"incremental" poems
I started growing
measuring each incremental inch
in the doorway frame
grinning as it clearly showed
a spurt.
Although my bones were aching
I ran as fast as I could
to the corner and back
time and time again
Challenging my small young frame
to ache
and grow
And, oh, the pleasure
of those growing aches
as I leaped
to push
upward
taller
older.
Those aches felt so good!
lawrence j klumas
© july 2014
Jul 12, 2014
Jul 12, 2014 at 5:07 PM UTC
The living reality of a metaphor, almost every ounce in-taken,
Every nuance, every pronounce, measured, weighted and weighty,
Fluid or firmament, each encapsulated, prior to release, scaled,
Tabulated, ordered, noted, recorded, and ultimately judg-ed.
Totality of it all, the varied quantities of the ingested nutrients,
even the forecast of the future, if every day was a metaphor for
like today…
DO
I speak of the day's headlines?
Of the quantity and nutrition that passes through my lips?
Or
The surround sound of the surrounding sounds of this day,
the flocks of bandito geese who exist only to torment,
the landscape working crews, with their tools, like a 7::00an wake up buzzing about, for the entire street, going house to house, looking for itinerant grassy knolls of patches of bright green,
overnight sprung up and needy to be
guillotined,
laundry to do, rugs needy for clothesline screaming/beating or merely super fast vacuuming;
they, hawking their skills available for the old and infirm,
or the fatty catty cattle lazy, (somewhere in there is moi);
and the decibels of their machines, the rat-a-tat of their rapido, voluble speech that feeds me poetry by the ounce of their laughter, but more exactly of,
What do I speak, to what do I allude?
Why all and none, everything and specifically nothing,
for the metaphor is meta! (1)
It is life itself, from the quarter teaspoon
to the overflowing bath, it is life at its most incremental,
the moment
of flushing face,
the second
of ah ha! recollection, the,
long term trends
trending,
the flatline of my EKG,
the weighty pronouncement of my talking scale (you've been bad),
IT IS THE EVERYTHING
that is measurable, weighable, isolatable, defined;
it is our existence of our each & every of action and inaction strung together like a necklace and a chain
We are metaphor, reality, is, the script,
which is the product of you.
scriptwriter…/
Aug 8, 2025
Aug 8, 2025 at 6:17 PM UTC
It is later than late,
the simmered down darkness
of the jukebox hour.
The hour of drunkenness
and cigarettes.
The fools hour.
In my dreams,
I still smoke, cigarette after cigarette.
It's okay, I'm dreaming.
In dreams, smoking can't **** me.
It's warm outside.
I have every window open.
There's no such thing as danger,
only the dangerous face of beauty.
I am hanging at my window
like a houseplant.
I am smoking a cigarette.
I am having a drink.
The pale, blue moon is shining.
The savage stars appear.
Every fool that passes by
smiles up at me.
I drip ashes on them.
There is music playing from somewhere.
A thready, salt-sweet tune I don't know
any of the words to.
There's a gentle breeze making
hopscotch with my hair.
This is the wet blanket air of midnight.
This is the incremental hour.
This is the plastic placemat of time
between reality and make-believe.
This is tabletop dream time.
3.2k
**** 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
The coffee cups are *****
But it’s the cleanest way
To drink whiskey here.
The barman lost half his right fingers
To a wood chipper in his early 20’s
And spent the rest of his adult life
Flipping the world off.
He got it down to a fine art
By the time I showed up.
He didn’t smile when I ordered my drink.
He didn’t smile at all.
The jukebox hasn’t changed
For two stagnant decades
And most everyone but the regulars
Are too scared to use it.
It’s the same rotation
Of Elvis,
Muddy Waters,
BB King,
John Coltrane,
And early Bruce Springsteen.
Not a woman in sight
But every song is about them
And we are all here
Because of them.
Certain patches of carpet
Have not seen a crack of light
Since the Berlin Wall fell.
Nothing changes here but the customers-
And that change is incremental at best.
The same filthy etchings over
The same filthy cubicle doors.
The same Cherokee Indian
Smoking a Cuban Cigar
In the heartland of America.
I can’t find myself here
But there is no feeling of loss.
There is no profundity in anything here.
Just squalor
And enjoying one’s squalor.
I think that is what it means
To be truly happy.
Aug 17, 2018
Aug 17, 2018 at 5:24 AM UTC
Incremental actions
bring monumental
changes
With every fundamental step
your future rearranges
You may not know
what tiny task
could be quite instrumental
in moving your successes
to new and higher ranges
Jun 5, 2019
Jun 5, 2019 at 9:18 AM UTC
whispering rain tapping on the window
flooding my ears with sound, fluorescent
light screaming inside my brain, lift
your hands towards me again, you
won’t see me de nuevo. Wilt
beneath the demanding life you’ve beaten,
and maybe your fear will agitate
you, into a comatose state you
had put me in.,and hidden
me away from the world, mauling
innocence out of me with incremental,
unwanted touches that cannot be undone.
from handcuffs on wooden poles, foaming
mouths pouncing on my skin, melting
within myself as you drowned wearisome
unhinged fantasies onto me, and use
children for your pleasure to continue
terrorizing freely while we all trickle.
Oct 18, 2018
Oct 18, 2018 at 1:49 PM UTC
A Beginner's Guide
To manifesting your dreams
And achieving prosperity
__________
Clarify your end result
Visualize with inner eyes
Take incremental actions
Watch angelic forces rise
Trust in powerful beings
Embrace their loving aid
Shape intelligent matter
Forge reality - unafraid
Give thanks for all you use
Enjoy each glorious day
Accept, forgive, rejoice
Reach out to help, and pray
Jan 5, 2021
Jan 5, 2021 at 10:21 AM UTC
Joy in your life
Does not follow wealth
Or fame
Or even ambition
Joy in your life
Follows purpose and meaning
Friends and family
Incremental progress
When you feel disconnected
From Joy in your life
Reach out to another
And connect again
Connect with laughter
Connect with play
Connect with gratitude
Connect with focus
Connect with service
Connect with forgiveness
These will light the fire
For joy in your life
And joy will remain
Your constant companion
Mar 14, 2021
Mar 14, 2021 at 12:34 PM UTC
I foster an incremental relation to the cosmos, enticed regularly by its indefiniteness and appeal.
Its evolutions, innate behaviors, and formidable sciences are recompense for earth’s meager discrepancies.
I often engage in the caprice to dismount much dissatisfaction by the constancy of riveting celestial events.
These beings possess no artificiality.
Its prophetic order, ornate and stupendous architectural facets have allowed a crescendo of dispositional hysteria.
Prosaic imprecations are deduced from its auxiliary wherewithal.
There is no contrition in immersing in enthrallment nor is there fickleness in trust.
Magnificent bodies orbit in finesse and probability, achieving universality and control.
Though these incitements are exponentially cheering, my origin is but connoted in despondency.
Usurpers and ill-suited vandals proliferated by the intemperance of the Ptolemaic discipline.
Rustics, miscreants and idle minds misdirected by less virtuous planetary derision.
My cognitive severity asserted by ominous consummation.
Oh how these preponderant truths confine me unfortunate.
Soliloquy is but an affliction amidst this era of anachronistic reign.
Grandiose passivity is intolerable at this time.
I plan to dichotomize my adamant fate from precepts and conditions anew.
The deposition of malfeasant kings will be sought.
Ploys I have already configured; propagation is near to instigation.
I will exhort my ascent to prime eminence.
The stars will sanction me to a rightful end.
Sep 1, 2014
Sep 1, 2014 at 8:49 AM UTC
relentless, incremental,
running away,
play ...,
grains of sand measure
both the stars in the universe,
and the stars in the universe
measure descendants and...
all of this is weighed against, what?
some where today a man flew home,
some where today a woman will open this,
with intention to read, with soft eyes and
a warm heart, and more savvy than that word
knows it has, by definition.
some where a man puts his hand in a river
and comes out with words, not water
there will be many babies
maybe born in zones of conflict,
than my country has people behind bars as convicts,
which some people would take as a good thing,
bring
peace to the conflict zone,
as for the convicts they are on their own, what current
wisdom would and just as quickly ask, but who is gonna pay,
for all this insanity;
no wars,
no jails,
next you'll tell us there is no shortage of whales,
but what of their song
why has a choir turned into three whale voices singing a quartet piece?
why do we measure space and dig into the earth, you know the Earth,
no I am not going to do the obvious thing and rhyme it with a birth,
settle lightly like falling leaves when you sleep,
don't keep your fingers texting to go deep,
into the technological pool of this age,
mock whale noises,
news cast without real news, what a blast,
stand real still and sense where the wind blows
stepping outside, your castle walls and open the windows,
is more productive than hitting the refresh button,
oh don't worry, I am no hurry to start a conspiracy with this,
I'm not in the know what is for show, a closet conspiracy theorist,
anything goes,
anything goes,
I can converse on any topic as long as you say the words, I'll move my lips,
and you make the sounds, it will be the result of a well oiled machine,
trying to save the planet from the very pinnacle of creation
that caused the fall
man...kind.
You say to me, it has to be this way,
" Cause you say it best when you say nothing at all"
©DWE102013
Oct 15, 2013
Oct 15, 2013 at 1:10 AM UTC
How’s it going? Honestly?
C’mon, honest like 3 a.m. insomnia?
As the nights’ incremental dimming
draws us inwards,
how are you?
This idiot driven pantomime
of eighteen months
hit as hard as a guilt trip
So if you’re a little scarred,
a little scared,
it’s ok
They say that tomorrow is another day
which it is of course,
but the fear is it’ll send you
off course
But, my dears,
we’re all off course together
and who do I trust to help me
get back to happy paths?
Always, all ways
all of you x
Aug 31, 2021
Aug 31, 2021 at 12:42 PM UTC
train pace
quaint face
indecisive stutter
faint lace
embrace
cloaked behind the shutter
roving revolver revisions
inflict internally incubated incremental incidents
spit right in his ******* face
separation. moksha.
hypodermic hypocrisy
copper lined veins
keep pumping
filth =
into your eyes
Mar 4, 2015
Mar 4, 2015 at 10:16 PM UTC
dancing ever so gracefully
humming a melody
only known by one
the soliloquy of a soul
two figures dancing separately
grace, poise, difference
the slow changes
intricate, incremental
they reach out
two figures dancing together
stumbling, falling, laughing
a tango to the wrong tune
without a care in world
May 12, 2016
May 12, 2016 at 11:35 PM UTC
Time; incremental speeding.
Slow when observed,
fast when ignored..
Ruthless.
Time; A paradox of friend and foe.
A teacher,
a tyrant,
valued.
Time;
spent.
Nov 5, 2010
Nov 5, 2010 at 8:17 PM UTC
come
to terms with satisfaction expressions emotions forgiven strobe light dreams .... blackest visions accept.
ghosts live with what is closest thee warm are
closer to the edge
tiptoe
get around and measure up then
tune in;
cents is sent in little incremental bits:
hang on tweets: rebound around your face;
as books go unread
I sit
on
the shelf
echoes are replayed
needs go unheard.
dead is dead
Nov 21, 2014
Nov 21, 2014 at 1:30 AM UTC
Remember me this way
When I have just woken up
Uncombed hair tied into a careless bun
Face still fresh from rest
Blurry
Remember me the way
I continue the week from a bad day
With my mundane thoughts
And everyday things
Incremental
Remember me this way
When I'm looking behind, smiling
As I don't always do
"It does something to your face--
Umaaliwalas"
Remember me this way
If you think of me at all
Oct 3, 2015
Oct 3, 2015 at 9:07 AM UTC
We are just back from an autumnal walk.
Gold, red, and yellow lead green by a nose
And the sharper neighbourhood edges are softened
With leaf piles that fill the dips and voids.
We are just in from a loop around the 'hood.
The unseasonable warmth has even coerced
Teenagers onto patches of parkland to play ball
While their digital assault rifles go unused.
We have returned from exposure to the environs.
A long summer of incremental house adjustments
Pauses for the interim, so neighbours can await
The soon-to-be revised ostentation index.
We are inside again at the end of an autumn day.
Dying rays of sunlight filter through windows and half-bare trees.
Free warmth leaves us to rely upon the furnace
And savour anonymity among the bricks, stucco and vinyl.
Oct 12, 2013
Oct 12, 2013 at 5:10 PM UTC
The day was perforated by a threshold
A distracted post and lintel technicality
All a part of this door I've been painting
It opens out
It opens up
Into joy
But while I was placing tiny brush strokes
In incremental positions
Adjusting for full light
You swung it wide open
Thankfully
You swung it wide open
Let's go!
Feb 28, 2015
Feb 28, 2015 at 12:40 AM UTC
Flock of birds perhaps
perhaps a symphony
cadences hidden
rhymes sometimes
complexity in time
waiting for emergence
for a listener to be ready
for a choice to be made
the wait prolongs
sweat and tears
incremental pain
It happens then
a sudden flare
effortless
a song becomes sovereign
a formula making clear
at last
the complexities of before
Electrical exhilaration
and new tears.
Apr 15, 2012
Apr 15, 2012 at 5:41 PM UTC
Let's hear it for incremental Christians,
And ascetic vegetarians,
Hail the queen of heavens,
Blessings for us, a holy girl,
Roman around the world!
Well, she was born in the Roman empire,
A good Jewish maid, it did transpire,
A faith healer in this very day,
No holy dilemmas for her today,
Let's pray for lady luck, shines on us all,
Let's hope Armageddon does stall,
One for ascetic vegetarians,
And for incremental Christians!!
Aug 26, 2016
Aug 26, 2016 at 11:18 PM UTC
Are there real lessons to be learned,
from playing the board Game of Risk?
Is it just a fun, leisurely past time
with gameplay that can be fairly brisk?
Its premise promotes outright conflict,
albeit on a miniature scale and timetable.
With some posturing and open discussions,
attacks proceed without mortality tables.
Between uneasy alliances (based on lies)
and few verbal, unenforceable treaties,
what attitudes are honed while players
develop their world-domination strategies?
Using the armies of lifeless soldiers
to sate personal needs of global conquest,
wannabe dictators wave ideas of war-policy
with banners hiding a pseudo blood-lust.
From war campaigns with rules of engagement
that follow a predetermined, orderly sequence,
are societies secretly pushing warmongering
with unknown and unforeseen consequences?
Covert operations are not possible or deployed,
as military movements are clearly seen by all;
when acquiring territories around the World,
can a bad cause spread before an uncertain fall?
Does odds calculation for incremental success
as combatants tumble the dice of aggression,
dissuade future, role-playing battlers to not
**** others in favor of peaceful solutions?
Are we actually teaching our future generations
that war will be a permanent, acceptable ideal?
Can the human condition continue moving forward…
while the concept of peace may be sadly repealed?
Aug 14, 2014
Aug 14, 2014 at 10:35 AM UTC
I was sent
to a dark room
From your words.
Littered on the couch
Spilled into the air
Dark-like smells
smudging and
Textures touching
With antipathy for being futile.
Irrelevant.
That artifact of darkness
I know the unlit
The heavy
immovable monolith of despair.
Fence sitting for days
In Wait for a shape of
intentional light.
Incremental, as it
Fractured the silence.
That burrowed through
Despondent dirt
down Here.
I saw you flick past
a sliver of
Shiny coins
Alarmed by their details,
Lost in remnants
Of absurdity
As the cloudless score
rounded the sharp
edges
That softened
your eyes
as you peeked outside.
Jan 12, 2025
Jan 12, 2025 at 9:03 PM UTC
Some people are cynical about college - it’s rigid, they say - why is it even needed?
Don’t be confused about college - it’s not a place for creativity. You can’t use an essay to wander restlessly through your imagination - you’ll fail - and fail quickly. Universities are places for conscientious minds.
Conscientiousness - the desire to do the needed well and thoroughly - is the best predictor of success in college, in graduate school, in law, in management and anyplace that has structure and rules.
In science, most progress is incremental. Oh sure, there’s the occasional Einstein who changes everything, but that’s rare. The reason science is so powerful is that it allows regular, educated people to advance knowledge one microstep at a time. Imagine a hundred thousand people microstepping and exchanging knowledge and wow, now we’re zooming.
You don’t want a surgeon in their well lit operating theater to have an inspiration and try something new on you. You want them to apply the state-of-the-art procedure diligently and carefully.
Entrepreneurs and artists don’t always do well in college. Those careers require constant “out of the box” thinking. When a person starts a company, there are no rules, it’s necessary for the entrepreneur to make things work on the fly. Artists are almost required to break or create new rules. Conscientiousness certainly plays a part in those fields but it’s not the main predictor of success.
Creativity is necessary - every company needs a small group of people generating new ideas but it’s a high risk, high reward game. Few new ideas pan out - the odds that your idea will be unique, practical, affordable and reach the marketplace at exactly the right time to be successful are astronomically low.
Someone who wants to - who feels they have to be creative - is almost cursed. Yes, it’s ironic that I’m publishing this on a poetry site - but in most cases creative people fail - it’s much better for the average someone to be practical. Practical people are generally more successful in life although the rare creative can be extremely successful (Musk, Jobs, Gates).
Colleges teach how our world works - a simulacrum of what is currently known - in hopes that the student will be able, one day, to ask the next question - the one that will push their particular science ahead that one microstep and move us all into the bright future.
Apr 22, 2022
Apr 22, 2022 at 6:20 PM UTC