"insubstantial" poems
When we look into today,
*Do our minds dial back to 16 June '76 to envision the torment
Our fallen heroes endured?
Is your vision blurred?
Mine isn't.
Their fight was just,
It was sacrificial
One by one they perished
But, even with blood and sweat slipping
Through their trembling fingers
They did not falter
They pushed boundaries
In order to create opportunities
They had a burning desire
For something greater,
For freedom
The freedom that we now bask in
Like it's just another day of leisure
"The youth of today are the leaders
of tomorrow", they say
Look in the mirror,
Are you really the leader of tomorrow?
Do you fit somewhere in that statement?
Me: No
Do we have the will to stand
Firm for what's right,
Against what's wrong
Or do we clam up, let the
Truth escape through broken doors?
We feed the stereotypes,
We fit perfectly into the stereotypes
We've been dubbed insubstantial,
Not layered, and one dimensional
What are we really after?
What are we doing to change that perspective?
No- what am I doing to change that??
Ask yourself, what would the
world have lost if you were not born?
Me: Nothing
But there are those who
understand that the meaning of "struggle"
Goes beyond the dictionary definition,
Those who look at the world
With crystal clear eyes
Those looking to make a difference
Those looking for a difference
We may be in freedom,
but we're not free at all
The chains are still bound to our
Wrists binding us from reaching
Out to the sun,
The chains are still tied to our
Feet hindering us from going further
We can stand united
Against the ****** government,
Against illiteracy,
Against poverty,
Against pointless wars,
Against abuse.
We can clench up our fists,
Ready to fight for what others
Led way for
I am, by no means, a beacon of
Hope (hypocrisy at it's best)
I'm uninformed, like they say
Ignorance is bliss
But I am not proud of it
We've come far since '94
We still can go further
"Together we can do more"*
Jun 16, 2014
Jun 16, 2014 at 10:28 AM UTC
Feelings fill my head. Insubstantial like water.
Unspeakable.
Occasionally forming waves. Crashing, submerging my vision.
I am under. In a warped world.
Yet I breath.
Like a mermaid.
Sep 4, 2013
Sep 4, 2013 at 9:49 PM UTC
Gazing past my somber expression
etched upon the windows reflection.
Silently observing the snow's caress
soft, fragile, cold, much like myself.
Kinship is shared,
as I gaze out from my window,
observing them cascade,
caught in a moment of limbo.
I, just an insignificant snowflake,
weak, insubstantial, easy to break.
Diminished by even the softest touch,
transforming, melting, to lamented sludge.
Many will cast eyes upon my silent fall
but with a millions others, I am too small.
Tranquilizing, a melancholy presence,
lethargically dropping in evanescence.
Some may glance and discover elegance
but rarely can they withstand my elements.
Nov 20, 2013
Nov 20, 2013 at 1:34 AM UTC
A simple bottle,
Cheap chunky plastic,
Designer garbage.
Empty of its liquid energy.
Glossy label parrying the flash,
Glaring retrieval of light.
Sickly bold orange cap,
Impudently tight,
Defending the blanched carpet below.
Moment of fragility,
Suspended on the humid waves of air,
Eternity in an insubstantial moment.
It wafts away from his fingers,
Plastic given wings,
Fixed by his steely eyes,
A forced arc,
Stretching to the ceiling.
Focused intensity.
An infinite gap looms
Instants before the catch.
He didn’t notice the stray,
A camera pointed his way,
Capturing this moment,
Making it magical.
Clarity is threatened by obscurity,
People pressing in,
Bending the frame.
Time is lost,
Too much wasted on boredom,
And playing catch with yourself.
Spine lax, body slumped.
Interruptions and distractions surround.
His face vivid in the mix,
Lost in the wash of faces,
So much like his,
Flushed by the same blood.
His unwavering gaze
Holds the emptiness in shackles.
Second of silence in the crushing sound,
Relentless muttering rumble,
The voices of family,
So constantly buzzing.
Jumbled tumbling voices.
A peanut gallery seeking constant attention.
The camera congeals the moment,
Silencing the mass.
In the absence the bottle and the boy
Infinitely alone,
Endlessly still.
Oct 20, 2012
Oct 20, 2012 at 10:33 PM UTC
I am an island.
I am a little spit of land,
Swept away by unsettled waters
and shifting sands;
Forced alone to
make my home
In an insubstantial sea.
Yet on my island
I am free; free to preserve
my eccentricities
in a nature reserve
made from nurturing love of
what I choose to be.
I am an island.
Borne away on wistful waves, I
travel onward,
Seeking a place where
there are others who are free;
And when I find them,
There I’ll stay, and
thereafter spend my days
Not as an island…
But as me.
Jun 23, 2017
Jun 23, 2017 at 3:35 PM UTC
I feel like you can't hold me,
I'm too cut open,
Too insubstantial,
Too much space,
Too much glue,
Not enough pieces
Feb 4, 2012
Feb 4, 2012 at 10:26 PM UTC
*love is a rhythm i choose not to edit
burning serpents in syncopated tones
stolen vibrations from conquered nations
i am amazed at slavery's undertones
doomsday hypothesis
insufferable hypocrisy
is this the way we are meant to perceive
reality's final throes
perhaps a last attempt at infatuation
another insurgency toward our situation
there is music in the millipedes
1,000 feet stomping on the hot pavement
midday heat is burning the gentlest of trees
and yet saving lives of anteaters in need
grief is complete and not wasted
never jumbled by threads of frailty
insipid lipids deftly crawl upon caterpillars shoulders
starry eyed soldiers
sold to the streets in shivering brokenness
i am madness incarnate
the west is a spectacle of insubstantial lunacy
if you wish to conquer this reality
open your heart and kiss the feet of kindness
blindness is worshipped as if it was wisdom
sincere victims of another’s prison
simpler lives define simpler times
keepers of the rhythm
keepers of the rhyme
i dine on salamanders and supine slivers of the moon’s heartbeat
fault no one but yourself
gifts are wealth
i am salt and sulphur is the mother of the soul
loose cannons explode
she rode the wild shadows
and took the backroads all the way home
infinite living history
his memory serving beauty forever
for a lifetime i am looking for truth
in shattered space and respecting the face of the ancestors
self aware shades of solidarity
harvested by hands made light with clarity
is this music
is this meaning
her openness is our healing
this majesty surrounds us all
resolve to rise and your bound to fall
small instances of randomness daily
semantics are happenstance
you graduate from school with a bouquet of flowers
that rot in the morning’s splattering of paint
as garbage heaps resist ***********
issues of power and surface tension
i am dreading the exceptions
give love now or move out of the way
stay awake and aware
while sadhana is beckoning to us all*
Feb 23, 2017
Feb 23, 2017 at 2:58 PM UTC
that's all you have.
Ive got words too but I don't use them
to describe my "inner landscape".
they just get in the way of "experiential knowingness"
of my personal energy field of unconditional love,
they just get in the way of being my beingness,
for I am where there are no edges.
For I am and equal individual independent and autonomous part of the essence of the Isness of the Universe,
which you can immerse yourself in,
merge into and become as one with me,
like I am eternally one with you.
if you can drop the Mind and Conditioned Identity in the head,
of the body that you are incarnated in temporarily,
just for this your latest lifetime,
and it could be your last lifetime as a human being..
that's the only condition--drop the Mind--let it go--you don't need it--
but it needs you to deceive and manipulate.
The Mind needs you to survive but you don't need the Mind to survive
for you are as I am and we all are eternal and self sufficient,
beyond edges and dimensions.
Just imagine the Universe and all that is in it inside your head,
impossible you cry but that's truthfulness in action.
I know who you really are even though Ive never met you
and am unlikely to ever meet you,and when I say you I don't mean your body--.
I don't mean your "name" or curriculum vitae or certificates on a wall--or photographs of a face among billions .
I mean you--the individual Isness--that small part of me that you are--as I am that small part of you that I am.
The body is just a vehicle made from mere flesh,to get you from point A--birth--to point B --death--.
it has attributes and emotions and possibilities but it most definitely is not and never can be YOU or me--.
Youre incarnated in it in order to realise your true nature as a small but equal independent individual and autonomous part of the essence of the Isness of the Universe.
You are,like me,the Isness of the Universe incarnated for this lifetime
in the body that surrounds you but unlike me you are
in the grip of Mind permanently--unless you dissolve Mind consciously.
Minds are the obstacle to union with the Isness of the Universe
and I am the Isness of the Universe incarnated in this body--
just like you are--and so the mind in the head of that body is
the obstacle to union with me.
The only difference between you and I ,female or male,
is that I am permanently Mindless by choice
and you are struggling towards
becoming permanently Mindless--unknowingly.
My struggle to become Mindless
and Conditioned Identityless is over thankfully,these last few years.
I live in the body but the body is not me.
I use the body for my many pleasures
but no pleasures of the body can compare to the pleasure
of being in union with the Isness of the Universe.
One can only be in Union with the Isness of the Universe when one is Mindless.
Words are absolutely useless for describing my inner state--
for my inner state is not of the body--
it is not made or nourished by the body--
my inner state can only be experienced.
Words cannot set you free--they can only make you a lifelong prisoner of Mind--the controller of what should be your words--but arent.
And individual Minds must coalesce into GroupMinds
which are families and relations and clans and tribes and races and nations and religions and politics and all the other groups that prevent you from becoming your true nature which is that of being a small but equal,individual,independant and autonomous part of the essence of the Isness of the Universe.
You have always that encompassing edge to your body--the skin.
I have no edges--my skin is permeable and insubstantial.
I am the Universe extant.
I am the Isness of the Universe.
www.thefournobletruthsrevised.co.uk
Sep 21, 2014
Sep 21, 2014 at 12:58 AM UTC
Above, above, the sky is a painting
A renaissance piece that calls out for sainting
The billows, the ripples the silver-lined rims
Are strokes of a genius; of mother earth's whims.
The cumulonimbus, the rippling ceiling
Rumbles and rolls with the cracks that are pealing
The flickering tridents, the wrath of the gods
Strike awe in the temporary, tainted and flawed
And I, insubstantial, un-lasting and fading
Stand beneath hanging eaves, hearing and waiting
Beside me, within me, a childish voice
Hums a soft tune beneath all the noise:
The sky, the sky, it's all coming down
The indigo shroud; it's falling around
In crystalline spheres and mother earth's mist-
The dust is erupting, the earth feels its kiss.
Jul 28, 2015
Jul 28, 2015 at 4:22 PM UTC
I am but a man
a one flawed at that
jealousy rears its head
roaring through me
crashing its way through
reason and rationale
a cacophony of sound
the phantom pounding
of insubstantial waters
like all storms this too
shall pass and calm
will come again
May 17, 2010
May 17, 2010 at 11:13 AM UTC
They came in search of incredible sun,
seduced by cicadas and an easy time;
extraneous baggage with nothing to declare.
Two days in:
Sister Rose shrivels on her browning stem;
survives on lettuce leaves and cheap wine.
Pitiable by design, knowing perfectly
she's past her beauty max.
At her feet:
The blue pool cups cured hide
of idle heat-crazed beast
unleashed from his computer belt-
a doughboy moulded to his insubstantial boat-
afloat for fourteen days!
Entwined-
my crazy brother reclines with his latest lover
to share 'delightful' elderflower champagne
through a single straw,
****** together by their eyes.
And in the shade:
mother sits it out in floral silk,
sustained by seventy deniers
and her would-have-liked ideals-
the shadow of a lattice grill tatooed across her brow.
Then as the just deserts arrive,
and darted looks are handed round,
I glower at the heat - crazed ground
and muse- 'it's time to go,'
........but they would never forgive me..
May 16, 2010
May 16, 2010 at 5:10 AM UTC
Everyday I awake
In my cell
Four walls
Glittering bars
Holding me inside
The cell, ephemeral
the bars, transient
the lock, insubstantial
The guard simply stares
No matter what I do
I remain in my cell
i may leave home
I remain in my cell
What can I do?
I rail against the bars
That I could walk through
I pull on the door in frustration
That I could just push open
i swear at the guard
That would watch me leave
And not care
Why am I allowing myself
To be trapped here?
Why am I so...
Afraid.
May 3, 2015
May 3, 2015 at 8:22 PM UTC
I am a writer.
One who can close myself away into a small dimly lit space and gush life onto an insubstantial substance of fibrous material..in hopes that once finished..reads of something that makes sense and releases a tad of this confined fury..that whirls in my ever churning mind.
I am a Dreamer.
A human born into disparaging circumstances, that grasped for anything tangible, as early as I can possibly recollect. With a never ending desire to find truth and love beyond the abuse that I endured throughout all of my childhood..Determined to view life..clear of the filters embedded over my eyes, attempting to force my mind to function through the inherited dysfunction.
I am a Lover.
Believing in a Love so genuine, that it literally heals all human afflictions .
Investing in a hope in all things soulful and lucid.
Craving to Love free of the bounds thought fathomable, truly devoting to other souls..the most valuable asset - Time - and desirous to Lead with Love in every moment.
I am a Writer.
Sep 10, 2016
Sep 10, 2016 at 2:31 AM UTC
Insubstantial
And Inane
Everyone
Is the same
In this game
Mar 17, 2017
Mar 17, 2017 at 4:30 AM UTC
Que tragedia es una vida malgastada,
persiguiendo lo que el orgullo pide,
a lo largo a veces uno lo percibe,
al ver cerca el final, lejos la entrada.
Nunca pensé ser yo quien destacaba,
Shakespeare en Macbeth cuando el describe,
la vida “sombra caminante” y la mide,
como “un cuento de un idiota . . . nada.”
Cuando se cerraron todos los portales,
que apuntaban a otros horizontes?
no me di cuenta, trepando por montes,
que no eran mas que tinieblas irreales.
Que ser honesto puede encontrar paz,
cuando la misma solo queda atrás?
A Wasted Life [English translation]
What a tragedy is a wasted life,
Chasing that which pride craves,
In time sometimes we come to realize,
When our entrance is far, the exit near.
I never thought it would apply to me,
When Shakespeare's Macbeth describes,
Life as a "walking shadow" and rates it,
A "tale told by an idiot . . . nothing."
When did all open doors close,
That led to other horizons?
I never noticed it, climbing mountains,
That were but insubstantial shadows.
What honest being can ever find peace,
Knowing it lies only in the past?
Dec 23, 2018
Dec 23, 2018 at 12:32 PM UTC
Gazing into the abyss
Of life's immutable Absurdity;
He feels that emptiness,
Which taunts all humankind,
As it immerses, he is smiling
With a sweet, sickly repose, as
He is certain of uncertainty.
He sees the people all around him,
Pining for a sense of purpose, he's
Freed from their hope, and its duress,
From all their visions of success,
The kind which taunt so many men,
Through sleepless nights, as they obsess.
Now he's laughing to himself, and
Thinking "who must we impress?"
"...and for that matter, why?"
It's this pretension he detests,
"Why this needless apprehension,
Living life at the behest, of
Foolish men, with feeble minds,
Who vainly strive to be 'the best', and
Only to awaken, a few decades down the line,
To find that life was insubstantial,
In those years they left behind?"
"I can only search for meaning,
It can't be prescribed to me, and
Perhaps there isn't one, but then
Why does there need to be?"
The corners of his mouth curl upward, as
Dead leaves fall from a tree, and
Are scattered to the wind,
"Ah, such is my mortality."
Oct 24, 2014
Oct 24, 2014 at 9:49 AM UTC
She severed the head of love's complacency
covering all I thought I'd discovered with a vice
like grip on a puzzling figuring out of normalcy
refusing any defining by turning pose in a trice
into fusions of fiery burns of my assumptions
until she was nowhere but there at every turn
churning the pressure with neat beats of passions
with valves registering a blistering alarm
a companion unhinged by dimensions dark tinged
not a snake charming woman nor a venomous fang
yet poison was taken with a cringe and a change
into a Hyde or a Jekyll I cannot decide things
When my grasps fall between all her parts half revealed
I gasp out of hunger pang eagerness to feel
slender slinking through fingers and thumbs unsolved
as a friend or a foe I can't know if she's real
Beyond physical perception I cannot be certain
because of fantastical attractions in legion
gone viral in tongues insubstantial past vision
yet assembled in ways which portend a contagion
Jul 2, 2014
Jul 2, 2014 at 12:53 PM UTC
Last night he was eighteen
when he fell asleep.
The darkness filled with
insubstantial events,
visions of women and war,
marriage, jobs, divorce,
disasters and recovery.
When he woke up he was 63.
Life is but a dream.
May 31, 2015
May 31, 2015 at 5:30 AM UTC
Why is pleasure measured in moments,
while work is measured in weeks or years?
Pleasures are like insubstantial fictions, sweet treats gone
in the tasting or perhaps flowers, that once cut, wither.
So don't be enthralled by fickle snippets of passion.
Work and service have the weight of reward,
by labor's honest toil, we fashion, forge and provide.
Jun 9, 2023
Jun 9, 2023 at 11:42 PM UTC
Afraid of the rifle fire, he had
Crouched all day in the dirt,
A dull fellow at the best of times.
Ricocheting bullets bolted to the air
Surfing the wind, screaming
Abuse like ill-disciplined relatives
Arriving for an impromptu visit.
One shattered his head-there it was,
There were its remnants-
Greasy insubstantial grey matter that
Contained his soul.
An end to drinks in the pub
The love of his wife
The smiles of his children
Holidays in Benidorm with the In-Laws
Paella by the swimming pool.
One bullet, not even new, put an end to a contented life.
Apr 6, 2016
Apr 6, 2016 at 4:52 PM UTC
In the hot noon, in an old and savage garden,
The peach-tree grows. Its cruel and ugly roots
Rend and rifle the silent earth for moisture.
Above, in the blue, hang warm and golden fruits.
Look, how the cancerous roots crack mould and stone!
Earth, if she had a voice, would wail her pain.
Is she the victim, or is the tree the victim?
Delicate blossoms opened in the rain,
Black bees flew among them in the sunlight,
And sacked them ruthlessly; and no a bird
Hangs, sharp-eyed, in the leaves, and pecks the fruit;
And the peach-tree dreams, and does not say a word.
. . . Senlin, tapping his trowel against a stone,
Observes this tree he planted: it is his own.
'You will think it strange,' says Senlin, 'but this tree
Utters profound things in this garden;
And in its silence speaks to me.
I have sensations, when I stand beneath it,
As if its leaves looked at me, and could see;
And those thin leaves, even in windless air,
Seem to be whispering me a choral music,
Insubstantial but debonair.
"Regard," they seem to say,
"Our idiot root, which going its brutal way
Has cracked your garden wall!
Ugly, is it not?
A desecration of this place . . .
And yet, without it, could we exist at all?"
Thus, rustling with importance, they seem to me
To make their apology;
Yet, while they apologize,
Ask me a wary question with their eyes.
Yes, it is true their origin is low--
Brutish and dull and cruel . . . and it is true
Their roots have cracked the wall. But do we know
The leaves less cruel--the root less beautiful?
Sometimes it seems as if there grew
In the dull garden of my mind
A tree like this, which, singing with delicate leaves,
Yet cracks the wall with cruel roots and blind.
Sometimes, indeed, it appears to me
That I myself am such a tree . . .'
. . . And as we hear from Senlin these strange words
So, slowly, in the sunlight, he becomes this tree:
And among the pleasant leaves hang sharp-eyed birds
While cruel roots dig downward secretly.
1.4k
imagine if everything was simple
we're all happy and living the life we desire
and we're all content with what we are given
and that satisfaction is genuine
nothing artificial or insubstantial
that's how we all wish life could be
maybe in another life, we would meet
maybe my hand would be in yours
maybe our hearts would belong to each other
if life was that simple, maybe we'd already know each other
maybe i would already mean something to you
but nothing is that easy
yet, i'm still happy with just the thought of you
Feb 27, 2017
Feb 27, 2017 at 6:49 PM UTC
Kiss me in the corner with the lights raking across our skin.
Kiss me until I forget her.
I dare you. I challenge you.
I'm asking you
Make her irrelevant
Make her insubstantial.
Make me forget her name.
Make me forget mine.
I'm begging you,
Touch me until I am different.
Pound that music through my chest like a stake
And **** what loves her
Because I can't.
Make me new. Make me the darkness between strobe lights.
****** me and bring me back, cold and hard like a jewel.
Breathe me in like smoke, toxic and rough.
Crush me like a soda can in the alley way.
I can take anything but this.
Kiss me until it doesn't hurt.
I beg you.
I dare you.
Demolish me.
Dec 28, 2014
Dec 28, 2014 at 2:10 PM UTC
She is a ghost within her own life
There, but never seen
She sought love in all the wrong places
Disappearing a little bit more
With each failed love affair
Then one day she was seen
She was loved!
Or so she thought
Now, frozen in fear
She becomes less visible
As love dies
With each harsh word spoken
One tear drop at a time
Each day she becomes insubstantial
A Ghost -
There, but not seen
Kelly Rose
December 2, 2015
Dec 2, 2015
Dec 2, 2015 at 4:30 PM UTC
A solitary solecism
An evaporating vision
Premonitions and superstitions
Withered hopes
Amorphous, insubstantial
Episodic swings
Digressions and detours
Evasions, deviations
Changing lanes
Accelerating and overtaking
Swerving
Inhibitions colliding.
Nov 24, 2014
Nov 24, 2014 at 7:42 AM UTC