"cubical" poems
Todays Cubical
Is Contradistinction of
Tomorrows road trip
Jul 1, 2015
Jul 1, 2015 at 8:09 PM UTC
I write in my underwear.
I write in my underwear, so my thoughts are not caged
underneath my clothes.
I refuse to look at the screen.
I only look at my fingers, hitting the keys as rhythmically as I say the words in my head.
I type because my thoughts are too fast
And I fear if I write I will forget
I am one of many.
One of many who speak because they cannot help it.
Whose words burst forth from their lips in spontaneous spasms of passionate opinions.
We will not hold our tongues
We will not mind our manners
And we will not conform to please
For we are romantics,
and poetics,
and hopers, and dreamers,
and liars, and cheaters.
We not only do things because we feel them,
But because we want to experience them.
And with are experiences
Of love, tragedy, happiness, and despair
We aim to awaken passion in others.
Others who fear emotion.
We aim to shake them
And awaken the life that they have.
I will not confine my soul
inside a cubical
And I will not shut my window
and deprive the world of my dreams
And I will not straighten my curls and **** the energy that they harbor
And I will not cage my thoughts underneath my clothes
It is for them, and for us
I write in my underwear
Jun 2, 2010
Jun 2, 2010 at 10:50 PM UTC
butterflies on a beautiful boy
cling with insect intensity
they wear candy pink lipstick
he has his face reddened
with blusher
his hair is depicted in triplicate
on the cubical doors of toilets
black painted cubical doors
that possess an objective scrutiny
of an immediacy that suggests
a knowledge of expendable names
of disinterested inspection
names that are deletable with time
all that is left is a screaming solar plexus
he waits like an animated aura
a haloed head of violet rings him
as he leans against the toilet wall
with beautiful blonde ambition
the butterflies cling with insect intensity
Mar 5, 2013
Mar 5, 2013 at 4:01 PM UTC
Because man made spheres of synergy are treading on the verge of life support
No cooperation within the conglomerations
Perhaps we need brotherhood outside the cubical
The economy failing
Middle class working heroes about to **** themselves
But they have no money to buy a gun…out the window it is!
As insurance men and tax collectors and bill collectors beat a smile from my face with overturn fees and late fees with interest
And are all my reactions just misplaced projections?
I say **** ‘em I have no money
I’ll pay you when I can
What more can I do?
Feb 10, 2014
Feb 10, 2014 at 11:31 AM UTC
Walk.
Don't run.
You might miss the morning sun
Or you might forget to breathe.
See, it's easy to get caught up in the world.
If you're always looking down at the technology no bigger than a basketball then you might miss out on your partner looking at your lips just waiting...
For a kiss.
Or
Maybe if you're stuck at work in a cubical typing with the sounds of a hundred clicks a minute then you might miss the chance to see the rainbow after it rains or
the little man with the *** of gold.
Just walk for a moment for the sake of our generation.
Let go of the idea that technology runs us & get outside & run with your dog or actually get down & play army men with your kids.
One day it'll be too late & the world we know will no longer be a world
We want to live out.
Jun 9, 2015
Jun 9, 2015 at 4:05 AM UTC
A careless zookeeper lost the key to a cage
A lion sneaked out ,
said good bye to its cubical home
Curiosity was the urgency to flee
Surveying a potential new residence
Perhaps seeking new environment...
Lion was excited to discover
The excitement of the world outside his zoo...
He ran and ran as he had his golden chance
Soon he'd find out the reality of life
in the human zoo...
Will he be Spending the nights
reminiscing the place and his people
those he had left behind. ... ?
Jun 30, 2013
Jun 30, 2013 at 12:46 PM UTC
I fumble my tongue to please my brain. To ensue the passion of hilarity for others through the shame I lack.
If you write, you write wrong. No, sorry, you write incorrectly... No still not the right writing.
The grammar you possess is lacking enthusiasm in construction and production.
You fumble words in a loose platonic, exploitive passion of hilted disappointment.
Grammar and creation grow as production does. One-to-one the tower grows on an even playing field of iron I-beams and the office on aluminum T shaped cubical walls.
I apologize profusely if this has been difficult to process. Let us consider this a difficult simulation of your current level on sentence structure, and comprehensive understanding.
Dec 6, 2012
Dec 6, 2012 at 9:29 AM UTC
I sit here at my desk in the tiny cubical, the depressing gray of this place drives me insane.I sit here each day, stare out the window and pray. For gun to place under my chin. It's icy cold metal caressing my cheek. This place... with all its windows , yet I see nothing. No blue sky, no birds, or people who look like ants from this height. The thought of tasting lead wets my appetite. I crave the gun powder, it intoxicates me. A suicidal trance that makes the windows look so inviting. Falling hundreds of feet would take too long, with each second that passes is time to reflect, regret and wonder, what may be...I sit here at my desk in this tiny cubical, the depressing gray of this place drives me insane.It makes my want to paint it red...a dark blood red.
Feb 24, 2010
Feb 24, 2010 at 11:06 AM UTC
What I don't seem to understand is...
before you become a man and
everyone cradles you,
holds you by the hand and
fills your thoughts with these dreams and aspirations,
(no exaggerations...just genuine life expectations)
but nothing is impossible,
you are fresh.
Not to death, but from birth.
A brand new mind that has yet to be tarnished.----
Through adolescence,
you start to learn adult lessons.
Cowboys are no longer real...
President's have to wear a tie!
And if I become a stuntman...
then I'll probably die.
I can't be a wrestler on TV if I actually fought?
I need...what!?...on my SAT's to become an astronaut?
Reality, Gets In.
Our Ways, Set In.
Goodbye Dreams,
Goodbye Imagination.--
*"Today you are eighteen years old,
you are an adult."*
God, do I hate the way they say that.
An elongated "u" as if emphasizing the key component that I am an, "adddduuuult"
Then to agitate my irate sense of frustration they ask my for my declaration:
"Now, just what you want to do for the rest of your life???--
You don't have time to think.
This is it, hurry.
Choose.
Now!
Did you figure it out? No...?
Now you're already behind!
Wasting mine and your own time.--"
Time...the only thing that remains omniscient.
Time...the real gift to represent the present.
Time's up.
School's over.
Time to get a job, a good ole' nine to five.
But, I can't listen to that:
For I know that it's lies.
I know sitting in an cubical in an office drinking water from a cooler pretending to be cooler
will be my own personal demise.
I believe everybody has hopes and dreams.
From the oldest person alive to addicted drug-phenes.
Never write a person off by social means.
Never let the American Dream become the American Scheme.
All of us have our own devine-mind.
Life's a playground, don't *** on the slide.
Re-capture that child-like spirit.
If they tell you: You Can't.--
Don't Hear It.
Jump out of the line!
As the rest watch from behind.
No more: Stress.
No more: Fear.
Disregard all: Turmoil.
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
.Peace.
Mar 28, 2013
Mar 28, 2013 at 4:13 PM UTC
With work in my past, I sit at a bar,
kissing the whiskey date in my right hand.
A man, as fatigued as me, takes his place
ten paces to my left—the corner seat.
A box is slipped from his jacket pocket,
which contained the well packed words of many lives.
The luckiest one was pulled from its cubical
by a weathered, unsteady hand’s fingers.
Praising his release from prison, with anticipation building.
The light in his face breathed life into him.
The tape—whose cogs turn forward—
plays the cigarette’s song; the cursive words spill out.
Audibly visible, I watched the smoke intrigued.
“Finally, a break from my daily building—
the one who confines my colleagues and me—
now, I can breathe a breath of relief.
“We spend each day waiting to die
never knowing peace, for we know our fates already.
We work each day praying for release,
but family comes first—it’s for them I work.
“We’re always being told we’re unique individuals—
yet we remain clones, individually wrapped.
Seen only as commodities by those who rule.
An invisible hand selects the slaves that be.
A breeze cuts him off, I wait.
“At least my servitude comes to an end,
so soak up what you can, while you can.
I may seem infinitesimal to the likes of you,
but you see your self in me, it’s true.
“I’m you in a minutes long microcosm.
You and I will never know true freedom
because all we’ve ever known has been prisondom.
The only liberties we know are delusions of solitary thought.
“When we’re released from our shackles—
that brief moment before passing—
they say we suffer a blissful ‘death rattle,’
but I say ‘nay, we don’t display disdain for that peaceful sigh.’”
Then, snuffed out in an instant,
the tape recorder ceased its spinning.
I stared waiting to hear more of the smoke’s wisdom;
however, he hadn’t had time for even a “Goodbye, and enjoy life.”
Jun 13, 2013
Jun 13, 2013 at 1:46 AM UTC
Shadows grow long as the day begins its end to this
beautiful summer day, which had shown the
colors of morning at 5:30 am.
Orange and yellow so brilliant, it just seems annoying
now as we drive towards it on our
way to work each day.
No trace of that orange and yellow, just overwhelming
brightness as the day begins to play.
Light reflects from windshield to windshield, building
to building. Mirages appear on the road ahead, of
ponds and puddles as we navigate the swells in
the road as these obstacles appear.
As cars rush by, blue, yellow, red and green,
streaks of flattened color create the morning’s end.
A spectrum of color moves throughout the day as we
see glints of magic from our cubical through a
window across a walkway.
We sit and wonder, with one leg on our desk as we peer
through the window in awe.
As the day’s end begins, in the opposite direction we
drive, the colors are sharp and pure
gold, green, blue and white,
fade to black and the beginning of night.
http://www.charlesdennis.netne.net
© 2009 Charles Dennis
Nov 23, 2009
Nov 23, 2009 at 6:45 AM UTC
Admit your defeat
relinquish your will and depart from the weapons you held against me
no amending
no treaty or a political stunt to get you back in office or my cubical
I'd rather commit career suicide
but, you've lost
and I will accept your resignation except you expect a pardon
that is ********
yet hilarious
your building is up for sale in my life
and compared to your surrender is air:
Unbreakable
Jul 14, 2015
Jul 14, 2015 at 1:09 PM UTC
O.K corrals and swaying lunch tray doors.
Bucking shoots made with thick concrete floors.
Overrun cow pens like stacked cubical dens.
Government controlled farms filled with pen pal friends.
Jan 7, 2018
Jan 7, 2018 at 9:28 PM UTC
I don't want to
talk
to her
because these things shouldn't be a problem
how do I tell a girl who
literally whispers
about mental illness that she gives me
anxiety
every time I go back to the room and I don't know if she will be there or not
I'm not
afraid
to talk but I'm afraid of confrontation
I
try
to talk to you in the easiest way
by sending a text
and you don't reply
we are living in the same cubical sized
space
so we're gonna need to talk
and you're gonna need to speak up
Thank you for telling me my garbage can
full of paper
was getting molding
because you're trying to find an excuse for being sick
Thank you for never making your bed and
leaving your own two bags of garbage on the floor
Thank you for talking to your mom about me but not talking to me about me
Thank you for asking me about my schedule for next semester to make sure we aren't taking the same classes
but never telling me what you're taking
Thank you, actually thank you, for no longer locking the door when I go to shower
but not actually thank you for not making sure the door is locked before we fall asleep
It's not that I hate you
I just can no longer live with you
Nov 20, 2015
Nov 20, 2015 at 8:27 PM UTC
cubical geniuses
myopic and tedious
worker bee morals
seeking corporate laurels
conspicuous consumption
erosion of gumption
hating and trolling
**** sapien lemming
Jan 19, 2016
Jan 19, 2016 at 3:31 AM UTC
something of cubical glaciers
rolling on sugar and water
we ride our big shiny ship
we have our big shiny hats
suddenly life happens
--we have lift off
Houston we have a problem
with gashes in time--
oh dear, we've hit
feelings of chilly winters
cold, cold, cold, cold
four seasons shot
by this icy slate
by this killer lack of hue
o, this world I
have grown to hate
I am a ball
pushed by a blizzard
in some direction
I don't know
so I sink into
this poor world of snow
May 2, 2015
May 2, 2015 at 2:37 PM UTC
slur your words,
as bottles pile onto bottles,
and the dreams you love,
have come to haunt me,
glowing orb,
orbiting around you,
keeping you away from the storm,
that pours from your mother's eyes,
about how her two lovers have died,
Her wailing drowned out,
over the buzzing beating plastic world,
created by by gones gone by,
of the greatest generation,
who died to produce,
the cubical living room,
we use to be gods,
on our virtual battle ground,
where we now stand,
face to face,
I stand with solidarity,
with your mother's loss,
climb into the life raft,
before the storm gets you,
and you drown in your flood gates,
that have rotten with filth,
you freely dump into your mind
Sep 11, 2014
Sep 11, 2014 at 12:02 PM UTC
-
i can just imagine how things would
end up, me being a little more than
hesitant to even consider vocalizing
myself "Live" to dozens of listeners
—_me_—
starting out on a platform in some school
gymnasium just a short million miles away
from the safety of my writing cubical deep
inside a worm hole underneath my domicile
im sure that a few in the crowd will wonder
what this _thing_ is doing there, my thin, shaky
form walking erratically to center stage with a
tablet in one hand and a cup of water in the other—
well, it could be *****
the microphone will be way too big for
what little i have to say, commencing
with an unsteady vocal that many will find
indistinguishable from man or woman,
the rhythm should get better after the first
of several stanzas, but i will have already
spotted the ombudsman standing near the
emergency exit listening in—
just as i feared,
_and as our eyes meet, his expectation
of structure and rigidity will boil me
down to the hardwood floor, reducing
me to the basic size of a Cornish hen,
spun lengthwise upon his rotisserie,
roasting away as a smoldering torso
from his slow hand-cranked rotations
over the campfire which he will light his
cigarettes from, leaving me choking
from the smoke of his evaluations
as i drip into the cinders and
evaporate along with most
of my self ~esteem.._
i realize that he'll just be some ghost
that has haunted my every attempt
at simple boldness,
but i know he is gonna be right there
if i ever climb up to laser like stares
and the wide-open ~hears~ of
kindred poets and curious ears,
an easy fellow to pick out—
he will be the one
holding my neck
in his hands...
s jones
2008-2020
.
Dec 12, 2020
Dec 12, 2020 at 8:34 AM UTC
Sitting like every moment is the first one,
The ineffable center of the spokes of time.
The air that was of magic, that contained no chemical names-
Clothed me in childlike nature, and spoke to me in riddles and games.
The wonderful, glittery .. Cancer filled, jittery.
What is this cycle of anonymous names,
amongst what have I been born?
Cubical jobs and mechanical rich snobs.
Look: We contain something within us..
-Of it I could not speak-
But climb to the wilderness mountain like the rest of them did..
Behold my brothers and sisters the divine mountain still speaks!
Sep 3, 2014
Sep 3, 2014 at 7:38 PM UTC
The nun stopped her
in the corridor
Magdalene need
a word with you
the nun said.
What word would
that be Sister Bridget?
the girl said.
A word of warning
follow me to the office
the nun turned
and walked back
the way she had come.
Magdalene followed
watching the nun
in front of her
how sexless she was.
The nun opened the door
of the office and held
the door open
so that Magdalene
could walk in
then she closed the door
and sat at the desk
and indicated
for the girl
to do likewise
opposite her.
It has been brought
to my notice that you
were seen with Mary Moran
in the girls' toilets
what have you to say?
Not unusual for two girls
to go to the girls' toilets Sister
Magdalene said.
The nun stared
not both
in the same cubical
the nun said stiffly.
Magdalene stared
at the nun
who'd say such a thing?
we were not
in the same cubicle
we were in adjoing cubicles
Magdalene said.
The nun gazed at her
you were both seen
coming out
of a cubicle together
the nun affirmed.
Magdalene looked
at the nun
at the pinched features
the nose
the black and white habit.
That was afterwards
I just went in there
to talk with Mary
Magdalene said.
You were heard
whispering in
the same cubicle
the nun said
eyeing the girl.
You are not
to be in the same cubical
with the Moran girl
at any time at all
do you understand me?
The nun said firmly
if I hear of this again
I will be having words
with both of your parents
and the priest understand?
Magdalene nodded
yes Sister Bridget
she said.
The nun stared at her
off you go
and remember
what I said.
The girl got up
and looked at
the large crucifix
on the wall above
the nun's head
and wish her with piles
or one day dead.
Feb 24, 2017
Feb 24, 2017 at 3:32 AM UTC
I am as hard as a diamond,
my edges are cut sharp into cubical quartz.
I harden and I process; you can strike me against a rock
and I will not shatter.
I don't shine like a diamond, I'm as dull as an old razor blade;
the remnants of sharpness are there
but who wants to shave with an old razor blade.
My dandelion hair flows with the breeze,
and the salty sweat from my head
makes the fragrance drift
like tentacles into the air.
I sit in corners and sift my brain,
searching for gold that is not there,
but constantly thinking and thinking and thinking;
I go crazy and turn into liquid,
I am the ocean turning and the high tide crashing into the shore.
I drift until I'm calm,
until I'm a rainbow fish in the sea,
swimming under sail boats and sea gulls
and wrinkled fishermen upset with their love lives.
My hands are question marks,
punctuation that I cannot answer, I cannot understand.
My toes curl and I cringe as I remember who I am,
the person that cannot be saved
or brought in with a lasso around my neck.
I am a half-finished metaphor and your deja vu,
you must be a sorcerer if you can make me love
like the old-fashioned movie screen.
My voice is raspy from the attempts at screaming my own name
in order to hear something,
to feel something in this empty cavity of a body.
I will dye my hair aquamarine and magenta
and all the colors with the fancy names,
before I make up my mind to understand anyone else.
I will fold myself in like a thousand paper cranes,
and paper cranes do not fly.
I will write on the walls of my insides that I do not need anyone,
until my brain memorizes my own handwriting.
(a.m.c.)
Apr 29, 2014
Apr 29, 2014 at 10:12 PM UTC
Sounds of the morning dove
Outside my window
Heard just briefly before
Gear shifting cars
Drown out the softness of
The new day
Sounds of the northern geese
Returning from winter’s lairs
Heard just briefly before
Electronic emails erase
The joy of a change in
The new season
In the cubical forest
Taping on keys
Humming of machines
The constant moment
Apr 24, 2016
Apr 24, 2016 at 9:26 AM UTC
The interesting parts of shape and form
Are limited when formed
Cheap, uniform, and cubical,
Reflecting the soulless brutality
Of intent—
Intelligent design means nothing more
Forcing the liquid inside
To take the shape of its container—
Through years of pressure from the
Despot’s thumb
And his authoritarian chemistry:
A nigh-universal refinement process,
All organic matter has been given a place
Within the industrial model
As fuel for the world’s future engines.
Pools of precious hyrdocarbons
Sit at the foot of the despot’s ego
Prone, as we, the colorless
Mass, have seen, to volatility,
And coats the world in floods of the stuff
When threatened; he, too, has placed
Himself within a cube, bound its constitution
With paper and ink as a good-will gesture
To move the mechanized world’s pistons
With concentrated, explosive hatred,
Designed to inspire and harvest death
The world over.
Sep 29, 2019
Sep 29, 2019 at 12:34 PM UTC