"gratuitous" poems
A populace filled with totalitarian tranquility
The supposition that the world is in a harmonic homeostasis
Blissful ignorance that leads to careless calamity
Amid the uproar of the most populated of places
Therein lies the seed of humanity’s deceptive destruction
A solitary host housing a virulent virus
Infectious disease that proceeds crisis and corruption
Hope only stands with the powerful and pious
Prognosis describes communicable cannibalism
Rabid outbursts show signs of voracious violence
The harrowing pandemic leads to ceaseless cataclysm
Cities and towns suspended in systemic silence
Habitations riddled with gratuitous gore
Hope fades in the wake of the crimson carnage
The pestilent hoard feeds to a glutton’s galore
The Author of humanity publishes the final page
The closing verse rains down a rapturous recompense
The high cost of a dense population paid at humanity’s existential expense
Oct 31, 2018
Oct 31, 2018 at 11:06 PM UTC
how strange; you leave me
hanging on to your words
like parachutes, a smile
dancing across my gratuitous
face; appalachian eyes
the color of melancholy
and mouth of a sailor.
you said, I never thought
that I would miss you
quite this much.
...and my very heart
swooned at the idea of
you, so very far away,
so close to me.
come home to me,
darling, I want to tell you
how much I've missed you.
Oct 27, 2012
Oct 27, 2012 at 11:52 PM UTC
The glitter of strobe
gratuitous gaiety
platitudes
and sanctimonious guile
******* cocktails
on the menu
an ingratiating mask
a gratified grin
Contorted vocal chords
lots of laughter
no time for irony
look at me.
Oct 3, 2014
Oct 3, 2014 at 8:02 AM UTC
I wish to peer at Paris, under-dressed and ***** in all of its neoclassical splendor.
For that, there are things I would give up.
I wish to see a prehistoric forest, verdant, overgrown and jumbled.
Before evergreen mysteries I would be ever humbled.
For that, there are things I would give up.
I wish to see Rhodian gardens and from them, smell the flowering fig and taste succulent honey suckle.
I wish to glimpse zaftig temptresses dancing twenty thick amidst courtyards of ancient Persian palaces.
For that, there are things I would give up.
I wish to be blessed into an inenarrable life on an unalike mysterious planet.
I wish for an Atlas resembling and proportionate soul.
For that, there are things I would give up.
I've demanded an even temperament from my unruly emotions.
I've settled for continuous disbelief at the loquacious ignobleness of humanity.
For change, there are things I would give up.
I've sequestered my innocent dreams and bloomed monetary means.
I've avoided death narrowly, my fingers gripping, fear will always transfix, while barreling down 36'.
I've inhaled profits and installed transformation.
For change, there are things I would give up.
I've burned my midnight oil, taken offensive slander, and burned bridges with gratuitous candor.
I've witnessed coal falsify a beautiful gloaming sky.
I've had gasoline dreams filled and fuming with intensity, all drowning under an ocean of oil.
I've envisioned bleached beaches to hide stained soil.
These are moments I would give up.
There are things I've realized outside my reality, outside my internal soliloquy and physical tactility.
I've come to understand my words are nothing more than symbols on a closed door.
Jul 26, 2010
Jul 26, 2010 at 11:54 PM UTC
Look at that ***
Just one more look
Before you walk away.
I thank God
That we have women
With blue faded skin tight jeans
When I’ve been breaking my back
Working like a dog
When blood sweat and tears
And violence are so gratuitous
With people sinning gratuitously
Don’t we deserve to sin a little?
To indulge in a little flesh?
When there’s drugs and violence
On the streets, people dying everyday
And not even making the news
We could do with a few more
Blue faded skin-tight jean cowgirls here today
A few more cowboys showing how the West was won
A few more days of reckoning
And a lot more hell-to-pay.
People have little respect for others today
There’s nothing to threaten them, and nothing to fear.
It’s good to see the bad guys finally on the run
We could do with a few more blue-faded skin-tight jean cowgirls
Here today.
May 31, 2012
May 31, 2012 at 9:52 AM UTC
**** me like an alpha,
**** me out of sight,
take me from this wonder,
this blindness in the night.
Anger me in morning
with the refusal of ugly ***
sleep still on our tongues,
whiskey on my breath.
Treat me to your body
when I am true and I am good,
dance me through your questions
until you are finally understood.
I can hear your longing
though I cannot hear your voice,
you know that I choose you,
though, I never really had a choice.
Tease me with your movie scenes,
your folded, anxious legs,
a calf born into the slaughterhouse,
the conveyor-belt, the hatchling, the egg.
I was doomed to your misfit puzzle,
I was sentenced to decay,
skin seared by your magnificence,
by your gratuitous delay.
Delay from a fulfilment,
a delay from inner peace,
the incremental recovery
whilst dreaming of the sea.
Now I'm drowning in the wishing well,
in the steady clamour of home;
the pill-box in the aquifer,
the faded reference to Rome.
I can memorise your breathing
hair fawning over your chest,
there are countless decent lovers,
but you know that I loved you the best.
So **** me like an alpha,
**** me out of sight,
I am tired of words and meaning,
those blind entries
into the night.
Apr 14, 2015
Apr 14, 2015 at 11:11 AM UTC
So, how have you been?
I know it's been awhile.
I couldn't bare to watch this creature feature -
The selling out for style.
What good is luminescence
If there is nothing to be seen?
I choose to light my words
With colors-
Blues, and reds, and greens
And shower it with glistening golden streams.
So, pardon me as I purge my disappointment.
Where does integrity go
When the walls are burning down?
The lanes are blocked with gratuitous frivolity as meaningless as the strands of fiber drifting in a beam of sunlight-
Particles of bodies that settle on the coffee table only to be wiped away by a tattered cloth.
I cry out for the setting of the sun,
That glowing orb which destroys the mysteries,
And robs the seeker of discovery.
I ask,
Are the shadows being driven into the crevices never to be seen again?
There would be no depth perception without them.
A phantom weight is here,
Then just as suddenly as it came,
has gone.
The color is washed away in all the brightness.
What is left is white,
and not much else to write,
But of the sadness of the ways
it takes the texture from the days.
Jul 10, 2015
Jul 10, 2015 at 5:27 PM UTC
It is time to call it quits.
It is time for you to go back to the West.
Throw in the towel on the Black Sea.
You, too.
The time has come.
Come together and act as a team.
I am not talking about religion here.
My voice contains a human element.
This is a gratuitous insult.
You and your nations are powerful, but you are helpless.
You have no authority over your belongings or yourself.
It is something I keep saying.
That is all there is to it.
Otherwise, everything is possible.
I swear by Allah, the Creator of All.
I swear by Allah, the Almighty.
One day, Gaza will feed you calabaza.
Oct 22, 2023
Oct 22, 2023 at 2:13 PM UTC
Seeing such said-to-be veracity
made spurious by truer voracity
left me in a downward maudlin spiral
caught in the gravity of pejorative thoughts.
(They were right about you)
Shown to be mendacious and meretricious
with such audacious and ignominious cupidity
that is, apparently, insatiable
by external stimulation.
These words are for thee.
(They were right about you)
A
Mistress of Verisimilitude
Sorceress of Perdition
Goddess of Rapacity
Nugatory Luddite
Fatuous Epigone
Specious and unctuous Girl
of gratuitous turpitude
These puerile and rather flavorful words
fueled by seemingly insuperable motifs
arranged in a terse, inimical verse
for a rather insipid person
who will likely never even know of them,
and yet;
such sweet felicity.
Nov 4, 2013
Nov 4, 2013 at 2:04 PM UTC
For we vile and unquenchable creatures
scavenge the twisted fate of imagination;
take pleasure not only in the creation
but in the movement, harmony,
and persuasion a verse evokes.
Enthralled and misted by
Ambiguity,
Intangibility,
and a verdict -
a sole desire to reach
what the mind wails,
a conclusion.
Beware,
for elegantly,
a writer scribes
or utters nonsense
for a mere, distant
consultation
yielded by the
faithful art.
Ordinarily,
we create while
lacking meaning,
gratuitous spirits,
echoing
a whimpering quail,
yet, we are bewildered
by profound imagery
and indescribable joy.
Doubt arises
in regards of
each word's validity,
bringing upon
interrogation,
scouting the way
for infinitive
journeys
yet to be written.
Feb 4, 2014
Feb 4, 2014 at 12:27 AM UTC
Just what do we know about
Ward Churchill?
That radical agitator,
That Colorado college professor
Most famous for calling
Twin Tower 9/11 dead technocrats
Little Eichmanns.
Noteworthy is the fact that
The United States Supreme Court
Denied certiorari,
Passed on hearing his claim of
Unlawful discharge.
Unlawful discharge?
Sounds felonious and vile:
Like pus laced with *****
A criminal secretion, like mucus
Smuggled past Customs:
Vaginal contraband.
Sorry, Ward.
We just don’t give a ****
Your fake Indian pedigree,
Your bogus Vietnam fairytales,
Your phony combat record,
Your forward ops recon
Way out in ******* Cambodia,
Fall flat like Buffalo turds.
You’ve been slick, Ward.
Hired originally to fill
Some gratuitous affirmative action quota,
Denied tenure in two legitimate departments,
You create some ******** academic discipline
For campus freaks & geeks.
Self-appointed Department Chairman,
A fraudulent college professor from the start,
Once tenured, a courageous warrior for free speech.
Describing Native American history as genocide.
Summing up American history as Holocaust denial.
Professor Churchill was all of these things,
And less.
But using the Holocaust metaphor
To anchor one’s fakakta politics?
That was the proverbial last straw,
The camel buster, if you will.
Especially since most of the
Stockbrokers & market analysts
Crushed in the rubble were Jewish.
Hava Nagila, Babaloo!
Sep 9, 2014
Sep 9, 2014 at 9:45 PM UTC
what is this love
for I have beheld it
cast in metamorphosis
a love that makes
transformations on the mind
permissible transformations
improvisations of the self
in ****** intensity
which emphasises the drama
of sometimes, dark, violent
and repressive potentials
vicious energies of hate and ambition
that propel the enactment
of intense and exhausting experience
of vigorous vertiginous chaos
indomitable in its desires
what is this love
is it a registered predicament
made memorable by vivid language
that would butcher in ritual
gratuitous memories and testify
to an urgency of unwisely relinquished emotion
what is this love
does it flourish in flawed
and unreasonable understandings
accumulated upon the mind
in vicarious thrill of sympathy
where traits are highly exaggerated
and eagerly anticipates
the oppressive weight of the past
that functions upon a common collapse
of distinctions
or does it manufacture artificial precepts
pretending in attractive collaboration
to associate fiction rather than fact
what is this love
is it that by treaty or inheritance
with loving ferocity would embalm all tears
and hide all those collaborations
in flared conflagrations of the heart
and yes create a turmoil in the mind
hotter than a thousand summers
and vividly stamp upon a twisted body
a moral viciousness of fathomless malice
that wouldst close its ears
to the admonitions of conscious
and thus through an improbable
incantatory verbal rite
touch the hidden order of all things
in disassembling nature
what is this love
if only it was known
Aug 17, 2013
Aug 17, 2013 at 5:26 PM UTC
You can only spend so many hours in labs, study groups and classrooms - under relentless, fluorescent lighting - before you start feeling life withdrawal.
When I hit that stresshold, I need to rebalance myself.
I could go to the New Haven harbor - I find the ocean endlessly relaxing - or for a quick fix, I can always rely on the warmth of multicolored product packaging.
For the last one, a grocery store will do. I’ll walk the bright, prismatic cereal aisle, and run my finger gently along the gratuitous, rainbowed variety of selections.
It’s a soothing gesture that I repeat several times. A reminder that there are still beautiful, shiny things out there, on demand, in the uncomplicated, non-academic world.
Feb 26, 2024
Feb 26, 2024 at 11:22 AM UTC
On yonder strand
In bridled land
A motley band
With vigor fanned
Across hill, lowland
With self righteous brand
Seeking brigand contraband
From each licentious hand
To forthrightly remand
Every highway spanned
Tolls, tribute to demand
Each pilfering cleric did reprimand
Then every bloated collection was panned
Every royal vestige scanned
Gratuitous coffers to expand
Aug 6, 2012
Aug 6, 2012 at 11:46 AM UTC
I'm thankful for this rain to provide inspiration
I'm thankful for the clouds pointing to my destination
I'm thankful for family even though we get on each other's nerves
I'm thankful for language so I can put together this verse
I'm thankful for gratuitous consumerism because With it our economy thrives
I'm thankful that I'm under covers and warm when so many have to sleep outside.
But most of all I'm thankful for my poetic family
Seriously you guys are awesome and mean a lot to me
Nov 27, 2015
Nov 27, 2015 at 2:57 AM UTC
This Morning:
A Indigo cloud sank. Washing away my murky memories of yesterday
-Thank you Mister Indigo Cloud
A radiant sun followed. Illuminating this mornings mellow forlay
-Much obliged Mister Sunshine
Nostalgic tunes oozed from my stereo. Reciting only the most recitable fanfare
-Appreciate the timing Mister Music
Then to amplify the presence of my gratuitous present.
My grinder presents me with the wondrous odor of the high life
- You shouldn't have Mary-Jane
They say your attitude determines your latitude.
But your gratitude will determine your current attitude.
The troubles of this life are but temporary.
To receive happiness remember
There is much to be grateful for.
Believe. That it will be given from your heart to mind
Jan 31, 2014
Jan 31, 2014 at 11:04 AM UTC
And with hot branding, I name the end, it is unknown Obadiah, it is uncompromising Demosthenes, it is ambuscaded Agamemnon,
it is crafty Cain, it is able to pull lightning down from clouds to electrify a world beset upon by forces of great magnitude, vibrations ricochet off of each other, quaking knee's knock as earthquakes rock tectonic plates.
In this final hour what was once to edify is now to petrify and once let free the fire is an esurient monster after being kept so long locked behind the now yawning earthen gates, witness even the most pluvial flourishing plain blister and boil, witness unyieldingly the flesh bubbling in flux as if from extreme cell proliferation, another soul abdicates its husk.
Mayhap this life will lead to another, as If there will be a choice project an air-less voice on the matter, will this If, insist on this If,
hold your breath in front of polyonymous Death, let without a moan a trembling icy finger trace lips of now great pallor and make the word-less decision known, no more cyclical reaping of our worn souls says humanity and beg on the now naked ruth for our sanity.
Sep 17, 2010
Sep 17, 2010 at 8:46 AM UTC
Air fills with sharp shrills of jays,
the sounds
gratuitous warning
for feet adapted
to ground-
better directed
at a stray cat
that will dare limbs
in hope of his prize
dreamer's ears once heard
melodies of Verdi arias
through leaves,
their sweetness seeping
as from blue overhead
and imagination lured
to seek beauty in them
learning from too often falling,
wishes earning scars
that made skin numb and hard,
morning's music found muffled
by deaf cowardice,
its promise of safety
worn on gray,
dusty shoes
Sep 12, 2010
Sep 12, 2010 at 12:13 PM UTC
Emptied bottles abandoned in a makeshift nest of expended needles
Wallpaper tearing, personified with mind-existent faces
Faces crying out, druggies are feeble
Thought *** was not dangerous, buds tweaked with laces.
Brave men and women all matching in green
Prepared for war, physically ready to fight
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, you'll never know what they've seen
Comrades dying, fearful crying, killing humans alike.
Forced to mature, parents not even related
A false family filling an insatiable pit of sadness
Baa baa, black sheep. Wool tainted.
Fake relatives, real emotion and belief. God Bless.
Destiny is cruel, less than two dollars of payment
Food scarce, enforcers feirce, assembly line continuous
Fingers bleeding and bruised? Keep working. Mentally spent.
Whips on the back, the pain gratuitous.
Nice family, good car, great job, years ago
Remnants of the past, rewinding in the form of dreams
Begging for money, mainly ignored, not seen as human anymore
Sleeping on park benches, tears releasing in streams.
Two to five things go wrong and you feel the need to complain?
Yeah. Life must be tough.
Your romantic interest leaves you and you feel insane?
Problems childish when compared to others, don't you think it's enough?
Apr 30, 2015
Apr 30, 2015 at 12:14 AM UTC
Sun burns eternal
Wonders of the inner-most layered explosions
Gasses and core
Shine brightly without corners
Energy always blazing towards
O, shimmering, single, gratuitous one
Morning moisture is vaporized
Living things stir and wake
Shaken free of cold joints and harsh pillows
Crow Welcome to the Provider
Rising warmth opens green but too much
Parches and crackles and ignites
Fifteen minutes a day on bare arms
Vitamin D created
Heads lift like shoots from quiet, cool brown
Green and new, sweat lining
Old faces like vintage purses containing quiet wisdom
Don't forget the sunscreen.
May 31, 2011
May 31, 2011 at 11:25 PM UTC
The soil is sodden and sated with the blood of your youth
Our children are scarred, robbed of life, love and innocence.
Our women are beaten into submission, into silence... hopelessness.
The aged and the vulnerable have to live behind a metal veil.
Gratuitous violence walks beside us
The school, once the womb of the community, where the child was nurtured, suckling at the breast of knowledge
Sadly the womb is disrespected!
The school is violated and learning is disrupted.
There is a constant atmosphere of ****
Yes, sadly **** is stalking me and every woman and child.
Crime inhibits our freedom.... it rains down on our democracy.
Oppression is alive and well and it has a new face.
Apr 10, 2015
Apr 10, 2015 at 9:56 AM UTC
"Sometimes I wonder if anything is actually real at all... or if it's just me"
" I mean... I doubt anything is real, and even if it is... I don't think any of it has any purpose."
"Ya? Like its all in our imagination... just a big ****** joke."
" Even if it...the world - reality; does exist; in a physical, permanent, sense, It's still all a matter of perspective on why it - or what it - (it being reality) is to you. It changes from person to person, and if you don't like it: you can change it. Which makes it seem even more like... it isn't real..."
"I just wish there was a purpose... I wish I could find a reason for my life."
"No one ever will, I don't think it's possible. The wish for reason, for a light at the end of the tunnel, is the ultimate weakness of man... but it's also the ultimate strength: it's all gratuitous - it's progress - sadness. The search for purpose is a lesson in futility... taught by hope."
" I think... I think I'm just... just tired"
"It is late"
"No, no not like that, not like physically, like of the way things are going, I'm just ******* tired of life."
"I am too... I think everyone is on some level. At least till you reach denial... or acceptance... or the ability to be oblivious - Life is a week of insomnia in an eternity of dreamless sleep - In the end none if it matters. I think if there is a purpose me and you will never be able to find it, we're only humans: we get tired, we get confused, scared, we misinterpret signs, we're filled with error. If we did find a purpose it'd be filtered through our perception, applicable to no one el-"
"You just passed the only store."
"... Sorry... I was too busy paying attention to you."
"Its ok, I didn't need it anyways. It was just an impulse thing."
"Impulses should be acted on though. You don't have much time for procrastinating, and you have to do it now because you never know when your numbers punched."
"...True..."
I pull up slow to the front of your house
we say goodbye
and god do I want to reach out and grab you
want to hold you - and not let go
lie
and tell you I know the reason
a reason
any reason.
Its an urge that spreads energy through my limbs from a pit in the bottom of my stomach
like it's going to shake me or tear me apart.
I want to kiss you,
but I just drive away slow
and contemplate how utterly useless everything really is.
May 2, 2013
May 2, 2013 at 3:01 AM UTC
Catapult cherry bomb metaphors
Like pestilent adolescent authenticity
No sharper then dull is the witless then before
Yet we ignore constant facts that lack congruency
Purely a jest to elements of a vicious nature shown
A lead lined carpet with no broom large enough
Hiding only chucks of self that fade to dust
Pyrex houses have shorter lives when granite flies
Dec 24, 2013
Dec 24, 2013 at 11:30 PM UTC
Their humble characteristics are recognizable,
with a lifestyle lacking excess and opulence;
familiar with the idea of “sowing and reaping”,
they know their actions always have consequence.
Apostles of Christ examine ways of Kingdom building,
and are not tied to one specific church location,
for their daily needs are not hierarchically-based.
They avoid wants of gratuitous, personal recognition.
Operating with a pure heart, free of lust for things,
they live a simple life, without concealed agendas;
speaking The Word intelligibly, over all situations,
they promote the Kingdom without unholy propaganda.
They understand the functionality of wealth and money,
but are not motivated by King Midas’ golden greed.
Instead they lay down their lives for the Gospel,
with a servant’s heart, that’s reflective of His seed
which was been planted deep within their inner soul.
Not concerned with their reputations, they serve those
wanting to mature and grow into their identity in Christ,
while overcoming the ongoing pangs of spiritual throes.
The Apostles of Christ demonstrate a divine influence,
pushing the members of The Body in finding real purpose.
They also teach others how to develop an intimate walk
with God, in a relationship that goes beyond the surface.
Since their spiritual and psychological needs are met,
Apostles of Christ can endure periods of great hardship.
Their souls remain satisfied with God’s holy Presence
and they joyfully train The Body in areas of discipleship.
.
.
.
Author Notes:
Loosely based on:
2 Cor 2:17, 10:10-14, 11:17-12:8; 1 Pet 5:2; 1 Tim 5:17;
1 Cor 4:9, 9:14; Mark 10:42-45; John 10; Rom 15:20;
Rev 12:11; Acts 9, 20:24; Gal 2:19-20; Phil 3:8-14
Learn more about me and my poetry at:
http://amzn.to/1ffo9YZ
By Joseph J. Breunig 3rd, © 2014, All rights reserved.
Aug 7, 2014
Aug 7, 2014 at 4:10 PM UTC