"indignities" poems
Immigrants, especially those who don't return,
create idealistic homelands.
They imagine that all their
Woes, hurts and indignities
Would not exist
in their imagined homeland.
In their minds, homeland
is in stasis.
The life they left is lingering
waiting for them to return.
They cast winter upon the ponds of their
homelands
And live lives skating over the surface
Each time coming closer to
shattering the illusion
and gasping
in the icy
waters
of change.
Jul 29, 2013
Jul 29, 2013 at 12:10 PM UTC
How can my eyes hunger for tormentors bodies
where in my soul can I find desires for sadists
Eves threw on fitted coats of Marquis de Sade
borrowed his manuals and added even more pages
pierced the heart of a Dove defending his nest with lethal pins
And in joyous indignities with devilment aplomp
they reclined and crackled in wanton doltishness
He thinks of and desires us and wants to make amor with us
How can a heart marinated in love truely sincere
a soul ready to die rather than any harm to Eves
Be mother or sister or perchance even a stranger
alas in utter ********** and grotesque situation dire
Come undone with healthy pristine heart ripped to pieces
hung drawn and quartered and sliced in tiny morsels
Like fish baits for mice and minnows or hens clucking
All at the hands of Sirens who worshipped in Satan's cravens
How can a soul with only the spark of Salvation aglow
where it once housed his heart and enduring humanity
With brimful joy and devotions in fitting measures true
as all Eves where to him nowt but sisters and earth angels
Now his burning blood runs cold like rivelets in the Arctic
their words ring hollow and smiles shows rapiers of snakes
Nothing stirs desires for all Eves now seem and look like wicked corpses
Delilahs' wrecking vengeance on Samsons in wickedness supreme
[email protected] rights reserved
Aug 23, 2018
Aug 23, 2018 at 4:31 AM UTC
Read, watched, Listened for snippets
Wore the buttons,
Devoured anything…
Apartheid
Had my own personal
Bedroom Revolution...
Jumped high…In place… with the best of them
Little balled up fists…
Pumping…
Chanted the chants
Sang the song
Freeee-ee Nelson Mandelaaaa
Freeee-ee Nelson Mandelaaaa
And I meant it!
Oh My God I meant it from my
young revolutionary soul
Cried adolescent girl cries
For our South African brothers and sisters
All of the martyrs
Known and unknown
STOP APARTHIED!
STOP APARTHIED!
Free Nelson Mandela!!
To this very day
I love me some Nelson Mandela
Love the man he is
Mourn the man he was
Big Fine Educated Pugilistic
African
Man
Passionate
Compassionate
On that serious mission
Who, though technically still breathing upon his release, in reality
Gave his life
To promote the cessation of
An idea more merciless even than the Rwandan genocide
In that Death
Seldom came quickly
A system more sadistic even than the African Slave Trade
In that it was not based economically
Therefore ALL the
“Kaffers”
Could be maimed or die
And it wouldn’t cost a thing…
Monetarily speaking
A society wherein
Each Black death
Someone’s Job… or
Someone’s Entertainment
Every atrocity’s purpose to serve only to
Douse fuel on the already
Brightly burning fire of
Hate and torture and hate
I love Nelson Mandela
For making like David
And having the *****
To take on the Goliath
Apartheid
Satan is creative
His minions resourceful
We will never know the indignities;
Can only imagine the violations
My Nelson was forced to endure
Imprisoned for 27 years
I love
Nelson Mandela
For having the strength
To keep living
When so many others couldn’t
Still able to put
One
In front of
The other
Albeit gingerly
But still locomoting
Out of hell
On his own two feet…
That alone makes him a hero
To me
In my heart he will always be
The
Big
Fine
Educated
Pugilistic
Passionate
Compassionate
Hero
That the young revolutionary in me
sings about…
Dec 7, 2013
Dec 7, 2013 at 6:29 PM UTC
Wildlife has a way of returning to the forest once it's been burnt to the ground
The death and decay are cleansed this way
And life vindicates itself of the indignities it has suffered
It is this perfect symmetry
This cyclical harmony that nature is blessed with
Fell short, the night you burned my house down in departure
November of last year, you were crying and screaming on the sidewalk
And this November I didn't sleep a single night
The floor is littered with garbage and clothes I'll never wash again
And the shower I passed out in, let the washing machine turn the water cold to wake me up
I couldn't stand to touch the surfaces anymore
They can't ever be cleansed
I can't scrape you off the floor, or the shower
The couch, or the insides of my eyes
And the bed, where you told me to never forget
Maybe I'll crash my car again, maybe you'll come home
There's an apartment in the city I always imagined
And it's a real place, I'm sure
I'll probably never see it
With your clothes and mine on the floor
While you're making breakfast, humming and smiling absently
And I have the first cigarette of a new day
Light streams in the blinds and cuts the room in half
And I always imagined that being there
Would make me realize that it feels **** good to be alive sometimes
The winter is coming back now
I wake up uneasy in a haunted house
And last week I saw your mother
Buying groceries
She told me to take care of you, once
And she smiled sadly at me and gave a small wave
Some days it gets easier
Some days I collapse entirely
Some days I think I should burn my house down
Literally this time
I've had enough of metaphors and cliches
For a lifetime, at least
Dec 3, 2014
Dec 3, 2014 at 2:35 AM UTC
It is not my story to tell:
Languishing dreams in the midst of barbed wire fences,
Fearless laughter,
We add lemon, chile powder and salt to this border.
They carry these stories,
Heavy as a sack filled with indignities,
Weighty, like your grandmother’s advice,
Cumbersome, like this daily mental displacement.
I have not bought big things as of lately,
In my mind I plan my exits,
I constantly check my relocation fund,
“What if” is a constant in my lexicon.
I often break in tears at the sound of an immigrant story,
My emotions become gallons of water:
broken and splashed by the boots of immigration officers,
Little do they know, we are cacti:
Tough and our seeds also flourish post mortem.
I want to sing an immigrant song:
Less like butterflies who migrate,
But more like dislocated nations,
Collateral flesh, caught up in steel thorns.
Rest assured we will survive,
Like leaves of siempreviva,
Even after torn away from our stem,
We will grow our own roots:
Defiant, resilient, and with a stubborn willingness to belong.
We are you.
Jan 29, 2018
Jan 29, 2018 at 3:30 PM UTC
A journo aware, equally at home in Palaces, Halls or the streets
Trained to vision duplicity slants and angles and know the crux
Able to see the story behind the story behind the story and more
In ethics robed proudly while mendacity and shenanigans cry shy
Show me the Dai Lama in a crack den or Bill Gates ******* in Goa
Semi demi illiterates with joined-up thinking or unthinking
Immatures lacking emotional intelligence or gainful statures
In groupthink mired settles on group delusions in vicissitudes
We're programming or flooding seeds of doubts or confusing
As if maladroit fantasies are gospels not simpletons' chicanery
Dismissives sad dolts duly outflanked and outclassed inherently
Ignoramuses crude and coarse in true form lacking introspection
Wear disgrace proudly in persistence and parade idiocy fittingly
Strength in numbers neither nullifying stupidity or indignities
Indulgent cowards and sick gate-keeps of unearned entitlements
Nonentities, rabble rousers shamed vigilantes in emotional dearth
Claiming and luxuriating in the depravities of their deficiencies
I remain what I am and no apologies necessary for august status
Your diminutive deeds merely reflects your statures and intellects
Little minds already condemn you to suicides of real aspirations
CopyrightLaurenceA6thNov2018.allrightsreserved
Nov 6, 2018
Nov 6, 2018 at 3:10 PM UTC
How do we define a peace land?
And where is the home, craving to return?
Listen, what did the birds and trees say?
The true pleasures lie beneath the mountain
A single bound will take us there
It is our first homeland where we were born free.
Seagull migrates well,
Pine tree wouldn't move
Look, they reunion in one home garden
They imagine that all their
Woes, hurts and indignities
Would not exist
in their imagined homeland.
Where we learnt justice at our mother's knee
return is easy, we just have to dare
The true pleasures lie beneath the mountain
In their minds, homeland
is in stasis.
The life they left is lingering
waiting for them to return.
Oct 1, 2020
Oct 1, 2020 at 2:16 AM UTC
When I was 16 and done
Cleaning out his horse stalls
Mr. Sodie Hampton said,
"Son, don't never work for less than
$1.50 an hour the rest of your life."
Momma who grew up choppin and pickin
Cotton said it a different way,
"A hard day's work deserves a
A good day's pay."
Momma also said,"You ain't any better
Than anyone else, but nobody's
Better than you either."
My Tennessee Momma also said,
"Son, your word is your bond and
A man looks after those weaker than him."
I learned as a man that children come first.
Syd and Sam taught me love
I'd never known.
We are all children of the same God
Breathed to life with the spark of
The Divine.
That's all why it ain't workin today.
We forgot all that.
We ain't all individual robots
With the strongest devouring the weakest.
And too many never worked for
Mr. Sodie Hampton and learned there's a
Floor beneath which we will not work
Indignities we will not bear
And disrespect we won't accept.
And our children deserve joy and freedom
And even skittles on a summer night
No matter their color or their clothes.
Too many of us got it ass-backwards
We make up all kind of reasons to
Hate and fight and **** and some
Even try to justify reape and ******
When Momma and Mr. Sodie Hampton said
It so different so long ago
In Tennessee and Missouri.
Aug 7, 2013
Aug 7, 2013 at 5:27 PM UTC
Noon, I’m next in line behind an old man.
“I want to withdraw fourteen dollars,” he says.
The teller, a young woman with a soft sweater, says
“There’s only—let me check—yes—fifty-two cents.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” She tilts her head. “Sorry.”
The sorrow is genuine.
He wears a pinstripe suit, frayed,
wafting an odor of smoke and earth.
A smartly folded handkerchief, breast pocket,
has a dark stain. His silver beard
is neatly trimmed.
On one wall above the safe is a giant
mural of teamsters driving a stagecoach.
The man says, “There might be—”
“No. It’s always the same.”
For a moment he closes his eyes,
a slow blink while indignities of a lifetime pass.
Without a word, the young woman slides a sandwich
over the countertop through the teller window.
“Blessings on you,” the man says with a nod,
and he walks away with a limp.
I cash my check, a big one
from three days of messy labor
for a matron of the horsey set.
“He lives by the creek,” the teller says
without my asking. “Under a bridge.”
Outside the bank, in the parking lot of glistening cars,
I look around for the pinstripe suit, the silver beard.
I might offer the man something.
He might refuse to take it.
Anyway, no matter:
he has disappeared like the last stagecoach.
Only the blessing remains.
Nov 2, 2017
Nov 2, 2017 at 12:35 PM UTC
It having been decided, herein is pronounced.
Let them know the number of days; let them count the number of days
and the count shall be 180.
Day 1 let him strike his head with his fists and call it "stupid".
Day 5 let the vomiting begin without surcease.
Let him dress for work as if he can.
Let him park and never drive beyond Day 10.
Let him pass out at the toilet.
Let him shed 100 pounds and all his hair.
He shall suffer such indignities as appertain
until he is brought to tears before his eldest son
of whom he shall ask, "Do you believe in miracles?"
Let there be no reprieve, neither for the holidays.
Let him wander out into the snow without a coat
and utter, "So beautiful. So beautiful."
All this in due course to precede the final 3.
The son and he shall smoke a last cigarette on the porch.
He shall proceed to the gurney and not see home again.
Let them gather at the hospice room.
Let him suffer terminal rage
thus shall he be manhandled by the sons.
On that day he shall be bedridden by narcotic.
Let him fall into persistent incoherence.
They shall play the New World by Dvorak.
He shall not hear.
They shall gather for the Rosary over him.
He shall not hear.
The eldest son shall vow to stay at his side
nor shall he sleep for 72 hours.
The son shall not permit the end to come.
The son shall take his hand and say
"Only God takes it away."
And when the room is empty but for them he shall sing softly
"Today While the Blossoms Still Cling to the Vine"
He shall not hear.
Let them all tell him it is okay to die.
Let the eldest son protest, "It is not okay to die."
In the final hours he shall struggle again
thus to be manhandled by the sons.
Then amid his incoherence he shall look the eldest in the eyes
and solemnly say
"I love you."
These shall be his last words.
Let them check his toes for signs of life.
Let the breathing come infrequently.
Let the breathing cease.
Let the son remain until they pull away the sheet
and display him in his nakedness at last.
All this to be accomplished January 15
in the year of Our Lord.
Jan 4, 2013
Jan 4, 2013 at 9:10 AM UTC
One little voice was a piercing light through the bleak days I now know from a grateful distance,
It uttered with confidence a beautiful perception of what I believed was a woeful existence,
That gentle voice loved all that I was with a fierce and resounding persistence,
On days when I could heed nothing but hate, the voice ran to my aid and met hate with resistance.
One loving voice stayed near to my soul and traded my loathing for a love steadfast and sure,
It taught me to mend hurts that are hard to forgive and cherish a life I did not believe I could endure.
A kindness that reached the core of my being rendered this pitiful human secure,
And despite all that went before, despite indignities done, that little voice dared to call me pure.
Jul 30, 2019
Jul 30, 2019 at 3:13 PM UTC
I’d worked late each night that summer,
I had some free cash in Eighty Nine.
So, it was only natural
when I needed to unwind.
I’d grab a meal and have a glass
(or two) till final call
Then show up in the morning for
my stint at Broad and Wall.
The Blue bar at the Algonquin
was always my first choice.
Steve Ross was singing in the oak room,
I recall his lovely voice.
The bartender and the waiters
knew my wants without a word.
As I waited for my supper
a distinctive voice was heard.
Even in her eighties, Garbo struck a
regal tone.
Despite cancer's indignities
She would have honored any throne.
.
She knew I’d recognized her,
though I never said her name.
I 'd been just a child when she
had her last brush with fame.
She knew me from the brokerage house
Her account was with my boss.
We’d sometimes spoken on the phone
about a gain or loss.
I asked if she would like a drink
when next the barkeep came.
She eyed the Bourbon in my glass
and said “I’ll have the same.”
We were two people, both alone,
She famous, me, obscure.
For me it was her solitude
that acted as a lure.
I knew she’d never married
though there were lovers and affairs.
It was as if the single life
was answer to her prayers.
“You know I never really said:
‘I want to be alone.’
Its just I knew I had the strength
to be out on my own.”
She knew I had just lost my Dad,
The pain was very keen.
She said “I lost my Father back
when I was seventeen.”.
“I appreciate your kindness...
It‘s going to take some time.”
“If you know where your heart lies,”
She said,” You’re going to be fine.”
I paid the bill and we stepped out
into a warm and humid night.
I hailed a cab for her
and then we said our last good Night.
I never saw her face again
or beheld those striking eyes.
It was just a few months later
We got word that Garbo died.
Dec 7, 2011
Dec 7, 2011 at 10:08 PM UTC
who's reflection is this i see
staring back at me....
*forged in the flames of adversity
whispering ink leaking past blots
scarlet threads woven intricately
through portals of complicity
machinations of another time and place
laced within roots of strangling tendrils
mutated pretty posies succumb to history
dancing round the fire of life's indignities*
Dec 9, 2013
Dec 9, 2013 at 4:15 AM UTC
I’d worked late each night that summer,
before the crash in Eighty Nine.
So, it was only natural
when I needed to unwind.
I’d grab a meal and have a glass
(or two) till final call
Then show up in the morning for
my stint at Broad and Wall.
The Blue bar at the Algonquin
was always my first choice.
Steve Ross was singing in the oak room,
You may recall his tenor voice.
The bartender and the waiters
knew my wants without a word.
As I waited for my supper
a distinctive voice was heard.
Even in her eighties, Garbo struck a
regal tone.
Despite age’s indignities
She would have honored any throne.
.
She knew I’d recognized her,
though I never said her name.
I was just a child when she
had her last brush with fame.
She knew me from the brokerage house
Her account was with my boss.
We’d sometimes spoken on the phone
about a gain or loss.
I asked if she would like a drink
when next the barkeep came.
She eyed the Bourbon in my glass
and said “I’ll have the same.”
We were two people, both alone,
She famous, me, obscure.
For me it was her solitude
that acted as a lure.
I knew she’d never married
though there were lovers and affairs.
It was as if the single life
was answer to her prayers.
“You know I never really said:
‘I want to be alone.’
Its just I knew I had the strength
to be out on my own.”
She knew I had just lost my Dad,
The pain was very keen.
She said “I lost my Father back
when I was seventeen.”.
“I appreciate your kindness...
It‘s going to take some time.”
“If you know where your heart lies,”
She said,” You’re going to be fine.”
I paid the bill and we stepped out
into a warm and humid night.
I hailed a cab for her
and then we said our last good Night.
I never saw her face again
or beheld those striking eyes.
It was just a few months later
We got word that Garbo died.
Jan 15, 2012
Jan 15, 2012 at 6:37 PM UTC
It may take too long a time to write,
For the anxious future's now the past,
But the words are flowing out at last.
Composing verse on love and hate,
Death and youth,
And all of nature,
First and all loves,
All relations,
The beauty in all of creation.
I'm pleased to share
My P.O.V.,
On myriad subjects
That interest me;
A perogative poets share
At all stages.
We take liberties,
Endure indignities,
Being the voices
Of all ages.
Sep 14, 2015
Sep 14, 2015 at 10:19 PM UTC
Our homes are war zomes.
Made with bricks of invidiousness.
Polished with the indignities.
Plastered by insincerities.
Smeared by censures.
Stained by the scandalizers.
And
Shredded by the scandalmongers.
Jun 13, 2021
Jun 13, 2021 at 12:00 PM UTC
No Badge of Courage
I have never been in war
I have never had the desire
to take the life of another human
nor did I ever have this desire
to trod through mountainous
or sand blown desserts
or any hot steamy jungle
dodging bullets and poisonous insects
or snakes like the two step of Vietnam
a snake so named because that
was usually the number of steps
a man could walk before falling
after he had been bitten by one
no I have never had the desire
to carry a 50 lb pack on my back
in sweltering or freezing conditions
pursuing a frightened kid or worse yet
a crazy kid wanting to **** me in
the name of his chosen god
yet, I somehow feel incomplete,
I have had friends who endeared
these conditions, some who never
returned to their friends, families
except in a wooden box
but I feel that I never fulfilled my obligations
in wake of this Veterans day
I once again have this feeling of sadness
this feeling I never put my life on the line
to defend a creed, a purpose, a need
of other peoples who needed help
to fight the indignities of killings
tortures, slavery
to defend them in their reach for
justice, freedom, humanity.
So all I can do I guess is do what
I do every year about this time,
thank these brave men and women
who sacrifice their time, their lives
to help keep this and other nations
safer, humane, with dreams of the future
may whoever your chosen God or belief
protect you from harm today
in the hopes that tomorrow will be better
Gomer LePoet ....
Nov 11, 2013
Nov 11, 2013 at 7:11 PM UTC
before
we
know
kindness
we are silly moons
a primal scream
ids
gaggle of wants
having not yet understood
our own vulnerability
and its connection to others
the agony of self
uninitiated
by the sacrifices yet to come
in effect a criminal mind
as a child growing up in brooklyn
my friends and i would
make a mad dash
out of ching-a-lings
chopsuey restaurant
after eating sumptuously
with out paying the bill
electrified with terror and excitement
at the thought of being grabbed
by a chinese boogy man
and laughing breathless
when finally
out of harms way
sadistically delighting
by the panic
we caused
as some red faced hyperventilating waiter
caved trying to catch
five little hell boys
fury fast
all adults
were filthy rich
compared to us urchins
idling in the darkness and tenements
sniffing glue
in a number 2 brown paper bag
hole in the pocket poor
slow starters
uninspired
pressing through
the dragging weight
of a barren world
not yet knowing
we too will toil endlessly
worry sick for loved ones
and quake at endless indignities
trying to eek out a living
like the waiter we robbed of his pittance
on this Sisyphean rock
our lives
stretched out before us
a white knuckle ride
between hope
and quiet desperation
struggling not to be swallowed
through pitted black holes
and fake floors
into downward mobility
our pin ball souls
like small metal *****
jarred and knocked
from one ringing bell to the next
in a turbulent game
player or not
without an inkling
of the fated
dark signature
written into our genes
by deaths hand
before
we
know
kindness
Jan 31, 2017
Jan 31, 2017 at 7:42 PM UTC
So my name was "Waztaeat",
And now its "whereyoubeen"!?
But the only crazy part???
I kept answerin!
I'd move idly through each my days.
Respond atomatically, seeming unphased.
But under this calm outward facade.
Braced for indignities, my soul quietly raged.
"Don't lie! Don't lie!
You hate this!", she'd shout.
"Stop allowing this nonsense.
Or you'll never come out."
"Of this crazy, wackadoo loop...
I'm your soul! The only you get!"
"Take your stand NOW kiddo!
Or you soon may forget.."
"Your whole point and purpose..
For this life; move and breath free."
"Through boundless open spaces..
Gleening truth, seeing you see me.."
Jan 21, 2013
Jan 21, 2013 at 10:11 PM UTC
the new dark age
heart goes out
world goes up
all due to a love of concrete
and iron indignities
buildings grown in the heartland
steel your future
wrap your face in a foreign flag
make it medieval
so fear and superstition
can live on each floor
from above the cityscape
blueprints of a pinball machine
a train to nowhere
like candles on a cake
that will burn someday
when least expected
ladies against the glass
of morning commutes
show too much cleavage
to people on Sunday
gentlemen with their death sticks
conjure the factory smoke
poisoning a life of leisure
these infinite vistas
continue to rise
elevation well in hand
stitched together
but growing apart
the biomechanical soul
a species out of control
mother solitude and her
modern failures
take the stairs to the roof of her mouth
progress leaves an echo
her final words are
empty, foreboding
and full of lead
Jul 26, 2025
Jul 26, 2025 at 12:20 PM UTC
a mother’s motivational silence
speaks to a jesus
who at this point
has been alive
longer than he lived
-
I am of two beasts
when put in the mind
of my brain’s mirror
-
while doing the same thing
day in and day out
my father suffered
various indignities
commonly associated
with babies
and naked women
-
it is childish
how much time
she thinks I have
to touch everything
in the store
-
no offense
to your proactive
vacationing
but this
this, is dying
May 8, 2014
May 8, 2014 at 8:54 PM UTC
Where is the grief
that should write your face
leaving no trace
of joy’s expression
only rivers of red depression?
Where is the pain
that should be drawn in
till each line ages you
as it should do?
Where is the wisdom achieved
in feeling such grief
in bending to weep
from the sorrows you see?
Where is the hope and conviction born
from seeing the forlorn,
hearing the horrors that sound inhumanity
then standing to see a whole city
raging against such indignities?
Where is the righteous outrage
that you display
for a symbolic piece of cloth
that represents states that owned slaves
or the red white and blue
that you pledge your allegiance to
when it is torn, burned,
stepped on, or frayed?
Shouldn’t that anger be parlayed
into seeking justice
for those who were betrayed
for the ones who went away
to be kissed by the lips of death
and the ones who stayed
trying to make ends meet
for the human beings
who mean so much more to me?
Seriously, where is your god **** human decency?
Feb 11, 2017
Feb 11, 2017 at 11:48 AM UTC
Muscle relaxer
Puts you to sleep, a gentille pusher
R X hits the spot
To feel easy on Sunday
Mornin's
When you really feel
The nothing
In the pit, on that spot, at the bottom,
Of your soul
When the air is thick and sticky
It must be sin city
It's juicy rife with indignities
Para socialite delights
Flesh not feelings
The world feels oddly oblong
Alien stranger through my mirror
Adrift and soaked
In the sweat of my demise
A foreigner with the earth of my eyes
As the stress drowns
In Soma,
A half mind in the clouds
My indifference just as hollow
As the experiences of a corpse,
Muscle relaxer
Put you to waking sleep...
Is that what is truly happening
The experiences of
Poetry without life,
Life without Poetry...
Half asleep
One eye full of worlds
In our world
Every wonder
Everafter
Even in sleep
We fill our dreams with color
And soul and heart and
Meaning ...
(Loves light forever
Beaming)
Mar 14, 2017
Mar 14, 2017 at 7:08 PM UTC