"inattentive" poems
On my skin I wear the bands of shielded sun.
Commitment to the heart makes this skin colour run.
With one liberal hand, I tear down these branches being hung,
to shower in yellowed leaf confetti.
These forest roots ran like hair line skull fractures,
under canopies blooming red from the sunlight rapture
and now these trees leave their taller brothers to fall as ashes,
with ivy on my ankles, stifling hope up to my chin.
Living memories, my forest sheltered, scrambled for home;
small pretty beasts, unrefined, breathing caricatures with bones.
Screaming they beg for attention, inattentive to this situation as a whole.
Our own view is all we can consider.
This house of cards built on paper-cuts, from the trees before.
I'm now growing wiser to my winter freeze and your summer thaw.
I need all of these things I hate about me, and they can never be ignored;
a psychological pre-disposition, the only one I can afford.
Sep 1, 2013
Sep 1, 2013 at 10:59 AM UTC
Welcome to the fast lane of...
hold on I’m vibrating.
Cell phone flips open
thumbs move like clockwork
even when inattentive eyes start dead
at the chalkboard.
1st period notes
to last period quizzes,
the mind makes no error between the difference where letters A
and S go.
The world is filled tweets on Twitter
and texts to Timmy’s tiny little brother.
Excuse me please,
I’ll take a super-sized Facebook
but please
leave out homework
because I’d like a tall glass of procrastination.
I’ll take a ride on the super highway that is a cell phone.
Mile long texting to the person right next to me.
Hey generation X take a seat
and have a laugh at generation TEXT.
I’d like to be the first to say welcome to end of conversation.
Please take a look around
but you might miss the latest drama
if you happen to glance down.
Life is quick
, easy
and painless
but didn’t momma always teach us that that **** was dangerous?
But, hey,
what can I say to change the minds of those who have change their ideas on life about a hundred million times.
I’m just another face in the crowd that has a phone out and my face down.
Whatever happened to actually speaking words that could open doors and let loose a sense of humanity?
Would you like to know answer?
Well here it is....
wait,
I have check Facebook.
Jan 5, 2013
Jan 5, 2013 at 12:24 AM UTC
It’s more than friendship for us. We’re closer than that. we never needed the same blood to call each other brothers. We bleed similar ideas and thoughts, like telepathy is our only way to communicate. We’re linked in ways most will never know, See, we’re cut from a different cloth. In our ragged robes we feel like kings because we know we have the greatest jester at our sides. Mind that this is a love poem, love for my friend, my brother, my phone call at 1 am, chatting about everything and anything. I never walked down streets with such confidence before. his are my guard rail, stopping me from slippery streets and inattentive eyes. I don’t think we can count the times we’ve defined our code. It’s not a code of arms, we don’t need to arm ourselves with each other at our sides. I’ve gone from the boy I was to a man I want to be, thanks to him. I don’t think he’ll ever understand how much he’s done for me. It’s been such roller coaster ride, dating best friends and losing loves, we stuck by each other, Spartan warriors would be proud. He’s like a spider web. Hidden in small spaces of serenity. He catches anything that we need to survive and destroys anything that could harm me. serendipitously our friendship evolved like Pikachu and Squirtile. We have that Pokemon type of bond, I’ll choose you, every time. No one will understand when I say, Saving him from SunKist liquids is our defining “broment.” See, in that moment having a bottle rise to his lips, I knew that he needed me to tell him the dangers that lie ahead, as he’s have done for me countless time. Now, It could have been the time you told me you hated me in middle school, or the time you tried to save me from a fire breathing dragon. He became the one person I can count on, in a world where a clock ticks too quickly. It’s you and me against the world, They don’t know what they got themselves into. We are soldiers, brothers at battle, we start wars with words because our poetic voices are needed in the struggles of a lost generation. But, we don’t need to take up arms, we pick pens and write the words that no one has the heart to say. Our words prove that we never needed the same blood to call each other brothers. Because it’s more than friendship for us. We’re closer than that.
Nov 12, 2012
Nov 12, 2012 at 4:13 PM UTC
I am hungry for infallible
Disastrous possession
Avoidant personalities
Violent narcissists
And angry pedophiles
I, narcissist
I have asked for this
Inattentive guardians
And half-baked characters
This willingness of mean
Wild and violent
Watch me fall asleep
And take out your mindlessness
Oct 9, 2014
Oct 9, 2014 at 4:33 PM UTC
My condition is incongruent with the common presence
Black sheep identity burning eyes and hesitance
I move in a manner like weight attached lumbering
Unsure of myself, with no partner stumbling
Swimming in a glass half full and inattentive
Sloppy script pen tip like bull with red incentive
Reference to constructed concept subjective inference
Marker to my darker being written in this instance
Possessive and persuasive visitor leads me to temptation
Takes unpredictable control of my mental weather station
Precipitates with hate and tears me down with its erosion
Art starts with rain pain soon becomes an ocean
My breathing is done in desperate gasps
A fight for oxygen’s healing
Suddenly I am miles away
Far beyond the ceiling
Moving at the speed of light time slowing to a crawl
Cranium contained tragically between these walls
I wake to similar circumstances not changed to satisfaction
Expect a sedentary death from drone of human interaction
Hungry and reestablished, reminded now of morning
Clear mind and consequence come forth with no forewarning
Death lingers in the white noise that gestures from the mental
I open the gates to raiders as they pilfer sacred temple
Nov 13, 2010
Nov 13, 2010 at 5:35 AM UTC
I hear your hollow words
Laced with doubt
Sharp tongued, dull mouthed
Inattentive love
Your heaven is paved with
The shallow beat of empty hearts
Your heaven is a fortress
Desolate, apart
Closed eyes, closed ears, closed mouths
Closed minds, closed hearts above
This is a hell
I can’t reside
If ignorance could paint the world
No greys would hold
And your whites would grant passage
For only the sold
No promise
Jun 30, 2014
Jun 30, 2014 at 4:44 PM UTC
Forgive me.
Forgive me for not asking your forgiveness.
For not accepting you as a savior.
For not believing the mythology
embedded in the narratives.
For not condemning the subsequent religion
as inattentive to your instruction.
For condoning the charlatans
who steal money wielding your image.
For tolerance of the spiritual quagmire
permitting no advance.
For passiveness at the psychological torture
and centuries of persecution
performed in your name.
All in the name of an individual
who taught the simple supremacy
of Love...
Your memory deserves
a better testament.
-fr
Feb 13, 2014
Feb 13, 2014 at 7:32 AM UTC
The coffee shop is congested,
But our booth is Ours’.
Your cup is full and tepid,
While mine is nearly empty.
Again, you share your life:
Soccer games and broken toys;
Clothes which are now too small;
How inattentive he remains;
Fresh batteries in his TV remote;
Daughter’s eyes identical to yours;
A room, half-painted for months;
Training wheels soon to depart;
Your car is old, his is new;
Grease on the kitchen faucet;
The ‘Tooth Fairy’ arrived twice last week;
He used to love you, you’re sure;
The washing machine shreds your bras;
You dust his High School trophies;
Your son wants a BB gun for his birthday;
The cold winter consumed your savings;
“Sandra”, your on-line friend has cancer;
His parents rent their seasonal home in Florida;
Your wedding gown still fits.
While I listen, in numbing clouds;
And tongue, pasty from the coffee;
I can barely recall the details of the rented room,
But vividly remember your ******
Apr 30, 2010
Apr 30, 2010 at 9:50 AM UTC
De elevating power might
seem a futile task for a mere
earthling, disadvantaged by
stature, and of course due to
being under surveillance from
an altitude beyond reach, of
even, the imagination.
Such being the predicament
of an elderly Weasel inattentive
to the hidden dangers from an
intemperate predator soaring
directly above, just waiting to
profit from this evident dotage.
Down swooped the winged
carnivore, availing of surprise,
up-draught and velocity, it
quickly sank its talons into the
side of the disabled animal
and rose triumphantly into
the empty sky and high.
But just as possessions fall through
fingers, the winds of change were
about to reverse the tide of misfortune.
The stunned carcass, which only seconds
previously seemed as though was dead
as dead could be, suddenly posed a
problem for its captor (in flight).
Immediately, there was a notable change
of direction and a notable drop in the
flight horizontal, the big bird was visibly
in trouble, the Weasel had sunk its teeth
into the undercarriage, securing itself
from being released of the foot spikes.
The underdog was not going to go down
without a fight and there was nothing,
absolutely nothing The Eagle could do,
no negotiation, no solution other than
land, because The Weasel was not going
to let go and The Eagle was loosing fuel.
Efforts to dislodge The Weasel proved
nugatory, yet, The Weasel was prepared
to **** the Eagle in flight, a pyrrhic victory
is as democratic as one could wish for.
The Eagle had no option, down it came,
flew low along by the tree tops in an effort
to detach itself for The Weasel.
The Weasel availed of the Hobson Choice
and released itself from the breastbone
clambered on to the branches, making
its way out of the tree.
Meanwhile, The Eagle after a huge loss
of blood, left a trail along to forest floor
for The Weasel to follow
Ps.
The leech Eagle ended up in College Road
Sligo where it has a nest.
What became of it, is still unknown, but we
are sure, that The Weasel has not given up.
This is the Fable of Free Travel.
A pass given to the author by
a Government agency in Sligo
Ireland, and taken away with
no explanation.
Apr 29, 2019
Apr 29, 2019 at 9:33 AM UTC
The room paused
Inhaling before a sneeze
Undo the manipulation
The world has little use for another
Inattentive
Bias
Ill-informed
Over opinionated
Individual
Watch well after they remove your plank
For a sight to behold is on the horizon
Unclog ears waxed over with idleness
Wash any obstacle so it may shine
Stand
High
Speak
Slowly
Deliberately choose
Know when enough has been reached
Losses will be totaled when the world has no comment
Tongues held out of respect and not practice.
Science will paint a peaceful picture of another collective that refused to coexist
Somebody knows
Somebody always knows
It’s a matter of asking the right questions
Oct 16, 2012
Oct 16, 2012 at 3:07 AM UTC
Move as though on castors
Swept in to subdued void
Pierrot lacking puppet master
Shrunken waxwork melting
I rivet in two eyes black blue
For a scrap of validation
Mirrored tunnel dark chute
Deep abysmal contemplation
Blether. Prattle. Jabber on
Deaf ears nescient; inattentive
Blithely callous their indifference
Never yet shall be emotive
A flashlight glare. A glint?
Volt? Amp; electric neuron
No never see; pulse, or breathe
Frigid flesh left life extinct.
©pofacedpoetry (Billy Reynard-Bowness 2018 – All rights reserved)
Aug 24, 2018
Aug 24, 2018 at 8:20 AM UTC
*I lay, of my own volition, in a space meant for her:
a confined and achromatic scene.
My hands, malodorous, muddy and splintered,
leisurely rest on my chest, free from labor machines.
Here I rest, hackneyed and discouraged
in a pitifully human attempt to simulate death
I curse my virtue; it chastises back as it
mourns the curious exploitation of my health.
It was meant to last only a minute,
as sorrow chains my putrid despair in place.
Yet I, to this day, cannot begin to explain
how the darkness manifested itself a face.
I attempted to strike a movement but remained still
as the daemon began to smile.
The plan was to endure without oxygen for seconds,
yet the creature stayed my conscience for a while.
In a surprising and trepid consternation,
I find myself in service to mendicancy.
The creature, a devil with venetian red oculi,
salivates at its newest and prized delicacy.
I cry at the fleeting mastery of my faculty,
yet the tears remain inattentive and departed.
Time blesses the creature with a dominant sentence
as reality registers a dialog that I had started.
“Where is my daughter? I demand to know.”
The creature’s smile grows ever wider.
He then takes the form of the stuffed turtle toy
that used to sleep right beside her.
The creature, in a droning and unmelodious voice,
utters a perplexing, yet commanding noise:*
“ATIV ARETLA NI MAN ES ED OLEF”
*Frightened yet discouraged, I aim to find the sense
in the puzzling command the creature produced.
“She’s been missing for days! I need to know where she is!”
The beast speaks again, letting its anger loose:*
“FELO DE SE NAM IN ALTERA VITA!!”
*Suddenly, albeit boundlessly, the stillness was lifted,
and my structure was free from this tenebrous stead.
I raise myself and clasp at the summit’s precipice
after having danced with a beast in this wooden bed.
The vacant coffin remained pristine,
fitted with natural calico cotton lining.
The devil you fear the most is the one you create
and mine emerged with impeccable timing.
The creature’s malevolent ballad persistently tattles
as The Lapse rebroadcasts the “truth” it wanted to utter.
It had told me, “Become a felon of oneself,
and thine own life shall be traded for another.”
I refuse to concur with the creature’s decisiveness
as my unyielding faith will ensure my daughter’s return.
Her weighty and boundless absence must cease
and lead to the terminus of my inexhaustible concern.*
Jan 25, 2018
Jan 25, 2018 at 6:57 PM UTC
Tedious tattered tracks
cast aside and cliched.
Freeze the frame
upon the lapsed remnants
of yesteryear's past.
Various voyages traversed,
infusing history,
instilling wisdom.
Inattentive iris,
incompetently fail to grasp,
the weary beauty
of the veteraned tracks.
Nov 20, 2013
Nov 20, 2013 at 1:31 AM UTC
There comes a time of day where I must put
my electronic and ink pens away, for another day.
I could write well into the night, in the west it is,
after all only eleven, but I am spent, stars out in the Heavens.
Oh to write so there is no malice and no spite,
to rise with the 'morrows ball of gas and orange fury.
Hope...for a different start.
But I am merely a man,
solo or in soliloquy, I cannot do it or
make it alone, but that is what I try to do.
Hope...does not lie in jest.
Everyday we live to breath is a test?
For the real race which is far away or near
to our heart's place?
Hope... is fleeting take a chance.
I will.
That is where I err.
I f'ward sail while
looking aft, I see not the rocks,
foaming at the bow.
Hope... is less without you.
I am less without you.
Not that I am all that you can
hope for.
Inattentive, I missed your leaving,
you found a lifeboat as I was
only finding rocks and the
press of the unfriendly waves.
Hope... left me grounded.
But the shores sharp spires eroded
my hull, my ship, my soul
so I was left and hope
was no longer on my lips or keeping
me afloat.
Even the brightest stars faded,
mouth open in a cry,
as I drank deeply and sank into my
selfish depths.
Goodbye hope.
As my darkest thoughts
await me, no
dragged me down.
Waking no more.
Feb 17, 2013
Feb 17, 2013 at 2:19 AM UTC
You can't fight yourself without losing.
Lost in this haze of constant confusion.
Are you human? So you know what I mean,
fighting temptation is as hard as it seems.
So this is the battle between emotion and logic.
Rewinding back like, "Is this real or a card trick?"
Oil slick. Static seeping in my mental navigation,
refusing to cut the ties to your connotation.
You read the last chapter now read the beginning.
You can't figure out if you're losing or winning.
Are you kidding? You lost track years ago.
Inattentive, glazed eyes pointed out the window.
An ultimatum emerged knocking on your front door.
Your words used as weapons caught in civil war.
Killing floor. Visual spectacle merely invented.
Armors the shell of your steam-powered persistence.
These days the wind blows so turbulent,
Natures influence forms dramatic events.
Circumvent. Form yourself a fate of your own.
Discard your words; pick up sticks and stones.
Mar 26, 2011
Mar 26, 2011 at 3:40 PM UTC
Again and again
A kiss exchanged for a piece of me
Steadily fading away
Vanishing into the mouths of men
They care nothing for me
Nor I for them
Bows in my hair
Clothes donned with care
Tears swept aside
So much effort lost
To the inattentive eye
I’m a fragile package
Patched with care
Chipped and ragged
A state of disrepair, despair
Numbed from repetition
Baited. Hooked. Released.
Lost to my worth
Played for gratification
The lies
Expectations
Distortions of half-truths
I bought them all
Run ragged
Through Runway
Mere shades of Beauty
Led me to fall
Feeling ****** yet finally
Learning slowly
The meaning of
For Who I am
Searching for the One
Who accepts this gift fully
I found myself as I was received
The Giver, He gifted me
Apr 24, 2012
Apr 24, 2012 at 2:14 AM UTC
And at my new job I am the manager-in-training.
In French it is
“Responsable en formation”
Or as I would say,
Responsible information.
However, I was not responsible in gathering my information.
During my interview, I said masseuse.
Turns out that is heavily connotated and maybe even denotated as a *** word.
I asked if it was the French ending
He said, “No, it’s the happy ending”
Maybe French is only **** because of how much is escapes me.
The opposite reason is why death was never **** to me
because of how much I escaped it
Maybe death finds
Me
****
And Anyway I got the job
And a month later my boss gave to me a T-shirt that said
your table is ready
At first,
Instead of a massage table,
I thought it was a stretcher
And I laughed
I wonder what that means
“You could have died” “you almost died” “it’s a miracle you’re still here”
“we’re /glad/ you’re still here”
Are words I often hear from my doctors
who almost always meet with me pro bono because I am poor, but also interesting
Medically
But they are not words I hear from my mother
Those are the words she saves to give to her 90-something mother-in-law
I say 90-something not because I am careless or inattentive, but because my grandmother Adeline lied about her age so often in her youth, that both she and the government forgot her actual age
The words my mother gives to grandma J upset her.
She is tired of living
Asked all of us to pray for her death
Asked my brother in law to be “to help her get to heaven tonight”
Said “I know you can help me get to heaven tonight” presumably because he works for the cook county coroner's office.
He is a man so jaded that he sometimes can only laugh on the job when he sees particularly trite Chicago suicide notes:
To be fair, he’s not cruel
It is usually when it is something
Like
“you either die the hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain”
Anyway, it made him cry when old Addie asked that
and also if you are a prayer person,
please pray for her death,
I can’t bring myself to do it.
Dec 3, 2020
Dec 3, 2020 at 5:14 PM UTC
I Try To Make It Better,
Try to clear my mind,
Say It's okay,
Try not to worry,
But thoughts creep in,
They suffocate me.
I'm So Alone,
Friends begin to hate me,
I've been selfish and immature,
Or maybe they've been uncaring and inattentive.
My Love Life Is Terrible,
My first love hates me,
The ones I want don't want me,
I guess I'm not good enough.
Home And School,
Chores,
Homework,
Basically my life,
So time consuming.
My Scars Mock Me,
They want to be refreshed,
I barely hold on,
I want to just cut here and there,
But I'm trying to be strong.
I Want To Let Go,
I don't wanna care,
I don't wanna care about a thing,
I just wanna breathe.
I Don't Wanna To Think,
I Don't Wanna The Stress To Bother Me,
I Don't Wanna Care How They Feel,
I Don't Wanna Love,
Because I Know Love Leads To Heart Break,
I Don't Wanna Live,
But I Don't Wanna Die,
Just Sent Me To Limbo,
Just Send Me To A Place Where I Don't Have To Give A ****
Send Me To A Place Where I'm Not Prone To Give A ****
Nov 10, 2011
Nov 10, 2011 at 10:12 PM UTC
Brake lights , running a red light , pair of white lights , the reflection in Gods eyes , beaming across the blacktop , shattered glass fell from a crepuscular blue morning sky , now covering the parkway , North and South ! Critical victims lie beside the deceased in makeshift triage , birds fly in at treetop level , gather en masse ! Sirens wail , blue , red , yellow flashing lights send them on their way ! Blackbirds gather at behest of Satan , monitor heavenly host walking amongst them ! The certain sign of Angels in our presence , blessing the wounded , gathering the chosen ! Morning fog burns from West to East , sunbeam reflects off of a hosed down street . Glass , metal , plastic and rubber now burnt offerings upon a mechanical pyre , a monument to inattentive diving , speed in battle with common sense . Reason , atonement in a car crash , chalk outlines , photographs . Yaw marks , brake lights and eye witnesses , security cameras from nearby shops that pan across the intersection ? A twenty second piece on the evening news !
Nov 1, 2015
Nov 1, 2015 at 9:20 PM UTC
vagrancy forms the pupil
loitering firms a study
a passenger of the seasonal influence
believe in the homeless
the pigeons and the litter
lovingly observe the unhandled gaps
in our gathered mouthings
believe in big babies
believe in display
the posters
walls
malls
the money bleed
that we are sincere to
and the signals that thread us
to one single box
invited and isolated
housed
unhoused
on vacation
and vacated
inattentive pupils
Mar 27, 2021
Mar 27, 2021 at 11:26 PM UTC
there is a kind of effort in
effortless
that ducks behind available assumptions
and finds refuge, overlapping shadows
already cast
whispering truth to an inattentive audience
so that when you finally dare
to look closer
it is nearly impossible to see
strained perfection
Oct 27, 2013
Oct 27, 2013 at 3:33 PM UTC
It's the most freeing feeling, it is
To be walking around naked
Every little bit, just as it should be
Rejoicing a bestowed framework
Grazing the curvatures of warm flesh
Inattentive to soft glitches
In such joyous liberations
True wholeness is glorified
Jun 11, 2015
Jun 11, 2015 at 8:06 PM UTC
anyone could see it; the way she looked at him.
the yearning in her eyes could be noticed from across the room.
it's almost as if she didn't hear the words he breathed so delicately.
everyone else heard, they heard every word of the painful exchange.
yet, the girl's doe eyes never lifted from their inattentive gaze,
and her feeble fingers never detach from where they wrapped around his clenched fists.
or maybe she did hear him.
just too caught up in her first lover's eyes,
too spellbound by his new pine cologne,
or too captivated by the image of him she created in her mind
to see he didn't love her anymore.
Nov 24, 2018
Nov 24, 2018 at 7:38 AM UTC
You have a lot on your mind to share
I said I was willing to hear
9 pm that night, we agreed to meet
You said things were too hard to bear
That was the last thing I heard
You talked for 30mins, I was knodding my head
My mind was too far from near
I was busy thinking of what to say to you
I didn't know I wasn't listening
Until you were through
My first sentence, your response was, what's wrong with you?
You left angrily and it hit me that I was such a..........
Sep 19, 2018
Sep 19, 2018 at 5:47 PM UTC
I think we forgot
Or I think there was an occurrence
A time that the door swung open
Where it slipped, almost quietly out
Fell up into the night
For others, perhaps
Or for nothing
Or maybe
Between those days, streets, dinners
Those afternoons thieved behind closed curtains
Between the hands and the highs and the denials
In those lulls of mind, or lacunas of the trials
We forgot to look
Unrepentantly inattentive
And like a naughty child
Like yesterday's confetti to a storm
It fled
And we,
Indispensably inattentive
Rolled forward
Smooth wheels on rough ground
But maybe it didn't
Didn't flee after all
And we merely
Rolled forward
Rolled towards
Do I scream from the windows?
Or replant, in the same plant ***
Do I pound my thighs along lanes after it
With all that naughtiness
Of the troubled child?
I wonder if this is the sentence
For the crime of easy reliance
I wonder if belated repentance
Can push palms into the past
I wonder if tomorrow
Changes's hurricane arrives
Oct 6, 2015
Oct 6, 2015 at 4:05 PM UTC