"lecture" poems
I am told that I should love my body,
and I should not be ashamed.
BUT the white, conservative men tell me otherwise, making me feel nothing but shame.
When did it become okay for a male's education to be more important than a woman's rights?
When did it become okay to sexualize a woman just because her shirt does not cover her rear end?
This is apparent in the things my teachers have told me.
"Your shirt must be fingertip length when wearing yoga pants," she said.
"Why?"
"Because the males that sit in the class might be too destracted to listen to my lecture."
We are treated like *** toys.
Us girls are used for nothing more than a mans pleasure, so they imply.
This is MY body, and no one else's.
I may do what I please,
and no one should have a problem with it.
I refuse to be sexualized and treated like we are living in the 1920s.
But I must conform and live in fear of my consequences.
**** culture is real,
and school's are promoting it.
Sep 25, 2014
Sep 25, 2014 at 10:43 PM UTC
Would you shut up for five seconds?
I wish I could say this to your face,
But you'd demolish my feelings.
Lecture me about my age.
I don't have to grow up yet.
Better yet, I refuse to.
Age is just a number to me.
I ignore your opinions, I have my own views.
Dec 13, 2014
Dec 13, 2014 at 3:19 PM UTC
I do not identify myself as a black american
I do not identify myself as an activist
I do not identify myself
As anything other than what I am
Do not arbitrate my existence
It will only magnify your bigotry
Do not lecture me
It will not ratify your ministry
Do not objectify my identity
Do not marginalize my sincerity
I know your criticism
It will not dwindle me
I am defiantly deaf to it
It will not compute
Trust me
It will only intensify
What I occupy
Do not subject me to anomaly
Do not try and direct me
I will not comply
Do not concern yourself
with my essentiality
I am not lost
Do not concern yourself
With what defines me
Just ask
If I am willing and able.
Nov 14, 2015
Nov 14, 2015 at 5:03 PM UTC
He owned books on many subjects
leather bound, with complex concepts
on which he'd ponder and reflect
He had it all, in some respects.
He could lecture quantum physics,
English literature and economics
He was renowned in academics
Though many found him quite eccentric
He explored the world only to find
That there's more to life than a brilliant mind
That there was a piece of him...undefined
See, He had never loved. He'd never pined
He knew all the math, knew all equations
He'd been to every corner of every nation
He'd learned 28 languages, knew every translation
But he was distraught by this realization
The pain he felt was too great to bear
He sank into the deepest and darkest despair
His heart was in need of dire repair
Finding love was his only prayer
He bumped into her by happenstance
and what began as an ephemeral glance
became a sucker punch from romance
She thought he was sweet, so she gave him a chance
That's when the world's smartest man finally learned how to dance
Feb 11, 2012
Feb 11, 2012 at 2:35 AM UTC
people romanticize self-harm
as if it's nothing special
and really, no one is alarmed
everyone's stopped being careful
it's not just about the blood
it really eats your heart out
the suffering makes your head flood
and everything seems so loud
you can't just seek pitiful attention
saying "oh, look, i'm depressed"
you really do deserve a lecture
because the real deal would say so much less
cutting ruins your body
it also pierces your soul
you seek a friend or just anybody
but you always end up alone
the cup of coffee in the morning
is the only thing keeping you alive
the rest of the time you're crying
trying to get thoughts out of your mind
you've got a stash of blades
hiding under your bed
today your sister got engaged
and you might end up dead
you try to down twenty pills
with a chug of burning *****
maybe then you'd see flowery hills
but it's just likely to cause you trauma
you stare at your own blank wall
trying to find a slimmer of hope
and nobody's there to watch you fall
as you exit this life with some dope
Aug 23, 2015
Aug 23, 2015 at 4:27 PM UTC
V.B. Wigglesworth wakes at noon,
Washes, shaves and very soon
Is at the lab; he reads his mail,
Swings a tadpole by the tail,
Undoes his coat, removes his hat,
Dips a spider in a vat
Of alkaline, phones the press,
Tells them he is F.R.S.,
Subdivides six protocells,
Kills a rat by ringing bells,
Writes a treatise, edits two
Symposia on "Will man do?,"
Gives a lecture, audits three,
Has the ***** club in for tea,
Pensions off an ageing spore,
Cracks a test tube, takes some pure
Science and applies it, finds,
His hat, adjusts it, pulls the blinds,
Instructs the jellyfish to spawn,
And, by one o'clock, is gone.
8.5k
in the somatic nervous system,
acetylcholine (ACh) stimulates skeletal muscle, causing contraction
action potentials
in the 8am physio lecture,
the biggest on campus
crammed with nursing majors,
and health science hankerers,
public health preachers,
OT saints and angels
amino acid NTs: glutamate (+) GABA (-) aspartate (+) glycine (-)
the prof wrote on a distant whiteboard
too many complained about being lost
she made a joke about feeding *******
to mice for her neuroscience research
amines: serotonin (-) dopamine (-/+) norepinephrine (+/-) epinephrine (+)
STEM-dominated
when i'm just looking
to drop my roots
and press that
good earth into
the spaces between
my toes and
under my nails
but the grounds are a garden
of biodiversity from clippings
gathered by migrant habit-clad
founders more than a century ago
the soil is fertile it is temperate
there are water filters in most residences
there is enough here for me
Feb 21, 2015
Feb 21, 2015 at 3:06 PM UTC
i used to look out
the car window
and sonic the hedgehog
would jump from car to car
and swing from streetlights
to keep up with us
on long car trips.
later, i played i spy,
i'd pick a cow
or something.
cows are not as interesting
as sonic the hedgehog.
these days i'll read a book
or listen to a lecture
or sleep the whole thing
through.
it's still not as interesting as
sonic the hedgehog,
but i'm 19 years
old.
Sep 19, 2012
Sep 19, 2012 at 10:58 PM UTC
The fiery red light was staring into my soul.
There was nobody around...
So naturally I hit the gas.
Looked up in that rear view
and some crazy blue lights were ashinin'.
Then came my swerve of shame to the beckoning curb.
My friend to the right kept his cool
While mowing down on two cheese burgers
As he ate, I shook with a casual fear.
The talk with the police was brief
I handed him my license and registration
and he skipped back over to that cop car.
I sat in fear
he ate burgers
we waited
My boy the police came right on back.
he gave me the blissful news.
NO TICKET.
He began the lecture of eating and driving.
that's when my little burger eater chimed right in.
"Sir, I was just handing her a pickle"
I confirmed the statement.
And next thing I knew I was rollin the streets again
Lucked out.
Apr 15, 2014
Apr 15, 2014 at 9:10 PM UTC
Long ago, on my
unpatriotic ways,
with anger patriots
turned ablaze.
They ill-treated me
with words of abuse,
even classes on patriotism
was of no use.
One day patriotic
tonic I drank.
It made all the difference,
to be frank.
Now professor of patriotism
I've become.
To hear my lectures
many patriots come.
And before my patriotism inspires
enemies of North and West
and before my nationalism
they easily bear and digest
and before Chinese
people of the North
have understood my
patriotic lecture's worth
and before their Olympians
represent Nation of mine
and before we get medals
in abundance this time
and before Pakistanis
decide to turn traitors at once,
inspired by my patriotic views
and my eloquence
and before Indians use golden
words for me to describe
and before my name
in history they inscribe
and before people start
giving me much respect
and before my big and
large statues they *****
and before my replicas
and dolls are put on sale
and before I start competing with
likes of Gandhi and Patel
and before this poetry
becomes too patriotic to comprehend
with slogan 'Jai Hind ' this patriotic
poetry must come to an end.
Dec 2, 2014
Dec 2, 2014 at 9:36 PM UTC
So there is this pyramid.
We learned about it last week
This guy, his name was Maslow...is Maslow
maybe he is still alive. I'm not sure.
I don't even know his full name....I''ll probably do really well in this class, by the way.
So, Maslow, he came up with this pyramid.
A pyramid of physiological need. Ineresting right?
I think it is pretty interesting.
The bottom of the pyramid, the biggest part, contains the things you need the most.
Air, water, food, sleep...you get the idea.
The next part says saftey and security.
In order to live a fufilling life you need...
air, water, food, sleep, saftey and security.
Pretty simple
Then, this guy Maslow, he throws this ******** into the mix...
on the next level of the pyramid he puts love and belonging.
Love and belonging?
A necessity?
I have only lived about 19 years of my life
and I think it is safe to say that I have never loved.
Not really loved anyone.
I love my mom, I love my dog.
I hope that is the kind of love that Maslow is talking about or else
....I am not fufilling my physiological needs.
So I'm a little ****** up, yeah I could belive that.
To top this **** off.
Maslow throws Esteem and Self-esteem on the tip top of this pyramid.
Well now Maslow...hes really making my day
I got none of that either.
So here I am taking some notes in class and
Maslow makes me realized that I'm a pretty incomplete person.
Right here, in the middle of my Psychology lecture
surounded by at least 300 other incomplete people.
Sep 11, 2012
Sep 11, 2012 at 9:44 PM UTC
*So I went to the campus today, for the first time in a long time. I smoked cigarettes outside of the the lecture hall with some kids from the eastern block whose names I could barely pronounce. They were talking about McCarthyism in a language I couldn't understand - snippets in English - an American history exam. I cut class again, for a reason I can't quite trace, just lost sight of it all I guess. Or maybe I was wishing it could have been a little easier. They never gave us a course in what it means to try, you know? It just seems as if the only thing that stops us from doing the things we love is a fear of failing at them. Thinking about this on the walk home made my head sick and my heart sad, and so sleeping through the rest of the daylight seemed like a good way to get by.
I met up with the friend, later in the evening, he was at the local venue. He had his hands in his hoodie and his Adidas were swinging over the side of the stage, head bobbing, and rhyming in time to the beat of an electric bass drum. I asked him to buy me a beer and he slid his last two dollars over the counter like he always does when he notices my lower lip quivering. I didn't ask him about the doctor's and he didn't ask me about my black eye. I told him to tell me the story again, the one about the cool kids he met in the East Village and he did, he told me about the whole encounter in the snow, with the lights, and how badly he was shivering. I smiled that type of smile, the one that ends up with your lips curved the wrong way and wished I would have went with him.
The waitress that hates me gave me a ride home again so her uncle could close the place down. I offered her one of those Ukrainian kids' cigarettes that I swiped but she said no thanks, and I was glad I had more. She knew this wasn't going to be the last time she did me a favor, the way my track record was but I like to think she doesn't mind too much. I invited her inside but she said she had to run, maybe next time. She told me to try and hurry up and finish school so I could give her the world, and then she giggled and winked at me before she sped off. Back to bed, I had a long day of bullshitting myself ahead of me when I awoke.*
Nov 13, 2011
Nov 13, 2011 at 4:11 PM UTC
Pour savoir le jour et l'heure
Où tu es plus portée à l'amour
J'ai entrepris la lecture des Secrets de l'Amour, du poète Koka
Et je sais désormais que tu es femme-lotus
Volupté Parfaite comme il n'en existe qu'une sur un million
Tu me provoques, tu me charmes, tu me fascines
Tu me subjugues, tu es ma Muse, ma courtisane de haut rang
Tu possèdes les soixante-quatre arts libéraux
Et les trente-deux modes musicaux de Radha,
Amante de Krishna,
Tu es multiple de huit, ma biche-jument-éléphante
Tu es magique et ensorceleuse
Tu t'appelles Padmini, Ganika
Tu es espiègle , tu es folâtre, ma Nanyika
Avec toi je peux m'unir sans péché
Ma pudique impudique
Car tu sais tout ce qu'on peut faire
Quand les lumières sont éteintes
Et les passions enflammées.
Tu sais apprendre à parler aux perroquets et aux sansonnets
Tu pratiques les combats de coqs, de cailles et de pigeons
Tout comme les combats de la langue
Tu sais faire un carrosse avec des fleurs.
Je ne sais encore si je suis homme-bleu, Homme-lièvre ou homme-cerf
Moi qui me croyais homme-raccoon,
Homme-orphie et homme-mangouste
J'ai baisé l'image de ton ombre portée
Sur l'oreiller rose ce matin
Un baiser de déclaration
Un plaisir sans merci et sans trève
Que ton ombre m'a rendu
En me besognant
De la langue, des mains et des pieds
Et de toutes nos parties honteuses comme honnêtes
Baiser pour baiser,
Caresse pour caresse,
Coup pour coup,
Corps pour corps,
Yoni pour lingam !
Que d'égratignures tu m'as infligées de tes ongles acérés
La patte de paon et le saut du lièvre
Me marquent à jamais
Et je t'ai imprimé sur ta chair la feuille de lotus bleu.
Et de morsures en morsures
J'ai saisi avec mes lèvres tes deux lèvres
Tandis que tu jouais à me saisir la lèvre inférieure.
Si tu rêves comme moi d'impudiques amours
Si tu rêves comme moi d'écrire un nouveau chapitre
Aux huit cents vers du Ratira-Hasya,
Les Secrets de l'Amour, du poète Koka,
Retrouvons nous en congrès, veux-tu,
Avant que l'été ne s'achève
Au congrès de la femme-lynx-lotus et de l'homme-raccoon-mangouste
Si tu rêves d'impudiques amours
Si tu veux que je chante ta semence d'amour
Ton kama solila, mélange de lys et de musc.
Aug 21, 2019
Aug 21, 2019 at 5:58 AM UTC
Empty skies embrace
Sparse cloud formations
The blues fade and overlapped hues
Sparkles crested in fickle delight
Lazy outstretched yawns of natural light
Sun’s glare glazed under Moon’s appearance
Embossed against the translucence of blue space
Everything up there is calm today
No rush or race or interference
Gentle indifference drifts to the West.
Staying dry for us
The beautiful simplicity of being Sky.
Stop and look around.
Cyclists trickle on painted pathways
Student groups pontificate about life
and the lecture they should all be at,
Lunchtime sprawls and **********
never ending spurts of schoolchildren
delirious for sausage rolls and E numbers.
Everyone in a rush to be someone
Going somewhere with purpose,
and yet,
Be indifferent
to each other.
The bland complexity of being modern People.
Nov 10, 2012
Nov 10, 2012 at 12:53 PM UTC
Settle down, the court is in session,
The esteemed Court of Validation,
Where I stand trial for being
And thus must attend this hearing
To seek the sublime opinions
Of the wise Jury of Champions
Who've been there done that.
Please lecture me on how to act,
Tell me how I must dress,
What to say under duress,
To brandish my success,
And my worth attest
To finally be accepted among civilization
With a stamp of approval from the Court of Validation.
Here comes the verdict for the Judge to read.
I'm guilty of possessing an identity.
Therefore I'm sentenced to a lifetime of conformity
To the status quo established by society.
But Your Honor, there must be a mistake!
There has to be another path to take.
Sorry child, this is the only way,
Or else you'd be imprisoned in the Cell of Dismay.
Embrace your fate without hesitation;
Indeed it's a gift from the Court of Validation.
Aug 14, 2015
Aug 14, 2015 at 10:09 AM UTC
*Her prized first bike
came out of a breakfast cereal competition.
Then sped her around London
from lecture to final examination.
Twenty years on it was replaced
by gleaming white and black carbon.
Bought, lacking in memories
faster, lighter with a baby seat for Bethan.
Fitness, a priority this year
swimming in the pool, open water and the sea.
Clare selected a running coach
cycling home at an ever higher cadence for tea.
Happy, with her performance
in her very first event as a triathlon novice.
A second, saw Clare pedaling faster
to race past fellow competitors with ease.
In her last competition she was pictured lithe
on posters promoting reactive sports glasses.
Winning a new Felt racing bike, seats in the VIP stand
for the Tour de France finish and her fit lasses-ass*.
My congratulations dear hero...
Jun 25, 2010
Jun 25, 2010 at 10:26 AM UTC
It was great for a time
*** and wine
Wine and ***
Then commitment and open and shut curtains.
Special delivery of child made the bond complete
Six months down the line
Breast feeding was action watched from a distance
Intimacy was a tired look
The neighbours cat looked hot
Killed the lonely nights
Killed the commitment outright
Got to know the lawyer through rapid bank withdrawals
Weekly child visit watched over by Brutus
Bar visits watched over by the world's condemned
Special occasion became a twice yearly treat
Birthday and Christmas, bit of hate thrown sideways.
Then the new man.
Felt good for her.
Maybe some pressure off.
Maybe missed that lobotomy bar lecture.
Years dragged the hate forward.
Time moved on.
One day I wrote her a letter expressing my anger.
She wrote back in triplicate.
I wrote back in double triplicate.
She sent a thesis on men and *****
Suddenly without thinking, we had dialogue.
After a while, we moved on from the anger.
We became human again.
I actually liked writing her letters and receiving them.
We never got back together.
But the letters kept us close.
Sometimes there would be a kiss at the end.
The little bit of love I probably never deserved.
I would mention it to her in my next letter.
Even an *** deserves a solitary kiss now and again.
The bar room lawyers would probably agree.
Mar 19, 2017
Mar 19, 2017 at 9:14 AM UTC
How long my days, my nights listening to swagger jaggier
Since the seagulls, dance broke the sand-bags
Last year have been widely criticized as the torture year
How long my days, my nights listening to swagger jaggier
Last year hurt more than ever
the attitude of the unions lecture
How long my days, my night listening to swagger jaggier
Since the seagulls, drove the dagger deeper.
Author note...
sometimes in life we just have to take the good with the bad
remembering the storm of 2012..
I was aiming for: The Triolet Form of poetry
May 1, 2013
May 1, 2013 at 5:36 PM UTC
We the citizens, who live as refugees,
We keep earning & see if our life is turning,
To the price rise, we lose savings,
Still we remain rock-bottom in standard of living.
We belong to the middle class,
Whose life always a breakable thin glass.
Our life remains completely unsettle,
Every second, life tests our mettle.
Life chases us with pressure, failure and useless lecture,
We are nurtured with a fear of future,
Happiness remains just a leisure,
Live with the unsecure & unsure present for a secure future.
We keep us busy and function,
We fear, when there arrives a function,
Towards happiness, we run as a pilgrim,
For the corporates, we become a mere victim.
We run like an athlete for salary, food and target,
For this globalized world, we are just a market,
Like hungry dogs, we wait for increments,
We keep running with bitter disappointments.
We live in own house, only in our dreams,
Our hearts cry with hopeless screams,
Failures remain our tutors,
Inability has turned us the irrecoverable debtors.
Our appearance has a rich look,
We have untold hidden burdens,
That keep us shook,
Keeps us forbidden and fear-ridden.
Low class think us rich,
High class always want us to be their *****
Politically neglected by the rulers,
Economically exploited by the rich powers.
We exhaust ourself for subsistence,
We remain victorious and satisfied only in our existence,
We lose our life to sustain in competence,
We run our life with a mere persistence.
More than the high class and low class, we suffer,
Our lives never progressed as governments differ,
All see low class with empathy and sympathy,
To our difficulties, we are looked with apathy.
On rich, we are not jealous,
Towards our aim, we are zealous.
Never think we are nothing,
We truly have nothing to lose.
We take risks to make history,
Our path is nothing less than a mystery,
You never allow us to come up,
But we are not going to give up.
Hello High class,
Never pretend to live like us, to exploit us,
Gone are the days, we remained fools,
You will stand a day as the super intelligent fools.
Before, we are hungry for food,
Now, we are hungry to rule,
Before, we feared to live,
Now, we are ready to win the world.
We are nothing! We are nothing
We have nothing to lose!
We won’t stop until having nothing could do nothing to us.
Nov 9, 2018
Nov 9, 2018 at 7:35 AM UTC
It’s a new day dawning yet we’re still living in the past
Embracing colonialism and saving the rest for last
You know, the rest meaning the other cultures because you think they don’t matter
But it’s time for that glass of classism and racism to shatter
It’s funny how when I go to University I’m rarely taught by people who look like me
No matter how much the white lecturers may try, they will never understand my cultural identity
So don’t get mad if I doze off in your lecture because I just can’t relate
If I speak up I may start the great debate
Learning about Ancient Greeks and those who lived in Rome is fine
But what about the indigenous people of the Caribbean or stories of what went through the slave’s mind?
University is more than just learning about what makes Western culture great
There’s more to this world that we can truly celebrate
America and Haiti both had a revolution
So if we want to make a change we need to come up with a solution
It’s a new day dawning and we plan to decolonise
Despite our obstacles, we will rise
Mar 29, 2017
Mar 29, 2017 at 7:39 AM UTC
When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
3.8k
To learn from my mishaps,
made me realize what am I for the better half,
I am amidst the day I lived and die,
we are meeting halfway across this winding path.
I may not be the most pure of souls,
I may be flawed, I may end up a fool.
You may hate me for what I am,
But remember I am just a man.
Let me finish my lecture,
And hear the lessons of my life.
I know we lack in paternal love.
I know the feeling of being succumb.
Temptation. . .
We are just too weak to fall for it,
It's the realization that we have to learn from it.
and that we have to admit.
The Guilt is there to brand our memories.
Let this not end in an inevitable tragedies.
Mar 11, 2010
Mar 11, 2010 at 5:43 AM UTC
as obedient as my cat
who waits for me at the door
and jumps to kiss my tired feet
from a hectic long day
standing at lecture rooms
as obedient as my cat
who climbs excitedly on my bed
and licks my feet again
at the break of dawn..
just to inform me..
"wake up silly lady...
Its time for a morning prayer"
as obedient as my Harry
who sits next to the praying mat
and patiently observes
and waits till a prayer is done..
What a sweet way to start a fresh new day...
with an obedient four legged son called Harry
who is loyal and cute in his
own sweet way....
Jul 8, 2013
Jul 8, 2013 at 5:33 AM UTC
you're still losing weight. i didn't know it was possible to shed the pounds this quickly.
the less you eat, the more you age. in three months, you'll have aged six years. i can't recognize you anymore. it's like parts of your soul have gone missing.
your body is what holds your mind. it holds your soul. it held me.
i know it sounds so selfish, but i want you go be who you were before.
not only were you healthy, but you were happy.
and warm. so warm.
i hope you gain back your warmth. i hope you find the pieces of your soul that have corroded in the stomach acid your force yourself to choke up. i hope your serotonin levels raise to a normal number. i hope that the color comes back to your cheeks.
i hope that you become something other than a walking corpse.
if you don't, i won't lecture you again, but i won't be able to come back. it's too hard seeing you like this. i hope you understand.
but please know that i will always love you and i will always be on your side. i believe you can do it. call me when it happens.
Jan 30, 2017
Jan 30, 2017 at 9:43 PM UTC