"cultured" poems
By now,the seed varieties of the world,
may have been attacked beyond recovery
by wars of pretense and relapses.
We are still learning
how to handle it properly.
We tend to say.
Some will talk and plan over dinner parties,
over TV or Radio. Most will leave
it behind like another corpse
of lessons thrown to the gutter,
like a dead *** on another Sunset Boulevard.
Iraq's seed banks
we blew up in the 2000s.
In various places in Asia
and the Middle East, places of life and cultured
varieties gone in an instant.
Echoing our imprisoned
ignorance and drives for more instant goods and services.
Indian farmers have committed mass suicides after
their god Hanuman was used by a chemical giant
to sell poison seeds and renewed
bondages of indebtedness.
One question a stranger asked a group of writers on tour
was not what their poetry or books were about,
nor why they wrote it, but how writing may and
may not be helping as we make decisions and solve problems now?
Once agricultural lands turn into new promises
of commercial buildings. Cities of inaccessible towers and
abandoned malls in America, Spain, China, and Russia
feeds us back our own echo.
Like converted uses of lands, our humanity
is converted into inanimate collections and status
symbols of some players or parties. As we face
our continuing struggle between
our oppressor-selves and our genuine roots.
Despite the perversions,
inside vicious habits of waste
where we glorify promises of war and efficiencies,
we continue to be entrusted with the ongoing lessons:
Rarely do surviving generations through famine, war and diseases,
throw away means to live, or destroy any kind of seed.
Every day we wake to the ruins and remains of
Our living poetry, word spaces, hours, exchanges,
gains and losses, stopping and going. This time,
not just for fires of anguish or unnecessary losses,
but for each other's midnight lamps.#
Sep 3, 2018
Sep 3, 2018 at 12:42 AM UTC
From the cultured hood of Beverly Hills
Young rich white kid rapping
Blonde hair perfectly combed and trimmed
Blue eyes shaded from California sun
Spitting ghetto slang about unfair pain,
Affirmative action, cultural injustices
Daddy’s allowance, racial profiling
Pimp[le] mobile and spinning rims
Gold plated teeth over pearly whites
Slinging 401k’s and time shares
Baggy pants sagging down past his ***
Tugging at his crotch
His hand permanently attached
To his little white flaccid ****
Trying to keep from tripping
While he’s running from the police
Wanted for questioning
On insider trading
And insurance scams
Apr 28, 2012
Apr 28, 2012 at 8:48 PM UTC
Staunch masculinity
I have hair on my chest
I drink whiskey
I work out
I like Karate
I drink beer
I like heavy metal
Let’s fight
Lets ****
I smoke
I stay out late
I win
I read (ie: I’m smarter than you.)
Let’s ****
Sometimes I lose ….but I learn
I don’t care
That’s my job
I had steak for lunch
Do you want to ****
I provide
I take care of business
C’mon let’s ****
I build
I take
I teach
I preach
Let’s ****
I’m happy
Don’t cut me off in traffic
I lead
I challenge
How about we ****
I yell
I critique
I solve
Are we going to ****
I drive a sports car
I save money
I spend money
I make money
I brag
I show off
I really really need to ****
I said I drive sports car
I drink…. did I mention that.
Let’s ****
****
Yeah
****
I wait
I wait
I’m patient
I drink
I smoke
I emote
We aren’t going to **** are we?
I work out
I compete
I shoot guns
I ride a motorcycle
I’m cultured
Don’t make me beg for it *****
I judge
I ****
I love
I ponder
I create
I scheme
I think you are really special
Let's ****
I can lift heavy boxes
I can hang pictures
I can drive you around
I can buy you dinner
****
****
****
Jan 18, 2014
Jan 18, 2014 at 1:24 AM UTC
Go to an art museum
Pretend you understand
Nod along with what others are saying
Because otherwise you'll look bland
Though the colors on canvas means nothing to you
Everyone else seems to get it
Your legs grow sore from standing around
You decide to rest for a bit
Oh **** that bench was actually art!
What a mistake you've made
The staff tensely continue to glare
You wonder how much they get paid
Naked women adorn the walls
And prepubescents giggle
That one creepy painting is definitely staring at you
Uncomfortably, away you wriggle
Though the art museum is a cultured place to go
By the end you're always miserable
At least next time you'll know not to buy 15 dollar coffee
And remember that flash photography is unforgivable
Mar 30, 2014
Mar 30, 2014 at 12:24 AM UTC
A Letter To My Aunt Discussing The Correct Approach To Modern Poetry
To you, my aunt, who would explore
The literary Chankley Bore,
The paths are hard, for you are not
A literary Hottentot
But just a kind and cultured dame
Who knows not Eliot (to her shame).
Fie on you, aunt, that you should see
No genius in David G.,
No elemental form and sound
In T.S.E. and Ezra Pound.
Fie on you, aunt! I'll show you how
To elevate your middle brow,
And how to scale and see the sights
From modernist Parnassian heights.
First buy a hat, no Paris model
But one the Swiss wear when they yodel,
A bowler thing with one or two
Feathers to conceal the view;
And then in sandals walk the street
(All modern painters use their feet
For painting, on their canvas strips,
Their wives or mothers, minus hips).
Perhaps it would be best if you
Created something very new,
A ***** novel done in Erse
Or written backwards in Welsh verse,
Or paintings on the backs of vests,
Or Sanskrit psalms on lepers' chests.
But if this proved imposs-i-ble
Perhaps it would be just as well,
For you could then write what you please,
And modern verse is done with ease.
Do not forget that 'limpet' rhymes
With 'strumpet' in these troubled times,
And commas are the worst of crimes;
Few understand the works of Cummings,
And few James Joyce's mental slummings,
And few young Auden's coded chatter;
But then it is the few that matter.
Never be lucid, never state,
If you would be regarded great,
The simplest thought or sentiment,
(For thought, we know, is decadent);
Never omit such vital words
As belly, genitals and -----,
For these are things that play a part
(And what a part) in all good art.
Remember this: each rose is wormy,
And every lovely woman's germy;
Remember this: that love depends
On how the Gallic letter bends;
Remember, too, that life is hell
And even heaven has a smell
Of putrefying angels who
Make deadly whoopee in the blue.
These things remembered, what can stop
A poet going to the top?
A final word: before you start
The convulsions of your art,
Remove your brains, take out your heart;
Minus these curses, you can be
A genius like David G.
Take courage, aunt, and send your stuff
To Geoffrey Grigson with my luff,
And may I yet live to admire
How well your poems light the fire.
6.5k
tell me what words are there
to articulate this savage parade
not here, not in all the Lebanons
whose crystal castles sparkle
like broken glass
on the dark horizons
at the jagged edges of the world
from which cultured minds have receded
and all humanity has been relinquished
to the barbarity of the frenzied flavours of fools
who will speak for this wild parade
without impediment to mythical protagonists
tell me where are the energised arguments
against sophisticated yet false laments
where testament is torn through
weeping cedar trees
producing the unpredictable accidental quality
that memorialises phantom caresses
that have neither been invented nor encouraged
the hallow that inaugurates
the distinctive features of
destructive energies that are both
exuberant and hard to comprehend
this parade where there is
a savage sensibility
capable of apprehending
contradictory ethical imperatives
that vouch for a mocking stream of
tragic political consequence
displayed vividly in the inextricability
of civil order and political violence
that defies exclusive claim
by casting itself as freedom warrior
in disguise as militaristic humanism
and burns the temple tree
and where human identity
becomes an elusive possession
owned by a few
who in the inevitability of ignorance
refuse to recognise their tragic error
and the world does not mount
a strenuous protest
at this headlong dash for Ephesus
where antagonistic language and
neutral expression of thought converge
and here the value of valulessness
repudiates, even in a single poetic moment
Aug 25, 2013
Aug 25, 2013 at 4:04 PM UTC
C
is confused, so a little complex
I mean, one moment it’s top of the range
glowing
in the hierarchy of vitamins
but next it’s a little abashed and low
in a student’s report card –
you know, C is not as good as an A
And so can you blame C for its mood swings?
Its agony continues:
one instant C is Calm, in another it’s a Curse
And you know it also feels a little wanting
a little under-stretched, not fulfilled
like not being able to complete
all the stretching exercises
its fitness trainer metes out
“O, if only I could be a little more yogic,”
C intones
“I’d be as composed as an O” -
but O no, that’s not to be
And don’t you start
on the indignant possibilities
of the letter C, for C has always aspired
you see
to be genteel, cultured and debonair
and curls with disgust if the uncouth
should use the letter
to refer to any body parts,
be it that of male or of female
So, dear mortals, C should be left in celestial spheres
And so, in conclusion,
one Commandment I give unto you:
*Never drag C to ****** shallows*
Apr 18, 2014
Apr 18, 2014 at 10:44 PM UTC
Lustrous but also lackluster
We are gems yet salvaged
Formed inside of a shelled world
Waves waning and whining
Sailors nauseated on our waters
Drifting towards an aggrandized land
Where they might find us oysters in the sand
They'll tear them open,
In search of what only we bear
Camouflaged amongst the cultured,
Or even those with nothing there
Darling,
We are wild,
Yes we are rare
Open up to me,
We've so many layers to share
Your metallic smile,
Your iridescent articulation
Everything happened so naturally
A miracle to be in the same location
They won't crack us,
For our muscles will defend
Our valuable and vulnerable interior
From the worlds vinegary intent
May 21, 2015
May 21, 2015 at 10:13 PM UTC
The teacher's eyes gathered colours about
The cultured garden scene she knew so well;
She likes the section flowers nicely sprout
Her hidden world where varying colours jell.
Achievers pride she takes with all her heart;
Like outstanding pupils she proudly groomed.
But scrappy lazy ones, never seems to start,
She wished them luck and left alone to bloom.
The sun regardless shines on all juniors.
The bright ones, the brats she pitied a lot.
Through years and wise by age she remembers,
Oft visiting her those she had forgot,
Those she loved and cared have whittled away.
But strugglers now trees they weathered to stay.
Jul 26, 2018
Jul 26, 2018 at 9:54 PM UTC
Gemini's are known to dabble in arts of all kind; Well-cultured, well-versed and rehearsed in both rhythm and rhyme.
From music to magic and everything in between; Learning lessons as they unfold with the change of each scene.
We cannot be contained within wires nor hidden behind screens. Energy is everywhere; We choose our frequencies.
Disconnect from electricity and experience the ever-natural waves. Break harmful traditions of doubt and unobtainable change.
We are not alone.
This life has no range.
Mar 14, 2016
Mar 14, 2016 at 9:21 PM UTC
A riverbank of memories
saturates cultured minds
such succulent visuals
of precipitation
so moist, so pleasant
spines shiver in longing
howls ascend
veneration
Apr 27, 2012
Apr 27, 2012 at 6:29 AM UTC
Embracing His Solace!
In solace mountains scaled.
Solidarity stands strong.
Between two upstanding.
Love matters minimally.
Grace relaxed in cultured elegance.
Company not desired much.
Cries alone.
Dies alone.
Does he moan.
No deals granted.
Pours another escapist drink.
Needed to **** or release the lurking tears.
Forced to descend thy tender cheeks.
Solace found also in my place.
Want no-one to invade my space.
Love freedom to be mine.
Detest freedom myself at times.
Then I to cry.
Flood rivers rarely.
Too selfish to co-exist.
Although your heart and soul I've missed.
No deals wanted.
Love never denied!
By ladylivvi1
© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)
Oct 29, 2013
Oct 29, 2013 at 10:16 AM UTC
Like a big slice of chocolate cake,
I would love a cultured gentleman
with a delightful accent.
Mar 14, 2014
Mar 14, 2014 at 9:48 PM UTC
I love nothing more than a good conversation
Whether we laugh or have a serious discussion
Quality moments sitting around a table
Words flow as we're trapped in our own little capsule
Promptly, we are transported to a different world
See all these places and get cultured through mere words
Without even leaving this spot for a second
Our shared stories spur on the imagination
I am here enjoying my beer or my coffee
It is a pleasure to be in great company
One can learn so much through the eyes of another
To some questions, one can firmly get an answer
It doesn't matter if we are, or not, alike
A smart and challenging person will always strike
Ultimately, one might get more than what he thought
One discovers things about himself just with talk
I love nothing more than a good conversation
Whether we laugh or have a serious discussion
Sit around a nice little table for a while
What's greater in life than connecting through a smile?
Mar 9, 2012
Mar 9, 2012 at 5:03 PM UTC
Champagne and cup cakes.
A Cornish beach with rippling swell.
Love be cultured as a precious pearl.
Where love be found with special girl.
Projects full of rich intention.
Health.
Wealth.
Happiness.
The air is filled with childhood squeals.
Summer flicks on the crown of her hair.
Children ride horses with the sea on their heels.
History steeped at the top of the hill.
Empty mines.
Cleared of tin.
In the county, where Poldark first made his mark.
Country delight?
Nah.
A county in England.
Better not tell the Cornish man.
Kernow man's birthright.
The sovereign state of Cornwall.
Not all of the Cornish men have seven wives.
Nor do they live in the land of St Ives.
One wife is enough for most.
Your spirit in Southampton, now merely a ghost.
(c) Livvi
Good luck.
Mar 20, 2016
Mar 20, 2016 at 7:05 AM UTC
Come up north to see the great outdoors
Rolling hills
Scenes leaving you wanting more
Never mind the weather
Whether its rain or shine
Grab a pint
Sit down
And enjoy our way of life
Born and bred northern boy
But no flat cap or corduroys
Yorkshire til the day I die
I'll represent that West Yorks sign
Faithful to my northern life
Faithful to my northern rhyme
Brought up well with northern vibes
Through hard times, miners strike
Times when maggie thatcher tried
to stir up **** with lies designed
Got miners and police to fight
But don't believe that southern hype...
Those brutal battles gave us life
It redefined our future times
Redefined our future lines
Redefined the northern kind
Redefined our northern humour
Redefined our northern style
Tourists come from far and wide
to find out what the North is like
Expecting lack of cultured life
Surprised we're not uncultured swines
Rewarded with our northern minds
Our northern ways
Our northern lives
Come up north to see the great outdoors
Rolling hills
Scenes leaving you wanting more
Never mind the weather
Whether its rain or shine
Grab a pint
Sit down
Enjoy our way of life
Jan 26, 2016
Jan 26, 2016 at 3:50 PM UTC
A satisfied appetite is a simply joy
Overlooked and simplified
Like a growing urge, a salivating need
That is entrancing and glorified.
Everlasting for moments we call meals
Forgotten in time, lingering above
But the taste, the lonesome lover pushed aside
Gazes afar and near wanting to be enjoyed again
The young lady with a tongue of raspberry delight
And the matured widow with darkened cacao lips
Ripening nectar of a sliced peach center
Halved and topped with mascarpone crème
The man with a skin of caramel glaze
Caressing and savoring
With a fragrance and scent
Of hazelnut coffee indulgence and sin
In the pursuit of a brief love affair
What oral sensation did my taste buds want?
My odyssey of gustatory endeavors await
Through the seas of lined people and waiting staff
Generous portions and humble pies
Decadent desserts so rich you’ll die
Vine cherry tomatoes sliced and sauté
Over al dente rigatoni in a roasted cashew sauce
A robust aroma and savory appeal
Basil leaves with garlic strips
Olive oil to top the surreal
Hubristic meatball aborigine
Elysian cuisine or many dreams
Teasing the senses, warming the pit
Of flowing pleasures
And tingling fingertips
Without moral measures
And succulent wines
Rotisserie lamb falling of the bone
Seasoned with Sicilian herbs
And paired with broiled asparagus
Drizzled with lemon juice
And a glass of Merlot
Spices I hardly know
Lachrymose apologies beside a bottle of faded sorrows
With love there is pain, passion endured through the names
Thin soups, flavorless and dull, feeding street-thrown bums
Breathing hard against the delicatessen glass
Hickory smoked hams, pepper-seasoned pastrami
Vinegar cultured pickles and hard dried salami
Unpleasured, without measure, at one's leisure.
Forever my endeavor
Blackcurrant tea laced with slivers of gooping honey
Layers of cinnamon hair atop olive skin
red-painted doors with cedar trim
crushed almonds mixed with hazelnut butter cream spread
devilish rounds of crumbling rum-swirl bread
Smells and wonders, tastes so ...
oh god
Divine and sublime.
Jul 22, 2013
Jul 22, 2013 at 5:42 PM UTC
My inside self and my outside self
are as different as can be.
My outside self is quiet and shy,
unsure of things and people gone by.
It is commonly thought that I am high,
oblivious, alone, with a large money supply.
My inside self is conflicting, you see.
I am confident and cocky to the highest degree.
Cultured and smart, one day you'll agree.
I will show the world, nothing can stop me.
Jun 5, 2010
Jun 5, 2010 at 3:30 PM UTC
Born of a binary,
black/white,
white/ black.
Cultured by silence,
a blank slate,
but no more tears.
Time isn't real.
They speak, they say,
tell me there's nothing wrong with me;
standing in the kitchen with my
grandmother telling me there is
nothing DIFFERENT about you.
Strive to conform.
Sameness is a casualty.
**I DON'T GIVE A ****
about conservatives
.
"Humanists" avoiding their toxic
misogynistic tendencies,
old friends enlisted
voluntarily perpetuating a
system of violence and suffering,
others are bluffing, don't say ****
walk eggshells,
I must be a tiger loose from the cage,
and they're waiting to see who becomes the
canary in my coal mine.
Rhyming by incident,
but I hate this **** & I'm not all right.
Women can participate in their own oppression,
minorities can be racist,
we're all raised in a ditch;
Patriarchy, capitalism, class values,
botched messages, "color blindness",
etc. etc. etc.
**** everyone, and don't treat me like I'm better
or I should know better, or I have to be "perfect"
if I want to be "different". Raised in a ditch.
Cultured by racism and depression.
I think of suicide like a novelty
until I don't
.
.
.
Everything turns grey and reads like sloganeering.
Waiting for the past to manifest as a trauma.
Waiting for the past to make sense.
Waiting.
Jun 12, 2014
Jun 12, 2014 at 11:44 AM UTC
I can’t sleep.
An endless wandering
piano strain
caught between
broken
finger
bones.
She lays
her head
against his
chest
listening
as
ships
sail
across his
heavy heart.
A sad
mourning
wail
of
wind
echoes
in
each breath
he takes.
I hope
that
soon
death will
come
like
hundreds
of arrows
in
the night.
Each aflame
with the
lies
and conceit
of the
human race.
Only then
will I slumber
content
beneath
the skies
of
moons
and stars.
Glistening in
continuum
with the chorus
of
small voices
and the movements
of the
universe.
A haunting
twisting
melody
that
reminds
us of memories
and their purpose
of nostalgia.
The notes
that
urge
us to go
on.
To hope
when hope
is gone.
Because I can’t
sleep,
I dream
of brokenness
and hopelessness.
A darkness
darker than
the night
disturbs
my unseen
eyes
and billows
beneath my
hair.
I look to them
both,
standing
so close to
the edge,
and I pray
like sweet honey
that
drips from
cultured
lips,
I pray for
them both,
The girl and the boy who haunt my sleepless nights.
I watch
as they
peril
in
my demise,
slowly
my brain
rots away
and
my limbs
deteriorate.
They have
nothing
left
of me.
Only
a fleeting
idea
that nags
at their
consciousness
each footfall
bringing
them farther
from my
soul
and closer to
their empty
air.
It was
like
they too
never existed,
as both
fall
to the
violin
that soundtracks
their never-ending
sorrow.
The girl and the boy who haunt my sleepless nights.
Now we
both
will
slumber
forever
beneath
the moons
and
the
stars
for
eternity
forever
content,
unsatisfied,
restless.
Mar 24, 2014
Mar 24, 2014 at 4:13 AM UTC
It takes courage to be born in a grave
where the earthworms caress
and the night is like day.
But where two or three are gathered
they will burrow deeper yet,
pressing the earth to their faces.
It takes gall to bite the mouth that eats you,
little rocket ships
who never left the ground.
Launch your cultured pungent taste,
for if you must go,
go loudly.
Daikon, Cherry Belle, Easter Egg,
Black Spanish, Red King,
you are conquerers.
Digging away until the sun comes to find you,
blushing in myriad shades
of fearless ambition.
It takes integrity to never leave your roots.
Break bold and crisp,
candied keg of gunpowder.
Apr 14, 2013
Apr 14, 2013 at 10:09 PM UTC
Let me take you out to lunch
Mrs Bryce said
(she was a middle aged dame
old enough to be his aunt)
o.k if you like
he said
but her friend Lilly
didn't like the idea
(some jealousy
of the lesbian kind
maybe he later thought)
and was quite reserved
as they went to
the posh upstairs restaurant
he one side
and they opposite
Lilly giving him
the cool stare
her pinched mouth
wrinkled forehead
Mrs Bryce studied
the menu
her glasses on
her eyes focused
what you having Lilly?
she asked
and Lilly scanned
her menu and picked out
something in French
and then she asked him
and he said
o the stew will do
and the waitress came
and took their orders
and went off
wagging her behind
which he noticed
but they didn't
being that part
sexually blind
and then came
the small talk
the casual chat
or this and that
and Lilly straight faced
thin lipped
and icy eyes stare
but he knew
what Lilly didn't
she had no idea
about the ***
or how the middle aged
dame had it still
could still turn on the fire
could **** off his desire
but Mrs Bryce
never said a word
not a hint
she wore her middle age
and middle class morals
very well
a mask of gentility
or cultured good humour
good manners on show
but he knew
she was hot
and could go
(her husband
some middle aged guy
with sourness
and boredness
in each greying eye)
and she sat there
giving it the small talk
sipping the wine
one finger raised
her eyes pure
as cut glass
behind the specs
and Lilly listened
in soft admiration
wanting to be nearer
breathing in
Mrs Bryce's scent
dreaming of the two of them
doing whatever in
some bedroom spent
but he had the real
not a dream
and as he watched
Mrs Bryce sipping
her wine
thin lips
on thin glass
he remembered her
that time lying there
bright eyes
greying but dyed hair
he bringing her
to a seventh heaven
of yes and yes
and more
and Lilly sour faced
sitting and listening
to the small talk
but wanting
something other
for sure.
Nov 22, 2013
Nov 22, 2013 at 7:10 AM UTC
I **** on your grave for I have had too much to drink!
A glass 'o ginger beer and shrimp crackers I ate today.
Thou art not to fall! To tartuffery for a drink is as good as the last.
But alas, I am not to drink.
For my heart is heavy with woe.
Those stoics! They bring me much misery.
Oh the stoics, with their logically given truths that are naught but prejudice! Prejudice in truth they claim, liars.
Oh the stoics, with their ****** analogies of nature and so fourth.
To be! Like nature, is to be indifferent and prodigal.
That's probably why we love the intelligent uncaring character. He is nature.
She too! O' who's heart is full of love! She brings me roses and kisses upon my lips. She too, is nature. Stupid also, unbelievably crass.
Is crassness then, what we call nature? Then it is he! He! Who bring us our daily news who is unnatural. But then who is the preacher?
No, nature is to live. To live! Hah! A joke! To live is not a command for you cannot conceptualize living without living.
You'd do better as a pretty little scarab, but he doesn't drink ginger beer.
So too, our conclusion is to be natural. But not the scarab. To live, obviously. To be correct! by our own prejudice. And to reject divinely given truths. I do not know how I would feel about children of my own, we'll see when I have one.
Nov 9, 2016
Nov 9, 2016 at 5:21 AM UTC
You see Diogenes living in the slums. He lives in a barrel. This is the man even Alexander the Great admires. So it makes you wonder about Diogenes.
So you pretend to be there quite by accident and you ask: “Diogenes…Who was your teacher?”
“A mouse was my teacher,” says Diogenes.
You are quite confused. And you say: "A mouse is your teacher? And how is that, Diogenes? "
“Well, most exquisite Sir,” says Diogenes to you. “Most cultured Sir,” he says. “I had no home and I was in the streets. I almost killed myself. Then I saw mouse. Mouse ran around and looked for food and it found some and I observed mouse for over two days. And I realized how resourceful mouse was. And then I said to myself: ‘Learn of the mouse, Diogenes- and all will be well.’ And so I learned of mouse. And every time I have a problem, I simply ask myself: ‘How will mouse solve this?’ And so mouse became my teacher. And now, most Exquisite Sir, I have a problem. You. I want to get rid of you and I ask myself: ‘How would mouse solve this problem?’ He would bite…”
You listen to this and you are afraid – and you run. And Diogenes has done well; he has learned well from his teacher. And you can hear him shouting to you: “By the way, who was your teacher?”
Oct 7, 2010
Oct 7, 2010 at 7:05 PM UTC
We fill our minds with distant lies
and feign a cultured philosophy
we judge the lives of distant tribes
as we make our own taxonomy
how blessed are we with time to spare
to let our minds wander without a care
Jun 19, 2012
Jun 19, 2012 at 1:51 PM UTC