"commiserating" poems
You're as pretty as the sunset
saying I'm in love would be a pretty good bet
but if it's wrong, I'm in debt
to some one that I haven't even met
at least not yet,
but I will
and then I'll pay them with a thousand dollar bill
and hopefully get a thrill
because every day I work hard as a papermill just to get to the weekends
but all my relationships are deadends
and I don't want this to end like that again so I'm just sitting here watching Big Ben
and waiting
hoping that with me you're commiserating
Jan 19, 2015
Jan 19, 2015 at 3:15 AM UTC
a ****** of Crows
gather Carpe Diem;
fluffing their throat feathers,
commiserating
the dead-weight
each unshod foot
bending the world below
the horde of cleft feet align
leaving no footprint behind ―
bowing the antique
frayed telephone wire
party-line swaying with the wind
over the washed out road;
at any moment
the land-line
might break
from the overload ―
downcast,
abandoned,
level with the ground ―
but no one
on earth
even cares ...
they've got
the whole world
in their palm
beneath the sky ―
and the crows
have wings
to fly away ...
harlon rivers
June 2018
Jun 23, 2018
Jun 23, 2018 at 11:54 AM UTC
This valley will save me
Two hands
Oil coated & tender
Fertile
Lush
Energizing queries
Twisted grass tuft
Open, quivering
Hope & purity
It’s our time
You said
Answered prayers
& symbols etched
Released whispers
Revelation of lies,
Truths overcome.
Here in the valley,
Lost in my labors
Commiserating with the Devil after his fall
Denying the mountains security
I found disorder
Muddied my spirit
Grabbed tight
It’s time you said
Leading me out
Dark tent and a roaring blaze
With you,
This valley saved me.
Aug 27, 2012
Aug 27, 2012 at 2:02 PM UTC
a distant dog barking
at three a.m.
because the night is big
and the chain is short
and sometimes
from another dark backyard
another murky alley, lit by bare bulb
from the end of another chain, tied to a different tree,
a commiserating howl.
Jan 20, 2011
Jan 20, 2011 at 6:50 AM UTC
Upon awakening I almost never,
jump right out of bed, as I once did.
Slowly I rise to sit awhile on the edge
of my days desired intentions.
Stiffly I stand and tentatively step away
towards the bathroom to relieve my
most pressing bladder urges.
Those parts of me that do still work,
do now mostly hurt and that's for certain.
Like any other machine, my body's warranty
has long ago mostly expired.
When we old friends now gather,
rather than palavering about our kids,
our golf game, or our **** off Boss at work,
the collective commiserating talk always turns
to our individual deteriorating health matters.
How things once were and no longer are.
Our new hurts and concerns laid out in
vivid detail, what the latest tests revealed
and what the Doctor said or concluded.
These shared aging complaints you see,
seem almost limitless and all consuming.
We become a little like a hapless clergyman,
preaching wishful consoling rhetoric to his choir.
Not one of us knows, or has the answers
to any of life's BIG questions and actually
never did.
Misery you see, does indeed love company,
talking and sharing seems to help I guess,
being the only real tonic offered or taken,
no prescription required or need be written.
Jul 10, 2017
Jul 10, 2017 at 12:36 PM UTC
I'm tired of love poems.
I'm tired of heavenly descriptions
of throws of woe
and ******
I'm tired of infatuation
some spellbound obligation
to writing unread words
to the ones
we all know we love.
I wish for tales of conquest
great bounding stanzas
pitted on the edge of glory
and mayhem.
Haggered hero's
covered in mystic blood,
and enchanted rivers bathed in immortality
that run pure and crystal white.
Liquid Snow Raging
Some conflict amongst our hero's majesty.
Beasts of old forgotten legends
leaping fiery and writhing from the written page
licking blood from the bones
of lesser men
and past tales.
Devouring swooning poets pens
and ripping the hearts from loved ones
on conquest to find some battle to rage in.
Great tale of old insanity
and wisdom
beyond the mortal.
Fantastic.
I want an escape from the sadness
of my soul
not to be engulfed in it
wrapped in endless pages
of commiserating hearts.
Yet.
I
too
fall prey to
the love poems
whimsical
enchanting
call.
*The deadliest
and most deceptive
of all the ancient beasts
and martyrs.*
Jan 15, 2013
Jan 15, 2013 at 3:08 AM UTC
there's an awful emptiness
in relatable content
when hundreds of people all
experience the same
loneliness and pain
but no one can do anything
about it, so instead they just
laugh, a fake laugh, and say
"yeah, I know how you feel!"
as if commiserating will somehow
ease the pain when someone dies
or something in your heart goes askew
but if every awful experience is common then the norm is misery
which is not a norm I'm willing to accept
or maybe relatable is an adjective
for anything relevant to the human experience
in which case, every moment, every feeling, every instance
is relatable and therefore dreadfully unoriginal
so-- I propose we change the meaning of the word itself
allow it to become more, a warning to break free
a protest to rise up against
the normative and to seek the original
to become inspired and to connect with others
in unique and meaningful ways
join me in reclaiming what is relatable and instead
seeking what is new
Sep 25, 2018
Sep 25, 2018 at 12:27 AM UTC
The solicitous Self,
with and in each exchange
of conversation's
volley of commiserating
commissary verbages
words of curbs and gutters,
owns not its guilt
knows not good will
nor for those whom shatter
in our drowning hours, unstill...
The Self is begging
for your idolatry's bastions,
wants you to find it beautiful
and superior
above any other
attention and ingestion
gorging and hoarding
the tid-bit compliments
the cloud nine glances
succulent smiles / flirtatious lick of lips
the audience pumping up
its hot air ego-balloon
to beach ball widths
a deadly kind of perdition
for you, character fool
careless and distracted
blase' as a toad on a stoop...
It is a ****
the amorous Self is
harmless, the beginning seeds
and whimsy / at flowering
in your hands:
fluff and puff intimations
child-like glee / pleasing / blowing
nonpluss dandelions
nonthreatening
in ruminations
N' stuff...
but like any ****
when it spreads and takes hold
the real estate of your time and soul
it chokes and feeds
off your serene prosperity
of peace of mind
of identity
a thief of your ideas
makes your dreams its own
It suffocates all others
behaves with dismissive airs
like you it becomes
you, who has watered
this pest and catered to its musings
like a sudden sunrise it appears
out of the blue appealing
a dandelion, quaint & demure
yet alluring
The ********** that is the selfish
solicitous thorn
knows its own nature
far too well
hides its hideous
kink so none can warn
it is a war
with Self
the attention *****
Self being compelled
as all else
a parasite to its growth
a virus and its host
what she now only has to give
in return:
assuage
her malingered spell
she breeds in you
a ghost of once you were
wastrel grime
wasted time
an empty shell
Abhorred.
Careful what the Self
is selling
the solicitudes
of obsessions
Possession
Suffocation
not much else...
No succor for the Self.
Jan 15, 2016
Jan 15, 2016 at 11:49 AM UTC
Before you know, you're in your thirties,
Recalling all the days that'd come and gone,
Immixed with nostalgia memories,
Tedious friendships that lasted,
Temporary ones that passed,
Although it's difficult to differentiate,
None I've had with real substance,
Yet here you are, always there...
Picking me up from my self desolation,
Reassuring that I have some value,
Insisting there's worth,
Commiserating my woes,
Everything that defines a friend.
Dec 24, 2016
Dec 24, 2016 at 1:32 PM UTC
cannot find true rest,
all the tumult in this world,
writ both large and small,
saps my upraised arms
alternate
flexing angry fists eager to strike hard
my revived new **** enemies,
and gods inexcusable and conspicuous absence in
Barcelona, Finland and my own
Charlottesville,
and
to quiet comfort commiserating, and storing
all the pain of individual souls I've acquired willingly
and the sunset comes quiet,
trying to sooth by adding
a gentling cream of cooling breeze,
the squirrels eye me suspiciously,
sensing the amiss within,
and all perfect sailboats voyaging past,
yet none stopping at the dock
to offer condolences or solaces
my watch ticks louder
each tick,
a worrisome cursed reminder
this real life seems to be endless struggle
interrupted by small comforts of little voices and
promises that escape is inevitable
each tock,
a fresh notification
the week's approach will contain
another visit from
Hamlet's ghost,
warning of warring factions
battlefield clashing
in a chesterfield plain
between two of mine shoulder blades
constantly reminded how lucky I am,
makes me grow quiet and put pen to one side,
and try to balance accounts, using this time,
pencil and erasure
I need a break and some glue
I need reparations and a battle plan
or happily learn to surrender
and accept being a
dumb terminal,
a slave,
that doesn't ask for
peace of mind
and knock off this poet of the
no way
Aug 20, 2017
Aug 20, 2017 at 5:06 PM UTC
So many mixed emotions and feelings of...guilt for not feeling worse about
being fired
Like it should be just a devastating mixture of an acid knife cutting through my
stomach, but it is more like, I am lighter like a Monarch butterfly, despite needing to
shed fifty pounds, and more hopeful and optimistic as I
walk around and finish out my tour of duty at this school
that really feels like I'm in a bombing raid with everyone miserable around me all the time
and no one really hopeful and just there and now I get to leave, or must leave
and it is so hard to leave a paycheck that had I not been forced
I might have stayed
And I was so miserable and no amount of wine from the valley would have made it palatable
and I don't mind moving on at all, was really looking forward to it rather as my mind wandered
up and down the miserable stretches of time and spent a good part of down time commiserating
with fellow sufferers of the place
And now I have high blood pressure, to compound it all, and I feel like maybe now
I can maybe, just maybe find something less toxic because this was certainly
not for me
So I do get scared, but am balanced on a knife's edge and I don't feel it,
so perhaps it isn't a knife's edge at all
perhaps I've fallen into a pit of feathers and can relax into them for awhile.
Feb 3, 2013
Feb 3, 2013 at 8:42 PM UTC
Friends, we can get a long in a harmony of jokes
But where are we when one of us chokes
Down on the quarry, where the music silences
And the beats in between our hearts become apparent and orient
And the acoustic birds begin to ring our ears
When the face of an angel, blinks and tears.
Scatter yonder my feelings bare, barely
Before the hint of a moment reaches it's highest point
Cause I find you more beautiful with mascara worn away
Then prettied up for some pesky bar date.
Sad songs chime joy when in rhythm with the feeling
But every song you've sung is so commiserating, when you threaten me with your leaving.
Cause you casted your line too many times
And you're just about out of string
I've been stringing you on with my ***** paws.
And as we embrace this street with our youth
I could tell you one thing to hear
But it might be a different feeling from year to year
And maybe when age takes it's tole
I'll tell you I've just been living in fear
I've just been living in fear, let me tell you
I've just been waiting for the right time to hear.
Jul 12, 2013
Jul 12, 2013 at 6:24 AM UTC
I sit here not nameless
not foreign not forgotten
but simply just swept aside.
I hate how it feels
soiled and rotten
I wish I didn't know how to hide.
I'm so good at fading
I blend so well with the night
commiserating, caught feelings in tide.
I wish a harsher tone would strike my tune
I wish I could reveal all my self worth to you
Apr 20, 2014
Apr 20, 2014 at 9:58 PM UTC
We sat outside the office and I knew this wasn't good and there was a solemn atmosphere around there, all over, like everyone is looking at a dead woman walking but I'm only fired
and I know this is going to happen when his face appears, anxious, can't look at me but finally making eye contact with me, voluntarily, since the play. The good play, and then the taking away from me of the whole job and now it's time to take it all away.
And the secretary is preparing a big notepad where she will pretend to write big notes but they mostly she is really there to absorb it all with those big eyes and then walk around the halls and tell everyone she knows because in the restaurant when we walked in, her assistant, yes she has one, gave me that look, of knowing, understanding pain and everyone knows now, and they were all quiet as we walked in, two live people and one dead one
and the only thing is I don't feel dead, actually more alive, but a little scared because it's not clear what comes next although I know what I want
and he glanced and told us to wait and closed the door and called my real boss, who actually knows me, like he wasn't sure if I'd actually showed up and I knew in that one look he gave that this was THE END
So then he went and opened the door and said we'd wait for my boss because it was time to chop off my head and say it's not a good fit and that is what is printed on every single piece of paper that goes out to people like me these days, people who are so disposable
and yet he says "not a good fit" like it really means something and is just the right words for he moment. really. '
then he tries to change the tone to one of being upbeat and telling me the wonders of resigning and how great it will make my life and I'm just sitting there thinking
this is the most ridiculous pretentious scene, and I look over at the secretary who is staring at me, looking for tears and drama so it will make a better story "and then she--and she--" and it was just like "oh my God I can't believe she and he" but I just stare back at her and there are no tears. And instinct tells me what this is about, although I don't know, but instinct tells me that I am a threat to she who took my job and it is just so much easier to send me on my way
and my boss who will do whatever his boss wants starts to tell me that I have a lot of good things about me and--
he is cut off by a glare from his boss
so he crosses his legs a little tighter and his arms tighter and shuts up
and I admit I think this is the right thing because I am miserable and this is not what you are supposed to say.
but it is the truth
I am in a sick, unhappy situation and this is finally a way out
and the three men sitting around me look like they don't know what to say or do
and they are vaguely insulted
and there are many more like me but they don't get this option so freely so they
stay and spend hours a day commiserating
and I am free
at last
Feb 9, 2013
Feb 9, 2013 at 8:14 PM UTC
If I wait to finish my
chores,
to finish my food
all the tiny
notifiers to my superego,
my id
would wither
music, writing, commiserating,
and commiserating
eight-fold path that could
fit in my pocket
I can play
Make children with songs
that have been inside me
half a lifetime
when I picked up an axe
14 year old me
Shyer in most ways
but bolder
in interesting ways
I walked the path
humming 4 noble truths
in between theses
erratic days
I lived a myriad of lives
I fear it’s all
swirling to be the same
Circles within samsara
used to last for
months now I’m stuck for
years
and I no longer
wish to become
unconditioned
Nov 21, 2021
Nov 21, 2021 at 8:49 AM UTC
wallowing in deepest **** cannot help
after a while, your nose can't smell it and you get too used to what is abnormal
even though I hate what you're suffering through, this heavy baggage which isn't all yours
inherited
I am here for you, commiserating in spirit
I am here for you
Nov 26, 2013
Nov 26, 2013 at 3:36 PM UTC
Filthy with an itching stink on the dog day subways of choking humidity
every pour on my body screams
but there is a comfortability in the commiserating faces of greasy passersby
we all deal with the heat
without warning the smell of a sulfur **** fills my nostrils to the brim
and i hear somebody cough
this is the beauty of language
a glance upward yields an advertisement with enlarged breasts—deals on plastic surgery—the women bellow it eats a McDonald’s breakfast sandwich with coffee
it is my choice what to put on this page
my choice
the words and images
my choice
the moods and emotions
for there are, in fact, six people on this train with their noses in books
the one next to me is Game of Thrones
and the girl across uses the most advanced handheld piece of technology in history as a makeup mirror
Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah
Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah
High art for Mel Bochner
an ad campaign for the HTC One
and representative nonsense for everyone else
as I sweat my headphone chord makes me acutely aware of a lump under my ear
as a homeless man sleeps without shoes on the bench opposite
is that a juxtaposition of images I see there?
or did i just make that up for dramatic affect?
that is your choice my friend
Just as it is mine
to use that patronizing tone
to create an air of highfalutin significance
despite the fact that I am just another dumb privileged straight white guy.
I feel like i should apologize.....
I just missed my stop
I do that fairly often
Jun 19, 2014
Jun 19, 2014 at 11:55 AM UTC
I pretend I'm human
Succumbed to the illusion
Escape the web
Before we regret
I walk a fine line
Not just imagined
But one quite defined
My eyes turned inside
Worst feeling of my life
The truth is I hide
Right before your eyes
I've been kissing demons on their foreheads
I've been commiserating
Ive been wasting time
I've been dying
Sleepless in the night
I've been penetrating
Insensitive sins
Indifferent useless
Pens
That will not bleed in the order I need them
They simply stab at the future
prey
They feel something
May 16, 2016
May 16, 2016 at 12:23 AM UTC
When it stops and all
is still
when the clocks cease
ticking
I'm sure it will
be time.
in the nature of evolution
we rise and we fall
each to its own hour
rallying to the call
of progress.
Occasionally
there's a hiatus
a wake up and wait for us
to catch up
and
we patch up the cracks in the
stars up above
lay down our lives for the ones
that we love
and deem it worthwhile that
we tarried awhile.
I have through the darkness
seen oceans of light
though the
pinpricks of night stabbed my eyes.
But these reminders
often behind us
are the patina of life
and on these billboards,
hoarded,
misers advertise
commiserating
telling lies
and all would seem stars
in my eyes
if I didn't see it
wasn't so.
If it be will
if it is so
and...
...and I shall still
miss it all.
Apr 10, 2017
Apr 10, 2017 at 1:44 AM UTC
You come to me
from miles away,
with tears and congestion
interrupting our
our cellphone connection.
You open the line
with your confession,
expecting me to consecrate
the mistakes you commemorate
as we spend hours commiserating
the vile man you should hate.
You cry that you are afraid
you will never be loved that way,
like the man who drugged and abused you,
the one who put you through hell.
You tell me that, that predator
loves more than anyone
whilst admitting all of
the horrible **** he has done.
You break my heart
into shattered splinters
of self-doubt and recrimination
wondering why you struggle to maintain
a relationship with a man
who causes you so much pain
while I just want to take care of you.
Aug 2, 2019
Aug 2, 2019 at 10:22 AM UTC
If you ever feel lost think of this:
Every time we look at the night sky,
We’re looking at as many moments in time as the number of celestial bodies we see;
And we’re witnessing a long history of the universe.
Some of these stars aren’t as bright anymore,
It’s been millennia since they sent out this particular beam that you’re sensing.
Now, if a moment in time is so lost in itself that it doesn’t even represent “a moment in time”,
But rather many many moments woven together,
Then how lost can you be?
We’re here now, at a point in the dimensions of space-time that cannot truly be defined.
While you’re feeling lost, the universe is losing itself too.
While you immerse yourself in the wonders of the universe,
The universe is commiserating with you.
It is just as lost as you are.
And we’re all as lost as the universe.
So, by extension, we’re all just as lost as you,
And nobody knows anything apart from this:
That this is a moment in time.
But you and I, we know more:
We know that this is a moment when together,
You and I are witnessing a million other moments along with this one. And losing ourselves in this moment is amazing.
Feeling lost suddenly seems like a good thing.
Because I’m lost with you, and the universe is with us.
Oct 13, 2016
Oct 13, 2016 at 1:56 AM UTC
it was only fifth grade
when your friends told me
you only liked me because you felt sorry for me.
i don’t know why
but i still can’t meet anyone new.
i never grew up
and because of that
all i ever hear is the echoing of
your commiserating anthem
in the faces of new human beings.
my mind will be responsible for destroying me
and for some reason
your song is still stuck in my head.
it was only fifth grade
but still i felt love in your side hugs
and innocent eyes.
the love like a child with a lollipop.
i thought, “what a person”
and i thanked god for our after school conversations
about the horrid school lunches
and playground games.
i can still feel the shaking of my voice
like thunder
when i asked you if you really liked me.
they say there’s nothing like
a soft lip and a shaky heart,
but is that even if it rattles
like an earthquake?
i waited while you counted
one mississippi
two mississippi
three mississippi
four,
and still i was left
with wood chips between my toes.
it was only fifth grade
but ever since then
all i ever thought is that
people were just being nice to me.
the boy with velvet lips
who told me my heart was like cotton candy
was just being nice.
as well as the one
with honey glazed fingertips
that said he loved the gap between my teeth.
but these words were empty to me.
it was only fifth grade
but i can still remember
my voice breaking
and feeling shattered and bruised and dashed
and every other synonym
that you could possibly think of.
it was only fifth grade
and you were always nice to me
and i loved that about you.
but out of your pity
came a curse
that makes them all
just like you.
Jul 14, 2016
Jul 14, 2016 at 2:23 PM UTC
your identity of claim wasn't intentional -
it just was.
you were the wind behind the open door and
the fastened clip of the safety belt and
the doormat to wipe shoes on and
just hidden in the shadows.
the girl in the background.
the shadows were lonely.
dark.
frigidly cold.
(and safe.)
alone = isolation = solitude =
(no one to break your heart)
(no one's heart to break)
--
the girl in the background
started to fade away
between blackened flashes
(headaches and near-faint dizziness)
failing sanity
(misery)
and helplessness
(the sudden complete inability to smile)
to a more visible color
hovering at the stage left edge.
--
your friends found you.
walked with you the week you couldn't smile.
let you hide in shelters of too-long hugs
(until your heartbeat slowed
to match the steadier beat
and you started believing
in the idea of not being alone.)
held your newly-trembling hands steady.
gave you commiserating smiles and stories.
talked you down from the overwhelming terror.
dragged you bit by bit further away from the shadows.
--
the girl in the background disappears
around the time you start
saying back words like
"I love you"
to people who will undeniably leave you.
to people without the tie of blood-relation
because they have earned your trust
and someday is always too late.
--
the girl in the background
never had anyone
to rely on
--
you wake up to everything
three weeks starved of your lifelines of beating hearts
half a step away from the spotlight
the girl who doesn't quite stay silent (not anymore).
--
people expect you to say things, now.
expect you to be calm and speak.
(words tangle amidst languages,
get lost between
one synonym
and another
and another.)
you stay quiet, and you know the hurt you see
flash across
is not a product of your imagination.
(you miss it, a little. being the girl in the background.)
--
deadlines loom above your head,
T minus 5 months
After that: gone.
--
you'll miss them.
as things are progressing at the moment,
they'll miss you.
if you could do it, though,
fade back to black
(lonely distant shadows)
they might forget.
(forget you.)
it would hurt them less, in the long run.
--
(the girl in the background starts to make her comeback.)
Jan 9, 2018
Jan 9, 2018 at 10:26 AM UTC
Sin City with blinders,
Bird **** on the windshield
A herd of burly men in pastels and summer shorts
A row of parked rental Lamborghinis
Commiserating and taking selfies,
Loudly showing off,
Posting on social media or
Dating Apps
Snapchat snapshots
Hotshots in Sincity with the bling ca-ching!
It's a ****** rental, for christ-sakes!
Where's Dateline's to catch a predator,
What good is a thousand words when the picture is telling lies?
What happened ? In Vegas,
Bright lights' bite, vice, and **** looks like magic.
Sin city running with blinders.
Birdshit on the windshield.
A dry desert thirsts for rain.
(Empty swag bags....)
Shit's all the same.
May 18, 2021
May 18, 2021 at 10:42 PM UTC
a gloriously beautiful man and angel
cast down to heavens
for his pride and rebellious streak,
sympathizing the tempting evil, Satan.
then is a fallen angel commiserating
the iniquity of a sinner who needed it most,
whose name and itself is a scapegoat,
to him ascribe all sin and darkness,
the corruption of humanity,
as he himself is chained
to the rough and jagged rocks,
awaiting the vicious torment,
just like a scapegoat sinner in dire need
of common humanity's prayer.
IA
May 25, 2020
May 25, 2020 at 11:19 AM UTC