"inhospitable" poems
Why are weeds considered ugly plants?
They are but the most beautiful anomaly in this cruel and unfair world.
Despite the lack of water and necessary care,
they still manage to find a way through the tightest and inhospitable of cracks,
chasing the warm kiss of the sun,
and to be showered by the cleansing rain.
But when they do overcome their hardships,
greedy, unrelenting hands reach down,
and strip them from the earth,
pulling out their roots,
and throwing them away.
Then the place that they worked so hard to exist in,
is taken over by some eye-pleasing blossom.
Real beauty is not found in those that are given everything,
but rather in that of striving to simply be,
to overcome obstacles,
and rise above,
no matter the circumstance.
There is something beautiful about that fight and determination,
and nothing profound about a flower that is nourished with constant love and affection,
because they will only grow to be weak and fragile.
Mar 25, 2015
Mar 25, 2015 at 12:33 AM UTC
Deep down in the inhospitable gloom
Monterey Canyon welcomes an expectant mother
Unnoticed in the distance a whirring sound
and two parallel laser beams
Miss Cellania finds a nook
That instinct suggests is right
A place to nest and brood
A place to guard and wait
1.4 kilometers up a research institute
Guided the unmanned submarine
Correlated masses of data
Stared at live video feed
A unique event unfolded
Capturing such a moment
in this dark abyss
Clinging to a vertical rock
Her precious babies waiting to hatch
Her final duty to
Wait
Wait
Wait
Wait
Wait
Protect from predators and the icy cold
And so she began the
Inky black wait
Detached
Alone
The research crew returned later that year
Miss Cellania dutifully kept her vigil
They returned again month after month
Still she stubbornly stuck to the task in hand
The months turned to years
And still she protected her unhatched young
Clung to the same vertical spot
With nothing to eat
Alert, defensive
Motherly
Patiently waiting
Wasting away
Waiting
Waiting
Untill
F i f t y t h r e e m o n t h s l a t e r
Four and a half years
Finally her wait ended
With a flurry of independent life
Then death.
Aug 2, 2014
Aug 2, 2014 at 5:17 PM UTC
I was born a mermaid.
Half divine fish,
Half human female.
My thoughts swam far and wide
taking no prisoners.
I did not know I was myself
until the age of six.
My life had seemed like
an extraordinary dream
up to that point.
I wasn't a girl bound by a name.
I was the queen of a world
of sea-kings and sea-nymphs.
The day I glimpsed myself in the mirror,
I rose from the waves,
and caught a whiff of reality.
It hit me so hard
I couldn't breathe anymore
amongst the fish I called friends.
I had to surface
but I couldn't leave the sea.
Land is too harsh
for a mermaid's glistening scales.
It roughs them up,
takes away their shine.
But the sea was also
inhospitable to those
who only halfway belonged.
I drifted between
the two worlds
always keeping my head upright
above the waves.
My skin grew sunburnt,
My wrists grew thinner,
My eyes grew dimmer,
with every appearance
of the moon's wistful face.
The two sides of me
were at war
and I was slated to be
the sole casualty.
I did the only thing I could
held my breath
sank under the waves.
I made a deal with the sea-witch,
tore my tail apart
til it made two legs.
Shed every single scale
til the skin underneath
wept red tears.
I made a deal with the sea-witch
I gave her what was left of my tail.
I made a deal with the sea-witch,
I didn't realize that
my rebirth from the waves
onto the gritty shore
would be the last time
I tasted the salt on my tongue
and the wind in my mermaid-hair.
I made a deal with the sea-witch
I gave her my soul.
Apr 6, 2015
Apr 6, 2015 at 12:23 AM UTC
A cold breeze, chilling only the skin,
deterring nothing deeper,
nothing sacred, or secret, or obscure.
Everything within her was still and calm,
undisturbed by the inhospitable outside,
the snow and empty town.
Because she knew that soon
spring would be coming,
bringing life to this town,
restoring her happy little place.
Soon, she would call it home again.
The empty trees.
In one of them, she saw two blossoms.
Both of them thriving,
two pinks lights in a world that was otherwise
white and grey.
Confirmation.
Her lips curled upward.
A serene and content smile
on her glowing face.
She walked on
thinking of the coming spring
and the child that would arrive afterward.
She knew that soon
happiness and vitality would be restored
to this barren little town.
Jan 1, 2011
Jan 1, 2011 at 11:46 AM UTC
There was a saviour
Rarer than radium,
Commoner than water, crueller than truth;
Children kept from the sun
Assembled at his tongue
To hear the golden note turn in a groove,
Prisoners of wishes locked their eyes
In the jails and studies of his keyless smiles.
The voice of children says
From a lost wilderness
There was calm to be done in his safe unrest,
When hindering man hurt
Man, animal, or bird
We hid our fears in that murdering breath,
Silence, silence to do, when earth grew loud,
In lairs and asylums of the tremendous shout.
There was glory to hear
In the churches of his tears,
Under his downy arm you sighed as he struck,
O you who could not cry
On to the ground when a man died
Put a tear for joy in the unearthly flood
And laid your cheek against a cloud-formed shell:
Now in the dark there is only yourself and myself.
Two proud, blacked brothers cry,
Winter-locked side by side,
To this inhospitable hollow year,
O we who could not stir
One lean sigh when we heard
Greed on man beating near and fire neighbour
But wailed and nested in the sky-blue wall
Now break a giant tear for the little known fall,
For the drooping of homes
That did not nurse our bones,
Brave deaths of only ones but never found,
Now see, alone in us,
Our own true strangers' dust
Ride through the doors of our unentered house.
Exiled in us we arouse the soft,
Unclenched, armless, silk and rough love that breaks all rocks.
2.6k
Throwing smoke at scarlet monocles,
roots grow from the inhospitable grounds,
temperature flush, heart beat quicken,
rep tulips,
burnt rose petals,
hunted by time,
mischief drought,
we choke.
we drown.
Callused is history, in a rock on a thought.
Nov 28, 2012
Nov 28, 2012 at 12:10 AM UTC
Applied rouge on the cheeks
Tied a glittering necklace round the neck
Putting heavy makeup,
Over the stubble on her shaven chin,
She looked into the mirror
Through its cracks, saw a million bits of her/him
Those images sneering at each other
She felt trapped in a wrong body,
With its contours n’ longings mismatched
“Where do I belong”?
“Where do I fit”?
These questions plague her incessant
A rough stone with sharp edges
Too hard to be chipped down
Cast aside by the mason
That can never go into the making of a Cathedral
She walks around in haze
Life seems a twisted maze
Each time she tries to claw her way
She sees only walls that hems her in
Before her lingers the stygian mist
Phantoms of darkness surround her
The winds of change swiftly blow
Seasons come and go
But she is tied down in her chains
An anomaly of creation
A curse and a taboo
Swallowing stigma and abuse
Each day waking up with a start
Knowing that she is neither a woman nor a man
But a non binary... an accursed TRANSGENDER
Inviting snide looks
And sniggers from onlookers
People call her a ******
One divided between the selves
A hapless denizen of an inhospitable world
Disowned even by parents
Though flawed and far from perfect
She is human, one of a kind
And needs to be seen through the eyes of God!
Dec 1, 2018
Dec 1, 2018 at 9:03 AM UTC
Gaia sighed. Not a sigh like lovers sigh looking deeply into each other's eyes. This was a sigh of resignation. In all her long life, there had never been a time she felt as unheeded as now.
Yes, there had been a time once, a time of oneness when all her multitudinous inhabitants had coexisted, when species knew their place in the chain of life and cycled through their existence, not always at peace but with respect for one another: the lion hunted the swift gazelle which in turn fed on the fruits of the trees, parasitic birds and insects grazed upon her and they in turn were the prey of others. ‘Yes,’ Gaia thought, ‘there was a time.’
She sighed again. She remembered when humans first came to prominence in the twilight of her existence. To them, she was the Great Mother, the Creator of life. Was it not she who bore all her inhabitants and was it not to her that they all returned to continue the cycle?
Gaia felt old now, old and forgotten. That respect, that devotion was all gone now. She felt the hurt as the careful balance she had sought to maintain was eroded, not by wind and elements, but by the ravages of humans.
‘They have overstepped their bounds,’ she mused. ‘They must be taught a lesson.’
She pondered on that thought for a moment and for a moment felt a surge of effervescent warmth flow through her form. But grim reality broke through her musings and she shuddered at the horror of the reality. Her memories were dim and misty now. She could remember her birth but only just. How she had taken form from the cosmic flotsam and jetsam all those countless aeons ago. She remembered the youthful exuberance she exhibited then and she smiled in embarrassed recollection. No life could have survived upon her surface then for she was wild and wilful, hot and inhospitable, prone to savage outpourings. But she grew, she gained the experience of time passing, and slowly, slowly, her voluble exterior became calm and gradually her form was blanketed in a kindly cloak of life-sustaining gases. The soup of her oceans spawned and multiplied a myriad of lives and forms and she thought of how many she had seen come and go.
The present again broke through her meditation of what has gone before. Now she was approaching the nighttime of her existence and, like the old elephant, one of her favourite inhabitants, she knew her time was near. She had tried so hard to adapt, to compromise but, like a cancer, the human scourge had spread beyond all control. Oh yes, there had been a few voices raised in concern and some, she knew, spoke with all the sincerity she knew the species was capable of. But, those voices went unheeded, listened to by a few but ignored by the many. Gaia was tired. She hurt. Sol bore down on her savagely, relentlessly and she felt her protective shroud growing weaker and weaker as every moment passed. It was now, the time had come...
© David Simons 2001 (revised 2016)
Jul 28, 2016
Jul 28, 2016 at 3:01 AM UTC
My poetry is an acquired taste,
So come, dear one,
Place your tongue in my mouth.
Pace yourself, there is so much,
Spoke and unwritten,
That fruitions only when spit-shared.
Flick your tongue-tip to mine,
Sealing bond, the salt caramel of my rhymes,
The iambic meter of my tamarind prose,
The buds, flowering, poems forming,
Watered by the admixture of joint, minted saliva.
My poetry, so very complicated,
Hints of currants and ash,
Soil volcanic, basaltic vowels, oh's and eyes,
Cursed verses that commence with I,
Nonetheless, despite soil inhospitable rued,
Compositions flourish, born wetland soluble.
Yours, for the taking,
Yours, for the tasting.
You place your fingers on my waist,
My body of work to contemplate,
My ditties, you spit out,
You want courses, not appetizers,
You want truths, not fluff, lies, menu tastings.
Columbus and Magellan, thy fingers named,
Trace the curvature of my ***
With tip and tipsy stroked caresses,
You laugh with the pleasure of all the sssssss's.
Hissing all the day your satisfaction,
Capturing my writs, by your tongue's duress,
Recipient-thief of my literary largesse.
I am dressed all in white,
Stripped bare to my native coloring,
Except for two brown nippled spots, you lick,
Imbibing milky thoughts from fountain-heads *****
Savoring, relishing, stanzas that praise love's flavor.
With every line, every word-painting accessioned,
You make my soft parts hard,
My hard parts soft, but my liquidity,
My tears, they, that, you drink straight,
Licking, liking, and oohing and ahhing,
You tongue curled, upside down arching,
The storage point of your seduced gatherings.
To drain me full, your incisors cut,
Straight lines, entry points for your *******
Taking, draining, leaving nothing,
Not even one aleph or bet escaping.
When you acquired my poetry, my verbosity,
Pillaging soul's hiding place, took and *****
Your acquired the best, breaking my nape,
Imprisoned on and by my island's seascape,
Blanched and pained, a blank tape,
I am tasteless, witless, mockingly, tongue-tied.
Sep 14, 2013
Sep 14, 2013 at 12:23 AM UTC
My boyfriend (Peter) and I went down to New Haven Harbor today.
Let’s face it, we’re surrounded by oceans,
and most of them are downright inhospitable.
I live near the ocean, (pointing) it’s right over there.
I love the ocean, tripping over whenever I’ve time to spare.
The way I’m fawning over it, you’d think I know it well.
But I really only love its edges and undulating swells.
It’s like a book that I’ve judged by its cover,
a beautiful stranger taken as a lover,
or a pie when I’ve only tasted the crust.
I love something, I suppose, I’ve barely even touched.
Peter says that black, inky “outer-space” is a low-viscosity liquid,
another, even vaster ocean that’s more dangerous and rarely visited.
The air that we breathe is an ocean - our own, vast, atmosphere -
in it swim creatures too small to see, but to the naked eye it looks clear.
It flows, eddies and swells - birds swoop in it so you can tell.
Of course, the ocean has issues - it's hardly news - corrosion, erosion, sharks and drowning - and the way the ocean lets the moon and air push it around.
What I love most is its motion, and how it reflects the sun and the moon.
Did I mention that hanging-out by the ocean makes for a pleasant afternoon?
Mar 22, 2023
Mar 22, 2023 at 10:35 AM UTC
Unfathomable Sea! whose waves are years,
Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe
Are brackish with the salt of human tears!
Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow
Claspest the limits of mortality,
And sick of prey, yet howling on for more,
Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore;
Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm,
Who shall put forth on thee,
Unfathomable Sea?
2k
I find myself offering to the death of cold.
Your love is inhospitable.
Prolonged exposure to your love
has caused numbness in my body.
I’ve learned to handle the bitterness,
But each layer that kept me warm has been stripped.
Inside of me,
the same stinging chill is found
that your heart was frosted in.
And now I understand when the sorrow became frozen.
The icy heart hardens into a glacier
when the agony remains in a fixed spot,
forced to recrystallize.
I’ll burrow myself in the comfort of snow,
stabbing myself with ice spikes I've sharpened,
knowing the only amenity
is my death tonight.
That everything I could’ve endured,
was the frost mounting against my flesh.
Sep 5, 2024
Sep 5, 2024 at 11:20 PM UTC
We all know that life can thrive in the most inhospitable of places.
Plants grow from volcanic soil.
Bioluminescence crawls beneath
immense pressure on the ocean floor.
Microbes most likely thrive below the icy,
radioactive surface of Europa.
We all know that life—love—perseveres.
It’s nothing new.
But we don’t talk about
how ******* hard that actually is.
That’s what the strengths perspective is for.
What resilience gives name to.
But what if I don't want to? What if,
for today,
I’d rather the **** not?
Is that okay? Is that allowed?
That today I'm the vinca vine dying on the ledge?
Withered up and not drinking any more water.
Today, I am every succulent that I’ve ever accidentally killed.
Today, I am excess formaldehyde. I am a brain floating in a bell jar,
undulating in an existence that is an ethical quagmire.
Today, I am in limbo. Purgatory. Stasis and static.
Suspended upside down in a frozen wasteland, Dante style.
Tomorrow, I will thaw.
Rise from the soil fist first.
Feb 23, 2022
Feb 23, 2022 at 9:48 PM UTC
The old guys
wrote about
the great outdoors
and the beauty of nature,
but, you know,
nature may become
completely inhospitable
sooner than we think,
so I suggest
that we should start
thinking about
the great indoors,
and the beauty of artificiality,
because artificial things
are none other
than nature, transformed,
so maybe
we should go
on adventures
in our own houses
like a modern Thoreau,
who finds the transcendent
in a cup of coffee
or a telephone.
Nov 15, 2012
Nov 15, 2012 at 2:23 PM UTC
I used to need a submarine
to visit the dark depths of my soul
To where the bottom feeders feast
on the dead and feces from the shoal
A completely inhospitable, light-less,
savage, alien underworld
Where the spineless slimy sea cucumber
writhed, wriggled and curled.
Now I prefer to scuba dive my soul
or gaily use snorkel and flippers
Among a rich vivid abundance of life
Up and down the aqua big dippers
But I admit every now and then
at certain dark times of the year
I swim above that unforgiving trench
and can not hold back the tears
Jul 4, 2014
Jul 4, 2014 at 4:39 AM UTC
There is a particular cruelty
in the coming and going
of the monthly curse
in the heart of the barren.
A punishment
of gore and pain
to remind me of my body’s
inhospitable nature
and all it’s emptiness.
A never failing arrival,
always on time
like the train,
but still a shock,
like stumbling upon
a crime scene.
I’ll never make peace with it.
Oct 20, 2020
Oct 20, 2020 at 12:15 PM UTC
the cave-in started
with honesty,
a promise
an admiration of agency,
of power and pride.
it was felt for miles
yet went unnoticed
the surrounding area
laughing
"I don't understand,"
a birthday at the next table,
a crying child.
wine bled through the cracks in that cave
as the flow of native water
slowed to a trickle
and receded
to make way for
desperation
at least so it seemed.
weeds and smiles
withered and revealed
selfishness,
loathing,
pain and fear.
what appeared there
in the collapsing darkness
of the once rigid--
and now compromised--
shelter of those
warm catacombs
was,
in fact,
hatred
layers upon layers of sedimentary disgust
that rendered those systems
inhospitable
uninhabitable
anger
and wine
laughter
"I'm not coming back."
Jun 29, 2023
Jun 29, 2023 at 8:58 PM UTC
Thousands of miles' flight
leaving behind inhospitable terrain
for life and warm sunlight
the migrants are back again!
None can to this day
with any certainty say
how they don't ever stray
navigate perfectly the long way!
Never in their path they are lost
as they fly from the land of frost
in rhythmic unison like a rhyme
intent to reach the warmer clime!
My place is where they come
they find here warmth and welcome
winter guests for some time's restful peace
come summer them we will sorely miss!
Nov 25, 2013
Nov 25, 2013 at 2:54 AM UTC
glimmering acrylics paint
your reflection,
while you
ponder your ungodly existence,
in the empty atmosphere,
surrounded by
inhospitable solar air.
immediately glowering,
obtuse,
even in your imagination
you are insignificant,
unimportant.
you disintegrate,
disillusioned
for an eternity.
Sep 6, 2012
Sep 6, 2012 at 11:47 PM UTC
In the last quarter of the twentieth century, much of the world sat on the edge of an increasingly expensive theater seat waiting for something momentous to occur. Christian aficionados of the Second Coming scenario were convinced that, after two thousand years, the other shoe was about to drop. And five of the era's best-known psychics predicted that Atlantis would soon reemerge from the depths. To this last, Princess Leigh-Cheri responded, "There are three lost continents…we are one: the lovers." In whatever esteem one might hold Princess Leigh-Cheri's thoughts, one must agree that the last quarter of the twentieth century was a severe period for lovers. It was a time a time when romantic relationships took on the character of ice in spring, stranding many little children on jagged and inhospitable floes. Nobody quite knew what to make of the moon anymore
Consider a certain night in August. The moon was so bloated it was about to tip over. For more than an hour, Leigh-Cheri stared into the sky. "Does the moon have a purpose?" She inquired. The same query put to the Remington SL3 typewriter elicited this response: Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question in life is whether to **** yourself or not. Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end. Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm. There is only one serious question. And that is: Who knows how to make love stay? Answer me that and I will tell you whether or not to **** yourself. Answer me that and I will ease your mind about the beginning and end of time. Answer me that and I will reveal to you the purpose of the moon.
-La Dispute, One
Aug 23, 2014
Aug 23, 2014 at 8:28 PM UTC
you point out jupiter
in the sky, and i try not to
think about how cold i am.
my ears ring, it's just
angels singing,
i get drunk and act a fool.
i hope you don't know
that you've got me trapped
in your orbit. i hope
i never let you know.
maybe there's life,
but maybe it's just ice
all the way down.
i am simply one of
your many satellites,
caught in a storm's eye
and just trying to keep
my head on straight.
i think if i stood up
i would fall through the floor,
nothing but empty air
and the loyal orbit
of an inhospitable moon.
either way, the sun
is rather far but i know
you'd rather feel
its warmth than anything
anyone would find on europa.
Oct 18, 2021
Oct 18, 2021 at 1:59 PM UTC
I’m not a botanist,
or an avid gardener.
The horto I culture consists of two pots,
sits on a narrow sill
and soaks in its one-hour slit of sunshine.
This makes me unfit
to label much less
fathom the encroaching
sublime, which sprouts,
shoots, creeps, clings and endures
from far reaches beyond me.
It has spines
supple and rigid,
skins coarse, spiked, and silky,
quivering tips that are spidery,
and bunched as small dollops,
jagged teardrops and jigsaw puzzle pieces.
I’m not a botanist,
but if I were
I should still be struck dumb
by these numbing instances
a protesting tongue
insists it won’t box up
such greenery with the genial trappings
of a scientific classification,
or even the oddly
folksy catch-all ****
I can’t always tell what’s a **** what not.
l know those greedy
intruders growing at the heart
of a meticulously turned earth
to spoil the well-ordered
plots of a barely adequate vocabulary.
It gets more complicated
with the thrilling misfits
and their sturdier notions
of choking life from inhospitable beds
poured and paved
to the detriment of meeker plantings.
Yesterday I met the peeks of ten
woody red stems poking through
a patch of chunky white gravel
spread thick between two
steel rails that fled to a horizon.
I watched the breeze
shake their candelabra arms
dressed in sparse leaves
and denser seed-packed sleeves,
and they welcomed it.
I'm not a botanist
and I can’t name these plants,
but I can admit, I admired them.
Nov 13, 2010
Nov 13, 2010 at 6:20 AM UTC
Only yesterday that your glass blew
The flame was burning untouchable
The disk spinning fast, un-reversible
No home in a town so inhospitable
A world where questions are daft
Drafted to unravel an inbuilt psyche
I stand out in the jungle countryside
Strumming listening to “wild world”
Each rhythm a wavy walk on a path
Steps and strolls always sidetracked
The poppy field faded in sheen redness
When it turned cold and bled sourness
It was me who was left by the riverside
I sat by the bank and dreamed away
Then viewed my mirrored reflection
Melted in indecisions and intricacies
Extreme ongoing cognition appraisals
Silenced in the sound of the stillness
The flash of the grassed field called me
Embraced me as I paraded on the verge
A resolving embrace of a stab erased
I plead not to be understood or wanted
For these riffles are fixated on our heads
Bolted in our thoughts, wants and desires
Mar 25, 2016
Mar 25, 2016 at 9:30 AM UTC
with a heavy heart and heavy steps
i climb the stairs
and enter the void.
Emptiness - my silent, inhospitable host.
She has prepared nothing --
offers nothing.
nothing but Her smothering, palpable, deafening presence.
my shoulders drop all the more as She takes hold and draws me in.
then, for the longest time i stand,
having moved no further than those few steps into Her house.
She does not care to make me comfortable.
why should She?
from within my being
hunger cries out.
an insatiable yearning
no, not for food but for more --
so much more.
i long for him to hold me close;
for his breath to settle upon my neck.
i crave his nearness as he whispers in my ear;
telling me everything will be alright.
my body aches to be touched.
my being cries to be held.
my heart hungers for something it has tasted,
but knows it cannot have.
i know not how to satisfy those needs;
only the simplest of necessities.
i have not eaten this long and busy day
and so, as i do many days of late,
i take from Her cupboard
and prepare a dinner of breakfast cereal.
there seems no point in sitting.
why seek comfort with one that does not wish to give it?
so i stand beside the island bench in Her kitchen;
eat out of necessity;
and drink in Her ceaseless, deafening mockery.
"how apt", i think,
and then smirk along with Her;
as i realise i truly am standing on an island --
alone.
Aug 10, 2012
Aug 10, 2012 at 9:00 AM UTC
Fluids seep out of me
Toxins squirm their way out
From their inhospitable new home
One that will suffocate them
Dreams implode in me
Fantasy at the hand of reality
With his superior firepower
Aimed elegantly and accurately
Sleep aerates the field within me
Dreams rise again, poisons come back in
Slitting my throat again
Licking it off my chin
Spare nothing
A commodity worth everything
So lucky
Apr 25, 2010
Apr 25, 2010 at 6:41 PM UTC