"declines" poems
the daylight declines
to linger as the leaves fall
away with the wind
Nov 12, 2014
Nov 12, 2014 at 7:48 PM UTC
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st,
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
9.8k
complexity bias
how you love to criticize my poems
as too long and overly complex
poor me, I’m no genius, don’t prosper by exploiting
unrecognized simplicities, rather deconstruct the
intricate complexities that I flatter myself are the me-sinews
Writing is a **** temptation -
we focus on the 10% that is complex and ignore the easy 90%
perhaps this once I will surrender my bare bones
put aside the rich, satisfying of cave diving, urban spelunking
word caressing tongue verbiage rich tapestry exploring -
give you the plane of plain where nestles my destiny: nesting near motionless where the couch is my kingdom and cold cereal is
easily digested and there are no consequences
I am a member of a discriminated-against minority
we have no charismatic leader, no marchers anywhere, and government programs say
hey you’re free white and twenty one plus, get the crap out of
our faces, you useless piece of rhymes with **** and includes dirt, though I shower twice a day to keep myself occupied
25 years old, a high school dropout, of course I’m white,
my occupation is playing video games and making sure
my supply of opioids is adequate in these great United States
where I was born
there are fewer jobs than none that my application survives
a first glance discardation, and now my disability preempts
any demand to pretend there is gainful employment in store in
my future
this reductio ad absurdum is a technique to expose the fallacy,
ah what’s that you say no interest in hanging about,
on your way out, of course, of course,
we are the wrong flavor of downtrodden
my life is simple - simplistic in its a chaotic entropic way,
order slowly declines into disorder
my rituals are a fight against slip sliding down, falling off the
the Herzog continuums
and the poems are desperate hand holds to prevent my
going, gone under
so forgive me if I tax you without possessing not the
requisite taxing authority
you hone in on the obvious disparities and my contradictions
resenting my sending you this bill of extravagant length
compose with me and a mean will be located and to sleep I go,
perhaps to undress my dreams and explicate the wealthy multiples of complexity in the simplicity of a junkies life
Feb 4, 2018
Feb 4, 2018 at 3:56 PM UTC
1718
Drowning is not so pitiful
As the attempt to rise
Three times, ’tis said, a sinking man
Comes up to face the skies,
And then declines forever
To that abhorred abode,
Where hope and he part company—
For he is grasped of God.
The Maker’s cordial visage,
However good to see,
Is shunned, we must admit it,
Like an adversity.
7k
if you find one happiness
like the barrel on your head
loaded with a pocket of air for you to breathe
then you know that if you sink
to atmospheric tides
you must find fresher barrels
when the novelty declines
and the oxygen gives way
to the oceanic brine
for the last moments of time
you’re chin-up on a water bed
the water cradles your esophagus
and then you find you surely must
find some fresher air to breathe
but to search is to be dissatisfied
to question once is to imply
that everything can be replied
with answers and with truth
that bucket on your head
running out of salty air
to stay is to slip into death
like listening to the ocean in a seashell
till slow blood flows in too few waves
but could you not also swim?
abandon the comfortable end
for the off chance that some underwater shelter
will serve you shots of oxygen?
the funny thing you find
when you let dying pleasure go
and you’re suspended, all alone
the gas trapped beneath
was too stale for you to breathe
but enough to buoy the unburdened barrel
into swiftly surfacing
Dec 13, 2011
Dec 13, 2011 at 6:37 AM UTC
I find it hard to put myself out there, I don't go out on a limb
To concerned about what people think and say, like "man, look at him"
"Who the **** does he think he is, he ain't no Eminem"
These words never hit my ear but I swear I'm hearing them
"Look at this, another poor white boy from the trailer park"
"Trying to hit his mark and make it big by belting out what's in his heart"
They got no clue money and fame wasn't my reason to start
It began as a way to shed some light on what seemed like eternal dark
One spark was all it took and I couldn't stop this pen from spilling ink
On the brink of insanity aboard a ship destin to sink
Life ******* me like a ***** two in the pink one in the stink
Swallowed a bottle of pills, why did they give me this charcoal to drink
Hmmm, let me think...FUCK
That's the problem, I just reacted, I didn't stop to think
Didn't stop to think about everything I was about to flush down the stink
But the rope that was supposed to save me is now the one around my throat
The beautiful words I wrote now read as if a suicide note
But getting these thoughts out worked better then letting them get my goat
The loose lief kinda saved my life, it kept me afloat
I filled up hundreds of papers, I wrote down thousands of lines
The more I wrote the less I hurt, confidence up and pain declines
The rain subsides eventually in everyone's minds
But make no mistake the beast still resides behind these eyes
It's just these words are like a prize, they put the beast to sleep like lullaby's
©2018
Feb 18, 2018
Feb 18, 2018 at 11:27 AM UTC
1560
To be forgot by thee
Surpasses Memory
Of other minds
The Heart cannot forget
Unless it contemplate
What it declines
I was regarded then
Raised from oblivion
A single time
To be remembered what—
Worthy to be forgot
Is my renown
3.9k
All day panda girl reclines
Exercise she declines
Horsey girl will bring you luck ( U )
Her legs are strong and she drives a truck
Bonobo girl is worth consideration
Taking account of her reputation
Cat girl charms you with her eyes
She chings her claws and claims her prize
Crocodile girl will make you happy
Until she gets a bit too snappy
Dormouse girl may give a peep
Together you'll have a lovely sleep
Turtle girl will be just swell
If you coax her from her shell
Wallaby girl needs some space
To hop about from place to place
Tarantula girl gives you pangs
When she shows her fearsome fangs
Cougar woman's after me
Completing my fantasy
Menagerie
Jan 18, 2012
Jan 18, 2012 at 1:33 PM UTC
I say again
That from my perspective
When I Die
The whole World will cease to Exist
Including You.
And it will be the same for you
When you go too.
So we are Lucky now
Having the Internet
To speed our Education,
Bringing knowledge and experience to us
As our mobility declines.
It’s as though Someone has catered for our needs,
Ensuring we Learn as much as we can
Before we go.
Lucky too we are to have our radio and TV.
And some of us are lucky enough
To live in relative Safety.
Some day, if we are lucky, we might even learn
What all this Learning’s for.
Someone may even let us know.
Paul Butters
Nov 6, 2016
Nov 6, 2016 at 5:28 AM UTC
Tra-la-la-la-la-la-laire—nil nisi divinum stabile
est; caetera fumus—the gondola stopped, the old
palace was there, how charming its grey and pink—
goats and monkeys, with such hair too!—so the
countess passed on until she came through the
little park, where Niobe presented her with a
cabinet, and so departed.
Burbank crossed a little bridge
Descending at a small hotel;
Princess Volupine arrived,
They were together, and he fell.
Defunctive music under sea
Passed seaward with the passing bell
Slowly: the God Hercules
Had left him, that had loved him well.
The horses, under the axletree
Beat up the dawn from Istria
With even feet. Her shuttered barge
Burned on the water all the day.
But this or such was Bleistein’s way:
A saggy bending of the knees
And elbows, with the palms turned out,
Chicago Semite Viennese.
A lustreless protrusive eye
Stares from the protozoic slime
At a perspective of Canaletto.
The smoky candle end of time
Declines. On the Rialto once.
The rats are underneath the piles.
The jew is underneath the lot.
Money in furs. The boatman smiles,
Princess Volupine extends
A meagre, blue-nailed, phthisic hand
To climb the waterstair. Lights, lights,
She entertains Sir Ferdinand
Klein. Who clipped the lion’s wings
And flea’d his **** and pared his claws?
Thought Burbank, meditating on
Time’s ruins, and the seven laws.
3.2k
TW:ED
As I stand there with the end of my toothbrush sitting on my lips
I think to myself,
“But if I just did it once no one would know”
And I could feel the satisfaction of an empty stomach;
The walls of it clinging to my ribs.
If I just did it once,
I could see if it works.
If it would allow me to look into the mirror
And not hate the girl who stares back at me.
Her stretch marks growing larger and darker
Though she doesn't know why,
Because she can barely bring herself to eat one meal a day.
What's stopping this fragile, broken girl from ending her pain,
And finally being happy
With who she sees in the mirror.
What's stopping her from finally being able to please her mother
Who groans and stares
When she goes back for a second plate of food.
What's stopping her from fitting the beauty standard,
And being loved and praised by all who see her.
But for some reason
Even eating practically nothing everyday
Does not change the girl she sees looking back at her;
Watching the numbers on the scale go up
As her happiness rapidly declines.
And seeing the look in her mothers eyes
As she wonders why you're eating everything
Yet nothing all at the same time.
Jul 9, 2021
Jul 9, 2021 at 5:20 PM UTC
Apeneck Sweeney spreads his knees
Letting his arms hang down to laugh,
The zebra stripes along his jaw
Swelling to maculate giraffe.
The circles of the stormy moon
Slide westward toward the River Plate,
Death and the Raven drift above
And Sweeney guards the hornèd gate.
Gloomy Orion and the Dog
Are veiled; and hushed the shrunken seas;
The person in the Spanish cape
Tries to sit on Sweeney’s knees
Slips and pulls the table cloth
Overturns a coffee-cup,
Reorganised upon the floor
She yawns and draws a stocking up;
The silent man in mocha brown
Sprawls at the window-sill and gapes;
The waiter brings in oranges
Bananas figs and hothouse grapes;
The silent vertebrate in brown
Contracts and concentrates, withdraws;
Rachel née Rabinovitch
Tears at the grapes with murderous paws;
She and the lady in the cape
Are suspect, thought to be in league;
Therefore the man with heavy eyes
Declines the gambit, shows fatigue,
Leaves the room and reappears
Outside the window, leaning in,
Branches of wistaria
Circumscribe a golden grin;
The host with someone indistinct
Converses at the door apart,
The nightingales are singing near
The Convent of the Sacred Heart,
And sang within the ****** wood
When Agamemnon cried aloud,
And let their liquid siftings fall
To stain the stiff dishonoured shroud.
3k
the theory of entropy
A doctrine of inevitable social decline and degeneration.
or
A single toss of a fair coin has an entropy of one bit. A series of two fair coin tosses has an entropy of two bits. The number of fair coin tosses is its entropy in bits. This random selection between two outcomes in a sequence over time, whether the outcomes are equally probable or not, is often referred to as a Bernoulli process. The entropy of such a process is given by the binary entropy function. The entropy rate for a fair coin toss is one bit per toss. However, if the coin is not fair, then the uncertainty, and hence the entropy rate, is lower. This is because, if asked to predict the next outcome, we could choose the most frequent result and be right more often than wrong. The difference between what we know, or predict, and the information that the unfair coin toss reveals to us is less than one heads-or-tails "message",
or bit, per toss.[5]
~~~~~
**one bit per toss
one love per life
over time we entropy,
degrade our physic,
even our heart~need,
tho ever burning,
gives off less heat,
as the candle aged-consumed,
the eighth day canister of love oil,
the sole remainder,
slow level diminishes.
we keep on tossing the coin,
and with every failed love,
the need, entropies, declines,
the coin is worn down,
making tails-you-lose
the greater probability.
but then all it probably takes,
just another toss,
and bit you are
by the coin of the realm
that-once-discovered,
from her, this realm,
this woman,
you will never leave,
nor coin-toss ever again*
Jan 26, 2014
Jan 26, 2014 at 10:55 AM UTC
My father was famous for
noticing endings
admitting defeats
accepting declines
moving along
being a good, end-of-game sport.
Sometimes
he’d spark a surprise
come back—
an evening of the score.
“*The folks are as good
as the people*” he’d declare.
But as life
invariably turns out,
the folks are
rarely
as good
as the people
the pitcher as the batter
the husband as the wife
the striker as the goalie
the salesman as the prospect
the child as the parent
the ying as the yang.
In competitions someone
always conquers, even if just a bit;
the other
always loses, even if just surface wounds—
death always comes
natural or quick.
Then you
know:
“*It’s all over
but the crying.*”
Dad,
I’ve been crying,
but when will I know
“it’s over?”
And, since some “folks” aren’t
so good after all, please tell:
How victorious is victory?
Who is defeated in defeat?
What is the final score?
Who won again?
The true score for when it’s over is
perhaps how
we make sense of the endings,
beginnings,
and
rebeginnings
of life
shared and solitary.
So where is that game clock
that tally board, that ledger to
release my game
announce my endings
settle my scores
so I can do my crying
and
prepare
for next season?
18.i.11
Mar 5, 2011
Mar 5, 2011 at 3:14 PM UTC
When love declines
the heart grows cold
It becomes the moonlight
that chills the soul
Polished like marble
with all of its frills
It withers away
Attemptable to ****
What cold singing
from frigid lips
When the heart grows weary
From the vice of life's grips
When prayers become weeds
Scattered by wind
Left with nothing
But the hollow within
Jul 19, 2025
Jul 19, 2025 at 4:46 AM UTC
It is a sultry day; the sun has drunk
The dew that lay upon the morning grass;
There is no rustling in the lofty elm
That canopies my dwelling, and its shade
Scarce cools me. All is silent, save the faint
And interrupted murmur of the bee,
Settling on the sick flowers, and then again
Instantly on the wing. The plants around
Feel the too potent fervours: the tall maize
Rolls up its long green leaves; the clover droops
Its tender foliage, and declines its blooms.
But far in the fierce sunshine tower the hills,
With all their growth of woods, silent and stern,
As if the scorching heat and dazzling light
Were but an element they loved. Bright clouds,
Motionless pillars of the brazen heaven,--
Their bases on the mountains--their white tops
Shining in the far ether--fire the air
With a reflected radiance, and make turn
The gazer's eye away. For me, I lie
Languidly in the shade, where the thick turf,
Yet ****** from the kisses of the sun,
Retains some freshness, and I woo the wind
That still delays its coming. Why so slow,
Gentle and voluble spirit of the air?
Oh, come and breathe upon the fainting earth
Coolness and life. Is it that in his caves
He hears me? See, on yonder woody ridge,
The pine is bending his proud top, and now
Among the nearer groves, chestnut and oak
Are tossing their green boughs about. He comes!
Lo, where the grassy meadow runs in waves!
The deep distressful silence of the scene
Breaks up with mingling of unnumbered sounds
And universal motion. He is come,
Shaking a shower of blossoms from the shrubs,
And bearing on their fragrance; and he brings
Music of birds, and rustling of young boughs,
And sound of swaying branches, and the voice
Of distant waterfalls. All the green herbs
Are stirring in his breath; a thousand flowers,
By the road-side and the borders of the brook,
Nod gayly to each other; glossy leaves
Are twinkling in the sun, as if the dew
Were on them yet, and silver waters break
Into small waves and sparkle as he comes.
2.3k
This isn’t a case
Of writers block
Tides have turned
The winds have stopped
Unread poems
Sacks stuck at home
Unposted unknown
Dear Eliot
Where did you go?
All my thoughts
Demand to rhyme
Contemplating
Line after line
Dear Eliot
What is this evil
Who downloaded
This poetic upheaval
Within your cyber grip
You control the trending list
Where approval declines
We are poetically confined
Dear Eliot
Have you lost your mind?
Oct 18, 2019
Oct 18, 2019 at 12:23 AM UTC
Remember how I looked to you,
To tell me I'm not mad?
However, I was not in view,
The best you'd never had.
I walk, your kisses on my lips,
I walk with your words, forward,
Fate declines the power trips,
And love is untoward -
I can't find you in every glass,
I can't see you in that window,
In every chance that never'd pass,
For I cannot be their widow
Like I'm yours.
Like I'm yours.
Like, I'm yours.
Like. I'm yours.
Aug 13, 2024
Aug 13, 2024 at 7:50 AM UTC
Shall I compare thee to a cup of tea?
Thou art less lovely and less temperate.
Your voice winds do shake my tranquillity,
And fair attentions are too hard to get.
Sometimes too hot your critical glare shines,
And often is your vicious tongue untrimmed;
And every sip of love in time declines,
With swift return to lover's lounge much dimmed.
Your sharp heat shall never cool to comfort,
And all sugar in the world won't sweeten,
The bitter beating of your blackened heart;
Nor shall the greed of your soul be beaten.
As long as men can drink a cup of tea,
So long lives my hate and disgust for thee.
Jul 29, 2014
Jul 29, 2014 at 10:26 AM UTC
I am a traveling salesman
and in my travels I have
sold many a thing
in middle class America,
I sold debt, love, lies,
wasted youth, and forgotten dreams
and none were the wiser
of what I sold.
My travels brought me to
the south of the Rio Grande.
Disease and poverty were
on the first of my list of things
to sell. Soon, heartbreak, hate,
tyranny, and fleeing for a future
followed,
and none were the wiser
of what I sold.
I traveled to the east, the
exact opposite of where humanity
once tread. I sold many things there
to people none the wiser.
Racism, genocide, and intolerance
I removed from my bag, and they
received tyranny and fanaticism
for free,
and none were the wiser
of what I sold.
I fled to the north to sell my goods.
The land of former kings provided
a great market for distrust, poverty,
and eventual declines from the great
history the land once knew.
And none were the wiser
of what I sold.
So I went to the last place of my sales
the not-quite-Far East. And there I found
the best market for civil wars, censorship,
arms sales, rebellions, and most of all,
potential.
And none were the wiser
of what I sold.
And so I fled this world to sell to another
and in my travels, I sold the world
to things leading to destruction.
And none were the wiser
of what I sold.
May 19, 2013
May 19, 2013 at 10:37 PM UTC
You are not quite yet up in years,
but to your ears:
familiar are the faded tunes, dripping from the radio like soda from bottles you didn't quite close,
tapping from your stiff foot.
On the asphalt you walk barefoot,
because we walk barefoot where we live.
You are alive where you drive.
You are not quite yet up in years,
but in your ears:
sound declines
like each hill you descend in the fifty-two miles of wild between us,
and you ignore the posted signs
telling you to quiet the roaring and whipping of wind in your busted windows,
telling you to slow the tearing and straining of your tires.
On the asphalt and off, you know how to set fires,
because your late old man and your unseen mother taught you how.
You may not know, but I see how you deepen your brow.
Old Blue has more troubles that you may care to admit,
because she can only just make it.
Neither of you are quite up in your years,
and still I have my fears,
but they are not tears,
because you
and Old Blue
take us where we can get lost
and not feel the loss.
Aug 9, 2018
Aug 9, 2018 at 2:06 AM UTC
When beauty finds thee
Trapped in toiled imagination
the stars do shine more brilliant than any man hath beheld
But when beauty declines
A hole opens
And leaves thee gasping evermore
When thy to God do pray, to help thee find a way
Beauty beckons thee the very next day
Thy soul doth leap in joyous song
And thy heart does play along
But when thou doest, a revelation doth occur:
Happiness is never pure.
Even when upon the world thou sits,
Beauty may free thy mind.
Or tear at thy sight, make thee blind.
When beauty’s not but a wish,
Thou knowest nothing compares.
The worlds jealousy common shares.
When beauty plays a seductive dance,
A lustful art known by chance.
And every moment spent in beauty's grace
Leaves thee trapped in beauty's love.
The pleasure pain rest not only in thy chest
But in thine eye.
Thine nose.
Thine hand.
Thine skin.
Thine lips.
And beauty's touch is needed more
Then oxygen or water.
Thou wantest to bathe in beauty's touch
With bated breath.
Touch it.
Hold it.
But thou finds thyself blocked by a mountain made of glass.
This mountain is taller than thou could ever hope to climb,
Wider than thou ever hope to pass.
What of this?
Is thou free to climb,
Knowing full well thou will never see an end?
Or dost thou choose to walk,
Hope that a day will pass when mountains end and beauties begin do meet,
Ready to be wrapped in a loves embrace?
Or does thou journey elsewhere?
Scour the earth in a futile attempt to find something else
That can compare to a summers day?
To what dost thou owe beauty?
Nothing at all.
Even still, beauty is worth times sacrifice.
So I say, thou work hard.
Build thyself a stepping stone.
Fight for beauty and one day beauty shall be found.
Though the roads travel is like a window into time,
Endless, infinite, full of memories and regrets.
Still, journey on.
Never lose sight of beauty.
For win or loss, time is time well spent,
Chasing after an aureate phoenix.
Jul 26, 2011
Jul 26, 2011 at 10:40 PM UTC
They say I spilt good ink.
blood is inky blue, true,
only as long oxygen external
declines to be untroduced
strikes me as toxic ironic,
wherefore a goodly
dim sum of my
"Poetry"
comes from,
the ink in
the bottle,
what spilt,
gotta be
drops of
me sad bad/and you,
an iced tea mixed blueblood
by nobody's definition.
You see.
I
(oh how I dislike that ego vowel)
write of myself
for myself
but lock your gaze on that person
on the right or perhaps left,
in the panting crowd
of you voyeurs,
it
could be me
watching me
Writhe,
oops meant
write
If the tongue his inky pinky red
then you knowing who you
will be voyeuring,
me
ink spillin'
that oxygenized ink
that is writing the rusty
Blues
Jan 11, 2014
Jan 11, 2014 at 8:49 AM UTC
*My head swells,
with the words of wisdom,
implanted into my Cerebral Cortex.
Security Level:
Administrator.
The signal:
Never interrupted.
My hair;
my face;
my clothes.
My principal behaviour,
controlled.
My…
Volition;
Desire;
selection…
foretold,
by the scriptures of the box,
and the writings on the wall.
Ipods;
ipads;
mobile phones.
I need a new three piece suite,
so I’ve been told.
My head continues to swell,
to a monumental size,
and I feel my feet lift from the earth,
gently,
so gently…
lifting me to the skies.
As I float with acquiescence surrender,
over the roof tops of consumption,
I gaze at all the shadows;
their cadaverous minds.
Poor souls.
I continue on my journey;
my pilgrimage of enlightenment;
my odyssey of comprehension;
my voyage of realization.
Many miles pass,
and my head declines in size.
I start to lose altitude;
and I debark...
safe,
but with cleansed mind.
The view is humbling,
and as I look down,
I behold a flower.
I sit beside it.
I admire it.
A true example,
of Design.*
Jun 25, 2010
Jun 25, 2010 at 6:01 AM UTC
Dear Mrs. Lorraine;
It brings me a great deal of pain
to tell you that for the third time
(and really this should be a crime)
that the score on your credit
you gave us was not how you said it
We know that the offer sent in the mail
said no credit check, but read the fine print
it said that that was on approved credit.
So with all the due respects, we respectfully
and with understandable distain, regretfully
must inform you that your credit has been declined
and if you must so be inclined
to ask why we even bothered writing this letter
we, by local and state law, (and mostly the latter)
are required to inform you that you are worth nothing
zero, zilch, nada. So with respect and courtesy
stop sending in applications, for you see
This company is trying to go green
and with every application you **** another tree
And also, with a courteous plea
(and this is just between you and me)
I am really getting tired of staying after hours
to write the responses to these repeated declines.
So if you could do us all a favor, stop replying to
the falsely advertised credit cards we send you
This will take an effort on your end, because
the marketing department won't remove you
from the mailing list without just cause.
-We greatly appreciate your business-
Sincerely from the credit department;
-Chris
Feb 24, 2011
Feb 24, 2011 at 7:53 AM UTC