"famines" poems
I'm a gamer
The things I do
Mapped new worlds
Slain a god or two
Blown up stars
And lead revolutions
Gained experience
And Increased my Constitution
Drove a tank
A star-ship
A dragon
Killed a zombie horde
Drank some mead from a flagon
I've built cities
and worlds
and life
I've ended wars
and Famines
and strife
I've lived more lives than one can live
I've seen the work of hundreds in the span of moments
More personal than literature
Jan 4, 2013
Jan 4, 2013 at 11:18 AM UTC
War broke: and now the Winter of the world
With perishing great darkness closes in.
The foul tornado, centred at Berlin,
Is over all the width of Europe whirled,
Rending the sails of progress. Rent or furled
Are all Art's ensigns. Verse wails. Now begin
Famines of thought and feeling. Love's wine's thin.
The grain of human Autumn rots, down-hurled.
For after Spring had bloomed in early Greece,
And Summer blazed her glory out with Rome,
An Autumn softly fell, a harvest home,
A slow grand age, and rich with all increase.
But now, for us, wild Winter, and the need
Of sowings for new Spring, and blood for seed.
2.1k
I wonder how they dug the graves
and shoveled in their young.
When grass was your last supper
your reserves are clearly done.
My forebears wouldn't" take the soup",
they wouldn't sell their souls.
So perhaps determination, then,
gave them strength to dig those holes.
To starve in the midst of plenty
was the saddest sight on earth,
but to their London Landlords
Irish serfs held little worth.
It's known that a potato blight
was the famines primal cause,
but I still blame beef eating men
and the cold uncaring laws.
Feb 8, 2013
Feb 8, 2013 at 7:53 AM UTC
They cry turmoil thru my web-pages,
pages on pages of Tribunes and Suns and Times
and Quarterly
"Free Burma!"
it's all turkey and pig-latin to me,
just "dunno!" like a dunce-capped miscreant,
inept of their vitriol
as i was not so great at geography
i got by before junior high.
Where-the-tarnished-nation is it?
"Free Burma!"
Notice the elephant in the room
like a whale named *****
attempting to escape
brothers of all of ours
engulfed in war
some ocean somewhere someone is dying;
notice that elephant in our laptops
ivory and blue tooth and iphones
telling me, showing us
to care
i do / want to
we should and we must
yes
"Free Burma!"
will i need to donate a dollar,
two, three? will i receive
a correspondence
of a child i am saving
a face of a country
i'm ignorant to...
will it's big sad puppy eyes be
commercialized?
i am no less as educated for not
following the strife of thousands
my own is as heavy here as an orca's leap
"Free Burma!"
what cage, bear or mouse trap
have they gotten themselves
and ourselves into?
if it's anything like Yayo or Martha
business
i have a better "good thing" to do
but if it is
like famines in Africa,
Mendelson, or Tibetan Monks
on strike with kung-fu skills
i will join U2,
(and if she's aware) with Oprah power
activate!
(fist to fist)
"i will be a well of spring-water!"
and she a holy cow, a worshipped saint
"Free Burma!!"
free water
free of fear
free everyone, i pray,
under this sky
wipe away all tears
free you of your worries
free of all chains
free of mines
free of lies and borderlines.
Free to be
together
free to live and choose to see
A planet a place
A peace
"Free Burma!"
Freedom
as one
community.
For you, for me.
Home.
Free...
Dec 14, 2015
Dec 14, 2015 at 9:15 PM UTC
V. the ballad of briseis
my heart is of
the flesh of figs,
and that which
i cannot touch:
grainy sweet
garnet nectar
pretty to behold
but easy to bruise
no god shall speak for me, briseis
for this fig-heart, like the heart of man
craves art as it does god
and though i know you not by name,
but only pseudonym:
blood, words, and love,
we are kindred souls
i'd like to believe that we
are cut of the same cloth
hewn of the same mound of clay
(or cast into the same iron, i suppose
for we became one another's anchor
the day we met)
i once told you, my dear briseis,
that if you taught me symbiosis
i would teach you love
for you found pragma
in philosophy cold
markov's blankets
freud's ego, plato's cave
whereas i found pragma
in alchemy's poetry
chekhov's gun
freud's neurotics, plato's human
it means nothing.
the alchemy lies
beyond the chemicals,
beyond the seed and the egg,
beyond our festivals of atonement,
beyond my prima materia
and your unfulfilled magnum opus
it lies in simple interdependence,
the oceans, the heavens,
the forests, the deserts,
the storms, the famines,
the herds of wildebeest,
the colonies of ants,
the beady dew on the spider web
and the purling river shallows,
our acrid mouths yearning for mother's milk,
the boy who makes us cry at night,
the fiery logs roaring against the cold air,
the hoot-owls and the faces on the wall
(our skeletons never did stay in the closet)
bathed in that slow, hideous wonder
those interplays of love and symbiosis
as i drown and die in reverie once more
pray that the stakes may be forever higher
that i find those eternal elysian fields
so long as our achilles lives to fight again
we are more alike,
than you or i would
ever dare to admit,
briseis
so humor this fig-heart:
hold me and tell me
that it'll be all right
Jan 19, 2021
Jan 19, 2021 at 11:57 PM UTC
Its all cool beans and sour grapes,
Grandma left behind a lot.
"Its not enough to make the month",
But famines worse than
Not enough.
Fuzzy kinescope flashes
Of stone soup,
Beefy greens,
Leafy trees,
And
Chewy allusion.
Bathing in your memory
Like a honey moor.
Jul 25, 2014
Jul 25, 2014 at 3:24 AM UTC
Take your Seven Deadly Sins,
And butcher them with punctuation.
Capitalize on floods, famines and fires.
Express sickness, war and homelessness.
Parse politics.
Syllabicate and spell out for all to read
The horror of homelessness and apathy.
There.
Nothing's too real we can't fictionalize... marginalize,
Again, and again, and again.
Apr 7, 2021
Apr 7, 2021 at 10:24 AM UTC
Start the day. In what way
was the cold spring, last wet summer a
global warning, indicator. Says
one commentator on the op-ed page, the
dislocations, wars, famines will tax humanity's
technology, philosophy, even religion's ability
to see past daily survival to
the music in the rock. I've doubted the taboos
one frog among many in the slow-heating beauty
of the world we knew. Aaron's coconut.
Peepers peeping in the heavy rains, wet
with joy. Hawks and crows thrive below the jet
stream, noise, perhaps our fears
are overdrawn, we'll get along, it'll all hold together 10,000 years more,
the Holocaust will never be repeated, lush mountain and sere
desert equally appreciated, baseball
lazily paced summer evenings, the harvest in the fall
a sure thing, and the dying back a blessing come to all.
Feb 29, 2016
Feb 29, 2016 at 7:14 AM UTC
every vertebrae vibrates
and cracks with every move i make
tried to put food in my mouth
but never really eat
close my eyes but never fall asleep
apathy is eating me whole
alive and unhealthy
words were uttered
promised as if a contract was signed
but a vow is just a set of words
its a myth
a myth you always believed in
like how you believed in tooth fairies
and wishing stars
like how i believed when you said
you will always be there
and like how i believed when you said
you were fine
the cuban missile crisis is waiting to be read
but nothing really comes into your head
every second is doubtful
i hated seconds, time and space
the culprit of desolations
even worst than famines and wars
because the worst scarcity
would be time itself
when time nudges you awake
a remnant of an hour earlier is left
in a snap the left part of his body was numb
and he uses his right to hold you hand
to squeeze it tightly and would never let go
like how tightly you held me when
i was about to drown during our
swimming lessons when i was but
a little girl believing
she was a real mermaid
uses his conscious eye to take a mili-second glimpse
and calls your name when he is in pain
everyone repeats their questions more than once
because he wouldn't hear
they always asked if he sees them
because his left eye couldn't see
it was never like that
you weren't that guy in a hospital gown
not even the one who couldn't walk by himself
you weren't him. that wasn't you
you were strong, you could walk and talk
you were the team captain and the coach
a father of four and a dreamer
you weren't that guy. you will never be that guy
Sep 13, 2016
Sep 13, 2016 at 11:27 AM UTC
Gang **** wars. famines.
iPad screen a shield between
news of death
and your life.
around, around, around we
go, tripping over molehills,
ignoring mountains where
diamonds and silver
lay as common as dirt
at the top.
this train is heading in painful
directions, but it would
tickle too much if we stop.
so we don't.
*I won't give up my wi-fi
to save every child in a village
I've never even heard of.*
we all say it. inaudibly.
too many of us aboard,
but the water is lovely.
would someone -anyone- please,
please rock
this
boat.
Nov 28, 2014
Nov 28, 2014 at 1:40 AM UTC
You say theres nothing to smile about
And I'd have to say thats true
You say the world's in disarray
And we haven't got a clue
You say theres wars and famines
Disasters quakes and floods
Neighborhoods filled with broken homes
The streets run red with blood
You say we look through shattered eyes
And hear with deafened ears
Refuse to try on others shoes
Or answer to their tears
You say you've lost all hope
That we've gone beyond repair
Our problems are too many
Still the system doesn't care
You say we're all too selfish
That we'll never make it out
You've lost your faith in humanity
Your heart succumbed to doubt
My friend I understand
And I fear these sentiments true
I do not hold the answers
But this I say to you
Hope is only lost
When negativity ensues
You say theres nothing to smile about
I say, I smile for You
Nov 22, 2010
Nov 22, 2010 at 5:03 PM UTC
Through my eyes everything seemed perfect
everything is luxurious
through my eyes i saw
the Waldorf Astoria
continental breakfasts,cruises,jets,limos
All i saw are expensive watches,sun glasses
the best of everything
but what i couldn't see was
the famines in Africa
the wars in Syria and Afghanistan
the everyday killings,kidnappings,heists
I was surrounded by luxuries
blocking out all the evil
I was surrounded by an army of guards
I never realized
that they weren't paid to follow me,
they were there to protect me
but i never appreciated them
their bravery
and in a blink of an eye
I HAD LOST EVERYTHING
and suddenly
the people in Africa were eating
the wars ended
the killings,murders,heists were being controlled
and everything through my eyes were
mud houses,donkey carts,torn clothes
boiled potatoes and peas
and the rich people who enjoyed all the things i once had
Mar 26, 2014
Mar 26, 2014 at 10:15 AM UTC
Think yourselves ready, eh?
Will you be
When gestation rates increase
To 13, 15, 17 months?
Stress -
Stressors by environment.
Famines, Droughts: Afflictions.
Yous who only believe in competition
Belittling compassion & patience of true co-operation;
Of harmony & tranquility,
Of the tranquility of harmony.
Whom the plants shall out-compete,
Whom the other animals shall out-compete.
Doubtless - for you are ignorant.
Doubtful - for you are arrogant.
Only ready for the extinction of ¹annihilation,
Eager only for the ²obliteration which is extinction.
Apathetic, superstitious apocalypsists being the first to die-out;
The brutish beasts among us, the next to die-off.
"Now, I who liberate all & everything."
says Kronos.
"Here, I cast off your chains."
says Gaia.
"Stood, we who remain standing - eternal & immortal."
Says Osiris, Says Uranus
"With-standing, we who raise others as we raised-up ourselves."
Says Isis, Says Hera
Jul 29, 2025
Jul 29, 2025 at 3:34 PM UTC
The children of Agni
Still tend to the fields
But they yield to what Shiva’s
Deals hope to conceal
By the bushels of bullets, pork barrels of grease
In the crease of the fingers
And trigger’s release
Of the anger, the rage of this Bengali cage
Made of famines of war
And the textile slaves
With the wage loomin’ over
Their shoulders in pain
From the Kashmiri soldiers
Still diggin’ their graves
And in chains are the children who bear the unfair distribution of loot
Still polluting the air
And I try and I try, and they stare and they stare
But I’m running in circles and getting nowhere
Just making a stand for this Hindustan sand
A mere man of unplanned patrilineal clans
Tryna’ offer a hand to the paving of roads
Without hellish intentions for humble abodes
‘Cuz I know, I’ve been shown where the wild things are
And now my state of mind is the state of Uttar
When I still see the zamindars driving in cars
And the Amritsar crimson Blue Stars from afar
People burning but still full of love and a spirit
That sings of the Ganges, each night you can hear it
It’s clear, without fear and sincere in its praise
For the guru I am, come to learn of their ways
Nov 30, 2017
Nov 30, 2017 at 3:05 PM UTC
Some saw the stars,
Their foreheads napping on the wall -
The great divide -
Where ignorance stands tall,
A sight unseen,
Is the world on every other side,
Where the dust molecules
Accumulated where life has dried.
In an artifical lake,
They thought they crossed oceans,
Blue skies reflected on puddles,
Static movement mistaken for locomotion,
While tides of sewage water,
Swallowed all the greener pastures,
Famines eating at bodies,
Growing up into a natural disaster.
Some flipped the same page,
Their universe knew of nothing past the sun,
Orbiting around themselves,
Isn't that how the big bang begun?
The less they fed their minds,
The rarer it ever asked for more,
When you've been living in a white dream,
It's hard to believe the existence of black doors.
We're in the same solar system,
But their bodies are alienated,
With muffs on their ears,
To keep out the winter their hands created,
But as our fears turn into expectations,
They'll be able to hold them then,
Reality crashing on our roofs,
The wall won't be heard of again.
Apr 26, 2017
Apr 26, 2017 at 7:21 PM UTC
and what you need
to realize
is that
the flowers growing
on the tips
of someone else's pen
is not
the wilting of yours.
Jul 22, 2019
Jul 22, 2019 at 11:54 PM UTC
Once again I feel like I’m not enough
Once again I feel the pillars of my identity being shaken like trees
Will their roots hold them firm and steady in the soil?
Or will they topple with a crash onto the unforgiving ground,
Leaving my carefully built structures to crumble into ruins?
Thoughts swirl around in my head like blades,
Their sharp edges dangerously close to nicking vital arteries that keep me alive.
But somehow I always survive.
Meanwhile, the world continues spinning,
Oblivious.
I try to ****** the blades out of the air as quickly as possible,
But each one rises again as soon as my back is turned,
An army of undead soldiers hell-bent on consuming my mind.
Still, I remind myself that this apocalypse will not be the end of me.
Though natural and unnatural disasters may shake my cities,
Through fires, floods, and famines,
I will continue.
When my foundations are all that is left standing,
I will build up from the bedrock until I can see new horizons from my tallest tower.
I may watch the blood-red sun set on yesterday,
But I will see it rise again far above these ashes.
Aug 5, 2019
Aug 5, 2019 at 9:59 PM UTC
Radhika grew up in a poor Indian village.
She, her parents, and siblings survived
Droughts, famines, diseases, and monsoons;
Sporadic good fortune was always short-lived.
A gentlemen came to the village one day
And offered Radhika a job as a maid.
Oh, how exciting! A job in the city--
REAL work, for which she'd be paid!
Once in Mumbai, Radhika was led
To a hovel where she was brutally *****
And beaten and moved to a windowless room
At a brothel from which few girls escaped.
The poor young girl--eleven years old--
Learned very quickly how cruel life could be.
Her daily dream was to make her way home,
As soon as she found a way to flee.
Having lost years of her youth,
Radhika escaped and went home at sixteen
To parents who cast her out of the house
For being "sullied," for not being "clean."
Not knowing which way to turn--
With defeats piled on top of defeats--
Radhika returned in desperation
To the city, where she worked in the streets.
All over the world "Radhikas" exist,
But most of us never see them.
What will it take to end such cruelty?
We have to find a way to free them.
- by Bob B
Oct 2, 2016
Oct 2, 2016 at 10:56 AM UTC
Does He Still Deny A Climate Change?
(asked by the least political of observers)
Is he denying still,
Or is he stalling, stone(y)walling
Wailing about other things,
Like Mexicans and walls while slinging
Maddening, outrageous barbs
About the so-called loss of jobs
To South Korea while a North Korean
TV lady sobs with joy
About a bomb to be employed
(You all know which I mean)
That starts a chain
That takes out half a planet.
Does he still encourage fossil fuel production
Leading in the wrong direction?
Does he not see rising seas
And floods and famines and disease
Around and as potential?
Heats and droughts and quakes to come?
Or does he see the states as humming?
Self-deception quintessential:
Lies.
Who can call it otherwise?
What is a lie?
And how does one get by with lying
And denying, falsifying, flying
In the face of truth
As often as he tries – no, does.
With head, mind, pen, hand buzzing
I shall stop! But you, my friend
May make a noise, examine cause, while empathizing
Till an end.
This being written off the cuff,
Now it is time to send this off
Into the world of cyber.
Does He Still Deny A Climate Change 9.3.2017
Our Times, Our Culture II;
Arlene Corwin
Sep 3, 2017
Sep 3, 2017 at 3:02 PM UTC
432 AD is the date attributed
to St Patrick and the shamrock.
The H.A.R.P. came much later
HAVE A REAL PINT
Which of course is an eternal
reminder on all Irish Passports.
Guinness and Government was
the ****** for a non secular state.
All changed now, the terrible
beauty has had a face lift.
Abortion, divorce, SxS marriage,
popcorn, drink from bottles, we
Must now have now have ice in
our water here on a frigid island.
Support America's worldwide
regime changes, mass murders,
Induced famines, launder their
drug money in our green haven
Where Google is exempt from
paying any tax contributions,
Send our court jester to the White
house annually with a bowl of weeds.
What a joke, a shameless nation
that honourable people died for.
Have an ice day, and of course,
Oh, their, GOD, is here instead.
Mar 17, 2019
Mar 17, 2019 at 3:42 AM UTC
Whoever brought war to this world
Must have been an evil devil
See, fertile fields idle
Greenness they cradle
But inside them life crumbles
Lives many lives inside their bellies
They cruelly cuddles
What a human’s riddle
When masses in concentrated camps retires
As slowly they falls and expires
A heap of thin eaten bones
Humans as zombies-hell rotten clones
Just stashed skinny skeletons
Returns to humanitarians huts heartbroken
To wait to be just shrines
Of the fatal or battle famines
Fields sleeps still untilled
Occupied only by healthy bushes and shrubs
Humanity die unfilled
Fast of unsanitary outbreaks and scab-scrubs
Land lay undisturbed
Weeds wishing for someone them to pick
Humans perish perturbed
Of traumas, stigmas-too weak and so sick
Of hunger and starvation
Of thirst and malnutrition
Of deaths and devastations
Of infections and infestations
Of war-executions and explosions
Humans die of war-poverty and slavery-suppressions
Whoever brought war
To this well world’s wall
Must have been a devil for all
Can you look at them?
Once or if twice grace you've
Do you see little children?
If still they merit-forbidden!
Withered, shriveled like leaves in dry droughts
Just leanly stretched skins of skeletons
It tries to cry, a hiss like a yawn comes out
A malnourished mass-flame of fragile bones-
A stillborn foetus silently hibernating-mercifully striving living
Patched head becoming deserted and barren
Shrunken skull, inwardly bony discoloured eyes
Bony mandibles, jutting chops-sharp clavicles
Increasingly round tummy above thinly matchsticks of legs
A child hanging on a shrunken shred
Of its slim dermis and her was tissues of coveted *******
And we say she is breastfeeding
Fingers bony like satan's claws, feeble and brittle
On her thin slowly leaving heaving chest
Enjoying mother's nourishing milk
An image, an illusion of her and it sufficiently suckling
Who brought war, war to this side of the world-Africa, Africa!?
© Kìùra Kabiri. All rights reserved.
Feb 22, 2017
Feb 22, 2017 at 3:00 AM UTC
GLOBAL WARMING
Monsoon this year has been the driest since time we know
Fields all dried up and parched, and nothing else to grow
Farmers in worry, foods in shortage, inflations on the rise
Stop the global warming! Or be ready, to pay the price.
It will only worsen even more, with, every passing year
Weathers would be pleasant no more, and, difficult to bear
Oceans would rise to greater heights, sinking, coastal dwelling
Water would be everywhere but, not a drop, for drinking.
Live with the nature - the worlds a perfect place for Humankind
But we never heed to it, nor, do we try, keeping it in mind.
For selfish reasons, and the quest for more, we always ignored,
Preservations of the Environment, we should have, always followed.
Nature’s cycle of seasons, completely out of its cyclic order
This has brought onto mankind, calamities, and disaster.
Gone are the days, when the peaks were capped with snow
Days will soon come by, when you will see lesser rivers flow.
Famines and droughts will hit the Earth
Water and Foods would be in dearth.
Trees and Forests would vanish for good
Every where around, there’ll be, scarcity of food.
Societies would run amok, foods their priority
Wars and crimes would be there for all to see.
Temperature would rise, unstable and unforeseen
Parched lands or Deserts, where once it was green.
Stop the pollution and reduce the global warming
Stop all things that are to humans, threatening and harming.
I am sending you this message through this poem for you to read
Stop Polluting! To all the polluting nations, this I sincerely plead.
Copyright © PS
Jul 2, 2018
Jul 2, 2018 at 1:15 AM UTC
O', my despondent Love!
You were the Prayer;
Nebulous to these eyes
Illegible to these lips,
You were the prayer
With the Verses,
That my Heart Recited
Every Divine night,
When Those Tranquil Rays of Moon
Embraced the Rising Waves Of Ocean,
When The Zephyrs
Caressed The Earth,
When the Galaxies
Slumbered in the Lap of Universe;
Listening to the Lullabies of Silence,
You were the Prayer, Whose Verses-
Were indited by the Crimson Ink
Of my Pen,
Yes, you were the Prayer of my Life,
That fulfilled the Wish
Of Igniting the Candle of Rue,
In the Temple of-
Euthenia,
On the Lands of Famines!!
Sep 24, 2017
Sep 24, 2017 at 4:33 AM UTC
Mat 24:6 When reports come in of wars and rumored wars, keep your head and don't panic. This is routine history; this is no sign of the end.
Sleep, precious one
The sheltered oblivion of innocence
Passes quickly
In the revelation of darkness and light
Mat 24:7 Nation will fight nation and ruler fight ruler, over and over. Famines and earthquakes will occur in various places.
But consider the intimate whispered things
The divinity of DNA
I made you to stand unshaken
Uncompromised
Unforsaken, Child I am with you
Mat 24:8 This is nothing compared to what is coming.
The celebration of death
Macabre mutations of sacred and profane
Black and white will blur
And you will cry alone
Over gray shadows of lives
That might have been
Mat 24:9 "They are going to throw you to the wolves and **** you, everyone hating you because you carry my name.
But you have the courage
To stare death down
I am your forever
Each beat of your heart
Remembers my promise
Mat 24:10 And then, going from bad to worse, it will be dog-eat-dog, everyone at each other's throat, everyone hating each other.
Eyes blind they stare
At the mirrored reflections
Unable to recognize
The sanctity of a human life
But you’re not among the walking dead
Mat 24:11 "In the confusion, lying preachers will come forward and deceive a lot of people.
One way, one truth, one life
This mantra whispered
In the cacophony of choice
Residue of lost souls, multiple paths
To a destination of perpetual separation
Just follow me….
Mat 24:12 For many others, the overwhelming spread of evil will do them in--nothing left of their love but a mound of ashes.
The conditional provisions
Bound, gagged and shackled
This was never my way
Mat 24:13 "Staying with it--that's what God requires. Stay with it to the end. You won't be sorry, and you'll be saved.
Sleep precious Child
I will wait for you in your future
When you know its not in the victory
But the struggle
You will find me where I’ve always been
Within
I bring you Peace.
Love
Dad
TL Boehm
www.tlboehm.webs.com
Peace.
(all scripture references taken from the Message Bible paraphrase)
Sep 4, 2014
Sep 4, 2014 at 1:10 PM UTC
Around, around, & round you go
spinning round & round
your endless journey
never ending
your gravity
holds us down
The battles & quakes
the shallow graves
the hangings in the trees
the plagues & famines
the genocides & old age
the deadliest disease?
How much blood
old mother
spilled upon your *****
and all the bones
you laid to rest
help your flowers blossom?
From Earth we rise
and to you we fall
you can smell us from below
only those you lost to
space
can't help your garden grow
LPConvey
Mar 9, 2016
Mar 9, 2016 at 7:20 PM UTC