"exertions" poems
Dear BECHER, you tell me to mix with mankind;
I cannot deny such a precept is wise;
But retirement accords with the tone of my mind:
I will not descend to a world I despise.
Did the Senate or Camp my exertions require,
Ambition might prompt me, at once, to go forth;
When Infancy’s years of probation expire,
Perchance, I may strive to distinguish my birth.
The fire, in the cavern of Etna, conceal’d,
Still mantles unseen in its secret recess;
At length, in a volume terrific, reveal’d,
No torrent can quench it, no bounds can repress.
Oh! thus, the desire, in my ***** for fame
Bids me live, but to hope for Posterity’s praise.
Could I soar with the Phoenix on pinions of flame,
With him I would wish to expire in the blaze.
For the life of a Fox, of a Chatham the death,
What censure, what danger, what woe would I brave!
Their lives did not end, when they yielded their breath,
Their glory illumines the gloom of their grave.
Yet why should I mingle in Fashion’s full herd?
Why crouch to her leaders, or cringe to her rules?
Why bend to the proud, or applaud the absurd?
Why search for delight, in the friendship of fools?
I have tasted the sweets, and the bitters, of love,
In friendship I early was taught to believe;
My passion the matrons of prudence reprove,
I have found that a friend may profess, yet deceive.
To me what is wealth?—it may pass in an hour,
If Tyrants prevail, or if Fortune should frown:
To me what is title?—the phantom of power;
To me what is fashion?—I seek but renown.
Deceit is a stranger, as yet, to my soul;
I, still, am unpractised to varnish the truth:
Then, why should I live in a hateful controul?
Why waste, upon folly, the days of my youth?
2.3k
I am a setting
Retired to
At the end of day
and end of life.
I am an ear drum.
Banged on by irritants,
long stories,
bad jokes.
I am a reservoir
for your seed and your sweat
The pocket for your
primitive exertions.
I may be encompassing
But I am not all.
Scenery is never captured
By written word well,
But the artist has been trying to catch
it's smirk for a thousand years.
Jan 21, 2015
Jan 21, 2015 at 12:52 PM UTC
Slender green shoots
press through the
still cold ground
hands of the earth
lifted in prayer
Their strength is manifest
their exertions
carpet the land in green
their tender prayers
press forcibly against the sky
and keep it
at the distance
God intended
In the fall
invisible seeds will carpet the land
buried they will be
but in spring
they begin to speak
These buried corpses
will not only murmur
they will sing
in lush green voices.
I pray I will be there
yet once more
to join in the song.
Apr 19, 2017
Apr 19, 2017 at 2:09 PM UTC
He works, tis said,
one day a year.
With bated breath
we linger here
for our Ground hog to appear.
Will he see shadow or will he no?
Only Staten Island Chuck can know.
Will Winter linger around these parts
or will my Crocus have early starts.
A little chubby and weak of eye,
Our resident Groundhog's rather shy.
Dragged unwilling from his warm burrow-
Shall we shovel snow or furrow?
He is well fed for his exertions,
and brief enough are these excursions.
Best of all when he appears
He oft will tell us Spring is near.
Feb 5, 2013
Feb 5, 2013 at 8:28 PM UTC
Pompous:
"Oh God, no, not another shallow rhymer,
fitting each word to its neat little place.
Oh God, no, not another painterly composition
with planal directions going round and around or leading that way and this.
They did that in the past; get to the new.
Make sure the reader or viewer knows that the masterful
knows more than than the masterful lets t/h/r/o/u/g/h/ out.
Disdain extenuating weakenings caused by straining for clarity
or unnecessary exertions in expressions of cohesion.
Words, though plain, arouse astonished wonder by nonchalant impenetrable shufflings.
Be clued-in, be bold, be tough and show it when you sculpt the clay.
When shaped, use your trowel to scratch the surface, evoking even more obscurity.
Toss it off in broad strokes of masterful negligence.
Be above the miniscule.
By these means show in shadowy hints the profundity that winks beyond merely ordinary restrictions.
Break the barriers, fly the constructive. Those old shackles lie about the world.
Show you ain't no conforming sissy.
Display in impatient referenceless strokes
Your forceful awareness of the world as known."
Facetia:
"Oh?
A world which evidences no form and structure in living creatures;
no eons of effortful evolution;
Forests have no ecology, and laws of nature aren't for binding.
Mind never happened, spirit's a farce,
unions only expedient plottings.
Lessons of history describe the disruptive;
it's what you grab and who you club;
others are only take or be taken.
Show 'em who's boss,
stash it away,
it's dog eat dog until there's nothing.
Shake it all up and break it all up.
It's only entropy."
Mar 21, 2010
Mar 21, 2010 at 7:17 AM UTC
The lames and children of the Lesser minds
are stirring, stirring, stirring
with paddles and ladles
with brooms and spoons
with knives and forks and slicers
with sticks and wooden mortars
with lean rods, brambles and twigs
Eagerly they stirred the cauldron
in demented exertions they huffed and puffed
Turn to the right turn to the left
one leg in and one leg out, we all turn around
we're stirring, we're stirring the *** they crowed
I looked into the ***
the *** was empty
I see nothing to stir
Nothing but hot air
nothing but hot air
What possesses lesser minds
into dances with the Gemini moons
The emperor's tailor
on yet another jape
Go on my puppets, stir that hotpot
I can sniff that delicious goulash aroma from 'where'
Dec 21, 2018
Dec 21, 2018 at 10:20 PM UTC
Yesterday
I fell asleep
Thinking of you.
Mind had cautioned
That re-remembering
Your bespectacled face
Wouldn’t be easy.
Had felt
Pity too
For its exertions
And exhaustion.
Today when I got up
Couldn’t see you
Where are you now?
What are you doing?
Will we ever
Wake up together
On a grass mat
One morning
Some life?
How many mynas
Would be there
In the courtyard then?
One of them
Is looking for something
In the courtyard now
See?
Let me help it
Find the way to
The next life.
Translator - Shyma P
Jan 8, 2016
Jan 8, 2016 at 10:49 PM UTC
I
The arcadian past is dead.
Perhaps it never was.
On one hand a golden vision
Of gallant and splendid men.
Cobblestone dreams,
A rustic thirst,
Renaissance, invention,
A proper bow and curtsy.
The Paradise Garden and
The hedgerows of old-
Glint in the eye of the nostalgist.
Our forebears
And the open heath.
Idyllic.
Would that it still were.
On the other a practical frivolity.
Spoiled milk and discarded scraps,
Leftovers thrown out.
A forsaken time
Of blood roar and cannon,
Disease and fetid stink,
Myth and choking smoke.
Avaricious heads
Atop pauper bodies.
Ancient tombs
Built of Hebrew tears.
****** sacrifice
To hideous and foreign gods.
Barbaric.
Finally, it is no longer.
II
We, being young,
The ungrateful and resentful,
The unabashedly alien-
We are the new now.
We turned away from the trappings of
The teachings of the wise.
We sneered when those dotards
Taught us their language,
Their rules,
Their type.
We laughed when
They corrected us,
Told us not to say that.
We detached from the decrepit womb,
Formed as their inverse,
Reflecting their faces
While defying their antique sensibilities.
We grew of our own volition,
Created our own language,
Etched our own runes,
And,
Ultimately,
Shared with them
Their very graves.
III
I, being young,
And of the here,
And now,
Have been elected
Into something
So much more
Than contemporary,
Than modern,
Something so inherently
Now.
I have been gloriously birthed
Into this open present,
This wonder of
Internet
And knowledge.
The exertions of our fathers and
Our mothers' cyclical toils
Have built such a steadfast bridge
Upon which the constant contrivances
Of our Now
Race around in dynamism.
Aware of my place
In this successive age,
I fervently embrace
Our Now,
Not to reject the past,
Never,
But to nurture its nascent chapter.
-c. c. Condry
Mar 12, 2011
Mar 12, 2011 at 8:23 PM UTC
Can we eat ramen in the dumpster
and discuss avoided exertions,
and obtained stimulations?
Can we eat pizza in the sewer,
and notice lackings of duty
and seized thrills?
Can we eat cereal in the warehouse,
and observe overlooked regrets,
and earnest hedonisim?
Can we eat sushi in the shed,
and plant seeds of disregard,
and ignorant gaiety?
Can we dine in the wasteland, the field, or the valley,
and watch pink clouds glide by,
and envy their destination?
Mar 19, 2016
Mar 19, 2016 at 1:33 PM UTC
Wishbone
Holding things down
on my end, calibration
the name of the game
purchase gained and lost
longing for your exquisite
exertions palpable
the length of this delicate glyph
grace and menace
in equal measure
on display across the bight
floored by your gaze
play of three fingers against
your effortless pinch
my feigned contortions
leavened by a finning
hand to ward off
the snap of lesser wishes.
Oct 7, 2016
Oct 7, 2016 at 7:43 AM UTC
the gentle day
Sirs
gives way to sweet night
and we come to give swift pleasures
Sirs
and the coins you may offer
keep our bodies
but the pleasures we offer
Sirs
the nights we give to you
our contortions and exertions
disfigure us, distort us day and night
Sirs
your Pleasures are our pain
for us the plain and painted yotaka
Feb 10, 2011
Feb 10, 2011 at 1:11 AM UTC
The smell of the foundry surrounds you
abounds and wreaths around you.
A man of ore, born of the earth
I thought of you as Roman.
Alive, shuddering with the stress
and exertions
of recent war
The thrill of hardship
fresh upon you,
made ever-stronger by violent work
your fibres stretch then relax
to gather in quiet, resting power
Glittered in sweat,
you have raced through history
to arrive, tattered and magnificent,
heaving, and worn like a mountain
I have melted into you -
piston thighs greased with excitement!
As your black-ringed fingers
chase a whitened path,
through my pebbled steam
Our minerals mix:
salt and blood, tears and love
and the hooves of legion drum in my ears,
outpacing a gathering storm
as little death overwhelms me
You are home,
hanging suspended in a grief-cloud
above me.
And I invite you, with a succession of imagined dilations,
to rain down.
Apr 13, 2016
Apr 13, 2016 at 10:58 AM UTC
The tobacco end is lit under sickly, divine light.
Its artificial glow lays heavy on the snowy spectators.
I am the preacher of this sermon today, this cigarette my casualty, my charge:
The cigarette’s life began like most, its burning birth
Lightened the darkness which surrounds us.
And with the ragged breaths that are taken, the flare of its
Seemingly undying ember burns strong.
Impossible it must seem to the cigarette, that this flicker of bright life
May itself be extinguished, that this furnace of vitality
Shall ever be dampened.
But so it is, in flesh as it is with the ****
That through one’s exertions your smoky essence be filtered
Through the lung of life. Expelled, exhaled, disdainfully into the world.
I am the mother of this life, I gave it breath, I gave it fire.
And yet, it will be I who stamps its ember.
Its cemetery is grey and ashy.
Generations of the used stand squashed.
They themselves are their own headstones;
The cracked bodies the only sign of their resting place,
Like those unknown soldiers and their wooden crosses.
I lay it down to rest, in its sandy grave,
I say its last rites, I cross, amen.
It falls upon deaf ears, as it should.
And so I stand over it, life’s true eulogy
Echoing off empty walls.
May 11, 2013
May 11, 2013 at 3:49 AM UTC
*these joys are sacred and precious
you partake of them if you're serious
but you best flee if you're just curious
these joys are cosmic and rarefied
they shower you with the sweet abundance
of seasons of plenty when harvests are a surfeit
when you can withdraw into secret places
and there gorge yourself on shapely pleasures
and dissipate in tender exertions on an unmade bed*
Dec 12, 2015
Dec 12, 2015 at 9:38 AM UTC
I never said I loved you.
Though I told you that I really liked your company;
which I did, and do.
Amanda is my sweetheart.
As your oldest and most trusted friend, she's there for you.
Yes she was, and is.
I never mentioned marriage.
Though your bedroom's witnessed many scenes of ***********
Just good fun, I thought.
Just one of many bedrooms.
All those in-and-out exertions in the cotton sheets?
They were commonplace.
I never said I'd cure you
of your hang-ups and your frequent trips to la-la land.
You were too far gone.
Abandon the placebo.
Just take stock of who you are, and who you want to be.
Look for someone else.
May 14, 2014
May 14, 2014 at 8:45 AM UTC
Who knows what thoust sees when thou lookest upon the sea.
No fragrant flowers wafting sweet perfume
No open fields full of **** born mushrooms
No sunny days where lovers pray to play their ****** part
Display their desirous heart naked and blushing
Not from shame but from such pleasurable exertions
No fairytale creatures like unicorns, elves, or hobbits
No dragons with emerald scales to catch and claw
Devouring my flesh
No fantastic sea serpent
Ready to rend the ships to pieces
Sep 27, 2015
Sep 27, 2015 at 5:49 PM UTC
*the soul
a collection of
thoughts aptitudes weaknesses biases predilections
a jumble of mind
and what of free will
and what of karma
are there not
fates pleasures and furies
yogas of myriad heavens and hells
we find our selves
a short stay in zombie land
are we not the living dead
have we not the freedoms of the living dead
to suffer innumerable casualties of mind and body
short lived pleasures and repugnant destinies
to be inducted into armies of labor and war
no work no eat
the mantra imperative
even rest exists for exertions sake
to fight with our intimates
or if alone to fight with our selves
about our desolation
divided by the chatter of inner confusion
reality distortions
so pervasive
we drink water from mirages
palimpsests voices
dubbed over lays
voices over voices over voices
a cacophony of whispers
our version of free will
driven by the impulse
to get get get
and while we
lose lose lose
are we not
manure for an acid soil
destined for head stone city
all the getters
piled high
and buried deep
are we not dim witted children
of the blind impulse
panicked
reflexive doll mannequins
in a world so muddled
that we only know what we
be LIE ve*
Feb 13, 2017
Feb 13, 2017 at 12:45 PM UTC
The call of the scrub jay
Plaintive in the silence of solitude.
The mountain before me that I must shift
Looms large as I take in my surroundings.
Song flows from my dry cracked lips
As I plead with the heavens for guidance.
My exertions drawing the moisture from my skin
And the strength from my limbs,
The walls of my last sanctuary start to crumble
As the dehydration sets in.
The last ray of sunlight fades,
And darkness sets in,
Mirroring my growing dread.
I lie in my nest
Throwing up final pleas
To the spirits of the world
To protect my nearly naked body.
The caress of cedar bows
Normally so comforting,
Now warding of the welcome respite of sleep.
Cold spreading over my body
As it slips through the earth,
Encompassing my body in its fatal grip.
My mind no longer reliable tells me
The end is near.
As my legs carry me back,
Back to the beginning,
Back on my commitment,
Back towards who I was,
The moisture I need so badly
Flows down my cheeks
As I accept defeat.
As I dismiss my bid for independence.
Eyes turned down,
Anger and disappointment flowing through my veins,
Anguish apparent on my tear stained face.
He looks at me with this look of love.
The same that had pushed me to this challenge.
The same that had always given me such confidence.
The same that I now felt like I didn't deserve.
As understanding flowed from his heart to mine,
My strength returned,
My confidence restored,
My will whole again.
Clarity and determination
Regained their hold over my mind,
Kicking the panic and excuses
From their tyrannical thrones.
The cold dark night ahead
Now no more worrying than a walk in a meadow
As i set off back to my temporary home.
Feb 15, 2016
Feb 15, 2016 at 9:55 PM UTC
We are entangled in the fabric woven from the warp and weft of Life's fibers.
We love the idea of escaping these threads of thought that restrain us; each seeking to find that quantum of solace that allows us to float free.
But there is an uncertainty inherent in finding ourselves. Breaking out of our shells to explore new possibilities poses as a forbidden pleasure to attain, and often the exertions required may seem to overwhelm the escape it offers.
But...
Those random rewards, those instantaneous attractions, those excited states, those resplendent resonances,
Form the bonds that keep us human.
Jan 24, 2020
Jan 24, 2020 at 11:54 PM UTC
The wind ushers its own hymn
pitying your limbs turning numb
We exist only with express permission
of fate granting a fair chance
icicles et all.
The ravenous bear cave
isn't as hospitable
as we rendezvous the storm
Aug 17, 2016
Aug 17, 2016 at 5:18 PM UTC
In a posture of a Thinker i do
Sit; my head perched on a fist which is
Attached to an arm which concludes
In an elbow which rests on my knee; the
Tile is aquamarine; the door is ajar for
There is some problem with some hinges;
Not enough-ajar to see but sufficient
Enough to notice some discontent on
The visage; the pipe is running through
My place; beginning and ending though
Beyond my sight; so the rest of it does not
Exist; and so my head is proped up and in
My bowels the strife not for life but for
Death cannot come to the conclusion;
No truce is possible i presume; as if
Someone wrings my intestines both large
And small; the wamble or a growl crumbles
My entrails and shakes them trying to
Displace then; all exertions are to no
Good God **** right was Tolstoy as
Always that there is only two truly
Important plights: good health and clear
Conscious; God **** the old man was
Right all along; though when I imagine him
In his loo of the 19th century doubling up
On his throne holding perhaps to the walls
In the moment of the endeavor to push to
Push to push O God to push forward O
Man that connotés to you something
But doesn’t change the fact that you are
Still in that tiled room with no means of
Escape but to fight and push your way
Through Oh there it goes like in the
Hospital they say to you Don’t go to
The white light but go now you must it
Is your time my man come on we’ve been
Through so much so come on go and be
And throes are in the way but that is okay
For This is the Way **** let it be and ohhhh
Bloop; Friction; Flush; off we go and may
Our paths shall never cross
Dec 17, 2019
Dec 17, 2019 at 12:39 PM UTC
I want to hold you,
as a miner holds a diamond,
after years of chipping away at stone,
and left with nothing but
harrowing dreams
of futility.
I want them all to know,
that my efforts were not in vain.
Long passages of suffering,
years of agony,
none of it was wasted.
Because you hid there,
underneath all my ineffectual exertions.
You waited,
patiently,
denying all others,
longing to see if someone, anyone,
would work through sleepless nights
just to reach you.
Then, only then,
would your beauty be on display
for all to see.
But maybe all of this
is wishful thinking.
Maybe you would turn me away
like all the others.
At least you would be free to shine.
Feb 26, 2018
Feb 26, 2018 at 11:41 AM UTC
Those who oil the wheels of eternity
Must not have sight of too many of its spokes;
‘Tis best that griefs and calamities arrive
Unheralded, that our days may be glad
And untainted by fears of things that are to come;
For he that sees the beginning of his path
Meeting inexorably with its end,
The sum of his exertions and labors come to naught,
Has not the heart to set himself to his task;
Time’s hands are best moved by the arms of the blind,
That against its will they may not mutiny.
Mar 5, 2018
Mar 5, 2018 at 12:25 PM UTC