"critiquing" poems
In society,
Women are always told they are too much.
Too angry, too calm
Too quiet, too loud
Too big, too small
And we are all of these things
We are angry.
Angry about the internalized oppression that still flows on a day to day basis. We are angry about our predefined roles of what girl is, what girl should be.
And we are too calm.
Calm about the man that called you a name in the street and all you wanted to do was cry
Or the teacher that told you you couldn't do what you wanted because it was a mans place, not a woman's
You should have yelled, but you didn't. Because we are too calm.
We are too quiet.
We are silenced.
Our opinions are ranked of worthiness by our physical features, our body types. Our intelligence is last to our ****** appeal. We can not be heard through the babble of social media judging and critiquing and pointing out our flaws. So we are quiet.
And we are loud.
We have the ability to speak for the world. To weave the revolution out of the words of women. We have the voice to speak to our sisters globally, teach women that we are loud. We can drown out prejudice with the power of voice and bring down the barrier of how a girl should be.
We are small.
Told that our personalities are preset by the gender normalities that the patriarchy has placed, we are shrunk to fit our predefined roles. They cut us into shapes so we can not realize that we are so much bigger.
Because we are big.
We are huge. We have global impact. While we are cut down, I would like to see us glue each other back together. I want to see women take back our voices. I want to hear women all over the world speak how they feel, bust through the barriers of what the patriarchy has told them. Fight back against their rapists, abusers, silencers. When someone tells you that you are being too much, say "I am. And I am becoming so much more."
Apr 10, 2016
Apr 10, 2016 at 9:34 PM UTC
you may call it
critiquing
but you're just an *******
May 29, 2014
May 29, 2014 at 1:32 PM UTC
I can hear
my thoughts
bouncing around
my mind,
ricocheting
off of my
moments,
and critiquing
my actions.
I have never
understood
how I am so
hard on myself
when the world
doesn't even seem
to notice
my biggest
mistakes.
-JRM
Oct 30, 2014
Oct 30, 2014 at 10:05 PM UTC
I am worn down, exhausted and depleted; tired of self.
I am torn down by the mediocrity of men and women that
cannot see the façade that blinds themselves and captures
their thinking, rendering them ineffective, therefore they lash out with
false perceptions, unwilling to embrace and acknowledge
the error that lies within their own garden of eden and deception locks
their tongues tightly choking out the very breath used to speak
hypocritically of others.
From the outside in I see myself standing in a crowded space
within “my being” and all of the chatter of endless voices critiquing
“the me inside of me” confuses and distorts my ability
to comprehend the distance and direction I should be traveling in.
I keep “bumping into myself many times over”
because self will not move out of my way
to allow me to gauge the time and distance it will take
to straighten my path.
I am stuck in the creases of my frown,
it being sometimes dark inside,
yet striving “upward” to a place of stability,
knowing that my end is “far yet to come”.
With instruments of humility leading me,
“something” within the interior of my mind
sands the walls of my thoughts down to clarity,
assisting me in an uncomplicated manner.
This allows me,
to perceive the portrait
of self, I have created, and
this complex dilemma I live in
forces me to embrace the contents of the “self perceived” reality around me,
making it easy…. and freely…for me
to “escape the abrasiveness” of the way
“I” see, ‘I” think about…and the way “I” judge myself
when it is not necessary…
©2013
Jul 31, 2013
Jul 31, 2013 at 6:32 AM UTC
Day after day you're
critiquing, pulling apart
anguishing over pointless details
You scold, you demand
your silent booming voice is ugly
never stops reverberating between my ears
Torture and twist
even after they tell me,
"You look sick"
You paint cold purple
streaks up and down my skin
You deny me time and time again
Each rib has been counted
scrutinized through my skin-
but it is never enough in your eyes
I feel insane, wishing I could
scream and shout
out of my head to drown you out
Today I love you
as you're an old friend
Tomorrow I hate you
as you put me through hell again
I've tried to silence you
yet I always give in
ending up in my own prison.
Sep 17, 2013
Sep 17, 2013 at 12:28 PM UTC
There is a very large difference
Between critiquing something
And bullying someone
Critiquing helps a poet grow
KINDLY suggests new ideas
The poet could consider
But in reality
Someone's critiquing
Is not necessarily "the right way"
Because NO poet
Is superior
To others
So any critiquing
Is allowed to be accepted
Or ignored
That is up to the poet
Who is being critiqued
And they are perfectly within their right
To ignore the critiquing
Or to listen to it
And anyone
Is within their right
To RESPECTFULLY
Critique another's work
(Unless they specifically ask them not to of course, some just write for themselves and to express emotions, not to grow as a poet and that is perfectly okay.)
BULLYING
Is critiquing another
IN AN UNKIND FASHION
in a self-important, cruel, egotistical, pathetically self-righteous fashion
Critiquing
SHOULD NEVER
hurt another's feelings
Or harm their emotions
There is no such thing as "too sensitive"
You are not allowed to judge anyone else
For their level of sensitivity
That is not for you to analyze
And that just makes you
A horrible pathetic MEAN person
If you have hurt them
It is YOUR FAULT
even if you didn't mean to
and honestly, I have been at fault before for that too
but it is then YOUR RESPONSIBILITY
to fix it
to try to apologize
to explain what you meant in a kinder way
and recognize
your opinion
which you are entitled to
but your opinion
is not the only one
and it is not necessarily RIGHT.
Dec 7, 2014
Dec 7, 2014 at 2:11 PM UTC
Constantly spending my energy
On my enemy and its draining me
Holding me down
My spirit agrees with me
The details of their cruelty
Is distracting me
Poisoning my flesh
Draining me effortlessly
Powered by jealousy of those that envy me
Securing my securely with my insecurities
critiquing my ability endless
Even the blessing, the favors given to me
Bigger person than them,
So they hated me.
I had faith,
stayed constant on my guard
Negative comments
And other forms or hate
Don't penetrate.
Became wise
Then realized
That their despised
Was just to disguise
The envy that lies
in their eyes.
My walls go up,
They look surprised.
Oct 6, 2014
Oct 6, 2014 at 12:49 AM UTC
I am a paradoxical mix of vanity and self-hate.
I will catch my reflection,
caught in the lure of my own eyes,
wide, dark olive drab, soulful, some might say.
The full lips, naturally red.
Slender limbs, well made.
The next moment,
I am all acne scarred skin, pock marks,
tiny ******* weak chin, critiquing the weight my bones carry,
tracing through every thing I've eaten that day,
decided, on a biased scale, if it was too much,
and how much work
will be needed to take it off.
The dichotomy of beauty and ugliness,
each raising separate voices
within the same body.
Both deadly sins, in their own right.
My mind reminds me, I am more than body,
I am also a soul,
but my body if fond of stifling it.
Feb 20, 2014
Feb 20, 2014 at 2:06 PM UTC
~
for T.M.R.
~
*We find our poems in many different ways. Of late,
I keep finding inspiration in the public and private messages that many of you send to me, regarding poems I choose to publish here.
So I repeat my disclaimer,
"any message you send, can and will be used as a poem."*
~
instant recognition at levels so deep within,
what are the odds, given the enormous differentials,
that the kin in kindred, would blossom across two lives,
where the oppositional factoids are exceptional
as if seeded in the fertile soil of the blank spaces,
between each of our poem's words and verses,
there secreted for each other, but gleaming visible
for all to see and uncover, even join in,
uncovering semi-hidden insertions and assertions of affinity
I confess
she stands behind me ofttimes in my mind, silently,
suggesting, reflecting, critiquing a word choice,
a nuanced pressure upon the hand redirecting,
with infiltrating suggestions imaginary
oh wordy me, four stanzas excised,
abstracted from the memories contained within my fingertips,
this, an accolade to the pleasuring of humanizing mystery connectivity,
when she, in the depth of her stylized brevity,
captures more than I, after hours of exercised trying,
in the succinct excalibur of her comprehension
"We are an unstated understood"
Jan 13, 2017
Jan 13, 2017 at 5:40 PM UTC
I've been lost at the gates ever since conception,
middle of a 4-stop intersection with a mouth full of questions,
muffled moans and groans sublimate my message,
diluting the essence, fragmented and pinned down
to the dissection tray, with blurred vowels and words
contrived to a sentence.
The surgeon contains the lesson beneath his
shivering hands, carried across his stuttering voice
high strung shattered memoirs, depicting conflicting
moments of clarity and calamity, shaking and swerving
amongst the wavelengths, searching for an ear to rest in.
Blind and burned from the giving hands of deception,
greeted by synthetic smiles and idle eyes,
confronting and critiquing confidential trials,
spoken words in tongue, gasping dry air and stale smoke
with hacks and coughs, collapsing a lung.
Solved the puzzle, 10 down and 10 across,
pervading and staining blank white cubes,
with lines and dots invading, crude man made
brain-teasing tubes, revealing the question through
the only answer: Relentless reflection.
Feb 15, 2010
Feb 15, 2010 at 12:03 PM UTC
I’m sitting on a fume couch with ashtray
legs, counting the khaki strands
in the beaded curtain that dices
the hallway up into barcodes. The table
by the fridge is a cable spool lead-
painted to match the molding. Around
it is a mesh-back lawn chair, a SoCal
fold-out from a SoHo dumpster,
a spill-trayless booster seat,
and a bottle cap barstool. Everyone’s
wearing second-hand sport coats
with seam stitches as loose as telephone
wires tacked up with undersized lapel
pins.
**** Capitalism. **** Disco.
Bathe Avant-Garde. Eat Paint.
Bleed ******* Smoke Local.
Espresso, Or Genocide.
Dresden Was A Lie.
Shrink-Wrap It All.
Everyone is clustered around the cinder-
block stand record player, grooving
to the pops, looking like a rag-tag tide
change beneath the broken-oar ceiling
fan. Everyone’s wearing ironic scarves
tight like corporate ties to keep their throats
from popping ten-cent parasols, loose tobacco,
and ******** Amid their rubber flower talk,
I can pick out San Pelicano, someone critiquing
Keats’ “Politics,” and a rant regarding some
guy downtown’s stab at post-contemporary
Pointillism in some gallery I’ve never heard of.
They’re flipping between topics like a Moleskine notebook
while I skim through a copy of the Onion,
teasing the edges with a lighter I found on the floor.
Apr 14, 2015
Apr 14, 2015 at 9:00 AM UTC
The smell of stale smoke lingers through our hair,
A staunch like presence,
but never fully there.
Yellow stained fingers,
and blood soaked knuckles..
hammy-downs that don’t fit quite right, awake critiquing ourselves late at night.
Hoping and preying not to become what we’re destined to be.
Drifting through the slums,
Seeking some kind of pleasure.
Friends and family succumbing to ice,
Melbourne’s national treasure.
Young souls corrupted,
so much potential forsaken.
One hit,
And it’s total annihilation.
Jun 17, 2018
Jun 17, 2018 at 1:00 AM UTC
Excellence, in my humble opinion, is overrated some times,
Critiquing society while being a part of it is a little hypocritical,
Life is often suffocating, making us feel worthless,
Like we have achieved nothing in our lives,
But it takes so much courage and strength to be oneself every day,
Let the stray voices bring you down not be heard
And remember you are who you were born to be,
You didn't have to be able to fly to be my Superman
Jun 14, 2016
Jun 14, 2016 at 5:49 AM UTC
And here you see the forlorn man
facing backwards along his span of years
critiquing each time of neglect
confronting past decisions with a sneer
lamenting the decades of regret
should have been more
could have been better
held on too tight with grasping claw
let go that which he ignored
mistakes strangling forward thought
so trapped and caught at last
before the end already stopped
endlessly cycling through the past
standing stationary on the road of life
face down in mud on the verge
screaming at others, not this way!
ignored perhaps pitied
if thought of at all
even in his own mind
for he is forlorn.
Aug 3, 2015
Aug 3, 2015 at 11:56 PM UTC
my girl?
she is like lighting
deadly and quick
my girl?
she's beautiful
on the inside and the outside
my girl?
she has a big heart
if you had to draw it to scale
it would be the size of mars
my girl?
she laughs at everything
which makes me laugh at everything
my girl?
she is precious
like blood diamonds
my girl?
she is insecure
always critiquing herself
it breaks my heart
my girl?
she knows what she wants in life
and how she will get it
independent, to say the least
determined, would be the understatement of the century
my girl?
she keeps me happy
while i keep her happier
my girl?
she is far from perfect
but she is everything i could ever want
my girl?
she is asleep right now
i think i will send her a message
telling her why she makes my heart
act like a banshee in my ribcage
Oct 16, 2014
Oct 16, 2014 at 11:48 PM UTC
Better to be taciturn
Than babble through a tacky turn
And fail to hear enough to learn
In common conversation
Others may proclaim you shy
Or timid, mousy, terrified
Resist the urge to justify
Your ramble regulation
It doesn’t make you weak or mute
To take a minute to compute
A thought before you contribute
May optimise your speaking
Pause won’t hurt your cause unless
Your words are just a game of chess
To press, suppress, or to impress
Correcting or critiquing
Do you desire a partnership?
A sharing, caring, airing?
Or more of a dictator-grip?
A snaring, scaring, blaring?
Maybe you are silence-scared
Uncomfortable with empty air
And feel it is your job to bare
The sound continuation
Worry not my helpful friend
Your heavy duty at an end
More useful with an ear to lend
Look kind toward the taciturn
You may yet find a lot to learn
With still consideration
Oct 14, 2024
Oct 14, 2024 at 1:41 AM UTC
The year twenty fourteen.
A year has passed, deeds have been done and new challenges surface. What does this year hold for any of us? Will it brush the dust off our bones? Awaken our lifeless souls? Or instead set our bodies on fire in revenge?
Resolutions will be passed, but will anyone actually fulfill them? They'd be hanging from a thorn in their minds, just waiting to die, while the people decide what to do with them.
Lyrics to future hits will be written and left helpless in recording studios while producers muse over each and every verse, critiquing the words, and possibly changing destinies.
New Year decorations will be taken down and Christmas has long gone. Winter has turned into Spring and what's next?
I'd just be watching the leaves of trees take the form of multiple personalities and colors, dying every time they have to change. I'd watch them fall off branches to pile up on the ground, only to be raked into another pile to be taken far, far away from home. I wish I could be like them, on to places beyond.
My bones have not grown stronger, and "New Year New Me" is complete ******** because nobody can be changed by a mere thought. Careful consideration, time and other things must come into play. I still feel weak at the knees with every sight of you, and my head and heart don't agree with everything either wants to do.
The stars and the Moon speak to me, and tell me about all their stories from the past year. They tell me to catch falling stars should I see any, and to count the stars instead of counting money, which has no value on its own.
But how can I tell anyone at all that I'd rather be in the universe of my own mind than anywhere on earth where civilization can be found? Will they take offense? I don't know. All they ever do is tweet about how school is going on, and how they love their friends. I've forgotten how to speak the same language as them and I know I'm an alien now.
I do not belong on this earth.
As of 2014.
-x.o.
Jan 17, 2014
Jan 17, 2014 at 8:00 AM UTC
Sun shimmering blue and cold
praise the sun!
Clandestine meetings of silver and gold
Mother of the fortunate child
Shouting the sounds of silence
Sitting and wondering what race is god!
While found and forgotten similes speak volumes
Into deaf ears
So we watch silent movies
Critiquing the way people looked
Cautious of the false deities that seek to enslave the sheep
In the same instant the bold and brave dance alongside the noble stars
Waiting for the cats and dogs to rise up
And inherit the earth,
With forsaken celestial beings
Disregarding their responsibility to salvage
All that breathes lies.
We can wait until today's tomorrow
Because theres more beauty in simplicity
than there is simplicity in beauty.
of course
Jul 11, 2013
Jul 11, 2013 at 10:55 PM UTC
You wear your shimmering black crown as you breaks others down. The vainly shined gems crooked with harsh words and skeletons trapped within them. Your ball gown dripping with the tears of ones you have brought down. Walking down the red carpet laid down by the demons you have made your friends. Pointing your finger at the world and critiquing the lost. Not caring of the pain that it costs. Your ruby red lips emptying a venom so toxic, so deadly, and steadily a direct hit. A fire within you that burns souls. Covering the mirrors all around to hide your own flaws and see yourself, never opening those self evaluating doors. As I watch from my chair as you just don't care. You berate me, and say that you love me but hate me. You have rusted my crown, so crooked and brown. You have broken my throne, and left me alone. But someday you will rip off your undeserving crown and will see your real self and truly be found. You will rip off the curtains and stare into the mirror, and your cruelty, regrets, and mistakes much clearer. Dear sister, one day you will see, how truly destructive your reflection can be.
Mar 13, 2016
Mar 13, 2016 at 9:10 PM UTC
When I walk through a room and
If the silence is too cunning and too strong
I recall a poem: I once read Bird of Texas
I usually let my eyes zoom in on a target
Most of the time, it’s the exit
With the red lights, or the doors with the double bolts
Poetry writing is like double bolts locks
We lock our thoughts and emotions inside ourselves
and worried about what others might think of us
I seriously doubt that Dr. Seuss worried about his unique way of rhyming
*Do not like them,
Sam-I-am.
I do not like
green eggs and ham.*
Same here with me, I don’t care if you like my poems or not
My eventuated submission: or my manner of speaking.
Is your way of critiquing gratifying Sam I am?
*Do not like them,
Sam-I-am.
I do not like
green eggs and ham*.
Sep 2, 2015
Sep 2, 2015 at 9:04 AM UTC
There is a little lad inside my head.
He sits in his arm-chair critiquing with lead.
Posting pages of notes upon my walls,
Of moments where I wish I saw:
The way she looks and stares with grace,
A broken down car and the man who waved,
The bluejay who perched upon the sill,
And moments that I could never fill- again.
With a marvelous triumph I give him praise,
For the things I have learned, improving future days.
If it were not for the little lad inside my head.
I would be cold and empty and without a worthy head.
Jun 30, 2012
Jun 30, 2012 at 1:37 AM UTC
This doesn’t mean anything
The words aren’t for you to understand
Or smile. Or enjoy
It’s for me
I
Selfish words
Spilling
Because I cant fully spill my heart
Typing so it’s even less personal
Than the greats before me
In ***** sneakers next to Emily
Oh and those old guys sipping tea
Porcelain saucers, and lace
Clash with a hoodie and hidden liquor
Nothing to talk about
Because they are real
And I’m just a poser
I need to be forced into submission
To leave the lazy route
But the words typed flow
Trickle down like a spring in the spring
how repetitive
Eloquent?- I think not
Skills- lacking
But no one is criticizing or critiquing
Just me- alone in a cubby
Hey Emily, wanna come over?
I got an empty seat and a pen with your name
Or would you rather just type?
Jun 25, 2010
Jun 25, 2010 at 3:31 PM UTC