"decimation" poems
Listen.
I know you've lived longer
Than my short quarter century life.
I know you've seen more,
Done more, loved more,
Touched more, tasted more,
Experienced more things than i.
I know you're only trying to help.
I appreciate the giving of advice.
I know you mean well
When you say it's time to give them up,
It's time to move on,
To be my own person,
To learn to live for only myself.
But you haven't lived through
The total decimation of your family.
You haven't watched as the lives
Of your loved ones fall into utter ruin
One by one.
You weren't relegated to helpless paralysis
By the fear that you'd lose them all
And by the depression that came with knowing
You couldn't even help yourself.
You don't know what it feels like
To have the dagger of abandonment,
The shattered shards of broken hearts,
The pinpoint needles of disillusionment,
The three-pronged fork of misunderstanding,
****** into your soul over and over
By every lemon life throws your way.
You don't know what it is to stand
On the brink of death
Because if you don't have them,
You have nothing.
You still have your family.
All intact and whole.
So don't begrudge me
My clutching, grasping, clinging attempts
At keeping what remnants of a family I have
Together.
I will not let them go
Until they have to be pried
From my dead hands.
And even then, I will still be loyal.
They are all i have.
Jun 26, 2014
Jun 26, 2014 at 5:44 PM UTC
The Things I Wish I Could Be
I wish I could be
one of all instruments;
the singer whose voice
transforms his audience into a choir;
the writer who drops his reader's guard
making a beautiful decimation of every self-made fantasy;
the actor ripe with nominations
whose prestigious Oscar breaks him open before the world;
the photographer who captures moments worth infinite words
while instilling that perfect piercing silence;
the painter of elegant simplicity
or ponderous complexity in every brush and stroke;
the icon strangers seek for reason
looking upon for inspiration;
the husband who gives and comforts
appreciating the angel he's been bestowed;
the father wise and guiding
with enough laughs and smiles to last their whole lives;
the chef and the baker serving only the best
scrumptious entrees and desserts;
the encyclopedia of experience
answering questions obscured from the web;
yet beyond all things
I wish to greet death with a smile
knowing my life, however lived
was worth those years.
May 19, 2014
May 19, 2014 at 11:26 PM UTC
The deeps of darkness have been raised
As if their being was kindled.
The warm night of peace is at an end.
The devil is he that rages unchecked this night, and there are none to withstand him.
The shield wall breaks, the cavalry routed, and the meanest defence stands alone.
What shall become of these men?
Death surely, for the miracles of poetry give lie to no truth. The curses of old are set in concrete.
Death has gained his presence here. He smells victory. For the living in their mundanity see only their existence.
This existence that means nothing in the tomes of the greater good.
There is no life, only sorrow.
There is no victory, only decimation.
Only the naive think thus.
Victory is not that of arms and steel.
Nor of land or gold or tales of which bards sing
Victory is in the fight that was fought.
For they that wage the good war, and fight the good fight, all is victory.
Defeat is beyond question. Life is not of consequence.
The act alone reigns supreme.
This isn't joy. This isn't glory.
For victory chooses not the last man to stand, but the last to fall in defiance. Victory belongs to the departed. The victorious dead.
And such as it is. It shall end now.
And it's end alone worthy of song .
For all who bear witness to it.
We die, we do not flee.
Mar 23, 2016
Mar 23, 2016 at 2:32 AM UTC
I
Happy are men who yet before they are killed
Can let their veins run cold.
Whom no compassion fleers
Or makes their feet
Sore on the alleys cobbled with their brothers.
The front line withers.
But they are troops who fade, not flowers,
For poets' tearful fooling:
Men, gaps for filling:
Losses, who might have fought
Longer; but no one bothers.
II
And some cease feeling
Even themselves or for themselves.
Dullness best solves
The tease and doubt of shelling,
And Chance's strange arithmetic
Comes simpler than the reckoning of their shilling.
They keep no check on armies' decimation.
III
Happy are these who lose imagination:
They have enough to carry with ammunition.
Their spirit drags no pack.
Their old wounds, save with cold, can not more ache.
Having seen all things red,
Their eyes are rid
Of the hurt of the colour of blood for ever.
And terror's first constriction over,
Their hearts remain small-drawn.
Their senses in some scorching cautery of battle
Now long since ironed,
Can laugh among the dying, unconcerned.
IV
Happy the soldier home, with not a notion
How somewhere, every dawn, some men attack,
And many sighs are drained.
Happy the lad whose mind was never trained:
His days are worth forgetting more than not.
He sings along the march
Which we march taciturn, because of dusk,
The long, forlorn, relentless trend
From larger day to huger night.
V
We wise, who with a thought besmirch
Blood over all our soul,
How should we see our task
But through his blunt and lashless eyes?
Alive, he is not vital overmuch;
Dying, not mortal overmuch;
Nor sad, nor proud,
Nor curious at all.
He cannot tell
Old men's placidity from his.
VI
But cursed are dullards whom no cannon stuns,
That they should be as stones.
Wretched are they, and mean
With paucity that never was simplicity.
By choice they made themselves immune
To pity and whatever mourns in man
Before the last sea and the hapless stars;
Whatever mourns when many leave these shores;
Whatever shares
The eternal reciprocity of tears
2.8k
Clashing lights from the shadows;
Thundering in constant motion
Red swarms overtaking the blue nights,
A grand disturbance -
Raging through the cosmos
Shifting the course of this endless strife
(Wake up now,
We have misconstrued our fate)
Spiraling forth, into nebulous unknown
The force flows from within;
Embrace the cause -
To restore a balance lost aeons ago
Gears turning towards a lie
Deceived by peace
Crucial moments for the light;
Two tides collide
Detrimental,
Sacrifices,
Interstellar transmutation
Exiled till, the return of the progeny
Remnants of the order
Confined to, the corners of the galaxy
Strengthened, by the chosen one
Fallen hero;
Exalts into gradeur
Shining greater than the stars
Universal luminescence
Macrocosmic ~
As Above So Below
Frequencies resonating,
Constructing wretched Elysium
Eternal cataclysm,
Decimation
A massive surge of power;
Lost, following the stars of scripture
Kingdoms falling one by one ~
NOVUS ORDO
Symmetry unfolds
Visions pass
Fallacies expose
Divine excursion
Escape the stasis
Elevate, frame of mind
Amidst resistance;
Ignite lucidity
Harmony engulfs,
This fractured existence
Dec 19, 2018
Dec 19, 2018 at 12:20 AM UTC
I think we're going extinct
I hate to even blink
...
I remember when we were in sync
But things changed
We will act strange over change
Being caged and attached by chains is voguish
Are we hopeless?
Why can we polish our pinky rings
But leave rust on our linkage chains?
Our words don't bond anymore
Our words are shackles
Our words are like crooked spurs
And unbalanced saddles
Yeah It travels
But lies are to be told
Only to smear what we really withhold
I think that we're going extinct
I hate to blink
As my eye lids flicker
More and more existence spills from our mankind
Man-kind
We're turning into the kind of men
Who emotionally melts when we see celebrities
Where's our rectitude?
I think we're going extinct
I hate to blink
Where's my natural woman?
Every time I twitch
More and more she accepts the word *****
And in no time a guy can become exposed to her hips
Where's our morality?
Are we going to expire
All because we create our entire empire with desires?
Desires and thirst that require us to hurt
We smile and we smirk
We loath from good work
We poke at nerves
We drown our minds to swerve
We absorb potion
Only to tranquil our motion
We indulge in copulation
With a stranger
But somehow for consolation
...
We are endangered
We are a few more trends away from complete annihilation
Eradication
Liquidation
Obliteration
Cancellation
Our tendencies are cancerous and if we keep being patient
We will need medication
I don't feel any radiation
To not become subject to our decimation
I think we're going extinct
My instincts tell me that
Though we're a percentage and a contributor to this nation
We are approaching ruination
My instinct senses that I am one of the few who mentions devastation
And if I blink one more time
And if we keep wasting time
We'll be wastage
We
You and I
We'll be ejected from the race
And they'll use a prosthetic ethnic affiliation for our replacement
Can we come together with cooperation
Resisting this operation
May we all stand up
Before they go through with this amputation !
Blink
Lets see
Aug 10, 2013
Aug 10, 2013 at 5:55 AM UTC
don’t you spark
the fire and
abandon me,
you abstraction
of insolent
soliloquy of
elegance; all
of existence
craves a taste
of your savory,
effortless
whimsicality;
i’ll sail upon
a thundercloud,
braid the stars
into my hair
and remunerate
for my flawed,
scarred skin,
scathed soul,
with mellow
eyelashes like
rain; macrocosms
look vain,
through a
night-owl’s eyes;
trust my lies
when you fancy
truth, a vile elusive
absolute; trust
my eyes when
you fancy cold
decimation of
love and gold;
the morse code:
remains of your
melodramatic memory;
never look away
from me; i’ll fix
you like a broken
puppy toy, scuttle
across the bedroom
floor with agonizing
apathy, stay forever
and always with me
with your binary love,
you trivial, perfect machine.
Aug 20, 2015
Aug 20, 2015 at 5:45 AM UTC
*What be more grandiose than poetry,
expound at your own discretion,
bottle sunshine, save it in a jar,
tie an affectionate knot, spread it around
flood desert mirages with flowing spirits,
speaks kindly and murderously about love,
can tempt winds to uncoil temptation's gist
****** upon or written asunder desperation
relentless in its seizing of human behavior,
magnifying moonbeams or star's decimation
perfumed magnolias to winter's cruelty,
call of the wild midst sweetness of fresh rhubarb pie,
infinitely vast in its incalculable grasp of predication,
beyond limitless infrastructures 'neath fancied significance*
Jun 25, 2015
Jun 25, 2015 at 3:03 PM UTC
When it comes down to it
At the elemental level
Of this reality
There’s me and there’s you
The anti-me
Perfectly symmetrical, but anti-
Me
Linked so closely
Yet
Ill-fated to be
Upon collision
Destined for annihilation
Leaving only traces
Of the energy that bound us
From opposite sides of the charge
Of the mystery
Yet this, here, you and I, we
Matter
Separated by the fundamental differences
In our nature
Still, both, tethered
To the laws of physicality
The laws of motion that are woven
Into the fabric
Of this galaxy
This universe
That sees us
That sees you
Unversed in the ways of being part of someone’s world
A rare but precious sight
And me,
Beyond any particular probability
Afraid of what could be
Of the decimation that would ensue
Upon our union,
Opting out of the us, the me and you,
Instead to be
The anti
You
Oct 13, 2021
Oct 13, 2021 at 4:49 PM UTC
"Who is leaving who now?"
All my insecurities bubble to the surface, that one phrase plunging me deeper into Hell.
"I'm sick of people leaving me."
So am I, dollface, but what am I supposed to do about that?
I've taken a liking to self-preservation, but you only lead me to self-devastation.
"Now I have two more faces today I need to forget about."
I'm sorry, but I have my own demons to fight, my own wars needing waged.
I have my own faces needing purged from my eyelids, from my heart.
"Text me when I'm good enough."
Good enough? You're not good enough? I'm the one that's not good enough.
I'm not good enough to fix you.
I'm not strong enough.
I'm not whole enough.
"I'm not suicidal..."
If you're not suicidal, then I wouldn't be so concerned.
If you're not suicidal, then you wouldn't be wanting to throw your life away with this... sickness.
This isn't you, despite your confident "it is" claim.
Why must you do this?
"I don't want to think about it."
You're destroying yourself.
I can't understand this.
I can't take your constant decimation every night;
It's destroying me too, dear.
Your nonstop emotional blackmail only beats me further into submission.
Feb 1, 2011
Feb 1, 2011 at 4:53 PM UTC
Love endangered me, but you were the cause of my extinction.
You blinded me into a trap of self decimation.
I screamed in agony of you leaving me. Thinking I’d be lost without you leading me.
So I pled you not to leave, but you did and now I lay crying your name hoping to turn back time and change my mistakes.
Mar 31, 2018
Mar 31, 2018 at 12:24 PM UTC
The Reds Rocked me into decimation
The Oranges Overcame my shriveled form
The Yellows Yearned to return to that saddened smile
The Greens Grew a seed of perhaps
The Blues Broke through the dried esteem
The Violets Veered me off the path again
Apr 27, 2014
Apr 27, 2014 at 2:00 AM UTC
WOULD YOU RATHER DIE BY THE MOAT AROUND THE CASTLE, OR BY THE ***** OUT IN THE RAIN?
TORN APART BY THE TERROR OF THE WATERS,
OR BY THE JAWS OF THE ENSLAVED?
Lets reek havoc, we can all take turns
annihilate the whole human race
let us watch this ******* place burn
an eye for an eye, a mangled face
an eye for an eye, a mangled face
destroy this whole decrepit place
decimation of the known race
Lets reek havoc, and see the toll it takes
WOULD YOU RATHER DIE BY THE MOAT AROUND THE CASTLE, OR BY THE ***** OUT IN THE RAIN?
TORN APART BY THE TERROR OF THE WATERS,
OR BY THE JAWS OF THE ENSLAVED?
WOULD YOU LIKE TO STAY TO SEE YOUR GOD DETHRONED?
TO SEE THE CHANGE IT BRINGS?
DO YOU WISH TO HEAR THE WARRIORS OF THE APOCALYPSE, AND THE SONGS THEY SING?
SOME PEOPLE JUST WANT TO SEE IT ALL BURN
TO TEAR IT DOWN AS THE WORLD TURNS
REEKING HAVOC ON THE WHOLE **** PLACE
DESTROYING HISTORY LEAVING NO TRACE
COME ON BACK TO THE WALL AND SEE IF THEY'LL LET YOU IN. GO ON AND ROLL THE DICE, AFTER ALL ALL IT IS YOUR LIFE MY FRIEND
GREEN MEADOWS YOUR BODY LIES BELOW, HANGING BY A THREAD ON THE END
IT WAS REALLY OVER BEFORE IT ALL BEGAN.
DO YOU WANT MISERY TO JOIN THE WORLD NO LONGER ALONE?
TO FREE THEIR TROUBLED SOULS?
DID YOU THINK YOU WOULD ESCAPE YOUR DEMISE
YOU MUST PAY THE TOLL
THERE IS A PRICE FOR LIFE, THAT YOU'LL SOON KNOW
YOURS IS THE LIFE I STOLE.
SOME PEOPLE JUST WANT TO SEE IT ALL BURN
TO TEAR IT DOWN AS THE WORLD TURNS
REEKING HAVOC ON THE WHOLE **** PLACE
DESTROYING HISTORY LEAVING NO TRACE
THIS IS NOT ONE OF THOSE THINGS
WOULD YOU RATHER DIE BY THE MOAT AROUND THE CASTLE, OR BY THE ***** OUT IN THE RAIN?
TORN APART BY THE TERROR OF THE WATERS, OR BY THE JAWS OF THE ENSLAVED?
May 11, 2016
May 11, 2016 at 2:01 AM UTC
I've been walking the burnt out forest That was once the garden of my dreams
When I believed in a better world
Than one where children drink from polluted streams
Where we were going to grow peace
And cultivate love for everyone
And tend the sick and invalid
With the dignity that they deserve
And be free.to speak our minds
Letting others do the same
Without the need to isolate and divide
For what that will politically gain
So I'm going to walk away for now.
From the decimation that I see
But first I will take a sec to plant a seed
And say a prayer for better days while down here on my knee !
Feb 10, 2016
Feb 10, 2016 at 4:31 PM UTC
You're like a grease stain
A soot smudge
A skid mark
On a newly waxed floor
A clean shirt
A recently washed car.
You turn
Everything you touch to dirt.
It's a blessing for you
As you love watching decimation
But it curses everything in your world
Destruction is your favorite passion.
I wish
I could tell her what you've done
How none of it is fair
How, although you desired me
You never cared
About what I wanted and needed from you.
I cannot wait
Until she see how you are
When things don't go your way.
If she still loves you then
You two deserve each other.
You may think
It was no big deal
Considering you make excuses for yourself
And you'll deny it
Until the day God takes you home
Or sends you to where you belong.
However,
It marked my life
With a big bold X
It was my scarlet letter
And yet
I could not even control
What you did to me.
I lost friends
I lost trust
I lost control
I lost everything
All because
You couldn't stand hearing the word
"No."
So, darling
It was a huge deal
As you left a grease stain.
Now it seems as though it is impossible
To wash me clean.
May 28, 2014
May 28, 2014 at 10:42 PM UTC
A chill in these
broken bones
leaking out
everywhere
leaving only my decimation
in it's wake
Frozen eyes of blue
remember
a spell of liquid
iced rain
The storms
soft death of cold
brings an
understanding of
the darkness
While freezing in these
cold air dreams.
Nov 30, 2015
Nov 30, 2015 at 12:14 PM UTC
“keep your dementia well organized”
it spreads to the outward edges like camera film alit,
burning inside outward, fast and quick,
the mutterings dispersed in voices
precisely loud enough to not be distinctly heard,
but perfect for your
active concerning consternation
you summon different voices for every occasion cause you
keep your dementia tools well organized
order is the successful methodology for maintaining
what otherwise appears and truly is, irrational rantings,
nuggets of chicken, you’re too chicken to loudly scream,
lest someone solves the riddles you are raving
it’s insane to keep your crazy so well managed,
it’s sane to keep your crazy so well managed,
it’s crazy to stay sane, when your demented nature,
is dewy decimal handy for steady decimation
you laugh while writing this,
recognizing a well organized personality disordered,
is the key to success at anything you do,
like being crazy cool
you, still crazy after all these years,
do not lack for historical perspective
oops! typo, hysterical perspective,
old tricks for new doctors, renewable energy
never fails to confuse and amuse,
hard work keeping yourself entertained
at the medical professions expense
which is why I keep my dementia well organized
Mar 12, 2019
Mar 12, 2019 at 9:59 AM UTC
My friend,
My old friend.
Think of me as a romantic,
Though please do not consider this
A weakness or a foolhardy and
Archaic enterprise.
It is but the pursuit of each flavour
Of emotion.
To taste
Both the sticky sweetness
Of infatuation,
And the hollowed defeat
Of an impossible love.
How the pains of a misguided plea
Can cleanse you
From all of the lies and
Cynicisms you have adorned yourself with.
The life of a romantic is nothing
But freedom.
It is the freedom to be, and to relish
In each dynamism of the heart
And to feel no shame in it’s decimation
Of your activities. A romantic
Is free to sulk
And to indulge oneself
In the theatre of their heart,
To forsake all that
Does not transcend them,
And all that does not lead them
On their pilgrimage
For that consummate love.
And, my friend,
My old friend,
It is the belief in love that creates me.
It animates my limbs
Into action each morning
And motivates my heart
To keep up its business
As shadows lengthen across the ground,
In the simplistic hope that one day,
Love will appear in a wicker basket
At my doorstep.
For now, I shall remain
Studious. Though that word should
Have no real place
In a romantic’s life.
I shall read of the love that escapes
Every author,
That causes them to spill words onto a page,
Hoping that they too
Surpass all of reality
And hold true the feeling of the numinous
That causes men to weep
At their guitars
And women into their pillow.
Jun 30, 2013
Jun 30, 2013 at 4:17 PM UTC
genocide against the indigenous nations
race- based chattel slavery
against African populations
Imperial expansion, cruel wars
of decimation
Mexico, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, etc... -
lies and violation
and now the culmination in
Presidential gangsterization
some call this U.S.A. I call it abomination.
Jan 6, 2019
Jan 6, 2019 at 12:15 PM UTC
I
The phantom waltzes to an upbeat song,
softly, slowly, the fog creeps in,
and the men drown in the haze.
II
Through the clouded windows, it waits--watches
meanwhile, babies cry and their mothers sigh.
III
Names carved into marbled slates,
as the ghost sinks through the walls.
IV
In its silhouette the ghost pirhouettes
singing its siren song
dragging down those who can hear it
V
The bottles are empty,
the time has passed.
Luminous moon guards over the night
VI
The poltergeist cackles,
as the moon can protect no one.
They are infected with mercy.
VII
Fog trails closely behind the figure,
through the broken, battered buildings.
VIII
The city is dead.
The phantom smirks.
IX
The ghost lingers
and passes through the alleyways,
the fog dances after--following in time.
X
Night time passes in silence,
except for the ghost, singing its sad song
and there is--nothing--but death.
copywrite Shanna Howse 2012
so, I studied modernist poems in class, so I used this. My teacher didn't like that I didn't include my symbol in every stanza, so I decided to throw the original up here.
May 16, 2012
May 16, 2012 at 9:19 PM UTC
Everyone thinks there's something.
Everyone believes that the gods know them personally,
sympathies with them on a minuscule level.
I like to pull people out from there delusions
as I reap them out from this world
making sure to let them know
if there are gods they’re not going to save you.
I have the power to take you in any fashion,
your name was marked and so you go
I never know who goes where and honestly I don’t care.
Those at peace melt away
like liquid sugar on the tongue
they are absorbed into the air
sinking like honey into bread,
and others that fight me
shatter like glass.
They're ground into nonexistance,
Poor ********
I cry a silent cry of anguish
I'm never relieved through tears.
Instead the agony drops into my heart
forming an ocean vast.
Too vast.
The struggle against suffering is for the healthy,
and those who dive into that pool let themselves drown,
swallowing pain,
memories,
and disappointment
until their lungs are too full.
When they open their mouths
sending out their final battle cry against life
their own voice is strewn with the voices of many,
the voice of all others before them who have chosen this path of destruction.
Only the first to enter had the privilege
to let their voice be heard in that last and final scream
as they sank down into the darkness
lost forever from life
and even eluding me.
They were in a place where no man wishes to go,
where fate has no hold
and death and life quiver before the decimation
that awaits the two biggest killers of mankind.
All are accepted into that bleak and glorious place,
and those who do not
receive their penance
while others are forced through their own will
to take upon themselves the responsibility
to inflict horrors to their body,
spirit and soul.
Those who start on their own path of death
with his assistance
experience something much worse
than what I would have devised for you,
we are ourselves the worst of enemies.
Jun 26, 2013
Jun 26, 2013 at 1:51 AM UTC
You painted yourself with every color
I may have loved black and white as much if not more
yet the ink was illegible between the lines
I never knew who resided in the picture
decimation claims the land that would be our future
with lies justified in anothers eyes
Jan 6, 2014
Jan 6, 2014 at 11:43 PM UTC
Smokestacks
with a
conscience;
Never
have
I
seen a more
startlingsight.
The bane of
creation, a
weapon of
consumption,
The sickle of
This broken
world. The
smokestacks
atomize and
scorch and
gnash, machines of flesh, tools for Eris and destruction,
with flues left back from 75 years of decimation and sin.
Jan 26, 2014
Jan 26, 2014 at 1:38 PM UTC
I didn't know that when love ended
the aftershock
Would be worse
than the initial explosion
I didn't realize that hate
would be your only response
to an empty bed
"How could you leave me"
Yelled with daggers and lies
And all manor of venom
It was decided,
at some inner war council I'm sure
That any possibility of friendship
Would be collateral damage
" - the ***** must die"
I walked unaware into an ambush
I should have seen coming
I thought love
would be like the cockroach
The last to survive
Suddenly I'm your worst enemy
You never question the relevancy
Of how your current behavior
Matched your past behavior
And maybe that's why
We ended only to finish
With the decimation of
Us
Sep 15, 2014
Sep 15, 2014 at 10:20 PM UTC