"inattention" poems
A figure in the distance
lives on a monetary hill
by siphoning off pensions.
An absence of motive
for this hellish apparition.
Grandiose a la mode,
Slaves to inattention.
Pace yourself
Take your drugs
Sign for help
Relinquish us
Pampering lifestyles
of dying and self-destructing ones
spiraling into the light
disintegrating amongst the dance of suns.
Because eyes are always watching
taking notes on what you've become.
Jul 24, 2014
Jul 24, 2014 at 12:00 AM UTC
When the sun goes down
I have my first drink
standing in the yard,
talking to my neighbor
about the alder tree
rising between our houses,
a lowly tree that prospered
from our steady inattention
and shot up quick as a ****
to tower over our rooftops,
where it now brandishes
a rich, luxuriant crown.
Should we cut it down?
Neither of us wants to --
we agree that we like
the flourishing branches,
shade like thick woods.
We don't say it,
studying our tree in silence,
but we know that if the roots
get into the foundations
we've got real trouble.
John goes back inside.
Nothing to be done in summer --
not to those heavy branches.
I balance my empty glass
on top of a fence post.
In the quiet early dark,
those peaceful minutes
before dinner, I bend down
to the flower beds I love
and pull a few weeds --
something I've meant to do
all day.
2.4k
Only half watching the Sochi Olympics and
wondering why all of a sudden ice hockey
without brawling gap-toothed players
seemed so captivating as the puck was blocked
effortlessly by a graceful skating illusion
did I realize that behind that face mask and
and billowing raven hair was a bright-red
lipsticked beautiful face that totally shook
my floor. In my state of inattention I found
myself attracted to a hockey player
Scared the hell out if me until I realized that
it was women's competition
r ~ 9Feb14
Feb 9, 2014
Feb 9, 2014 at 5:26 PM UTC
I'm not taken aback by the beauty of the sun or moon.
But that's okay, at least I've learned in time that there are very little differences between objects labeled mine and days considered wasted time. Entitlement is a false concept paralleling a religious purgatory.
That's not the point anyways. I'm left with unbearable heat and a pool of thoughts best resembling some sort of molten pudding left out in the sun for weeks of stifling inattention.
Let it just be known that the smell was not my intention.
Regardless of what fills your nostrils ephemerally, keep in mind that this stench haunts me perpetually. It's apathy towards my sensitive skull stifles me. It's as if I was able to just shake off these shadow-inducing invaders like a bad habit. But no matter how much you try to **** a shadow, it's always there following you. Breathing on you. Casting oxygen upon your neck until there's nothing but sweat and fear left to expose.
With such an affinity to what darkness lies behind me, there are few words to authentically compose.
How can I continue? How can the beat stay in rhythm and my words stay in tune when I'm a butterfly stuck in a cocoon? If these hollowed walls could speak I bet they'd entertain the idea on meaningless entrapment.
Go now. My words for this horrid state of mind have run dry. They do nothing but mask themselves and then exponentially multiply.
So leave me for the beauty of the sun and the moon. I'll never wish anything more than a simple, concurrent release of everyone from his or her respective cocoon.
Aug 10, 2015
Aug 10, 2015 at 12:33 PM UTC
--
Intersection
Inspection
Infatuation
--
Intention
Initiation
--
Inattention
Indignation
Infuriation
Insurrection
--
Incision
--
May 11, 2014
May 11, 2014 at 1:25 AM UTC
Gone the dwindled light of day
Wrested from my megre time,
Lost to restlessness of soul
Theiving inattention's find.
Diverted from the sunset glow
Diverted from the satin air,
A moments crass diversion lost
To innattention's small despair.
A moment from a busy day
Where tumult and confusion find
Exhaustion as the sun descends...
To respite sought within my mind.
Alas the moment passed me by
The folds of satin night descend,
A cup of tea is quietly poured
In waiting for the dark pall's end.
Marshalg
In velvet twilight.
28 August 2012
Aug 28, 2012
Aug 28, 2012 at 2:03 AM UTC
Why do you scurry along life's unlit byways
Your head bowed, fists jammed in your pockets?
To avert calamity? To guarantee success?
Did you miss the turn-off?
In your busyness and inattention
Did you forget to read the signposts?
Lift your eyes from the ground
Slow your pace and stretch the kink from your neck
Do you know where you are?
Unfurl your empty grasp and consult your inner compass
You will find a map etched on the inside of your heart
Do you see the way ahead?
Yes, I thought so.
Jan 19, 2019
Jan 19, 2019 at 11:21 PM UTC
Three early birds broke the flying record today,
Under a ball of yellow light and sky of white cobwebs,
Uphill, amidst a godforsaken town,
At the far end of the deserted residential area,
In front of our binned and bagged house,
On the peach tiles of our topsy-turvy garage,
Inside a scroungy cardboard box,
Between the wasted space and rotten nest made of broom,
Where they left their bodies mushy and misshapen,
Where a colony of red ants now celebrate for a carrion feast.
They flew higher than any in their kind could ever reach,
That they went straight to heaven,
Early for their embellished feathers and wings,
Early for their final cartilages,
Early for their full-grown beak and claws,
Early for their black, beady eyes,
Early for their last rites,
Yet for us to forecast the bad news,
Yet for us to get off of our plastic chairs of indifference,
Yet for us to drop our glasses of lemon juice and inattention,
Yet for us to fumble outdoor and crash the ceremony,
Yet for us to solve the mystery,
Of whether the ball of yellow light radiated enough to fry,
That the three early birds had to fly the coop to oasis;
Of whether our mother's frenzy gave a cold welcome,
That the three early birds had to say goodbye when she tossed the box out;
Of whether I am to blame for yesterday's miracle
Of finding their home attached to the open bottom of our air-conditioner,
Which turned into a tragedy of a falling baby out of excitement,
That the three early birds felt like it was time to join their fourth sibling once again.
Indeed, too early
For the three siblings endowed with a mother and a father,
For mankind is blessed enough to have such a thing as family,
Who claimed the three early ones before the garbage does,
Who could've been proud parents in the future,
For witnessing the becoming of their three youngs
Who came out too soon,
Who were traceless of eggshells,
Who never knew a father,
Who were ****** enough to even be abandoned by a mother,
Who never knew if she even came back for them,
Who broke the flying record.
Indeed, too early.
After days of packing up sentiments,
Donating valuables,
Throwing away memories,
And leaving behind possessions,
I thought, for a moment,
We could save something
But we couldn't.
Jun 3, 2013
Jun 3, 2013 at 10:15 AM UTC
Ibkek sits idly by
the meadow's green and varied blooms,
paid only inattention.
He, not minutes passing nigh,
envies but this bumble
who black-and-gold buzzes onward
with purposeful zags. "She fits
so nicely here," he mumbles.
"Why, even duller drones,
though weak and puny, have a place."
The worker, she might envy
Ibkek this, his freedom's moan
to fritter life drinking,
but busy harvests push instead
her bee-bound thoughts, set upon
a queen's idyllic kinking.
Feb 28, 2010
Feb 28, 2010 at 8:55 AM UTC
A thought had me
but melted away
then another
that failed
to hold my attention
then another for just a second
that promised
insight
that vapoized
into a scattered inattention.
Mar 16, 2012
Mar 16, 2012 at 5:40 PM UTC
Il est 1h27 du matin à Dakar
Debout sur le balcon; un désir d'aventurier de l'inconnu m'envahit, de celle qui s'échappe du temps et de la terre mère qui l'étouffe ensevelie sous son noyau.
Le vent me caressant le visage, je l'entend m'inviter à l'hymne de ma liberté. Le bruit des avions m'emportent dans un monde d'aisance et d'émancipation, l'échos des Zikrs me tirent vers ma raison profonde et ma familiarité.
Je ferme les yeux en proie à la nostalgie. Essayant de me souvenir des beaux moments de ma vie; le vent me berce dans l'abstrait où mon âme se jette dans l'aura poétique de la magie des rêves.
Le marchand des rêves m'emporte sur une plage éclairée par la claire de lune et un feu de camp; jouissant d'un ciel dégagé et très étoilé.
La brise me mets à nu devant ses caresses ardentes et m'enivre de son odeur. Je me laisse flotter sur ses ondes.
Le sable en velours réchauffant mes pieds au rythme d'un Samba; riant de toute mon âme et transpirant au rythme de la danse. Nos âmes se transforment en une unité d'énergie donnant naissance à un cycle d'existence de désirs.
Je me confie à mon instinct comme pour consoler mon amour.
A l'horizon, la morosité morbide condamnée dans le concret. Aimant ardemment et follement cet abstrait merveilleux qui me berce.
Qui berce cet amour non réclamé, et cette liberté condamnée. Qui depuis longtemps poussent leur barque fragile à bout de force.
Aussi romantique que la poésie, je danse amoureusement et passionnément avec l'inconnu de mes pensées. Et dans cette passion insensée, de l'infini sublime rêve que cherche l'esprit, la réalité envahit l'abstrait et en fait un asile.
Un asile qui éveille mon cœur à chaque moment d'inattention ou de solitude. Un asile qui m'ouvre ses portes à ses extases fantaisistes quand l'ivresse de la réalité devient lourde et étouffante.
Feb 17, 2021
Feb 17, 2021 at 9:52 AM UTC
A desert empty, hard, and mute some implied and maligning agent mere dust, soft clay, of eroding tides unsettling account, no balance to come in the pall of mistakes past
who are you to ignore the obvious effects of your actions? and ask the world to bend to your ignorance of other ends more exists without than is known within or spoken invisible but no less real, though forgotten our wills have mass
an epidemic of inattention content with meaningless negligence on a curved path, tethered and constrained wrought between collisions and propelled to escape
but man himself is a force of nature which counters all others and conquers so as to undo itself in its wake, risk values all reward so-called providence designs all consequence
the game plays itself
so it goes, and so it went
so it goes, and so it will, at the end
so it goes, and so it will, so it went, at the end, as it always would
the measure of man isn’t that which he hazards no hope in abandoning to shaping molding chance this alien land holds scars of man’s conversion does it manifest our victory, our destiny, or our barbarity?
Feb 11, 2011
Feb 11, 2011 at 4:08 AM UTC
Travis used to pick up pebbles
Held them in his hand looking
For gold... Or crystal, smooth sides
Or even one with a strange color
He wanted to throw them upstream
So he could watch his collection
Bounce before it drowns
Now I've been collecting pebbles
Since he shot one bouncing farther
Than the heat could bend the light
I learned religion that day
I woulda started a church on the shore
Hiring monks to unravel the secrets
Of his backhand throw,
I mean if I could even pick up
The pebbles anymore without
Watching half drip through fingertips
Just to watch them drown, thudding
Into last years promises,
I swear if I had a pebble for every
Promise I made to my future,
I'd be forced to build a wall
Between me and every half-thrown
Analogy ripping your mind
Out of the moment and hello
This isn't a Poem, this is
Uhhhhh....
Just words in a line and so if that
Interruption wasn't enough to
Send you Running
Then you're stronger than the people
Disappointed by my inattention to details
If I really had a pebble for every
Promise I've ever broken I'd do my best
To pile them up in such a way that the right
Light reflects my true intentions
That wall, is a scarf, to keep you warm
All the nights you had to cry yourself
To sleepless tossing when I should've been
There. To wipe away your tears and
I'm sorry.. But I'm gonna have to leave
You in that bed a few more times I still
Haven't learned how to count sheep
who can't jump over that wall we built
Apr 19, 2016
Apr 19, 2016 at 5:18 PM UTC
Standing there and observing from afar,
Life on the Earth is difficult, I must report,
Explaining, in part, why many lives are
Full of constant complaint and retort.
Anguish is obvious, but the Buddhists say,
Pain is natural and only part of life;
They preach one proceeds along a Way
Strewn with joy and with strife.
I would hold with another teaching
Of the Buddha:
One creates their own suffering most times,
Never searching inside a self
That can make all things known.
This, and more, I heard some mention.
My documentation points to inattention
To important things in life like recognition
Of Nature's gifts that receive little attention.
I have seen from prolonged observation
There is really much to appreciate,
Yet, most spend time cursing creation
Filled with anger and lamenting fate.
Great Spirit, my recommendations are inside
This brief that I humbly submit.
The evidence is clear, nothing to hide:
Humanity is a hopeless case, I now admit.
The extent of their evil is hard to believe,
Many even resort to killing in God's name.
That they possess promise is hard to conceive,
Violence, mayhem, and carnage are more their fame.
If latent good could yet emerge
I might well argue let them continue.
But, they are a lost cause, so, I urge
Transform the world into something new.
Yes, I recommend you start anew,
Let birds or lizards dominate, give them a try.
Whether the human species lives or dies is up to you,
Though while alive; Earth will moan and Nature cry.
Mar 14, 2010
Mar 14, 2010 at 7:43 PM UTC
My moods drain me down
To some immoderate sluice-gate,
They run down the grainy windows,
Clog the sand in the top of the hour-glass
Like bat's tears, like misplaced rainstorms
Looking for a cloud to hang out under.
All my temperaments are accidental,
Wrongly placed; too early or too late
Miscarriages of intention,
Predicaments of inattention.
All the inconsequential moments I inhabit,
I'm wearing thin, from changing my mind too often-
Why is there no groove for thinking,
No energy-saving secret gear?
Sometimes I sit absolutely still
In an uncomfortable position,
Hoping the powers that be will notice me;
Will see that I'm going nowhere, so slowly
And they will send some tempest to help move me along.
I'm also afraid they will send change;
The paralytic not only can't move,
He knows he can never move,
And his biggest fear
Is being thought capable of movement.
In that rapid swirling down the drain,
He wants someone to snag him on a branch,
Save and reclaim his manhood;
Not sit in a tree and watch him spiraling,
While repeating over and over,
Why don't you save yourself?
He knows it's too late for words;
The tears only add to the swelling river.
And if once I thought there was a savior on every corner,
I guess I just got tired of waiting-
Because the ones in the mirror only close their eyes now.
Normalcy both appalls and comforts me-
Why does it all appear so average,
As you go sprawling head first over the falls:
You know nobody elses life will change one iota,
And you know you're just paying some bill
You never even saw.
Aug 25, 2010
Aug 25, 2010 at 4:32 PM UTC
Barefoot,
stripped of all things,
leaning against a sunset,
wet wind in my wings.
Fresh
muted clouds approaching,
hollow my mind,
body is at peace.
Inattention to
the storm brewing,
I stand my ground,
no care or worry.
Unannounced, the scent
whispers too sweet,
a mystery of change
awaiting me.
Treading the space
in the colors of my psyche,
I'm not afraid,
but lucid and ready.
Concocting this mirage
that appears too vividly,
the rainbow that shined
now drowns in white sea.
Barefoot,
I'm stripped of all things.
Jun 22, 2010
Jun 22, 2010 at 2:15 PM UTC
Slanting slits of streetlamp light illuminate the brand new night,
Old wet boots that slap the ground step down and down and down and down,
While passing buildings one by one with a walk as fast as some can run.
Voices ramble, tilt and amble, Left-side teen tribe fluorescent gamble.
A bottle message bellow smashes glass silence.
Then hidden hollow eyes brighten from this bizarre kindness,
Surprised to find the praise to be pure of heart and free selfish finesse.
Regrettable silence answers adoration due to doubt and disbelief,
And taken back in time the answer would be nearly as pure and brief.
But in the accidental inattention honorable intentions make a final mention,
Beckoning a nice night in a final sympathetic extension.
Apr 23, 2013
Apr 23, 2013 at 10:00 PM UTC
There’d been a factory here once,
Squat red brick structure
Suffused with too much noise and too little ventilation,
Built for the purpose of making typewriters,
Unwieldy, cacophonous clanking anachronisms
Whose time, like the town it occupied,
Had long since come and gone,
The only businesses on the sad little main drag
Being those shabby, tattered concerns
Which flower, improbable and cactus-like
At the intersection of the vagaries of memory
And the ascent of decay.
Nothing sits here now,
Simply an empty lot returning to Nature,
Although half-hearted attempts
To accelerate that process have not taken root,
As the soil, fouled by metal shavings, solvents,
And only God knows what else,
Has proved less than amenable
To anything save weedy shoots and scrubby boxwoods,
So it sits empty, impossible to build upon
(There is liability in every spike of crabgrass,
A potential lawsuit in every patch of clover)
And wholly impractical as parkland.
The firm which owned the site erected a fence
To keep whatever was in there in and everyone else out
(In their final addition of injury to insult,
The check they gave to the fencing company in payment
Bounced higher than a child’s rubber ball)
But a generation of winters and general inattention
Have left the chain-links a patchwork affair,
And though the “POSTED” signs remain
(Their original angry and officious red
Having faded to a benign maroon),
Enforcement of their edicts is spotty at best,
So we sit, unbothered and alone,
On an odd little mound at the back of the lot
As the dusk begins to take hold,
I, in an act of mad optimism, the peculiar positing
That there are good things yet to come,
Grab your hand, intertwining the fingers with mine.
Aug 16, 2018
Aug 16, 2018 at 10:56 AM UTC
“We’ve engineered the world for comfort and ease. Most people rarely step outside of their comfort zones these days—we’re living progressively soft, sterile, temperature-controlled, overfed, under-challenged, safety-netted lives1. And it’s slowly limiting the degree to which we experience our, as the poet Mary Oliver put it, “one wild and precious life.””
Michael Easter, Substack
<>><<>
five months have expired
from when this notion
1st caught my notice
but fallow lay,
unattended, unremarked
unforgiving
of my ignorance and inattention
but it freshly, rightly,
core challenges me
guilty of the underbelly softness
so well described,
I
choose to scribe,
wrestle with angel and devil,
two~on~one human,
and yet, still a
fair fight
"wild and precious!"
how rarely we employ these
adjectives,
that conjure the edginess of an
existence
lest you think,
that we are here to implore, urge,
skydiving, remote wilderness trekking, or other physical states
that set adrenaline on fire,
I am not
afterthat for them
oh, my
wild and precious
is far more treacherous and enthralling
what I beg you to embrace is
no farther than
nubs, knobs and stubbled nibs of your fingers,
the taste buds flowering invisible
on the wily, twisty tongue,
the tiny-vibrating little hairs of your nostril,
two extra large eggy pupils of your two eyes,
here lies danger,
your customized throbbing throbbing your drumming,
leadings
access to the garden of
The truly wild and precious,
the poems you will scribe,
from the safety of your captains chair,,
Throwing caution to the wind compose and depose yourself with bitter questioning,
For which the answered answers must be truly be
wild and precious
cyan sighs,
oaken cries,
furious colorless invasive tears,
steely stabbing personal truths,
yes those wild ones,
in your. chest close held,
spill them like cold coffee,
surrender the precious, and
inward confess your
shame, gains and the relit
that you are not merely
wild and precious
but a sea borne sailor,
a navy voyaging to
to where
danger enthralls
enlivens!
Jun 21, 2025
Jun 21, 2025 at 10:23 AM UTC
My goal is to become invisible. Accept my awkwardness. Don’t mind the pitter patter of my talkative feet. They have nothing worthy to say. Please, walk by me; let me feel your gust of perfumed wind. I want nothing more than your inattention. Your glance reassures my confused existence, my selfish questioning of this life the twisting pain of my inability to connect with these fellow beings. My heart is here, but I have buried it under the thickening of my skin. I skinned the layers off everyone who crawled inside my safe spot and turned where I could hide into an exposition; robbed me of my sanctuary, so their skin I harvested for this façade of carelessness. Eye contact isn’t acceptable dear stranger, because my eyes don’t know how to keep their mouths shut. I will tell you tales I don’t dare tell myself. Power walk to your SUVS, be among your own kind. Let my outline drip onto the cold sidewalks, walk all over my skin with your designer shoes, feed my organs to your dogs and cats, dispose of this weary face. Maybe if I become part of this ***** utopia, there will be no reason to stare; you won’t be able to tell the difference between your new Wal-Mart and my decrepit body.
Oct 12, 2010
Oct 12, 2010 at 7:27 AM UTC
The sidewalk granulated so,
yellow from the streetlight though it's not quite dark
it's difficult to set your feet down normally if you look at them
while you do it
I can't watch my body while I use it, like a dancer
it's easier just to feel
stand in the wind although the shelter is empty
not sure why
I don't ponder my actions while I take them, like a philosopher
it's easier not to think
cigarette burns quickly, the wind pushing it down
before I can pull it
and for awhile I forget about it while I watch it
unraveling ring by ring in bursts
against a sidewalk now blurred with inattention
eyes focus on one plane like a camera
I read that if you look at horizontal stripes with your left eye
and vertical stripes with your right, then you will perceive a grid
our brains lie
and take shortcuts
the heart and the liver work hard no matter what
but they're just along for the ride
Dec 27, 2010
Dec 27, 2010 at 12:25 AM UTC
Coyote prowls the swamp behind my house,
searching for a duck or goose nest
hidden in tall yellow grass,
thinking of eggs for breakfast,
perhaps a downy duckling or gosling,
maybe some baby mice for dessert.
Coyote sniffs around the nests people make, too;
people who seem unaware,
can’t sense coyote’s presence anymore,
so go about their business
as if coyotes are merely the stuff of old stories.
They seem surprised when coyote finds their nests,
say things like “We didn’t have a clue.”
or “It came right out of nowhere.”
or “It happened so fast.”—
poor excuses for inattention, sleep-walking,
made after coyote has ravaged their nests,
scattered sticks and moss and grass,
then laughs about it when the moon is full.
And There Are Coyotes
that prowl the land inside you, too,
seeking to feed on fears
you thought hidden even from yourself
like prairie dogs in their dens.
**** those coyotes, so wily,
digging up burrows,
feeding on carcasses;
they survive all the poisons
you douse your insides with,
the traps you set,
laugh at bounties on their hides.
Apr 30, 2019
Apr 30, 2019 at 8:27 PM UTC
poet's red heart
crushed by cruel inattention
in agony, her voice found...
with ecstatic precision
her final words
pierce her illusions
in a blaze of glory
Mar 2, 2012
Mar 2, 2012 at 9:00 AM UTC
Thoughts like cobwebs float on streams of consciousness
Looking for a solid theme to land on.
Statements ricochet across the voids of understanding
And bounce off walls of inattention.
Comments sidle under and around the focus of discussion
To hide in disparate agendas.
Declarations skid on slippery reasoning and crash
Into thick barriers of resistance.
Decisions leap frog over moving clock hands
And we all get up and rush away from doing nothing.
Meeting is adjoured.
ljm
Feb 15, 2017
Feb 15, 2017 at 5:45 PM UTC
Cast back two years ago
Unknit by careless inattention
Raveled sleeve
Apr 13, 2013
Apr 13, 2013 at 11:27 AM UTC