"insignificance" poems
Now I ask you to join me
Now you celebrate
Not being me. Not being you
Only Us for the great
UN
load!
DIS
arm!
EN
large!
OUT
side!
Some steps I will take
Be my guest
Pull your anchor
Out of the lake
We're
In the room
In the building
In the crowded city
In the country with thousands of cities
The country shares the continent with an enemy nation
The two rivals are carried round and round by the Earth's endless rotation
The Earth obeys the master’s magnetic line, burning since uncountable clock time
The sun is blind to his insignificance too, ignoring billions of other star mates, it can’t see through
Immeasurable it seems, magnifying! All of them such tiny little parts in one of Miss Milky’s arms
Some light years away there they are: Pinwheel, Cartwheel, Black Eye, Andromeda and Cigar
Unmeasurable it seems, humongous! All of them such a fading little part of the cosmos
There you are
Floating from a distance
Feel the empty ground
Drink from the fountain of existence
Still blind to insignificance?
Still convinced about the rightness of imposed beliefs?
Still judging others’ defects according to our pretentious and vain mind?
Still punching away the different, protecting the mold?
Still reinforcing illusory antagonism and insignia?
Still seeing only two sides?
Still holding to the pride?
Still
In the ******* room
Am I? Are you?
Let's try it again
Mar 17, 2015
Mar 17, 2015 at 5:21 PM UTC
A single Human, alone and weak,
is unable to comprehend the insignificance of its life.
But as a whole, Humanity, we are unmeasurable, overwhelming
filling space and time with our vivid existance.
We consume all other entities with our devistating force.
Embodied in thousands upon thousands of infintesimal beings. Humans.
We must remember that it is the human that makes up humanity.
Jan 5, 2015
Jan 5, 2015 at 5:38 AM UTC
May we live in and see interesting times, the old saying goes
another offers that when the mind is blind, the eyes cannot see
for me my days are interesting and the laughter readily and often comes
for the grapes of wrath brings forth mirth filled grapes on grapevine tendrils
As lemmings and sheep enact bellyaching absurdities, as the ridiculous does
Veracity on sojourn and falsehood in residence with doors firmly closed
Hamlet re-enacts hapless role, with Red Robin Hood and vigilantes to a tee
eager audiences, participatory scenes in towns and cities, leaving empty homes
come all and vent your spleen and satiate your prejudices without paying a fee
This land belongs to us, it is our birthright and we will send Hamlet to the catacombs
Nothing is private anymore, rights and freedom nailed, anywhere we roam
Ophelia not only went to Italy, she went to Hull, Turnpike Lane and even Essex
but a joke here, if all these were good, why did she come to me, you simple gnomes
perchance unlike you common goons, she knows distinction has no comparison to thee
Your vacuous hate filled mind cannot see that difference in a Prince, that regally looms
Act two, dim, fooled actors in their Beggars Opera, screaming, 'we oppose' with glee
so called republicans, laughable in their ardent favor, ignorant of their lobotomy botches
we will do Hamlet's head in, totally unaware theirs been done in, for the brains of fleas
in a civilisation, our conscious and stable populace, roots for vigilante and mob rule, yeah
for a man of distinction is a threat reminding you of your insignificance and lack of tomes
Come friends, lets see how the home of Democracy, hounds a citizen for us all and we
lets know that Robin Hood is alive and taxing, and 'Windrush' is still active in dispatches
indigenous people power, meets criminal gang stalking, meets racism and we all drink tea
and in true cowardly fashion, its all done by insidious, indictable, nefarious, malcontents and psychopathic crazies
It is our proud duty that we should all ruin Hamlet, for mediocrity has no distinction for aspiration et excellence
Copyright LaurenceA. JUNE 2018.All rights reserved.
Jul 25, 2018
Jul 25, 2018 at 8:00 PM UTC
Sipping the air of a city night
So heady in the cold
On the move under static lights
Little worlds about
To collide
Gravity frivolity
Draw broken hearts like earth bound stars
As the pull of every
Small storied point holds others back
From abysses beneath
Dark waters
Lone souls each and all
Compose this metropolis
Joy is to be
Discovered in insignificance
Where together
We belong
Jan 16, 2019
Jan 16, 2019 at 1:00 PM UTC
Beautiful summer day. You know you're gonna die
that's why you know no joy
unless religion, tv, stories, sports matter.
For men like us dying's easy, it's living that's hard.
And since dying's much like living, that's hard too.
There's some contentment in letting community decide
your place in it. A good day to die, the Apaches say.
Can't stop the quince from blossoming
or my sons from smoking, speeding.
The best that can be done or said's a blessing.
Less tv, less guessing about the effects of your anger
unless you want to be an angry man forever.
Becoming knowledgeable is the best defense
against your insignificance. OK about being alone.
Alive, almost sure of it. Whether I'm a visitor
to my life or the actual owner.
Mature poets steal, most are masturbators.
There are a million poets, I'm poet #500K.
Plenty of mysteries, infinite philosophies,
prayers, laws and unwritten rules.
That's why we go to school, life's complicated.
All I do not know: ATP, probabilities,
the glorious revolution, meiosis and mitosis
and all I'll never see, the bottom of the ocean,
the palm at the end of the mind, a wolverine.
Forget-me-not, is that all I want?
To get lucky, you gotta be careful first.
To be great, you gotta be willing to sound BAD.
In last night’s movie, a young writer
and an older, married with children French woman
fall in love. They did not meet during a village massacre
and money is no object, Manhattan.
But after everything has happened
she cannot leave her children, not even for love,
because of love, the love that brooks no serendipity.
In the subsequent late night movie, a wealthy
altruistic doctor arranges for the ******
of his neurotic concubine. His guilt
provides us with an opportunity to consider
the concepts of faith and forgiveness,
that all will be well in the end
after a period of meaningless suffering.
Mar 6, 2017
Mar 6, 2017 at 5:21 AM UTC
Born into a world of deception,
Embraced in a life of abuse,
Tormented by a state of abandonment,
Betrayed by parents of youth.
Destroyed by words of profanities,
Tortured without excuse,
Alone in a house of misery:
Torn, battered, and confused.
Compelled to a life of insignificance
With their endeavors never seen,
Their family — a false reality,
Alone with only their dreams.
Assaulted with no explanation
By parents who destroy with their hands;
A child bruised and broken
Can only dream of oceans and sands.
Alone in a world with no one,
Their voice never heard nor seen,
Locked in a room of obscurities,
Waiting for death to set them free.
Violence speaks to this child
With no escape to be seen.
Alone in this house of tragedy:
Withdrawn, suicidal, and unseen.
© 2020, K. Saitta
Nov 11, 2020
Nov 11, 2020 at 4:01 PM UTC
I fear thyself
I fear attraction
I fear unfamiliarity
I fear attention
I fear incidence
I fear conversation
I fear interaction
I fear answers
I fear questions
I fear to tell my story
I fear to hear yours
I fear compliance
I fear conflict
I fear benevolence
I fear mutuality
I fear victimisation
I fear change
I fear to love
I fear to hate
I fear significance
I fear insignificance
I fear the lies we tell
I fear the truths we hide
I fear imprisonment
I fear freedom
I fear hope
I fear despair
I fear old age
I fear children
I fear intelligence
I fear ignorance
I fear to take
I fear to give
I fear to borrow
I fear to loan
I fear to exchange
I fear to teach
I fear to learn
I fear to laugh
I fear to cry
I fear to be
I fear not to be
I fear to be afraid
I fear to be brave
I fear to die
I fear to live
I fear discomfort
I fear responsibility
I fear to gain
I fear to lose
I fear victory
I fear defeat
I fear antrophy
I fear hypertrophy
I fear inertia
I fear activity
I fear obedience
I fear disobedience
I fear justice
I fear injustice
I fear totality
I fear poverty
I fear embarrassment
I fear addiction
I fear declamation
I fear guilt
I fear pride
I fear delusion
I fear unfulfillment
I fear my apathy
I fear to be wakeful
I fear to be tired
I fear my capabilities
I fear my incapabilities
I fear my dreams
I fear my nightmares
I fear women
I fear men
I fear being disabled
I fear misinterpretation
I fear misrepresentation
I fear altruism
I fear limitation
I fear to endear
I fear to inspire
I fear to forget
I fear to remember
I fear self doubt
I fear discrimination
I fear starvation
I fear migration
I fear fragility
I fear formality
I fear banality
I fear enticement
I fear cruelty
I fear judgement
I fear to embrace
I endure what I fear
I endure because I must
I endure myself because I fear
Endure thyself
Dec 11, 2014
Dec 11, 2014 at 6:37 AM UTC
To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the ****** disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.
- Arundhati Roy
Feb 16, 2015
Feb 16, 2015 at 12:24 PM UTC
They say they love you.
And they care about you.
And that theyre there for you.
And. Thats supposed to feel good. Its supposed to feel nice.
Be nice.
But honestly.
It just makes me feel nervous.
Uneasy.
Apprehension and suspicion grip me.
They shake me.
And yet at the same time, mostly,
I feel apathy.
Nothing
As if your words were as grains of sand to my beach.
As if they were the folds of some drapery
That i depicted in my sketching class.
Singularly, it is so insignificance to me.
And maybe thats where im going wrong. Looking for beauty and solidity in pebbles and ripples.
It all. Means something. Everything. But.
It all means nothing.
Theyre just words.
And whos to say youre even real.
Wait.
Am i even real.
Oct 9, 2018
Oct 9, 2018 at 2:28 AM UTC
The sparkling delight
of shining light.
So elusive,
how intrusive.
Marauding when not wanted
but hiding when its glory should be flaunted.
A glowing reflection of eras gone by,
once a god with a throne so high.
As the ancients crumbled,
all reverence tumbled.
Now feelings of insignificance
grow for such magnificence.
Jan 12, 2015
Jan 12, 2015 at 1:28 PM UTC
EVERY LITTLE FISH CAN SWIM
1893
saw the beginning of me.
I was born
in a railway carriage
between somewhere
and somewhere else
in an Europe that
would change with the map
the lines redrawn
by War
some unpronouncable
European nowhere.
A barrel *****
was playing a tune that
would soon be forgotten
on the station platform
when Mamma and I
arrived
at our final destination
the train breathing like a dragon.
Its whistle
cutting through time.
Later I would remember
a little wooden acorn
at the end of a string on the blind
tapping against the window
as if it were admonishing
the dawn demanding
entrance to
the room when I was three and
pulling the blind up and then
pulling the blind down.
"Shadow people"
thrown against the wall
would not survive
a morning.
All night they chattered
amongst themselves
prowling the room
that was holding me.
Debating whether to
eat me now or later.
"Beings" merely made from
the edge of a wardrobe or
a chest of drawers
the brass **** at the end of
my bed where clothes
thrown over a chair
made them come alive
I believe
in them until
I was nearly seven.
Too scared to ***
in the porcelain ***
wetting the bed
to the anger of Mama.
And now 1963
will more than likely see
the end of me
as I am
and the mind
that created who I was
offers me these
fragments of insignificance
that amount
to being a life.
I laugh as Noël
Coward warbles
in his shellac'd world
forever singing
"But I can't do anything at all
but just love you!"
Aug 9, 2018
Aug 9, 2018 at 5:57 AM UTC
Boundless energy around us,
Stretched to snare the senses.
Shaped and bound to our life-force.
No barriers, or defenses.
Limitless interplay, front
row seats shall we say.
To astounding cosmic displays.
Consider what a day holds;~
Glimpses of magnificence
In the eyes of the beholder,
Fear not insignificance.
Take grip of your awareness
Exchanging energy,
Is inherent in us.
Throw a love curve ball. . .
Await your reciprocating shower.
those stars, they fall
forever.
They deal not in glamour.
Casually causing us
humans to stutter and mumble.
Let not, your heart labor,
Loves home-run rests
Patiently,
On your minds table.
Prana for everything,
This **** ain't no fable.
Sep 2, 2015
Sep 2, 2015 at 8:31 PM UTC
there are good types
of feeling small
like when you're in a big city
with tall buildings
and throngs of strangers
surrounding you,
painted with possibility
or when you're wrapped up
in someone's arms
and that person
feels so massive
and you feel so little
and protected
and safe
but this sensation
of small,
this feeling of
insignificance,
like an ant
that could be squished
and no one would care
is not
a good feeling
May 10, 2013
May 10, 2013 at 4:49 PM UTC
Leave me fear
Strangle my tears
Make way and get out of here
Baby, it's not easy playing the fool behind the wooden stool
And as I lay down in my bed the shadow lingers overhead
I look up, but I'm alone, Oh my baby,
Where are you ?
Staring emptily at the ceiling, driving through the madness in sin
Knew my mistakes were unforgivable, but mama, you gotta give me one more chance
It's never easy, going through the greys, blending in,
That black sorrowful heart, a remembrance of innocence
"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today"
It's the only words I heard
I was breathing & alive
But looking at my own grave
Under empty sky
Staring at the light
Not noticing I was holding life hostage
But with no right, I look for a purpose
A cause for the insignificance of my life
To deliver the promise of the love I couldn’t give to you
That you deserve, my mistress, my phantom, my lady in white,
Under the moon at midnight, in between words we linger, and I bloom
I don't want to be blue, but I don't want you to leave
In limbo or incognito, whichever way, it's deceit
I have lost and loved, but never myself
I feel you, but I don't know your name
We will go together till the end
I stand by you
Mysterious lover & friend
Oct 27, 2013
Oct 27, 2013 at 9:36 AM UTC
i saw a beautiful red rose that sat in a field of wilted weeds
and as time went on
and the weeds grew more and more plentiful
the rose remained the same
just as cheery and red as before
and i was brought to the realization
that it's possible for a something so beautiful to be surrounded by
such insignificance
something with so much life
can exist in the middle of emptiness
although it may seem like everything is dead,
there's always a little hope
always
May 26, 2014
May 26, 2014 at 4:35 AM UTC
On the first day, he was pushed
robust in his stance, the other forced,
this boy down the spiral staircase
of the Catholic church, the school
had renovated, the Spring before
Isaac had begun his studies,
at the high school.
Ballet was his passion, Latin was the
language that so effortlessly, fluently
was spoken from his lips in class
as he smiled at his Professor, another
victory accomplished in academia
so proud were his parents, of their
blue eyed boy.
Jonah was the reject, the older brother
he had been kicked out of school,
not once, but twice, and was often
found with a joint, his unshaven face
wrapped around one of the girls,
from the all girls school that ran
alongside Isaacs all boys.
Issac was hurt, a further blow to his
stomach, rendered him broken
as a waterfall of tears ran down his
bruised and cut face, so ashamed
as other pupils laughed, staring, pointing
until the final bell rang as they fled from
the high ceilings and narrow corridors.
Wrapped in a ball, he waited for all
halls and students to clear, and as
he rolled over, picking himself up
he took to the washroom, knowing he
needed to be presentable for his mother
waiting for him at the school gate
brimming with pride, at her boys scholarship.
All his dreams, mystical and serene, Romeo and Juliet
fluid streams of poetry of Elliot, Poe, Hughes
and of course Wilde and those love letters of Beethoven
math, biology, all paled into insignificance
he was born a writer, a dancer, a drawer,
sketching and typing his heart to a page,
prose a future love would read.
Johan saw his mother's car pull up
as he raced and giggled with Saskia
leading her astray, he promised her all
the things those boys always did, and of course
not to break her sweet sixteen heart, unlike other boys
as his mother smoked another Camel, the two lovers
jumped into his truck, Johnny Cash blaring from speakers
laughing hysterically, the world at their feet.
By 4pm, Isaac was ready to leave school,
tentatively walking out the main door, down
concrete slabs as steps, no predators in sight
he couldn't hide the dark circles under his eyes
that formed as bruises, knowing he was fortunate
to have not been damaged further
by the haunting before last period.
Walking to the gates, he listened through
headphones; Tchaikovsky
his release
his home
his saving grace.
© Sia Jane
Jan 10, 2014
Jan 10, 2014 at 6:53 PM UTC
I fear sometimes,
I need reminding.
That not every person
Is intrigued
by the insignificance that excites me.
The things on my mind
roll off my tongue.
No contemplation
of my words.
I fear sometimes
I'll never be quiet.
Nov 12, 2013
Nov 12, 2013 at 2:47 PM UTC
I
__
i am so much smaller than you
and i can ever
believe...
and you are so much smaller
than you and
i know.
i sit within the winds,
those summer breezes,
some gusty gales, perhaps,
feeling
'the tug
and toss
of its fabulous force
rippling
churning
combing the thinning grey hair on my tired head,
my clothing,
so indistinct,
flapping,
furling,
floating, --filled with this seen-un-seen presence,
and i know
a am so small,
and my life so
ludicrous,
like the air
that comes
and goes
out of its own control,
but,
i am too small,
and unable
to stop this, its invisible assault.
II
__
when i am a-float upon
the great lakes, the oceans
the
rolling
rivers
i live
like a tiny slab of flotsam or
driftwood
sailing
slowly,
circularly,
(oh-so!) quietly
running,
reeling the peeling painted oars of my boat
against
the grainy flashing surface of the waters
rumbling,
rolling
away
this insatiable yearning
to go wherever it takes me to go, but
i know
i am very small,
and cannot control the eddy's creeping currents-
constant-currents
thus
submitting
my wayfaring self
to the
unfathomable.
III
__
these trees towering
above me
around me,
the sapling,
the blanketing
(in my lifetime)
blooming branches
creating
an emotional, outer, physical, inner, spiritual
dwindling
like the leaves left shivering beneath the cold winter's frost,
once casually
falling,
dropping,
drying up around my soul
slipping
into silent winter slumber,
to awaken
again...
--and then!
(to the dismay of my self-enlightened discovery)
i see
how small
i am
only to return again
from that brownish-moist
soil-bed
like a seed
beneath
the ground
never sprouting,
only fogetting,
the once and always forvever
and ever
the natural
insignificance
of being.
Jul 10, 2010
Jul 10, 2010 at 3:46 PM UTC
I do not attempt to justify my existence-
I get whimsy over the things that I find.
It must be the flickering of my bedside light,
my dreams of dancing under the pale moonlight
(my sanity in the precipice of my mind)
You tell me about the frivolity of human life
I'd be inclined to agree,
if it weren't for the fact that
you went under the knife
and chose to remain oblivious
rather than putting up a fight
(my sanity in the precipice of my mind)
See, I once had dreams of becoming a lover
Of life, of chance, and of a higher being
In the belief that I'd find a purpose
greater than the gnawing emptiness that
resides in me
(my sanity in the precipice of my mind)
But some days I drown myself
in the words of Kerouac
or a bottle of Jack-
Either way I'd find myself paralyzed,
sick and left to my own devices
I have burnt down the turret of my life
(my sanity in the precipice of my mind)
How do I accept my feeling of insignificance?
Lost in a place of doubt and indecision,
I am without relevance.
The childlike quality of my dreams
is no longer enough to sustain me.
My sanity, my sanity-
What am I without my sanity?
Find me; find me
(I seem to have lost my mind)
Apr 2, 2017
Apr 2, 2017 at 9:57 AM UTC
If you were granted the gift of temporary flight...
Would you ascend...
Just so you could feast your eyes
on the horizon,
beyond the confines of weather-worn tiles
set upon unsuspecting rooftops.
Would you take soar...
Just so you could briefly leave the ground
below.
And as the land beneath you diminishes,
all that's you tethered to your earth
almost instantly would turn into nothing
but specks of insignificance.
Would you fly free...
Just so your heart could entertain the possibility
of being ensnared by the breathtaking
view of the sun,
as it rests its pompous girth upon its bed of
clouds;
Like a bratty king sprawled over lavish sheets.
Would you burst through the boundary...
That separates heaven and earth.
Just so you could be bewitched by the full blown
moon,
be enthralled by the siren calls of the stars,
and be a part of the spectacle that is the
universe...
If you were granted the gift of momentary flight...
Would you still ascend?
Knowing full well that soon gravity would claim
you with less than no pity nor remorse.
And all that you had complacently forsaken...
Will greet you with the harshest of punishments.
I would.
May 3, 2016
May 3, 2016 at 11:18 AM UTC
Do you think it is
the sun that loves the moon?
shining shyly, seductively,
enticing and craving
its constant adoration
and undivided attention?
Or perhaps it is the moon
that so desperately desires the sun?
whilst in orbit, always hoping to catch
a glimpse of its radiant beauty,
enthralled by its passion, its strong
and irresistible magnetic pull?
I wonder if their love is challenged by the stars?
striking, dazzling, beautiful,
infinite onlookers, ever-watchful in the sky,
twinkling dangerously, a flirtatious third party,
competing with the sun
or trying to outshine the moon?
Despite their temptation,
the stars fail to weaken or change
the lovers, the moon and sun,
and eventually fade into insignificance.
Jun 7, 2014
Jun 7, 2014 at 11:57 AM UTC
Pet was never mourned as you,
Purrer of the spotless hue,
Plumy tail, and wistful gaze
While you humoured our queer ways,
Or outshrilled your morning call
Up the stairs and through the hall—
Foot suspended in its fall—
While, expectant, you would stand
Arched, to meet the stroking hand;
Till your way you chose to wend
Yonder, to your tragic end.
Never another pet for me!
Let your place all vacant be;
Better blankness day by day
Than companion torn away.
Better bid his memory fade,
Better blot each mark he made,
Selfishly escape distress
By contrived forgetfulness,
Than preserve his prints to make
Every morn and eve an ache.
From the chair whereon he sat
Sweep his fur, nor wince thereat;
Rake his little pathways out
Mid the bushes roundabout;
Smooth away his talons’ mark
From the claw-worn pine-tree bark,
Where he climbed as dusk embrowned,
Waiting us who loitered round.
Strange it is this speechless thing,
Subject to our mastering,
Subject for his life and food
To our gift, and time, and mood;
Timid pensioner of us Powers,
His existence ruled by ours,
Should - by crossing at a breath
Into safe and shielded death,
By the merely taking hence
Of his insignificance—
Loom as largened to the sense,
Shape as part, above man’s will,
Of the Imperturbable.
As a prisoner, flight debarred,
Exercising in a yard,
Still retain I, troubled, shaken,
Mean estate, by him forsaken;
And this home, which scarcely took
Impress from his little look,
By his faring to the Dim
Grows all eloquent of him.
Housemate, I can think you still
Bounding to the window-sill,
Over which I vaguely see
Your small mound beneath the tree,
Showing in the autumn shade
That you moulder where you played.
3.4k
On one of the myriad bays
along the Maine coast. Keep the holocaust
at bay I said to Dave because
you’ll spend all day gathering
2,000 calories and still be miserable hungry.
An undiminished population of humans is risible.
Black spruce and balsam fir,
you can eat the inner bark
in a starvation emergency.
There’s plenty of Cornus—bunchberry—
each orange pith around the stone
worth maybe a quarter calorie.
Lots of sarsparilla but the fruits
not out yet and to date I have not
savored one. Let’s see—dandelion
of course and huckleberry but
the most important source of sustenance
would be seaweed.
Learn your mushrooms! for the protein.
Accept the situation
come the apocalypse.
I struggle against my insignificance
but it would be better to struggle
against my ignorance.
Less effortlessness, more fishermanliness.
That’s the lesson of this Maine vacation
there’s a lot you can eat when in need—
the hips of roses and the pips of grasses.
And an endless supply of seaweed—
bladderwrack, dulse, kelp and thin green lettuce.
Sep 12, 2023
Sep 12, 2023 at 6:09 AM UTC