"competency" poems
i had thought
the boy in my computer science class
with the foreign skin and army outfit
was the epitome of adorable
breaking into spanish when he got overexcited about learning
which was always
and i was excited when we were paired together today
until he seemed genuinely impressed by my competency
and contributed nothing
suddenly his misunderstandings of gender and sexism no longer
seemed like something i could cutely teach him about
but a tragic flaw
and a person i didn't want to be around
May 6, 2014
May 6, 2014 at 9:00 PM UTC
You always said I talked too much.
And while I certainly
don't think most people of at least
a reasonable degree of competency would
be inclined to disagree, it just seems
to me that you were thinking
about it all wrong.
Perhaps the real
problem was not my tendency to
speak loudly and with great frequency
but rather it was the inferiority
of your listening abilities,
or lack thereof.
You see, I wouldn't
need to constantly dwell and
reiterate and repeat if you would have
been able to conceive even momentarily
that there was reasoning tucked between
the seams of my stories that I kept
waiting for you to find.
I wanted to give you
chances repeatedly to display some
needed empathy and to meet even my
most basic needs or, **** it, just common
decency but all requests were met
selfishly and I think its time
to leave it behind.
I am ready to breathe
regularly and sleep without the haunting
dreams and stick to it this time without relapsing.
I am ready to finally start resisting picking up the phone
when you inevitably decide you are feeling a little too lonely
and know that you can always count on me to be too
desperate and too weak to waste an opportunity
to speak because you always said
I talked too much.
I hope I am finally running out of things to say.
Apr 30, 2013
Apr 30, 2013 at 7:45 AM UTC
Life is never a walk in the park. It has the competency to elevate you to the supreme cliffs and then nose-dives you all the way to the deepest trenches.
You could either battle with a sword and shield, and stand up straight like the warrior you were born to be, or spend your entire life viewing it from fringes on benches.
You, are not here to have your hands tied behind your back, raise your white flag, and surrender.
No, YOU, are not here to yield to complications that are exaggerated by the deafening sound of the drums of war... You are a defender.
Arm yourself with courage and strength... Life WILL get you on your knees. Life WILL pull the trigger and strike a bullet through you, aiming for your heart.
You just have to retain the determination to stand back up after you've been hurt over and over again and torn apart.
Savor life my dear warrior and endure the anguish. You were born to be a fighter.
Get your arm up! Stand up!
Stand up, for the little moments that make it worth putting up with the pain.
And what's sunshine with a little bit of rain?!
Stand up, for the little moments that will draw a smile on your pretty face
And where's the fun in a game without some challenges taking place?!
Stand up for a life worth living... Stand up for YOU.
Facing gun point is the only way to remind yourself of how much you favor the toothsome side of life.
Stand up straight like the warrior YOU ARE.
Jan 8, 2014
Jan 8, 2014 at 4:44 AM UTC
I see the growth—
its alignment,
its accessibility.
Its patience
where I lack it.
Its competency
beyond.
Remember warmth.
Remember care unfeigned.
Remember scent.
Remember
guidance through the illusion.
Sep 10, 2025
Sep 10, 2025 at 8:26 AM UTC
This is a precursor to everything to come in the next year. I believe if I begin to focus on stream of consciousness writing, my content may begin to resemble that of Bukowski or Poe but hopefully not as rapaciously violent or ominously insane. More specifically, I figure in my own storytelling fashion I will account my platonic relationships gone awry based on false pretenses established by reputation of the "societal self". As well as the romantic relationships that I so eagerly sabotage(d) believing in the assigned repetoire cast upon me by others who believed in seductive over deductive reasoning. When someone calls you something for long enough, you begin to believe it. But unlike others, I can't drown my demons because they know how to swim. I seek catharsis and self definition. I seek growth and competency. I seek understanding, and I seek to turn my version of insanity into something that others can relate to or translate.
Feb 12, 2015
Feb 12, 2015 at 3:29 AM UTC
The first lesson they teach us in EMT class
Is to never lose our compassion,
Never forget that every patient is
A human being with a story, a family, a life.
They tell us to keep our emotions in check
But to never lose our respect,
The trust in the competency and freedom of choice,
For we are the link of survival
On the worst day of their lives.
We were not there to know the reason that led
Up to the call,
But we are there to get them through the danger that followed.
Why then does the text book instruct us to abandon our respect,
Abandon the presumption of humanity
At the mere thought of the words 'developmental disability?'
Why do the words Autism and Down Syndrome suddenly
Make it okay to condescend and patronize as if to a child,
To infantilize an adult whose intelligence we are not qualified to assume?
Why is it my duty to respect a neurotypical patient
And my job to abandon it for the developmentally disabled?
I wonder if they would encourage my peers to treat me the same?
After all, who cares that I am top of the class and squad leader to boot?
Who cares that I answer the most questions or scored highest on the test?
I am autistic. I am considered less than human.
No.
The textbook is wrong,
Primitive despite being updated in 2018.
Respect every patient means Respect ALL,
No exceptions,
No diagnostic caveats.
'First, do no harm.'
Treat with empathy and compassion.
It is their own inhumanity that prevents them
From recognizing the humanity inside us,
The developmentally challenged.
I live on planet Autism,
Population 1 in 59,
No less of a person than any other,
Perhaps more human really.
That humanity is the force behind my First Responder drive.
Do not deign to treat me as small child or foreign planet inhabitant.
Forget the basis in the archaic.
Respect and compassion for all cannot be checked at the door.
I am not less than.
My struggles have, if anything,
Forced me to become more.
Oct 11, 2019
Oct 11, 2019 at 2:50 AM UTC
Good scrambled eggs can find
More competency in hand
Than that within mind
Jul 25, 2019
Jul 25, 2019 at 8:49 AM UTC
you're very mediocre
you have simple brown eyes
sort of flat lips
you walk with no pride
you talk with no bass
your laugh annoys everyone that hears it
you say things that hardly make sense
you don't say what you mean
you don't cry when you have to
but cry when there really isn't really any reason
you know you're smart
but don't admit
you're very Mediocre
but boy, you have my heart
sadly, your mediocrity doesn't have the competency
to hold it.
Feb 26, 2015
Feb 26, 2015 at 1:23 PM UTC
Interesting that we older men now flag our own decline
Composted in this shameful ruse enacted over time.
We point to prime examples of our keynote men of age
De Niro, Keitel, Clooney, Hurt…all class acts, on the stage.
Take Clarkson, Rush, O’Toole and Bean…they brim like vintage wine,
Having come to terms with baldness and the sagging paunch decline.
Like them, we’ve learned the lesson of absurdity of life,
Where the trick to aged contentedness, is to pacify the wife.
An awareness of fragility in that pending death is near,
Is offset by the peace of mind of subdued *** and beer.
We say, to Hell with gradual fade of hairline, health and wealth
When a crystal glass of single malt can smooth it all by stealth.
So quell the racing, thudding heart, lean back in wisdom’s shine,
Secure in that with shaky hand…We can still quaff vintage wine.
And should the youth lose patience with a hesitancy there
We can usually still their arrogance with a knowing senior stare,
And should there be a question of a competency still?
Remind them their tomorrow too.. is running fast downhill.
Don’t sweat it with the walker, for it all arrives too soon
And sweetly on the wireless there was Perry Como’s croon,
Take comfort in the fact that soon they’ll put us out to grass
When oblivion comes creeping in Altzheimers foggy clasp.
To tabulate the good and bad within this lifetime’s span
Leaves the negatives predominant, should truth reveal her hand,
It becomes a bit obsessive when the mind’s allowed to dwell
For around the corner, probably, …. is a one way trip to Hell.
M.
Pukehana Paradise
Auckland NZ
May 7 2014
May 6, 2014
May 6, 2014 at 3:41 PM UTC
@Perennial_purpose Third density binding.
I cannot describe it. Everyday we develop rust. you can never be the best until you can complete the competency test with black pattern parameters with your eyes set. Are you solid or hollow? Depression is normal a challenge to climb out of your sorrow forget about the world around you. The truth is they will be nothing without you. but you will you be nothing without the truth. Betrayer moon color blue the body has no use if the mind is enslaved but you still have to choose and not choosing can be a choice sometimes silence is a powerful voice. We must train to increase our strength the final test is presented when we least expect we eye ball but see nothing so what's next?
Jul 2, 2015
Jul 2, 2015 at 1:15 AM UTC
A brain chemically imbalanced.
How could taking two little white pills every morning
slowly but surely resolve eight years of major depression
ameliorate symptoms that strangle the mind and spirit,
destroying self-worth, competency, basic functionality.
Despite a set-back of a month of unstable, barely restrained
suicidal thoughts, whole-heartedly consuming every minute
of conscious thought and shattering already severely fragmented
sleep, the only repose from the onslaught of endless thoughts
each one affirming deservance and supplying means to an end.
The vile depression, mind-warping, heart-marring, shape-shifting,
perspective-rearranging, adapting to every new environment,
clawing its nightmare-grip further into my chest day after day,
haunting me even in its remission: the depression was sinister.
Body and brain scarred and healing, starved synapses react,
a regiment of medicine, taxing-thought, and long-scarce love,
but indisputably vital: taking two little white pills every morning
slowly but surely resolves eight years of major depression.
A brain chemically balanced.
Apr 8, 2020
Apr 8, 2020 at 4:17 PM UTC
Bawl a swear;
There there, it's not at its ethereal state yet, but a soft depression on her sun brushed cheeks makes its presence known
Throw around ***** lines,
The depression deepens almost, almost there....... Immense dynamism in it to make the latter's parting curl.
Not many, not many hold such competency.
Manifest yourself; cascade of amity,
I've won, oh! I've won that ethereal beauty with her angelic embrace.
Feb 25, 2018
Feb 25, 2018 at 8:25 AM UTC
questioning my core competency
_______________________________
*man or woman, an irrelevancy,
we all believe that we possess
certain core competencies that
reflect our managerial skills, the
hows of how we organize and smooth
the daily mishmash of our otherwise
would-be-totally-hellish-lives*
minor stuff, that have the risk potency
of the skinny tail of the curve, where the
highly improbable
seems to happen as if regularly scheduled.
let the gas tank go to E, worse, unnoticeably,
but on a small isle, with no AAA, a single gas station,
in howling wind, and summer rain mael-strom,
forced to risk a brief trip over hilly terrain, fearful of
being gas poor on the stuck-side of the road, with
no one to call, no savior to summon, and my sense
of self, now shattered-glass on the side of the road.
*did I mention that the night prior when the situation
was yellow lit to get my immediate attention, I had
forgotten my instrumental human connectivity, my
Inshallah cell phone (1), at our dining out restaraunt,
making necessary a seven point four mile R/T detour,
to preserve my integrity, pride, communicability, and
the few(er) left, shards of my lesser antilles’ ego and pride.*
turns out that even on E, for long periods, you still
can go some distance for the car designers, all liars,
to nice people like me, leave a gallon reserve undisclosed,
for the vain and statically stupid of which I am a member.
more details of my ineptness, shameful, shall not be herein revealed, but when we meet, gladly be disclosed over alcohol.
*but it is now between the hours of nine and ten AM, and despite
imbibing 22.5. ozs. of Jamaican coffee, I return to bed,
having made it to the local station with gnawed knuckles,
and chewed lower lip,
lower the shades, announce to no one in particular, hello,
do not disturb, for-up-all-night-poet-ite, is exhausted the
exhaust of depression, for his core competencies have
been renamed, now and forever, his*
gored incompetencies!
p.s. E, having consulted the owner’s manual,
stands for more precisely ,
Empty Headed
Jul 16, 2023
Jul 16, 2023 at 10:14 AM UTC
Time to have some fun
12 years of school now done
Snooze you lose, time choose
Workforce calls each must decide
Slave to job paycheck career
Tanka
A form of Haiku
Differs in structure
31 syllables
Five lines
Syllable count
5-7-5-7-7
BLT Websters word of the day challenge
May 26 2025
Commemorate
Something such as a plaque, statue, or parade is said to commemorate an event, person, etc.
When it serves as a memorial; it exist or is done in order to recall the event or person. A person or group commemorate an event, person by doing something special in order to remember and honor the event or person.
Footnotes
Graduation ceremonies commemorate the moment when child becomes an adult. Two show they had graduated by the school standards. It should represent a competency to college and job placement and training. If college is an ecological step, your diploma is your ticket. To get into college. Representing 12 years of knowledge.
(Ok perhaps I’m jaded)
Welcome to the rat race
I would not want to be young today
Nobody wants to work
They want everything for free
Moral values are gone
After 12 years of school,
what skills do they have
United States have children
who graduate
without knowing how to read
As a nation
Our test scores are shameful
May 27, 2025
May 27, 2025 at 3:50 AM UTC
To be a poet there needs to be a tragedy
A trauma hidden in the endless folds of your cowering mother's skirts,
A great happening in the form of your father's alcoholism and abusive tendencies.
Or that's what they say.
I have no trauma. No grief-stricken past with needle-sharp memories that ***** my eyes like tears when I go to bed every night.
Who's to say that in order to feel this deep sense of nothing that there needs to be a huge something that came before it? What if there's a happy childhood and a beautifully achieved mother married to a gruff but grateful father and two dogs with lolling tongues and a house with the perfect screened in porch that the poet spent hours with her dad on, reading the rites of childhood competency disguised as "Goodnight Moon" and "I'll Love You Forever"?
I have no trauma, no stomach twisting horror that made me realize my ****** was best torn out of me or that being a mother is pain inside of its own pain? I am a poet but am I real poet if I don't talk about the night I almost threw up the memories of my smiling father into my transparent hands, just because I felt too sad to deserve them? Am I real poet if I can't write about tearing the thought of my dog lazing in the sun on the perfect edge of an afternoon out of my head just because something so pure was never meant for something like me, something so unpure.
To be a poet there needs to be a tragedy
A trauma tangled in the Great Awakening of teen angst and the realization of all that is not your mother's soft voice waking you up every sunrise
A great happening in the form of losing all sense of self and filling the Void with the copper taste of pennies and nights that border on mornings.
May 8, 2019
May 8, 2019 at 10:56 PM UTC