"forgetful" poems
Mumbai is rich, Mumbai is poor.
Mumbai is fast, Mumbai is slower.
Little bit sweet, and little bit sour,
Sometimes it’s hot but not too more….
Mornings are energetic and evenings are electric.
Noons are lazy but Nights are crazy
And any one you ask he always say “M busy”
Dude, life in Mumbai is not so easy
There is lot of Masti with little bit of Maska
Welcome to the city that can’t live, without Bollywood Chaska
From cooker whistles to the traffic jam horns,
From steaming tea kettles to breaking nut-betels
From telephone rings and doorbell brings.
There are people connecting through Blackberry pings
Where there’s little time to spare for kids
People here spend their lives on bids
Here you actually pay your travel fare by meter
But milkman mixing water is not a cheater!
Sev puri and bhel puri are all Mumbai chaat
Relishing it with spicy chutney is no easy art
From pop-corn to ice-cream, all sold on cart
Mumbai o Mumbai, you’re always close to my heart
Where local trains usually run on time
And violently rushing for a seat is not a crime
Here 3 PM for lunch and 12 AM to dine
People face hardships, but still say “it’s fine”
From Mt Mary in Bandra to Mumba Devi in Town
And ISKCON in Juhu to Haji Ali in Mumbai’s Crown
Faith runs deep as the Arabian Sea
But people don’t hesitate to pay early darshan fee.
Marathi, Punjabi, Gujarati and Bengali
Everyone forgather celebrate Id and Diwali
Holi is colourful and Christmas is cheerful
Spend some time here and your life will be un-forgetful
Billionaire to baggers, all found in this city
Be careful dude, this place is a bit witty.
Overall this dream-world is huge but pretty
Mumbai o Mumbai you’re wonderful city.
Feb 3, 2016
Feb 3, 2016 at 1:15 AM UTC
It doesn't **** you...
But It makes you forgetful & dumb
It can be addicting even when you say it don't.
I can't even talk to you when you're all doped up. It makes me sad that you'd just turn to drugs.
Jul 4, 2014
Jul 4, 2014 at 1:03 AM UTC
The night is only a sort of carbon paper,
Blueblack, with the much-poked periods of stars
Letting in the light, peephole after peephole --
A bonewhite light, like death, behind all things.
Under the eyes of the stars and the moon's rictus
He suffers his desert pillow, sleeplessness
Stretching its fine, irritating sand in all directions.
Over and over the old, granular movie
Exposes embarrassments--the mizzling days
Of childhood and adolescence, sticky with dreams,
Parental faces on tall stalks, alternately stern and tearful,
A garden of buggy rose that made him cry.
His forehead is bumpy as a sack of rocks.
Memories jostle each other for face-room like obsolete film stars.
He is immune to pills: red, purple, blue --
How they lit the tedium of the protracted evening!
Those sugary planets whose influence won for him
A life baptized in no-life for a while,
And the sweet, drugged waking of a forgetful baby.
Now the pills are worn-out and silly, like classical gods.
Their poppy-sleepy colors do him no good.
His head is a little interior of grey mirrors.
Each gesture flees immediately down an alley
Of diminishing perspectives, and its significance
Drains like water out the hole at the far end.
He lives without privacy in a lidless room,
The bald slots of his eyes stiffened wide-open
On the incessant heat-lightning flicker of situations.
Nightlong, in the granite yard, invisible cats
Have been howling like women, or damaged instruments.
Already he can feel daylight, his white disease,
Creeping up with her hatful of trivial repetitions.
The city is a map of cheerful twitters now,
And everywhere people, eyes mica-silver and blank,
Are riding to work in rows, as if recently brainwashed.
15.4k
lightning never
sees its fire burning
the trees
absent and forlorn
as love can be.
I can feel your
thunder on the
mountainside.
we will tame
the ashes, fan the flames,
and the pray the sky
returns to calm
forgetful sleep.
© Ben Ditmars 2014
Jul 7, 2014
Jul 7, 2014 at 2:25 AM UTC
Life knew it would be hard
So it hard-wired its many children
With a self-serving fondness
Life was well aware of the darkness
And for fear of objectivity
Man was subjected to instinct
Life knew of loneliness
So it made us laugh down
Through our bellies and slap our knees
Life was well aware of heartache
So it drove us toward pleasure
And made us forgetful
Life made us forgiving
Resilient, blissful
Life, the narcissist
Knew of limits
And made us to imagine
Life watched me balk its efforts
And gave me to you
Feb 19, 2013
Feb 19, 2013 at 4:55 PM UTC
Shadows I am, trailing behind you,
Heaving and reversing, for your slightest attention,
Intimate you are not, forgetful you are,
Never do you, have this much conviction.
Noises inside, my head and yours,
Illusive we are, to what matters most,
Perhaps nothing we do, could really save us,
Hating and aching, to that we toast.
Untouched, crippled; and heavily misunderstood,
Arching our ego, that's all we ever could.
Jan 23, 2015
Jan 23, 2015 at 12:45 AM UTC
I sigh at day-dawn, and I sigh
When the dull day is passing by.
I sigh at evening, and again
I sigh when night brings sleep to men.
Oh! it were far better to die
Than thus forever mourn and sigh,
And in death's dreamless sleep to be
Unconscious that none weep for me;
Eased from my weight of heaviness,
Forgetful of forgetfulness,
Resting from care and pain and sorrow
Thro' the long night that knows no morrow;
Living unloved, to die unknown,
Unwept, untended, and alone.
7.2k
did you know
that the
self effulgent light
of God it self
is **** shaped
as above so below
the inner revelation
******* above...light woven
*** hole below ...flesh woven
does this not infer
a magical operation
perhaps a hermetic
ritual of adoration
perhaps a puja
to the ****
with ornate
kaleidoscopic mandalas
replete with wrinkles
and folds
emerald toilet bowls
silk *** wipe
with full color florals
to be ingratiated
by **** art prints
and to be fussed over
and judged
by certified *******
clergy
then to cleanse
with fragrant ointments
that it may remain
unsullied by its
birthing labors
voluptuous
smoldering
fecundations
for purities sake
as god remains
free of limitation
it too
must remain
free of its forgetful
tarnished children
i build temple of ****
high above the people
the little *****
do they
even know
where they come from
how they may
devote themselves
to the grandeur
of the solar ****
and its bestowals
of clumpy torpedoes
the catechism
of the solar ****
to know
to adore
to prostrate
to proselytize
the glory of ****
to the
for corners
of the earth
to be faithful
unto it
to be obedient
and present
your *******
for ritual manicures
by the true initiates
the fussy
******* faeries
those who have
the secret knowledge
and remain true
to the lore
and precepts
set forth
of divine correspondences
to fully appreciate
its eminence
its glory
and have no
God before it
that mercy
will follow them
all the days
of there lives*
Jul 16, 2016
Jul 16, 2016 at 8:35 PM UTC
tell me you love me
everyday
because i always seem to forget
make sure you kiss me goodnight
every night
because i need to know you're there
I am very
very forgetful
Nov 22, 2014
Nov 22, 2014 at 11:54 PM UTC
He was a boy dressed in green who flew into the Nursery one night.
He flew in to retrieve the shadow that had gotten separated from him.
He had his fairy and best friend Tinkerbell fly into the room at first.
He followed about a minute later and told Tinkerbell to find it for him.
He watched Tinkerbell fly over a dresser drawer & asked which one.
He ran over to the drawer that Tinkerbell stayed beside & he opened it.
He takes the shadow out & happily holds it in his arms and hugs it.
He tries to stick the shadow on by just putting it on his head and poses.
He then has to pick the shadow up from the floor when it falls off.
He tries again and then sees soap & says he'll use that to make it stick.
He rubs the soap on the shadow or himself & tries to make it stick.
He starts to get very upset because the shadow won't stick itself to him.
He starts breathing heavily & asks, "What's the matter with you?"
He wakes Wendy & she thinks he's crying. "Boy, why are you crying?"
He answers her differently in the recent version from the others.
He just stands up from where he is and bows to her in the other films.
He stands up in the recent version & says to her, "I'm not crying."
He's told in the recent film that he looks like a boy out of a storybook.
He calls himself a "brave adventurer" & Wendy says, "Who cries."
He looks at Wendy and says to her, more sternly this time, "I don't cry."
He asks what her name is, she says, "Wendy Mira Angela Darling."
He tells her his & says, "It's enough for me." when she asks if that's it.
He looks around & asks, "Is this a real house?" Wendy says, "Yes."
He doesn't ask that in all the other versions, they just exchange names.
He does different things depending on what version you watch.
He goes out in the hall in the recent film when a noise interests him.
He tells her some things about himself, like that he is forgetful.
"Second star to the right and straight on till morning." is where he lives.
He tells Wendy this in every single version when she asks him.
He's asked if he gets letters & says in many films, "I don't get any letters."
He says in the recent film, "I don't get any." with a little shrug.
He also says, "I don't have a mother." when told his mother must get'em.
He puts a hand up & backs up when Wendy tries to hug him.
He says, "You mustn't touch me." Wendy puts her arms down & asks why.
He says, "No one has ever touched me." and just looks at her.
He's told by Wendy, "No wonder you were crying." and looks at her again.
He says, "I told you I wasn't. I just can't get my shadow to stick."
He also tells her, "I tried everything. Even soap." points to the bar of soap.
He gets the shadow on with the help of Wendy & is happy again.
He gets a thimble thinking it's a kiss and gives Wendy one to thank her.
He tells her about Neverland & she tells him that she knows stories.
He tells her to come with him and says that they will both fly to get there.
He says before this that he knows fairies & Wendy meets Tinkerbell.
He allows Wendy's brothers Michael and John to come fly with them too.
He teachers everyone how to fly and then they are off to Neverland.
Feb 14, 2015
Feb 14, 2015 at 4:28 PM UTC
Forgetful they call me,a man of few words
Let me be, and forever open doors
Open your soul, open your mind
Travel in your mold,and leave your troubles behind
Lossen up, and be free
Loose the red solo cup, and get a hold of this rolled-up tree
Loose the stress, Let me be your preacher
Take the express, and find your inner creature
Sep 14, 2014
Sep 14, 2014 at 1:31 PM UTC
It's always a criminal time to fight/
To fizz away our furies and our fears
in violent interactions within 'The Warrior Play'/
To unite in bouts/
Put personalities in liberty/
Releases
to bring about the death reaction
Untangled in all this
Is an eye/
a void/
It paces and turns
forgetful and lost ;
a powerless ghost and a witness
to these mad spoilings and energy fits/
This pinball of the battlefield
is catalyst ;
The untouched spirit of the weapon-head/
a war chime
and the thirst of all of us 'soldiers'
- in pattern & in population
Oct 13, 2018
Oct 13, 2018 at 9:30 PM UTC
the bottle twists
glass falls in drifts
and air parts like flesh
there’s a terror beneath this city
trucks enter from out of town and shake the power lines
passing without pause
sometimes birds gather for days
chirps grow exponentially
before tailing into silence;
heather and brimstone
little bodies roll to the edges
and burst on the streets in red regalia
a somnolence keeps the city forgetful
time flows in fits
a streetlamp; a raven; ten gravestones
it all runs without moving
vessels dilate
hands hold themselves
there’s nothing to breathe with
an empty chalice, turned on the hour grants
heaving clenching writhing
an ocean of rust
bulb shatters, blood spills out her
mouth cave head turn faith
the world remakes itself
**********
the colour of sunflowers
bicycle chains
thirst
colonialism
wet paint
emptiness over emptiness
act without agent
lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack lack
peel the flesh and find flesh
always more flesh
don’t stop they know better
chirp chirp chirp
turn
exit
substance
purpose
nothing
May 1, 2016
May 1, 2016 at 12:51 AM UTC
Perhaps there are 100,000 forms of darkness,
100,000 forms
of what they call depression.
I know one
or two of them.
There is no suffering scale, no way to compare
the suffering of one
human being,
or one illness
to another.
So we hold candlelight vigils
build totems to gather the universe and pull
back clarity around one another’s edges
But I can't burn sage inside me.
It may attract the bad you hide from. Or
is it the good that scares you?
The world beyond the bond
of hearts is a town
without pity.
A dull inhumanity of systems failing the people
we don’t look at.
In this way the brittle tethers of association are tested.
Hand in hand greeting the blackening sky, bearing
down like the face of a missing child’s parents,
staring at one another
knuckles clasp tight.
Your smile the remaining mirror at the end of the world.
If you were here, or I there
I’d be home right now. On the inside
we’re both waiting for one
another still.
Because I’m the same,
but not.
I am ruthlessly forgetful.
Names, birthdays, work schedules.
But I know the way your hair looks in motion.
The way your face looks
refracted through a cigarette ember.
How when your mood shifts,
the church in your eyes
becomes torn, battered, and bare.
If we could just give
another go-round.
It would be different,
Remember,
your best.
Where you are, might
be, may go.
When it used to feel so good.
Apr 27, 2018
Apr 27, 2018 at 11:58 PM UTC
Forgetful little flower
Only learned to follow
But never to follow through
With the little things
Like her dreams
He loves me, he loves me not
Was all she could think about
Jan 2, 2011
Jan 2, 2011 at 1:05 PM UTC
Shall we, too, rise forgetful from our sleep,
And shall my soul that lies within your hand
Remember nothing, as the blowing sand
Forgets the palm where long blue shadows creep
When winds along the darkened desert sweep?
Or would it still remember, tho’ it spanned
A thousand heavens, while the planets fanned
The vacant ether with their voices deep?
Soul of my soul, no word shall be forgot,
Nor yet alone, beloved, shall we see
The desolation of extinguished suns,
Nor fear the void wherethro’ our planet runs,
For still together shall we go and not
Fare forth alone to front eternity.
3.3k
Now the golden Morn aloft
Waves her dew-bespangled wing,
With vermeil cheek and whisper soft
She wooes the tardy Spring:
Till April starts, and calls around
The sleeping fragrance from the ground,
And lightly o’er the living scene
Scatters his freshest, tenderest green.
New-born flocks, in rustic dance,
Frisking ply their feeble feet;
Forgetful of their wintry trance
The birds his presence greet:
But chief, the skylark warbles high
His trembling thrilling ecstasy;
And, lessening from the dazzled sight,
Melts into air and liquid light.
Yesterday the sullen year
Saw the snowy whirlwind fly;
Mute was the music of the air,
The herd stood drooping by:
Their raptures now that wildly flow
No yesterday nor morrow know;
’Tis Man alone that joy descries
With forward and reverted eyes.
Smiles on past Misfortune’s brow
Soft Reflection’s hand can trace,
And o’er the cheek of Sorrow throw
A melancholy grace;
While Hope prolongs our happier hour,
Or deepest shades, that dimly lour
And blacken round our weary way,
Gilds with a gleam of distant day.
Still, where rosy Pleasure leads
See a kindred Grief pursue;
Behind the steps that Misery treads
Approaching Comfort view:
The hues of bliss more brightly glow
Chastised by sabler tints of woe,
And blended form, with artful strife,
The strength and harmony of life.
See the wretch that long has tost
On the thorny bed of pain,
At length repair his vigour lost,
And breathe and walk again:
The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening Paradise.
3.2k
ask anyone i know:
i have a tendency to forget things.
i forgot moose's middle name
my password
what day i have to go to the dentist
what i did yesterday
if i ate this morning
what year i stopped talking to ryan
the words to my favorite moldy peaches song
the name of a childhood friend
the book that i was supposed to return
the movie i was supposed to bring
the cookies i was supposed to bake
the smile i was supposed to smile
the words i was supposed to say
but this is only lately.
i used to remember everything
i thought my tactic of not thinking about the bad things
made the bad things not real
but it only makes me
forgetful
Jan 28, 2014
Jan 28, 2014 at 11:59 PM UTC
Let me be someone
to her, to him, to me
Let me mean something
to someone, to anyone
Take me somewhere
where I can find myself
I've lost who I am
without really knowing who that was
Probably because I left
I walked away from everything
I walked away from the people who hurt me
I was afraid they'd see me
so I built a wall
A wall even I couldn't break
Now, I no longer know the person behind it
The wall made me forgetful and cold
I've been to places I don't remember
I've created memories I won't cherish
I've looked in the mirror and saw someone else
Mar 10, 2019
Mar 10, 2019 at 4:54 AM UTC
The
Decider-in-Chief
made
another
hard
decision,
rebebilitatin
a debilitating
Gaddafi.
The
Agog
Decider
sleekly
peeked
into the
bleak
soul
of the
master
Bedouin.
The
Pious
Decider
peered
pretty
deeply,
so its
hard to tell
what his
arcane
rebelations
revealed.
Some say
The
Jaundiced
Decider,
saw the
desert
bleeding
deliciously
malicious
sweet crude
onto the
scabby
tongues
of
Halliburton
Executives
while
Big Time
Vice
Dickey Boy
******
a petrol
nozzle
dry,
licking
the dripped
drops
that
drizzled
from the
shoot
hole,
so as
not to waste
a precious drop
to satiate
the black
viscous
goo
coursing
through
the ebony
veins of his
chingling
heart.
Others
say
The
Condoning
Decider
sized up
the man
and saw
a brother-in-arms
in the fight
against
The Evil Doers;
yet failed to
see the
revolting
obscenities
his new
comrade-in-arms
inflicted
upon his
own body
politic.
The
Forgetful
Decider,
blessed
with amnesia
forgot
Lockerbie and
applauded
BP's royal
court of
justice
for
pardoning
all perps.
The
Oblivious
Decider's
near
sightedness
failed to
foresee
a brewing
blow-back
amassing
in the
desert
winging
its way
home
on the
blasting
sands of
a blistering
Saharan
sirocco.
The
Pollyannish
Decider
envisioned
grand
spectacles,
only happy
visions of
Beyonce,
JZ, Usher
and the
Def Jam
Buddha
Russell
Simmons
yodeling
filthy
lucre
tunes,
sending
giggling
tweets
while
partying
down
with
Muammar's
posse
of martinets
and
way cool
far out
crazy
execs
drunk
with the
power
that blinds
the eye to
all discernment.
The Decider
decides.
Music Selection:
Lady Ga Ga
Beyonce,
Telephone
Oakland
3/3/11
jbm
Apr 12, 2013
Apr 12, 2013 at 8:11 PM UTC
For Henrietta Swan Leavitt—
Henrietta
dark-eyed darling of the night sky--
A Swan
who sails
the heavens
deaf with lights
that pulse across your mind
In photographic plates
that number
many thousands
You see the differences in light
You swim the curves that grace the arch of heaven
between the cloud and pinwheel galaxies
You measure
their exquisite wakes of distance--
Become the glittering timepiece of the farthest stars--
Bestowed forever in your hands
the clock and keys of all existence
You know the bends of ages
You heard the voices of the light
of the angels
and of man
I hope you've found true happiness
gathered to your love
forgetful of the pond of space and time
and all that hopeless pain and counting
of perfection
and of loneliness
to which you were assigned
that in your hands unravel all....
The secrets of the universe
white and gray in motion...
brilliant beyond all measure
by which you were forgotten
and unvalued by design
Eulogized only--
as loving God
and as being kind
___
*copyright Liz Balise 2019, Use only by permission.
Her colleague Solon I. Bailey wrote in her obituary that "she had the happy faculty of appreciating all that was worthy and lovable in others, and was possessed of a nature so full of sunshine that, to her, all of life became beautiful and full of meaning.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Swan_Leavitt
Jan 6, 2019
Jan 6, 2019 at 6:57 PM UTC
Step one:
Admit that you have a problem.
Hi, I'm so and so,
and I am anorexic.
Wait, am I supposed
to state one problem
or all of them?
Let me start over.
Hi, I'm so and so,
and I am anorexic.
I am a self harming,
drug abusing, attention
seeking, anorexic with
a penchant for seeking
out love in all the wrong places.
I'm an occasional smoker,
a complete *****
and a highly trained klepto.
I'm also a procrastinator,
does that count?
I'm self-consumed, suicidal,
and sometimes I let water boil over on the stove without cleaning up the mess.
I blame things on other people as often as possible, and never tell the
cashier when they've given me too much change back.
I know that's not all,
but it's awfully hard to remember everything
that's wrong with me right now.
Oh yeah, I'm forgetful. And terrible under pressure.
And at public speaking. I lie...a lot, and actually,
I made some of these problems up.
So I came here to get help.
By the way, when exactly does that start?
Mar 15, 2013
Mar 15, 2013 at 2:18 AM UTC