"expendable" poems
i wonder, at what age
you became out of my reach;
i wonder, if i even
tried reaching for you
i know that history leaves its mark on everyone
(but not many have been hurt by the tracks
left behind in the dirt
like you have)
you can sit there for days, weeks, months
while we contemplate your fate,
tossing the choices in our hands
like dice
you hear the word expendable
mumbled in countless conversations
and wonder, at what age
you became in our reach
you think of the family you left behind
and hope they will find their way to tennessee
to a better life that is
quiet. peaceful.
will they miss your selflessness;
your keen, incisive way with words;
the bumps and hills of your rough skin;
the smell of your perfume?
i miss your evergreen smile;
your poetry;
your skin against mine;
the wonder in your eyes
Jun 21, 2018
Jun 21, 2018 at 2:43 PM UTC
The Jewish brothers in Defiance were definitely tough.
One wanted to **** many Germans, the other to save many Jews.
The German soldiers were expendable, unmarried, unremarkable.
Each little death was very little, a little spittle in a big wind.
Fast forward to my friend's son's bar mitzvah or daughter's
coming of age ceremony. Food is abundant, the music frenetic,
the rabbi paid. Gifts generous but not obvious.
Wealth does not obviate death and we know it.
Here too we have natural leaders. Youth basketball coaches,
school principals and, again, interpreters of prayers. When
violence comes to the neighborhood they are who we'll first look to
for governance and guns. Unless have you read The Admirable
Crichton?
Boredom, boredom conflated with loneliness, may be a sign
of good luck. To live a good length or light year away from man's
bad breath, allergenic perfumes, sickening flatulence and shed hair.
But you are drawn back into the debate about perfection by your own
********
While teaching at the old city jail I have learned this: only meditation
upon the periodic table can save your soul. From itself.
Imagining the world without the self will make you whole.
What else is there to say. Do less until one thing's done well.
After the war the brothers started a small trucking company
in the Bronx. Grateful for such peace, the accounting
was relaxing. They thought back to how they met their wives, naked
before the bombs and bullets. How they lost and found themselves in
what happened.
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 4:19 PM UTC
they said
they'd never use me
but they treated me like a tool
she said
she cared
but she thought I was expendable
he said
he'd never tell
but he confessed when I turned away
broken promises
fake smiles
you talk and talk
but never say
anything
close
to the truth
Dec 26, 2017
Dec 26, 2017 at 6:37 PM UTC
homeland security
on these nuts
home land security
in your butts
home land security
look but don't touch
it's too much
for 'em to understand
***** jacker
**** in hand
hatin' big wacker
on tha attacker
i like 'em blacker
she's a ***** packer
don't like 'em battered
spell bound brain washed
what's tha matter?
Homeland Security Act
homeland security
tryin' ta scare
why can't tha government care?
socialist ideals
not tryin' to hear
hippie gal tryin' ta spread peace
until the cognizance cease
down with tha ****
come in your hair
tryin' ta do me long
they can't take it down
ya know they messin' around
neo-con trick
tryin' ta make brunette sick
don't they like the way i hold my ****
maybe i wanna take a lick
lyin' bitchin' wichin' cryin'
like a man's supposed to be dyin'
look at 'em fryin'.
sorcery zap to the court-ordered goofs
snitchin'
doin' bad things
mad federal schemes
they all occultic fiends
with yo mama church
as the ball swings
** **** on me
mother **** the holy see
what ya tryin' to be
....holy?
goons, screws, pigs and spooks
sayin cognizance aint to use
poor court ordered goofs so-abused
papists vowed in their delusions of grandeur
all you supposed ta think
...is white cop
expendable masses they say aint allowed ta know
while they call the pope pop
guardian protectors of tha white bred
they wanna make tha people brain dead
feds frivolous threats
tha number on your badge says zero
what you tryin' to be?
A super hero?
Feb 4, 2015
Feb 4, 2015 at 5:52 PM UTC
I'm emotionless
Yet full of hate
But I don't really care
I'm heartless
Cause I've never known love
And it's not really fair
I'm expendable
Yet I have some value
Cause I lay my lies bare
I'm worthless, stupid
And I've never found the truth
If only I could remember where
Then my life may have some use
Until then...
I guess I deserve the abuse
Mar 30, 2015
Mar 30, 2015 at 2:30 PM UTC
I am
the child of countless
genocides
of lands suppressed, who can’t
see the brighter
side
I am
the daughter of a neglected
family
who can’t look in their eyes, for they don’t care about
me
I am
the son of a town
lost in a futile
cycle
who doesn’t know how to get out, as every path
is an imploding
spiral
I am
the result of my mother
being
forced against her wishes, to think atrocity is what bore my
living
I am
the result of my father
who
sacrificed everything, just to see my life pull
through
I am
the offspring of a
colony
whose people are considered expendable, as if we aren’t all equally
holy
I am
the result of a bloodthirsty
state
who pillaged and burned
any place we saw fit, as if we carried their
fate
I am
a taker of
lives,
just as I am a bearer of
life
I am
a being of hate and
apathy
as much as I am a person of
love and
serenity
I am
the sword and the shield,
the dark and the light
the scorned and the healed
This is my story
so much as it is yours
The children of humanity
You & I
Dec 12, 2018
Dec 12, 2018 at 7:51 AM UTC
The expendable existence.
That uncomfortable rat on your skin.
The cut in your gums that bleeds when you chew.
The last feasible member to fit on an ascending elevator.
Warm.
Hot.
Itching.
The spinach in your teeth.
The tear in your jeans located too close to “there”
The treacherous unzipped jean fiasco.
That crumb on your face.
Where is it?
‘To the left’
Is it gone?
‘A little more’
How ‘bout now?
‘Got it.’
The untied shoe.
The untucked shirt.
The eyelash stranded on your face.
The rainy wedding day.
The gold earring under the fridge.
The luggage thats flying to London instead of Zimbabwe.
These are the unwanted little honeybees of everyday being.
cracked mirrors, guitar-snapped strings,
welts of fire and third wheel things.
Feb 9, 2013
Feb 9, 2013 at 7:04 PM UTC
butterflies on a beautiful boy
cling with insect intensity
they wear candy pink lipstick
he has his face reddened
with blusher
his hair is depicted in triplicate
on the cubical doors of toilets
black painted cubical doors
that possess an objective scrutiny
of an immediacy that suggests
a knowledge of expendable names
of disinterested inspection
names that are deletable with time
all that is left is a screaming solar plexus
he waits like an animated aura
a haloed head of violet rings him
as he leans against the toilet wall
with beautiful blonde ambition
the butterflies cling with insect intensity
Mar 5, 2013
Mar 5, 2013 at 4:01 PM UTC
That was then, this is now
Who was where when what was how?
Hear them take their last breath as they're shot down
I scream
Floating in the gene pool, expecting the man who can walk on water to arrive
Sell outs and everyone who has had a bad week even though it's only Monday
Whippersnappers hang their heads in shame
I am one of twelve
So expendable
We live in gluttony
Lineleaders, math teachers, bottom-feeders have no idea
Watch them fall and be forced to crawl on their bellies
We laugh
Lewandowsky-Lutz dysplasia, getting back to your roots
Progeric clock-makers, lying dead on The Yellow Brick Road
Thin-skinned Transsexuals putting bricks in their purses
We live by eight
We die from our weight
And go unbloomed
-Tommy Johnson
Standing in a nuclear reactor somewhere in Chernobyl looking for the truth
It might be in my contaminated endoplasmic reticulum
I am a radiant
Doppler radar
Monopoly dollar
Singing in the shower, amateur hour
Projecting sour notes
Pouring out their hearts and souls, hear them
Trying
Moo-juice nectar, spilling off The Round Table
Blondes in red bracelets, Kabbalah saves them
Henry pays no tax, John Berryman's bats tell us
You are the lunatic
We are the two quarters of a half-wit
This whole thing is insane
-Tommy Johnson
Sep 17, 2014
Sep 17, 2014 at 10:49 AM UTC
Cold air remains where warm air once stayed.
I prefer your true, cold heart than your lying warm passions.
Within myself, I curl closer; within my heart, I plead silently.
He can provide more for me where you never did.
Wither to dust in this truth, for you are nothing.
See that you were never a good man.
So stop with your lies, your petty games.
I don't cry for you. I cry for myself.
Only this man catches me when I fall
And dries away my salty tears.
You are expendable and he just took your place.
Bloodshed never seemed so sweet.
The cold spot is now warm again.
Now I can breathe once more; in his arms I shall remain.
He shall keep me safe. He shall obliterate your toxic waste.
I shall grow once more. I shall be once again the queen.
Jun 1, 2015
Jun 1, 2015 at 9:18 AM UTC
The ghetto,
shallow,
full of violence,full of hate,
you dip your toe in but don't
stay out late,
you only see the surface sheen
the oily gleam of oily men.
The ghetto is when you feel you fail,.
when you're sailing close to the edge and
it is on the edge.
In societies ledger where you were written down as
an expendable
you are the price payable,
on demand.
In this land of the free, chained to the ghetto
I see
spirited men who with women and children are torn
from today and told they must stay.
Some play at the ghetto,sing of the ghetto but they'll never know
where the ghetto can get to,
as it chokes off the light and breaks up each day,
some stay and they like it while others stay and think life's **** but
the ghetto will have its way.
And it's the way of the dead end where your brother's a dead friend who you'll steal from and choke on the *****
invoke all the gods if you must,if they hear
there's just a chance you will get out
but the ghetto is in
you and you can't
escape.
Sep 11, 2014
Sep 11, 2014 at 8:09 PM UTC
I see the best minds of my generation,
destroyed by unrequited admiration.
All my friends have turned green.
The worst case of madness that I have ever seen.
With a hollow eye, iridescent glow
of infinite expendable information.
Mar 31, 2015
Mar 31, 2015 at 9:00 PM UTC
I am not disposable.
That's a fact, it's non-negotiable.
A fact, which right now you smirk at-
but I am not a servant, and
you're certainly not an aristocrat.
I am not expendable.
I wish proper etiquette was injectable,
because that's a vaccine you desperately need.
Caring and truly caring-
you need to learn the difference between those two things.
I am not nonessential.
You think you know me inside and out,
but you don't have the right credentials.
I try to understand your motives,
but your thoughts are cryptic and confidential.
I am not unnecessary.
You make yourself into two faces-
the object of all my affection, and my greatest adversary.
This situation is just a coal mine-
your treating me like I am these things is the canary.
These things are what I am not.
I should be paramount in your life.
Through your own actions you've proven these are all I am to you,
You've unsheathed a backstabbing knife.
I am here to stay.
Though you've nonchalantly tried to toss me away,
you will learn someday,
that I am not disposable.
Jun 10, 2013
Jun 10, 2013 at 8:47 PM UTC
I sit here and ponder
As a trailblazer,
No
A pioneer,
No
A lazy explorer,
Whatever that means, but sure
On a relatably aspect,
I'm really just a simple court jester
A third wheel passenger
A classic trope
The main guy, brushed off by those who used to claim to care
Ignored like a wondering stranger
Both lead actor and expendable,
None playable character
A name not worth trying to remember
Never a shred of credit offered either
An already undesirable role turned disaster picture
Struggling to hold it together
Both as a lover and a fighter,
Man and provider
An overdramatic graphic designer,
Not a producer
Also fighting nature as a stand alone reality denier
Because "it's not fair"
...or whatever
A true, true believer
...in what though?
I'm still not sure,
Go figure
©2024
Mar 17, 2024
Mar 17, 2024 at 2:20 PM UTC
I am so sorry
I’m sorry someone loved you badly
I’m sorry someone made you feel
Worthless, alone, and abandoned
I’m sorry someone made you feel
Like a waste of space
Unworthy of time
Unworthy of attention
I’m sorry someone made you feel
Expendable, ugly, and weak
I’m sorry someone made you feel
Afraid to love again
But tell me this
How is it justified
In your twisted mind
To do the same to me?
Nov 10, 2017
Nov 10, 2017 at 9:35 AM UTC
I cannot fathom the scribbling in my brain into poetic queues as of now. I am in excruciating pain but I am liberated. I am dying on the inside but somewhere behind my rib cage is a thump. Less of a thump, more like a knock. The love of my life is tearing me to shreds and the universe is softly tapping its knuckles on the door. Through an addictive relationship I have discovered my origin.
I am a healer. I am an angel and I can do no true harm to a soul; I heal even those who are the radial balance of my suffering and bleeding. I have an expendable heart; it has been squeezed, sliced, punctured, chewed, stepped on, scraped, pulverized, shattered, cracked, drained, dried, bitten, and hungrily ****** on by the mightiest of leeches. I stand before myself scarred but glowing like the chest of a newborn child. Once again my pain has given birth to me. I am new, the world has not made me an ******* I refuse. I will love. I will care. I will heal and I will push through my crucifying pains of being leeched. I will continue to give what cannot be returned to me.
Nov 2, 2013
Nov 2, 2013 at 1:24 AM UTC
What do you perceive?
Is your god the only
God in existence
And out of eight billion
HUMAN BEINGS
On this mighty planet
You and a mere one and a half billion humans
That follow said deity
Are the only people on this earth that matter?
Those bombs that shook
Their expendable existence
Did you feel it in your heart
The fist of your intolerant god
That tore their worlds apart...
And no please don't perceive this
With your separatist heart intact
Your fairy tales
Have all gone to hell
What more horrors will they hatch...
Mar 23, 2016
Mar 23, 2016 at 7:11 AM UTC
An occasional gust of wind will lift the translucent white voile curtains and then drop them like a child losing interest. The effect is like flash photography, a burst of sudden sunlight that paints our irises, then quickly fades.
It’s a cool Paris morning. In the low 50s. The windows are open and we forgot to turn on the heat. It’s perfect ‘under the covers’ weather. We’ve succumbed to laziness, refusing to get out of bed. Lazing-in is new enough to us that we’re defining it with a gamut of synonyms.
“Listlessness, torpor,” Peter says, his index finger tracking the slow twirl of the ceiling fan.
“Stupor, slumberous, supineness, ” I updog.
“Ooh! total submissiveness,” Peter said, drawing the last word out like it’s *****
“Every man’s dream,” I confirm.
“Inertia,” he says, triumphant in finding an engineering word.
“Good one,” I compliment. “Lifeless, loafing laggard,” I add.
There’s a knock at the door.
We look at each other guiltily, like we’ve been caught.
“We ordered breakfast last night,” Peter remembers.
“Oh, yeah,” I said, “you get it,” I suggested.
“Why me?” he whined.
“Because you can wear less and because what if it’s an ax murderer?”
“These people work for your grandmother, she employs ax murderers?”
“It could be a revolution - this is France - it happens.”
There’s another knock.
“Get it!,” I bleated, like a helpless goat.
“Am I expendable?” he asked, as a man might plead to a lynch mob.
“Women and children first,” I remind him.
There’s a third knock.
“Ok,” he says resignedly, as he rises, draws on shorts and heads for the door.
“You’re my hero,” I assure him, before I pull the sheet up over my head in case it IS an ax murderer.
Jun 3, 2023
Jun 3, 2023 at 9:06 AM UTC
Dry leaves, Dark skies.
So little promises but so many lies.Maybe she is seeing other men .I want her to touch my skin again
Rumor has it that she is coming soon.I can feel her presence encroaching on my expendable solidarity .We used to make love once every blue moon But not anymore and I'm losing my sanity.
She pours her hard love onto my aching skin.I have waited for this like a tiger waits for prey. This sweet love tastes like sin. Overindulgence,petrichor and foolish play
She leaves me oh so suddenly Or maybe I'm just thinking selfishly. She probably has other men to please
She leaves me with nothing but a gentle breeze.
So little promises yet so many lies.
Wet leaves and Bright skies.
Mar 21, 2017
Mar 21, 2017 at 7:09 AM UTC
MY ALPHABET CONSISTS ONLY OF VOWELS /
A, E, I, O, U --
AND SOMETIMES Y.
VOWELS ARE THE MEAT OF ALL MY WORDS /
I WRITE LOVE NOTES THROUGH THE HEFTIEST LETTERS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
A --
A IS FOR ALWAYS /
ALWAYS YOU WILL HAVE ME /
AND I WILL ADMIRE YOU /
ALWAYS
E --
E IS FOR ENOUGH /
EVERYONE MAKES ME FEEL /
EXPENDABLE /
EXCEPT FOR YOU
I --
I IS FOR I /
I DON'T DESERVE YOU /
I DON'T, EVEN IF YOU /
INSIST I DO
O --
O IS FOR ODDITY /
ON THIS PLANE WE SHOULD NOT EXIST /
OTHERWORLDLY /
OH, LOVE, WE ARE /
ON ANOTHER PLANET
U --
U IS FOR YOU /
YOU ARE THE SUN /
YOU ARE THE STARS /
UBIQUITOUS /
YOU ARE EVERYWHERE /
UNDER YOU I SHINE
SOMETIMES Y --
Y IS A VOWEL ON DAYS WHEN I AM NOT OKAY /
Y IS FOR WHY /
WHY DO YOU WANT THIS?
WHY ARE YOU HERE?
YOU, LOVE, ARE GOLDEN /
WHY HAVE YOU CHOSEN ME?
Dec 6, 2016
Dec 6, 2016 at 2:10 PM UTC
Were you always a killer,
commendable, expendable
secret agent girl?
Were you always a dancer, entrancer,
Irene Adler, romancer,
secret agent girl?
Were you smart or kind of heart,
lover of art, playing your part.
secret agent girl?
Were you feared or revered,
a pioneer of weird,
secret agent girl?
Were you a dream, beauty supreme,
eyes all agleam, more than you seemed,
secret agent girl?
Who lost you, tossed you
and at what cost due,
secret agent girl?
When did they rob you of your glory,
rewrite author, title, story,
secret agent girl?
Where did they take you, break you,
make you into something new,
secret agent girl?
Are you Cold War fossil lost in time,
too young to be old, past no prime,
secret agent girl?
Beneath the earth, above the sky,
not allowed to cry, to die, are you,
secret agent girl?
Who were you before your halo cracked,
before the fact, your devil's pact,
secret agent girl?
I'll kiss you, miss you,
this bliss is amiss,
secret agent girl.
It's time to go, leave me alone,
you broken hero,
secret agent girl.
May 21, 2013
May 21, 2013 at 3:00 PM UTC
Take Me,
Find a use for me.
It doesn't matter.
All I want
Is to be looked on
With value.
To be given reason
And Purpose.
Make me your shovel,
Make me dig for you.
Make me your sword,
Make me **** for you.
Make me your shield,
Make me guard you.
As your bullet,
I'd pierce for you.
As your grenade,
I'd expel myself for you.
If you need sustenance,
Consume me as would.
My body doesn't matter,
I am expendable,
I am disposable.
I, the throwaway.
Jan 24, 2011
Jan 24, 2011 at 12:29 PM UTC
no more rush for the factory gates
or bleary welcomes after whistle led race
no longer the shouts of “what shift you on mate?”
and befuddled replies “earlies, no, lates!”
the comforting throng of familial mass
at the end of each day that held no disgrace
when a days hard work meant a days earned pay
something they somehow forgot to replace
as our livelihoods fled to cheaper climes
and our citadels of labour fell rotting, debased
Mar 11, 2015
Mar 11, 2015 at 1:57 PM UTC
Friends don't trick each other.
I tell myself, it was just your way,
And yet, sometimes, I think about the way you worked me,
And I almost feel
groomed.
You were very good at the hinting and the waiting and the taking,
Very, very good my friend.
And now?
I suspect you just see it all as a bit of a lapse in judgement.
Unfortunate.
it got a little messy,
But you managed to get away unscathed.
You're very persuasive, talked her round,
He and I were collateral damage.
Expendable.
You were never a friend.
I was never anything
But a minor mistake.
Nov 19, 2013
Nov 19, 2013 at 5:02 PM UTC