"impersonal" poems
His blue eyes are like glacial-lakes, wrapping around his heart till he's chilled to the bone from the cold.
A deadly place where treading is no longer permitted.
His eyes are transparent and distant as the impersonal clouds passing overhead.
Even as I stands before him, reflecting off him.
I am still merely a reflection.
He knows my face, I reason silently.
From the hills of my cheeks, down towards the valley separating my lips.
He should recognize it all.
Instead a blank expression greets me.
A look of cold, solid insouciance.
I'm immediately angry with myself for wanting to justify his indifference's.
A reflex I've never been able to expel.
The vestigial limb on a skeleton.
A party favor from another time forgotten for the newly discovered toy.
I twist in the fridged winds wrapping around him.
My force giving under the great pressure magnified by his powers.
I never wanted to dance upon his breeze.
This realization makes me burn hotter.
My anger brighter than the northern star.
I welcome it, my amounting rage.
I embraces it with a raging smile.
His glaciers may be cold, immovable at times.
A pretentious notion I might freeze.
For I am the sun swirling in nova's ring and cannot be affected by his black iced personality.
Oct 17, 2014
Oct 17, 2014 at 11:38 AM UTC
Delayed response to ground control, oh how I was crying.
In retrospect, I was just shallow; like an astronaut only watching
himself as the rest of the world kept steadily spinning.
Impersonal up here, never caring about winning or losing.
The star charts that mentors showed lost to what my mind followed,
A winding path through this sacred space which I unhallowed.
I didn't flinch at blastoff; it wasn't bravery, it was me being a coward.
Sweating in a far away bed, steel round walls with no decoration,
Straining my mind fighting the moments of suffocation.
Spots in my vision, distortion and discoloration.
Seeing stars I glimpsed my comet on exhibition.
I would have to come back around. It was just a matter of my rotation.
Retrospect from ages back and to beyond where we will have gone.
Black holes made that can never be filled, endless they came, endless they will come. To touch down in glory, or stay on the run. Life is just a rocket that departs from the sun. The rest isn't lost, it just hasn't been done.
So as we eventually drift into deep space and age becomes our dawn, remember to look out the window and wave to the passerby's.
They will cheer you on.
Jan 6, 2016
Jan 6, 2016 at 1:17 AM UTC
Time is measured
By machines, stars,
Dials, seasons
And all sorts
Of unconscious,
Impersonal equations.
When we measure
Time by the comings and goings
Of people,
Then it becomes personal.
Apr 22, 2015
Apr 22, 2015 at 9:15 AM UTC
was uttered in a
computer generated,
non-demeaning,
gender neutral tone
by the impersonal,
unemotional,
automated,
grocery checkout machine.
"Enter your customer ID now!"
demands the artificial human.
"And... if I don't?"
I query the metallic shell
of what once was
a minimum wage employee.
There was no reply.
Sep 17, 2018
Sep 17, 2018 at 10:42 AM UTC
Violin sonatas of gloom
Acoustics of desire
Play all at once
A peculiar compilation
An elegy of sorts
For yours truly
Welcome to life
Soak up the unrealised potential
Inflamed with rage
To this day
You walk this earth
With a strong conviction
You owe yourself something
You cannot deliver
Extreme self-expectations
Coupled with perfectionism
The fatal modus operandi
You continue adhering to
Goodluck with standing in the way
Of your own happiness
Thrive in your concentrated negativity
While seeking solace in one-liners
Of absolute ********
You maybe a joke
But you are hilarious
Oh, wait.. the joke wore thin
A dozen punchlines ago
You died 12 summers ago
It’s whatever
One day bitter and wilted
As you sit in a cold impersonal office
You will dream about the ocean
And mourn wasted youth
Today will be yesterday
Today is ruined
Tomorrow is dead.
Jan 18, 2014
Jan 18, 2014 at 5:35 PM UTC
LOVE? Connotative of so many different things, one conjures up vastly intricate definitions of the word. To what extent their truth reaches is indicative of their author’s own relationships, childhood, future and past. To be asked what love truly is, is to allow another to peer inside of your soul, to reach the depth and breadth of your entity and to relinquish your fears and dreams to them, simultaneously. Asked today for my opinion, I deferred my response, realizing I myself hadn’t considered a solid definition. Seemingly such a simple concept; really a foundational core, underpinning our self worth, self adoration and self identity.
Love is unique, to everyone. It can be explained through the use of analogies. Stereotypes. In some ways, our ‘idealistic love’ is a window for our selfish, impeded selves to climb out of. We expect our lover to propel us into some sort of surreal, unchallenged fairy-tale romance, irregardless of the modern day reality we’re living out. We expect worlds to stop, planets to align and stars to shower upon us in some picturesque dream come true. However, referring to love in stereotypes can be impersonal and superficial. I find love can be best defined by a persons own experiences, dreams, fears and desires.
A lover can help realize and form these definitions.
To me, love is resting my head between the curve of his shoulder and my sheets. Love is watching a summer storm roll in together, dry and safe. Love is observation; of passion, of fear and of delight. Love is acceptance. There’s nothing more beautiful than knowing and being known. Nothing more beautiful than opening yourself up to someone, being with them in complete serenity, complete coexistence and honesty.
Rolling over and looking into their eyes, and silently whispering, “I love you.”
That to me is love.
- c.m
Aug 13, 2013
Aug 13, 2013 at 12:52 PM UTC
Even though your funeral was in the summer,
It felt like autumn the way the tears
Hung off Aunt Shelley's jawbone like cold raindrops
On the eaves of the old porch,
The way Grandpa's eyes were too red and wet and
A thousand years away,
The way Dad's sorrow poured out of folded arms and tight lips,
Soft like worn leather,
The way it rained too lightly to add any cliché dreariness.
I just couldn't think of that red granite box as you, even though I
Knew
It was the soft gray remains of your body.
Death is not like winter, cold and harsh
Death is autumn, life draining from bodies,
Life drip-dripping from stuttering lips and
Once-strong grips
Death is watching summers of laughter and hugs fade to
Hospital rooms and rain-grey skin and
Slow sad songs like wind in red-brown, dead-brown leaves
And feeling a slow, quiet loneliness invade your veins.
Your death was not cold, impersonal sterile white; it was the
Aching melancholy melody of removing
One shade of green
From a palette, not noticed in the painting at large
But felt keenly in the way the artist's hand no longer
Cues that brushstroke.
Watching you die was watching all the green leach out of the leaves
And turn them briefly, painfully on fire,
Standing in a field of emerald grass and feeling it
Crinkle and turn yellow-orchre under cold fingers
Collapsing into mud.
Watching Death from the outside is the single
Most painful part of your painless process.
When you took your last breath, your features were a
Picture-perfect memory of peace, even as my face was a
Mask of confusion, my chest heaving with stale hospital air
The way yours would never again.
I wanted to run outside and imagine all the trees turning red-gold
In your honor, mimicking your final
Blaze of glory in that last smile.
Autumn came early that year, though no trees
Turned
Til October.
Even in the middle of spring I can smell the
Rain-woods-wind-wine scent of your autumn soul
And it makes me smile.
Sep 23, 2014
Sep 23, 2014 at 9:13 PM UTC
At least three times a week
Thumps, bangs, a loud crash,
Doors slamming, metallic echoes,
Bumps, thuds, sharp edges, smash
I hear shouting, muffled, no words,
His voice booms and beats against the walls.
Hushed stillness after, as i wait to hear him slam out
Clattering feet on the stair to the street
Airless, exhausted relief as they fade.
Everything echoes in empty impersonal corridors
Magnolia walls, polished floors, plain blank doors.
The room behind one containing locked fear and silence.
I sense it there
Hear it breath through the walls
It enters my room, far more than the noise
A pounding, held in fear
So loud that it keeps me awake
As I listen, long after.
Next morning, so aware of silence,
When I hear a sound near my door
I jump, as alert as a hunted animal.
I hear her heart clench
So linked to this stranger by sounds
Though I have never imagined her face
Jun 1, 2014
Jun 1, 2014 at 7:37 AM UTC
Making all the small mistakes,
we move on, from one gig to another,
with our head up-high,
and our ear glued to the railroad track.
We walk backwards, surrounded by defective traffic signals
and multi-toned car horns – an impersonal Trojan toy horse,
with too much space inside our frameless carcass
to be filled by an empty soul.
Feb 19, 2016
Feb 19, 2016 at 9:52 AM UTC
I called you
in search of a lightbulb.
After three months
of no contact,
and my feelings
remaining unchanged,
I expected the worst.
But, it actually was
for the best.
You never called me back.
No, instead you emailed me:
a cold, impersonal note
giving me only the required
information,
giving me only a hint
of what was.
Not particularly romantic
but quite realistic.
You’ve moved on.
Maybe I should, too.
Feb 20, 2012
Feb 20, 2012 at 12:05 AM UTC
My space
Filled with all I should ever need. A bed, blankets; clothes and shoes everywhere, a window to see the world outside. For Gods sake I even have my own bathroom!
But I don't have you.
My gadgets
Smartphone, computers, TV, Blue Ray, cable, gaming system, ..... Got plenty of gadgets. Mechanical, impersonal, cold. Jeeze, I spend a lot of time with them.
But I don't have you.
My time
I'm free to do most anything I want. No job, yet I have money. No car, yet I can still get around. Responsibilities few. Why am I wasting so much time? Oh the potential!
But I don't have you
My friends
One good friend. We can talk, listen, understand, support, trust one another. Others are around, not close though. Not the same. What do I do for them? Sadly, not much really.
But I don't have you
My family
I've got parents. They support me, annoy me. They care and love me. Pets too. All around. It's..... good. Am I grateful?
I have all of this around me, and more
But I don't have you
Mar 15, 2013
Mar 15, 2013 at 2:21 AM UTC
We think we're so different.
because we have piercings
or an iphone/blackberry
wear jeans not skirts, skirts not jeans
only shop at local markets, only buy the brands
eat organic
or vegan
or total junk
wash our hair with what's cheap
or environmentally friendly
or not at all
because we listen to folk, not rap
ska, not rock
talk a certain way
or partake in certain hobbies
have skin, instead of fur or bark
see more colourfully, but have **** nightvision
because we have warm blood
because we are human.
We think that this is individuality, but it's really all a lie.
A lie to keep us docile and passive..
To keep us buying **** we don't need,
but making us believe
that we do
Guarding us from that destructive unpredictable mother
of ours
until we don't even think of ourselves as animals anymore.
Until we think we're Kings.
To be you, you just have to be you.
Scratch that.
You just have to be
Because what is "you" anyway?
A pronoun
to keep you
away from me
and we
and us
together.
To force you into the lie of language,
because we all know that what truly speaks is our hearts
but we would never admit it
because then we would be too emotional
too sensitive
not cold or impersonal enough
to fit in.
And that's all we really want, right?
To belong?
Well, I'll tell you something:
there is a way to fit
to belong
to live.
And that is to not fit.
Don't define yourself by these labels
or this music
or that boyfriend.
Define yourself through your ideas
your ambitions
your immaterial desires.
Take out the you and become a we,
and we will be,
just be,
together.
Nov 27, 2012
Nov 27, 2012 at 10:45 PM UTC
“I have something for you to remember me by,” said Tim.
He held a little foam Hippo – the lone play animal supplied by the loonybin to patients in need.
It was brand new – just as every Hippo looked – and I wondered why he’d chosen something seemingly impersonal in comparison to his other, odd gifts.
However, what he did next made his hippo – my hippo – absolutely ideal. To people like Tim and I, that is.
For, to my astonishment, he casually took the toy in his hands, twisted, and ripped it cleanly in two.
He ripped off its head, which he gave to me, whilst he kept the body.
I will never get rid of that mutilated, foam hippo head. For he understood what no one else had ever come near.
In this way – perhaps – Tim and I became synonyms. Synonyms for what ignorant perceptions would later christen ****** or merely, crazy (the latter - coined by those who remain too depressingly colloquial to invent unfounded diagnoses).
These epithets, catalyzed post personifying such societal taboos as Tim or I committed, follow me still, and have yet to disperse.
A criticaster disaster, personified.
Yes; in this way – Tim and I became synonymously insane.
•
Feb 18, 2016
Feb 18, 2016 at 7:22 AM UTC
I watched through tears
--That streamed like the one out back
And the scattered clouds
--The ones that floated overhead for years
A twilit ridge inurn the sun.
It was one of those rising hills of my youth,
One my infant eyes always thought
Gave birth to the moon
Time and again.
With its innocent face smiling
That worldly crispness is lost
And the foggy past is far more defined.
Who are these forms I've lost?
They are but phantoms,
(I tell myself)
And now intangible, those memories
Acidic and dusted with sugar
Held suspended and taunting, like
Feet at the mouth of an open casket.
The cold, bitter knives of impersonal
Reunion
And rejuvenated promises
--Only now remembered, only now forgotten—
Illuminated once again
In the dark.
Passing onward and through
--Like our time together—
Exactly like wind through these **** dead branches
And this grave: winter-bare.
I remember the vivacity
How enlivened the sky, that I
Each day for granted took
And how so much smaller, in my youth,
The mountains afar looked.
But there is no home,
It died when I left.
The poison I fought
Has become the blood which pumps the heart,
Now corrupt,
Antithetical.
Nothing is more colorless, not sky,
Nor hill, nor moon,
Or ever more formless
Than what I once called home.
Now that only exists is deteriorated
A rotting house:
Four walls and a roof to keep
Hatred dry,
Windows and lamps, so
Hatred has eyes,
And all the people that
Hatred hates most.
How cozy it must be to sleep in
One’s own bed, no?
To have some stable place,
And an ounce of certainty?
As for me, that will never be
Again.
Though the house is open,
Lock, room, and all
The home is closed forever
Without a proper epitaph.
Vain death.
Vain,
Vain,
Death.
Now all I can only turn back
And flirt with shadows
Just outside my arms
Walk with images
Shifting, growling, and oh, so dark
--mere abstraction
--future so stark--
With no companion but defeat.
I can’t hug a memory,
Nor cry on recollection’s shoulder,
Nor can my mother or sibling console me,
And I cry alone.
Maturation is merely widening a distance, so
I should let them go,
Bid them adieu
Because, I can't be homesick
For a home
I can't go back to.
Nov 16, 2013
Nov 16, 2013 at 11:17 PM UTC
The last time we spoke was in early hours
Full of impersonal inquiry.
The return of encompassing doubt
Brings back images birthed from tragic experience.
Trailing blood lines lead to the southern coasts
And I begin to doubt the intention of my late inclination.
Another lover unable to contain my heart
Another running away from the abyss of ugly honesty.
It's all very overwhelming and too much to bear.
I will return to live in the well of my brain
And dream of the ocean.
No one will hear this mournful siren trapped in the earth,
For I have picked the most hidden tree to observe from my depth.
Even if they traverse the infinite path,
Only those who bare insanity will look away from the branches of knowledge
And find these pupils in the infernal darkness.
But my heroes never know how to temper these depths,
Either falling to their death
Or painfully giving up with rightful indignation.
The waves of my thought deafen this soul
To the courageous explorers of my immortal caves.
Leave me to the well of my brain, darling.
The early hours bleed into dawn
As I think on the embarrassment I feel in love.
I have much more to understand
And you don't deserve my naivety.
I decide to close my eyes
And force your departure.
Finally, I can sleep with the ease of accepted solitude.
Dec 18, 2011
Dec 18, 2011 at 4:39 PM UTC
the city scape so impersonal
a feel of isolation is there
people for miles
yet none friendly
you're lost in a lonely sea
to be in the warmth of the countryside
the folks there will welcome you to their side
the glass towers of suburbia
many folk have left behind
to feel the kindness
of a rural domain
Apr 18, 2013
Apr 18, 2013 at 6:13 PM UTC
Dust, in the air
unseen impurity.
The spectrum of humanity, good and bad.
Black and white.
Being submerged in the black feels unnatural, unlike me.
I'm calling on my star for something unattainable,
unused,
pushed under the carpet.
It's presence sparkled when I saw a child laughing at the sky.
Innocence.
To wear blue, and feel serene,
To wear yellow, and feel joy,
To wear pink, and feel love,
To wear purple, and feel life.
I used to wear Innocence.
I dress differently now,
I wear emerald green, and feel anxious,
I wear a cloudy grey, and feel impersonal.
I wear stained white, and feel everything
I wear only black, and feel nothing.
I wear sin now.
I'm all the things I once wished upon a star not to be.
Dec 10, 2018
Dec 10, 2018 at 7:11 PM UTC
I **** at writing poetry, but I do it anyway
Because life is an absurd struggle in
An impersonal universe, thus rendering
All efforts ultimately meaningless,
If that's the case, why shouldn't
I write bad poetry? If we are to, as
Camus says "imagine Sisyphus happy"
Then I'll keep rolling this metaphorical
Boulder of frustrated creativity up the
Mountain of artistic expression, in the
Misplaced hope that just maybe,
One of these times, instead of rolling
Back down and adding one more instance,
To that large pile of abject failures that
I've accumulated throughout my life,
It will stay at the top, rendering me
Successful, and making one of these
Jumbled word salad tangents into
Something that's actually worth reading.
...probably not gonna happen, though.
Mar 12, 2016
Mar 12, 2016 at 3:28 AM UTC
Soon I'll be a work day chump
9 hours a day, 1 hour drive
each way
Satisfied the pay's above minimum wage
and I got the weekends free to drink and play
8 hours of impersonal lonely phone calls
next to people unlike me in every way
except how we're all paid
A headset be my cursed crown
I'll forget to take it off
when I leave for lunch downtown
"You're doing this for her."
I'll say to the framed question mark
atop my plastic desk
A future wife, another life
Don't let the exhaustive poison win
We're destined for other places
And darling, you'd leave me here
face it
But, your king is a thrill seeking breadwinner
Who shall conquer fertile forests
abound with cabin mansions, reindeer dinners
and more than 5 hours of weekday waking freedom time
Till then, I just wish I could promise you
I won't lose my mind
Jan 2, 2014
Jan 2, 2014 at 11:54 PM UTC
Just because I’m reclusive, doesn’t mean I don’t love you. Above you stand only second-hand crossword puzzles chucked by gods, their errors in ink. The newsprint covers your head and you fill in some blank squares to make words shorter, how you want them to be. If you had your way, you’d be a philosophy major. You’d submerge yourself in knowledge like a child who spiraled from heaven via twirly slide in a pit of plastic ***** Your way would lead to fortune cookies filled with morbid maxims and hand-picked lucky numbers because computers are so impersonal. You’d call the absence of ignorance death; but until then, bathroom wall banter must do. **** what goes on in bathroom stalls. I touch myself in a public restroom thinking of you, my eagerness a shaken bottle of ginger ale. Two hours later, they start peering in the stall, asking if I’m alright in there. I feel the way I did when Jessica Serber ripped out my braid in second grade when we were playing Marco Polo. I told Coach Fish and she asked, “What am I supposed to do? Glue it back on?” I hated her ever since. And yet it’s not just hatred, but also fear, like the fear of killing spiders in case their family chooses to avenge them. I can never get over it; I can never live it down. So forgive me for never telling you this. Forgive me for never telling you much of anything. Just because I’m reclusive, doesn’t mean I don’t love you. But if one day you decide to leave me, I’ll hire a hustler who looks just like you.
Aug 2, 2012
Aug 2, 2012 at 9:47 AM UTC
**** you and your little intelligentsia
group therapy sessions
basing its roots in caveman cartesian
theoretic - i know you know that
the blank canvas are the ********
and that artists work on that -
because normally grey citizens are no
blank canvas but a subordination -
but still, **** you, why not concentrate
on the blank economics of a beggar
to exercise your little intelligentsia
get-together sessions?
there are less social securities in that
department of inquiry -
mental health and art... what's that?
you jealous of the caverns of the mind
crafting an escape pod to your
****** exercise of mechanisation -
**** on me, crosswords! su doku!
all matters of encryption!
endear your lack of creativity with
the synonymousness act of creativity
decoding encryption,
because you obviously can't encrypt
on a complete lack of encoding parameters (blanks).
you can't encrypt originality unless
you start with encrypting nothingness
with stars... and how often does that happen?
perhaps once... i care to make you
feel something akin to bombastic,
a football stadium size of appreciation lost -
skull kickabout with commentary:
to create the post-relativity warp
of quantity-quality, akin to space-time,
for indeed the answer to science's
space-time hyphenated couplet
is quantity-quality - and that's hardly a measurable
consideration, since there are too many particulars
involved, i.e. too many individuals, choices
and disparaging wills - too many particulars
in the hyphenated couplet quantity-quality,
since science is offering universal breadcrumbs
with its space-time rationalisation
for each and every for a share in populating
an insignificance, whether on a personal
scale or an impersonal / collective scale -
and both are indeed expressed,
the famous parasitical comparison found
in too many numbered essays by individuals -
but still humanism has a quantity-quality parabola,
while science has its space-time parabola,
and indeed both in dip, provide waves,
for example the former with Plato and Neoplatonism,
and for example the latter with
the revisionists of Einstein - the revisionist excavators
arguing precision to 100% proof of measurement
in exponential scaling of the mind theorising
a bus trip to Saturn like a bus-trip parallel-akin
to a 1 mile trip on the same vehicle in the earthly atmosphere.
Apr 14, 2016
Apr 14, 2016 at 8:40 PM UTC
I am a raccoon masked self sabotage tycoon specialist with a self inflicted past-biased hit list peeked at through urban eye sags pulled down by years of troubled pleasantries now darkened with giant grey glass fingers touching the skies and casting shadows on their own concrete feet providing my disguise wrapped in a capitalist bow tied blessing,
Oh forward progression,
Pathetic Fraud 101 is in session,
Catch me if you can,
I am my own cynical supremacist nemesis thief in the black and white mellow drama trauma,
I play all the rolls,
And these places take their toll on my soul because fossil fuel herds have replaced the sea you see,
Peel your eyelids back and allow me to derail your ignorant yarn sewn seam day dream from it's crocheted track,
Societies a chemical fire train wreck attack,
The difference between metal and wool is fire and flesh,
They're bound to mesh within a Chinese children tears committee calamity tragedy,
You think your H&M; hemmed subliminal photo-shoot suit is moral free?
Or is it that you refuse to look past your own pictures hung around your face by D.O.S. operated framed fixtures screaming "ME-ME-ME-ME-ME-ME-ME!"
Or whatever O.S. you bless your shrine with,
Our world is a glass screen neon pawn lit mess with a p.o. box address,
Completely impersonal!
The true core of this horror lies within your head on your bed that morning you woke up and realized
"I can't fix it!"
I applaud you for having such a great start!
You're heart will settle and the city sunsets will become beautiful once you're full of this revelation:
"I am not my own salvation."
May 20, 2013
May 20, 2013 at 5:47 PM UTC
so i'm standing outside the coffee shop
staring through the large plate glass windows.
it's one of those intimate,
quirky little places.
pressed tin ceiling,
art (originals) on the walls,
pieces of furniture that look more like they belong in a bedroom
than any public place.
maybe that's my problem.
maybe it isn't impersonal enough.
because i can't seem to get
my feet
to move
over
the
threshold.
i'm just standing here on the street,
staring through to
the other side.
on the other side
sit the group of poets
i am supposed to be joining.
they talk easily with each other,
they share their works.
i'm wondering at this point,
what sort of poets they are,
they are smiling,
laughing
talking easily with each other.
these are definitely not
my type
of poets.
i'm wondering
what kind of poetry
these easy talkers
have inside themselves.
what could they possibly
have to say?
probably poems about
flowers
and butterflies
and trees
and stuff.
this is not the group for me.
i turn and walk on down the street.
a ***** crumpled sheet of newspaper bounces along the sidewalk in front me.
Jan 11, 2012
Jan 11, 2012 at 3:27 PM UTC