5, 2014
Jan 5, 2014 at 2:02 PM UTC
Along a trickling stream,
there's a hushed whereabouts
she likes to routinely gather
her thoughts from, before
assigning her task
to bathing amongst
the shadows.
Today's reflections vastly
withdrew, untwining
such musings,
as a playful breeze
whispered unto her
of an unbeknownst admirer's
dedication.
And so avidly fixed it was
upon the arched swell of
her lower back,
she quite shivered.
But be it a pleasurable fear,
she allowed him such liberties,
and stepped into the light.
Dec 2, 2019
Dec 2, 2019 at 11:40 AM UTC
Patience
never saw a baby that didn't
eventually
learn how to walk,
how to talk.
but I have seen, still do,
children who became adults,
but not grownups,
still ******* their thumbs.
don't blame the parents.
don't blame the child.
don't blame the idiotcreators,
pseudo-educators.
blame me.
always take the easiest course
when assigning blame.
Yet cherish them
tho oft they err,
have we not all,
stumbled and
extended hand
beseeching help?
let us learn
for they,
my blood
one and all,
and I call them
by one name,
each and every,
Mine.
------------------------
Hint: if you are thinking of taking your parents along for your ride, read this. Better yet, give it to them.
"And she taught me that my children
are not truly mine.
They don’t belong to me;
they’ve simply been entrusted to me.
They are a gift life gave to me,
but one that I must
one day give back to life.
They must grow up
and go away and
that is as it should be."
Charles M. Blow
Nov 10, 2013
Nov 10, 2013 at 5:32 AM UTC
shoot the moon
the sky is falling
he doesn’t have a clue
he can’t figure it out
he doesn’t want to
holding on to the past like crutches
punched, choked and slammed
like a Saturday night smackdown
he was his father’s “favorite”
wrestling verbal belittlements of brotherly shame
“Stop crying. You’re acting like a female.”
his mother escaped the battle cage and sent for him later
abandonment and authority issues
anger internalized and rising to a peak
he dropped out of high school
a crumpled, broken man-child
a stone child
having only dreams left intentionally vague
falling to his addictions and ****** anesthesia
afraid of moving forward
he likes it in limbo
waiting for life to happen for him
expecting others to help
but he won’t help himself
exploiting every excuse
words and actions biting the hands that feed him
pushing people away
assigning blame with pointed fingers
campaigning for sympathy with crocodile tears
tip toeing silently
the years creep up and sneak by
he’s a full step slower
like an aging prize fighter
unable to bob and weave society’s jabs
punch drunk he says, “no más”
withdrawing to the streets
he says, “no más”
“no más”
Del Maximo
© October 8, 2009
Jan 18, 2010
Jan 18, 2010 at 9:48 AM UTC
Beware
A serious search for truths
Of deeper existential matters
Can change the way you believe and think.
Unfortunately
Most shall never
Reach their roof
In the shadows of facts
And lack of proofs
In the cave that's given
Surrendered to roles
Sheltered in comforted
Feeble to old
Coming back around
To repeat life again
Judging, labeling
Assigning sin
Limiting love
To the circles within
We bind ourselves
By our beliefs
Only a traveling
Mind is truly free
....
Sep 17, 2017
Sep 17, 2017 at 9:47 AM UTC
In 1945 The War was over
The survivors were trying to make life work
And occupation forces here and there were set
To guard the roads, the rails, the city streets
And so it was that Master Sergeant Hall -
Normandy, the Moselle, Belgium and the Bulge,
Munich, Dachau, Thuringen, and Zwickau -
Was sent to old Marseilles to be a cop
A watch commander, assigning patrols
And sending men to their various posts
Even to directing traffic in the streets
There was a complaint from a traffic hub:
The American soldier in charge there -
Sometimes he chose to block all traffic there
And swagger about and cuss ‘em out
Then laugh, and all at once turn ‘em loose again
And then one day there came an alarm:
Machine guns shooting at that intersection
A soldier from the colonies gone wild
And murdering people in the street
They sped to the scene, the scene of horror
And helped - but they could not find their soldier
Posted there at the beginning of the watch
Was he among the dead? The wounded? Where?
And they didn’t know until the end of the day
After the soldier returned, alive and well:
“When the shooting started, I ran down the street,
Found another spot, and directed traffic there.”
Feb 15, 2019
Feb 15, 2019 at 3:03 PM UTC
I have lived a million years or maybe just a day.
My body was once the air the plants breathed
The soil that nurtured the hungry.
Flowers we stand in the winds of time
Bending to its will, forever in its grasp until the day it lets us go.
Is time the great freedom of possibility?
The exhale before you jump
The momentary loss of control
When your light escapes
Like the crinkle of the eye when a laugh breaks through,
Warmth from infinite love
A gentle touch that gives instead of takes.
Or is it growth, change you can not stop
The heart before the break, the me after the you
Like the fire that erupts from a spark
When goodbyes were only for a few minutes
From sticks and stones can break your bones
To when rhetoric becomes your most lethal weapon.
Maybe it is but a loan that we must eventually repay
Assigning numbers to the intangible
As if this could stop the inevitable.
A currency which we always lose and waste
Trickling through the fingers of outstretched hands
Barely kissing the skin,
Leaving behind only the memory of its cold touch.
Dec 23, 2012
Dec 23, 2012 at 12:30 PM UTC
spiritual burglary
delicious minutes
unlovely products of a puritanical conscience
alcohol taken as a club with which to bludgeon into a state of insensibility
words seemed to clothe genuine honesty , they prove to be the veriest nonsense
epiphanic amorphous mind and its stream of consciousness
I imagine a neural interface that could record dreams
not brainwaves, but images
phantasmagoric films beset by the florid mind
sorry echoes in the verbosity
Too bad love has fallen out of style
now that squares rule the world
I can't express "why" in words
so unrealistic a view of themselves and the world that they become most difficult to live with
little wonder I dwell alone
everything is really fragmentary
analyzing the analyst
tripping over my words
instantaneous administration
mesmerized by the minutiae of sensations
tangles of terminology writhe in his brain
collating and sorting
assigning vectors
in hopeful sectors
where heart and love abides
Jul 14, 2016
Jul 14, 2016 at 9:40 PM UTC
Your claws are out you rip and tear
You beat me down till I'm not there
You slash and stab without a thought
You aim your words just like a shot
You spew out hate assigning blame
You live to threaten, blind, and maim.
You wont let me grow you won't let me live
Guilt and shame are all you give
You chain me down till I can't breathe
Knowing I'm too weak to leave
You've stripped me bare, removed my soul
Cut me open and swallowed me whole.
You insult with lies until I'm deaf
Steal my joy till I have none left
I've tried to scream, I've tried to hide
So many times I've wish I died
Death would be better than this hell I allow
If I wasn't a coward id be there right now.
Feb 17, 2017
Feb 17, 2017 at 5:33 PM UTC
in the fading silver light of dusk,
we leave our marks on each other:
me, with my fingernails;
and you, with your teeth -
but deeper than that;
me with my heart,
and you with yours.
fearing, as i always have,
assigning meaning to something which has none;
i am quiet.
i don't tell you that your eyes thrill me
infinitely more than your hands do,
or that the way the shadows tuck themselves into your neck
leaves me breathless.
how could i?
i don't have the words, or the guts to say them.
all i have are my hands, my fingernails, my lips -
more than flesh and bone; tiny vessels
that together form my only means of conveyance -
but, fearing, as i always have,
assigning meaning to something which has none;
i will simply say this:
i hope you, too, feel as if
we go together
really really well.
Oct 25, 2015
Oct 25, 2015 at 10:34 PM UTC
When you live your life like I do you will find yourself assigning meaning to mundane things like broken shopping cart wheels and lonely cigarette butts in tired playgrounds.
You will dream of girls who sit in ***** hotel rooms letting the smell of smoke settle into their nest of messy brown hair and chemicals and guilt.
You will become envious of Dorothy and empathetic for the Tin Man.
You may begin to dabble in the dark arts of poetry but will never quite grasp the art of conversation.
You will live in fantasies of romances with girls who live in fantasies filled with music, and you will die in them.
You will demand happiness for all the broken girls at the expense of your own
Don't live your life like I do.
Jul 27, 2014
Jul 27, 2014 at 8:45 PM UTC
I don't know why you wrote it down
But you made it concrete
What you said was
You love me more when I'm asleep
Because in my peaceful slumber
I am beautiful
Yet I remain unaware of the fact.
But I would like to clarify for you
The true meaning behind your words
And the only sentiment I can understand
From what you wrote that night
And what you told the world.
You said you love me more when I'm asleep
But you only love me more
In my rest
So peaceful and pure
Because I cease to exist.
In my quiet unconsciousness
I am an empty shell
You are blind to the workings of my brain
Reminded only of the doll that exists outside of me.
You mould me into all of your fantasies
Assigning characteristics to a lifeless body
You create new people in my image
New women
New lovers
A new me
A perfect me
A version of myself I could never truly be
Because my brain is my own
And I cannot read yours
I will not shape my person to your needs.
So please don't ever say it again
That you love me more when I'm asleep
That I look more beautiful lifeless
Than when my brain is running
Than when my life shines through my eyes
And my heart sings from my lungs
Don't ever say again
That my only beauty rests
In my nescience
Because all I hear
Is that you don't love me at all
And I don't want this to end
Yet.
Feb 24, 2016
Feb 24, 2016 at 6:49 PM UTC
Poetry and binary codes confuse me. One speaking in affects of numbers, the other in numbers of affectivity. If one could break the code to love, unrequited, divinely impassioned, or other obscure mixtures of, I could only see a cryptic deepening to such woeful confusion. Could one assign sequencing to the untangling of emotion, so that naive lovers might surpass calculated risk? If so, should it be done? I insist, it should be done at once. Assigning bit strings of zeros and ones to compute perfect poetry in which a reader might be forced to fall in love by measured affectations, algorithms deciphered to personal tastes, then subjected by power of suggestion encoded in grandiose pairings of words, suited to the individual reader, ah thus, I begin my army of love slaves. Are you reading my subliminal messaging? You see now, that didn't hurt one megabit. Did it?
Dec 7, 2015
Dec 7, 2015 at 11:35 PM UTC
We started in seventh grade,
When our ancient, grumpy teacher
That no one liked decided to give
Our second hour science class
Assigned seats.
By some great happening of fate,
I was placed next to you,
The loud, obnoxious prankster,
And I, the quiet, shy nerd.
The class at first was torture,
Yet soon became my haven.
A+ lab partners we were,
And soon A+ friends.
Though outside the classroom,
We were nothing.
We had our own friends, our own lives;
Until sophomore year, when you
Caught me coming out of the library,
John Milton in my hand.
Words were said, promises were made,
And the next day I had your hand in mine,
And we were something.
Two weeks later, under the light of trillions of stars,
On the top of the car you “borrowed”
From your strict father,
You kissed me, slowly, tenderly, lovingly,
And I felt true happiness for the first time.
On graduation day,
You caught my graduate cap,
The sun rays making beautiful patterns
On your tan face, and wavy hazel hair,
But you spun around and gave it right back to me,
To leave me for a college in California,
Thousands of miles away, away from everything
You’ve ever known.
And loved.
I tried to get over you, I really did,
But my mind circled the same tracks,
Went over the same ruts,
And I always came back to seventh grade,
When that cranky teacher gave us our
Assigned seats.
I blamed him, thinking that those
Assigned seats were the beginning of
My broken heart.
It wasn’t until four years later,
That I saw you in a library,
Hiding in the shelves, peeking through
The bookends you moved yourself,
That I realized that those feelings never left.
You had come back for me,
And those bean bags in the kids’ section
Of the library became our new assigned seats.
One day, about a year later, you didn’t take your seat;
You went down on your knee instead.
The wedding was casual, yet beautiful, as you said
I was in my light blue dress and beaming smile.
Our seventh grade science teacher sat in the front row;
The seat we assigned to him.
A week later, he went to the seat that
God assigned him, and we were back in that church,
And this time I was in a black dress and crying.
Years passed, and suddenly I found myself
In front of a classroom of my own,
Assigning seats to my own seventh graders.
The quiet, shy nerd shot me a desperate look
As I set her books down by the loud, obnoxious prankster.
I saw my own fear reflected in
Her eyes, and I simply smiled calmly at her.
Maybe some day she will be as
Happy as I was that I was given my
Assigned seat.
May 31, 2018
May 31, 2018 at 4:45 PM UTC
This poet decided against
becoming a measly minced meaty morsel
undetected inauspicious augury
assigning adept
aqueous ace AOL amphibian,
who surreptitiously crept
to the secret crypt (guarded by
foo fighters and amazing dragons)
said gendarmes did except
special fluid scrip as egress into
heavily fortified
(with USDA recommended allowance),
thus when the configurative motley crue
including thyself (a bono fied doo
bee brother - long given up for lost,
which "FAKE" oracle
misinterpreted by a goo goo
doll, and cross dresser named Hugh
played being took a vow el,
and hence consonantly knew
all along, i dwelt peacefully
in a soundcloud loo
immensely spacious with ooh
dills of survival trappings
purchased from Peru
laborers treated by free pact
guaranteeing a socially
conscious shopper to rue
painstaking indigenous stoop labor,
now stamped imprimatur could allow,
enable and provide means to shoe
each formerly eczema dappled,
cracked bare foot
ah, a glimmer of hopefulness
(upon this crowded house of a planet) view
which youtube snapchat ting
reddit as joyous outlook
sans linkedin shutterfly,
twitter ring tender flickr ring shoots
communicated an instagram message
of hopefulness kickstarting optimism
versus the initial thread of this poem,
which to set this got off track
(hinting at goal to be
a paperback book writer wannabe)
rather than ending up as a byte size snack
for a limbering beast, into whose tumblr
of one jagged razor sharp teeth
like daggers lined up along a rack
of reinforced steel maw,
which bang for the bite did pack
leaves no room for bing a survivor
as fierce jaws clamp down
worse than getting steam rolled by a mack
truck, but subjected to thee yield,
whence thousands of pounds
per square inch of pressure
on par lambasted from Donald Trump flack.
Apr 3, 2018
Apr 3, 2018 at 9:32 PM UTC