"lessening" poems
Most schools have projects, in science classes and such.
Most of us, mastered the science of surviving in projects.
It's those at the bottom who need the most help, but cant even get proper school supplies.. where's the logic ?.
But oh, the rags to riches story is prevalent isn't it? Nope, the only rich I know is Professor Richard.
And that's not even something worth mentioning, he does more lessening than lessons lets paint the picture..
But these young kids don't understand, they try to curse them, place them in prisons, its a trap from birth..
Give them these Rick Rosses as role models, knowing they don't have fathers, instead of Tupac Shakur, showing them worth..
My bestfriend Tony once questioned his dark skin, just like i once questioned my brown.
how profound, a couple 4th graders at the time, having to prove that they were "down".
Crazy how Tony proved he was down, now i visit his site yearly on November the third.
And things aren't getting better, but nobody gives a **** haven't you heard..
The prayers our mothers chant, ritually every night.
Praying to the Sun gods, perhaps one day we'll all unite.
-afj
Oct 4, 2014
Oct 4, 2014 at 8:34 AM UTC
The first thinkers were poets
Naming Mother Earth
Beginning symbolic thinking
Of nature, death and birth
Though themes are often repeated
Love, Beauty and God
Poetry in the guise of Religion
A prophet or a fraud
The poet resurrects the Primitive
Through allegory and similes
Disarming the unknown like explorers
Sublime Prophets and Visionaries
They must lay bare those treasured images
That must be expressed
Unraveling and revealing the sounds
At each soul’s behest
Encompassing the entire Cosmos
So lyrical the beat
The poet’s excitement flows outward
Laid at the Reader’s feet
So original, individual
She won’t examine or explain
Letting go the festering feelings
Disturbances in her brain
He exposes his dark, wounded psyche
Just to release and express
Such capacity to see and compare
Hyperbole at its best
I love, I hate, I suffer
A special dance in rhythm and rhyme
The poet as a buffer
Lessening the pain and sting of time
Laden with symbol and feelings
She gives you sweet relief
From something urgent, revealing
Confusion to belief
Through a cinematic kind of seeing
The poet purges to transform
By leaping through Alice’s looking glass
She never was one to conform
Quite intolerant of convention
Just like The Mad Hatter
His passions immune to all logic
In syncopated patter
Jamming up the poet’s mind
Struggling for expression
Seeking order out of chaos
An infantile regression
Cleaving to his imaginary world
The poet breaks out into words
Creating sound paintings to be unfurled
So his own agony is blurred
She succumbs to storms of passion
With instinctive techniques
Rhymes and rhythm still in fashion
Out of hand flows mystique
The poet mines from his unconscious
The Reader is not blind
For every single line and symbol
Means something to the mind
Causing an inner liberation
Enlightenment or flight
It is a matter of life and death
When darkness turns to light.
Nov 14, 2016
Nov 14, 2016 at 6:55 PM UTC
'tis a sad sad
tale of woe
of which I sing
of gods and godesses
and their lessening
how forlorn
the goddess Ceres
once loved by all
and wooed by many
when unprovoked
and unforeseen
a war was wrought
'gainst fair queen
caught unawares
her throne assailed
her forces scattered
'twas all unfair
cast down she was
from lofty throne
no longer crowned
no more beloved
pierced thru
with many thorns
belittled
and besmirched
her reputation
and now her station
lost far beyond
re-incarnation
silently
she slips away
lost
and near forgotten
wounded
and rarely seen
her sullen thoughts
of malice reign
shamed and bleeding
plotting her revenge
till time and chance
provide the proper
circumstance
then all the thorns
that pierced her thru
she shook as many blades
and hurled
those bitter barbs as one
'gainst Hades' mighty gates
shaken he
from his dark slumber
his rallied forces
armed in numbers
their banners raised
on solar breezes
as trumpets blare
thru breathless reaches
voices shout
in protestation
slide rules locked
in astrometric
calculations
oh see how Ceres
scorned and mocked
has wrought
her rotting vengeance
on Pluto's frozen rocks
"Oh woe to thee
my Persephone
flee thee now
to thy father's house
for thy husband's hearth
hath been broken
and Hades' home
now just a token
My lofty edifice
a shattered wrack
an' all that's left
'tis a humble
wretched shack"
Pic Poem
https://www.pix-star.com/media/cache_local/download/23fc881b88e812947b061094f5694d32/JPlutoThouHastFallen-e52.jpg
.
Apr 22, 2018
Apr 22, 2018 at 4:02 PM UTC
Twisted reeds sway gently in the wind as black seabirds slice the sky overhead.
Waves rolling one by one crash with increasing ferocity on to the rocky beach,
And I watch the red sun set fire to the spray while the tide encircles me.
Tugging at my feet, pulling me forward, it beckons for my consent. I give in,
And all is quiet even in such chaos. All is nightmarish and beautiful all the more.
The blood red horizon seers my retinas; freshly unleashed tears take to the sea.
These waves, such enormous swells, crash in on me; an unseen war is waging.
They press me down and back, and then drag me further into the endless blue.
Over and over again, repetition loses count, my outcries die prematurely.
Only seawater and air manage to sputter from my lips, cracked and worn.
Not a whisper can be heard out here in such a true state of despair, but not all
Castaways are without faith. The past I once cherished has been lost to the depths,
Yet a knowing tingle in my gut keeps me searching for a message hidden merely
'Neath the surface. Drifting deeper into my pain, I notice a curious thing:
The force of the waves lessening as I gracelessly surrender to Sorrow and the sea.
My feet torn by jagged rocks no longer felt, my eyelids blistered by the red
Eternal sunset, a few waves push me under before the siege of the sea falters and
I learn to ride the surf, taking each afront as it comes, whether predicted or
Suddenly upon me. My pain ebbs away slowly with the passing of each episode,
And with each wave I acknowledge my loss, relinquishing my burden.
Like so many desparinging hearts before me shipwrecked in the sea of tears,
I forcefully remind myself that one day the lush, inviting green shores of the
Other side of the sea will appear in my line of vision. Yet, for now, I let myself
Drift through the grief of grieving you, often unsure of whether I'm meant to float
Or should let myself sink toward the blackest crags of my mind. Here alone.
Apr 19, 2011
Apr 19, 2011 at 11:30 PM UTC
Budging the sluggard ripples of the Somme,
A barge round old Cérisy slowly slewed.
Softly her engines down the current *******
And chuckled softly with contented hum,
Till fairy tinklings struck their croonings dumb.
The waters rumpling at the stern subdued;
The lock-gate took her bulging amplitude;
Gently from out the gurgling lock she swum.
One reading by that calm bank shaded eyes
To watch her lessening westward quietly.
Then, as she neared the bend, her funnel screamed.
And that long lamentation made him wise
How unto Avalon, in agony,
Kings passed in the dark barge, which Merlin dreamed.
4.3k
My skin is p a l e
My body c o ld
And in my chest lies a broken heart of fools gold
My re alit y I on ce knew is ha z y a nd n on exist en t
It's grown old
And I'm becoming tired of being bold
And being told right from wrong
I'm sinking softly down when I don't know how to swim
Every inch that I further lose from possibility to stay afloat is lessening my want or need for a life boat
Every breath I attempt to take fills my lungs with ugly pseudonyms and sends me down deeper into my lonesome underpopulated town inhabited only by fragments of once strong relationships that i held so close to me that I c ould n't b reat h e, the relationships that kept my entire being from sinking in the first place.
I'm drowning and I can't see what's even in front of me
I'm a ship bound by anchor to the wrong bad habits of shedding my blood willingly to bloodthirsty ravenous sharks in the sea of my minds eye
This was once a safe harbor for the ones I kept close
The ones that knew what mattered to me and the ones I cherished most
Now its a sea full of gh o sts
Of the people I trusted them the most
I trusted them to not turn on me or use me like a host
And now I'm the one dro w ning
I' m so sca re d
Now when I share my harbor it feels so
U n fa i r
They don't understand what I risk give to let them be there
It never harbors in their heart as deeply as it does mine
The possibility of even defining how hard it is to let these ships safely pass through this harbor will now and forever never be able to escape my pale numbing lips
Only silence
Everything here is just riddled with murderous crashing waves
Any relationship that enters I try so desperately to save
And in that attempt
The harbor starts to misbehave
The waves destroy every boat or anything that floats
Anything at all to help me cope with being so alone or the feeling of even remotely being at home.
My fingertips are numb and cold and starting to fold and I can't feel those things I could before
I just want all of this over
N o m o re dro w n i n g
All my life boats have sunk
Now I'm just stuck
All these hands and graves are grabbing at me and pulling me down ev ery whi ch wa y at the
bott om of the
oce an
u nd er
al l
th e s e
h e a v y
waves.
Nov 24, 2014
Nov 24, 2014 at 6:46 PM UTC
Now the golden Morn aloft
Waves her dew-bespangled wing,
With vermeil cheek and whisper soft
She wooes the tardy Spring:
Till April starts, and calls around
The sleeping fragrance from the ground,
And lightly o’er the living scene
Scatters his freshest, tenderest green.
New-born flocks, in rustic dance,
Frisking ply their feeble feet;
Forgetful of their wintry trance
The birds his presence greet:
But chief, the skylark warbles high
His trembling thrilling ecstasy;
And, lessening from the dazzled sight,
Melts into air and liquid light.
Yesterday the sullen year
Saw the snowy whirlwind fly;
Mute was the music of the air,
The herd stood drooping by:
Their raptures now that wildly flow
No yesterday nor morrow know;
’Tis Man alone that joy descries
With forward and reverted eyes.
Smiles on past Misfortune’s brow
Soft Reflection’s hand can trace,
And o’er the cheek of Sorrow throw
A melancholy grace;
While Hope prolongs our happier hour,
Or deepest shades, that dimly lour
And blacken round our weary way,
Gilds with a gleam of distant day.
Still, where rosy Pleasure leads
See a kindred Grief pursue;
Behind the steps that Misery treads
Approaching Comfort view:
The hues of bliss more brightly glow
Chastised by sabler tints of woe,
And blended form, with artful strife,
The strength and harmony of life.
See the wretch that long has tost
On the thorny bed of pain,
At length repair his vigour lost,
And breathe and walk again:
The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening Paradise.
3.2k
That boy is warm freshly printed papers
Stuffed in his overflowing binder
That boy is the leaves being painted
In early November
That boy is Pokémon cards skewed all over the floor
Who never signed up for this 'growing up' thing
That boy is a huge stuffed frog on Valentine's
Lessening the winter's violent sting
That boy is obscure facts of the arcane
A curiosity never satisfied
That boy has an ever expanding brain
And long hands that reek of formaldehyde
That boy is beautiful freckles
"Splotches of melanin" as he puts it
That boy is compliments I don't deserve
And a love I just can't quit
That boy is a long way down
A relationship that's nowhere close to flawless
That boy is worth the fall because that boy
Is my dear Nicholas
Jun 16, 2014
Jun 16, 2014 at 9:29 PM UTC
Insouciance first fall
we took the night half-illuminated
dreamy stereo sketchy static
through ear’s round bell
smile we owe it
slanted, bendable light moon
becomes another genre
to listen lilt
even before methods of lip
procure shaded meaning cohered
on a closed door – opened
finding a semblance of Sun
there, veiling
a traffic of cirrus
in the elongated road
of blue skies
it was time
to point-source a home
taller than grass in Summer
pinpointing scenes to exact
a long divide and make it
by punishing it post-peak,
let it drift with unrelenting
quickness
past mouthed rivers and from
the lessening fog
of the same morning
i
will puncture
it true, eyes set forth
into your absence
*you’ll
bloom
you’ll
bloom.*
Mar 25, 2016
Mar 25, 2016 at 8:31 AM UTC
~Enter~
Everything injected
Identity constricted
Breaths restricted
Fights enlisted
Words explicit
Pain inflicted
~Exit~
Withdrawing addiction
Half of me missing
Shaking commencing
Cold sweats kick in
Heartbeats lessening
Death's threatening
~Return~
Suffocation retired
Individuality aspired
Stimulation inspired
Culmination transpired
Life long love desired
Exact dosage is required
~Anchored~
© Tina Thompson
Feb 26, 2012
Feb 26, 2012 at 8:13 PM UTC
Calm is the morn without a sound,
Calm as to suit a calmer grief,
And only thro' the faded leaf
The chestnut pattering to the ground:
Calm and deep peace on this high wold,
And on these dews that drench the furze.
And all the silvery gossamers
That twinkle into green and gold:
Calm and still light on yon great plain
That sweeps with all its autumn bowers,
And crowded farms and lessening towers,
To mingle with the bounding main:
Calm and deep peace in this wide air,
These leaves that redden to the fall;
And in my heart, if calm at all,
If any calm, a calm despair:
Calm on the seas, and silver sleep,
And waves that sway themselves in rest,
And dead calm in that noble breast
Which heaves but with the heaving deep.
2k
Truth enamored of itself...based upon
the forever following.
Flow's entrails--the
seven circuit labyrinth pends the
recollection that yielded it.
Thus, the unsound voice pouring
voicelessness.
Minotaur's digestive sound bite.
Where Once, as only Once allotted
the victor of Truth.
As told, as held...now confounds
with a self-fabricating prophesier,
profaning all telling.
Disconsolate swipes of emotion
make and remake the barren.
Pray tell the lessening visage of thee,
where by and by shall deem thee
bygone.
Dec 22, 2016
Dec 22, 2016 at 11:36 AM UTC
They don't speak, all the long,
winding bus journey. They are
strangers, with nothing in common
besides the No 50 route
and the free travel passes
afforded to them on account
of their quietly advancing years.
She sits in the seat in front of him.
Their eyes never lock. His myopic
gaze through thick NHS lenses
rests neutral on the back of her head,
her softly blue-rinsed curls and the collar
of an eminently sensible overcoat.
They sit, both silent, as
- outside the foggy bus windows -
winter has one last chew on
time's bony old carcass.
She has a slight stoop which
she's doing her best to hide, and his
shaking hands make his liver spots blur.
They stand - the bus stopping at their
mutual destination - shuffling sideways
into the aisle, and something
unexpected
happens.
The bus jolts suddenly forwards,
then lurches to a startled halt,
and she falls backwards
into his arms
and he
catches her.
For a second,
strange gravities assume control.
There's a moment,
governed by different laws of
physics and chemistry
and half-forgotten, half-remembered biology.
She flushes, infused with something
warm and thirst-whettingly girlish, and he
surges with a newfound potency,
standing taller, the woman he's supporting
somehow lessening the burden of his age.
Her spine straightens, and
she laughs. His face, smiling, youthens.
His hands hold her unstooped shoulders and
don't tremble.
Sun breaks through cloud outside the window.
They remember it's spring out there somewhere.
Mar 11, 2016
Mar 11, 2016 at 10:45 AM UTC
this verbal wishing well, appreciated,
a nut of good intentions but drives me
deeper into de-spare-ing downing detentions,
for it is only the article's genuine genius,
that elevates the human spiritus, to godlike status
no ditty this, but a wail, shriek, for
human touch is gift so greatest,
that any day passing without
either, neither but both, 'tis one
truly wasted,
a deduction on our
calculus of inited^ human intuitions,
a failure of our greatest inventions
a subtraction of our
gainful living, a purposed ecstasy
our one and only inexact
measure of measurement
that defies pedantic notions of
things of weight or volume,
but extends our own existence
sans
the armies of embrace,
the electric elected syncing,
of the shocking sharing of
closing the borders of divided spaces,
a soft contusion, a realized illusion
a de minimus of our days,
a lessening of our lessons,
a loss of earning livingness,
a nail in our coffined basket,
and here to cease without surcease,
the elemental incalculable numbered
members of our total human races,
that so tragic in a twenty four expiry,
that the bonding of affection goes
unexpressed...
offer you my armory of arms,
cleanse us both with showered kisses,
inform you thus of our emboldened connection,
voiding these lowlife separators of lineage divisors,
what matter color, gender, chosen god nomenclature,
any of this nonsensical human inventions for distancing
divested human beings from each other
tho eyes closed, and all our senses flaring,
when we confirm what we were born knowing,
there is nothing greater than the human touch
PostScript
my first and best poem of the day,
how it came to me goes unbeknownst,
but will practice what is preached
with any and all willing encountered souls,
and perhaps, come-end of day, will write,
once more, one more, re heaven on earth
7:02am
Tue Sep Thirty
Two Thousand and Twenty Five. nml
Sep 30, 2025
Sep 30, 2025 at 7:13 AM UTC
Great events often turn on small wheels. It is a gear shift that is not easily obtained.
With time thinning, moments to turn around for better is lessening.
We don't build without foundation, the pyramids also were not overnight.
So to be wan and weary when the seemingly endless journey advances,
you realize pace is adjustable.
Baby steps are inevitable, but the worth of building up to better is just so patiently inclined.
Feb 23, 2016
Feb 23, 2016 at 9:13 PM UTC
My knees caress the soft soil
In the shade of a giant.
A kind giant of course,
My very own BFG.
He brings me life,
My very own breath.
He is a generous giver,
Never expecting anything back.
In the autumn,
Parts of him fall,
Storms of orange and yellow
Obscuring my vision.
He waits for me in the morning,
Standing in my yard for eternity.
In the summer,
I seek his refuge,
Cool shadows lessening into
A blissful comfort.
To this sweet maple I'm grateful.
May 23, 2018
May 23, 2018 at 11:52 PM UTC
Calm is the morn without a sound,
Calm as to suit a calmer grief,
And only thro' the faded leaf
The chestnut pattering to the ground:
Calm and deep peace on this high wold,
And on these dews that drench the furze,
And all the silvery gossamers
That twinkle into green and gold:
Calm and still light on yon great plain
That sweeps with all its autumn bowers,
And crowded farms and lessening towers,
To mingle with the bounding main:
Calm and deep peace in this wide air,
These leaves that redden to the fall;
And in my heart, if calm at all,
If any calm, a calm despair:
Calm on the seas, and silver sleep,
And waves that sway themselves in rest,
And dead calm in that noble breast
Which heaves but with the heaving deep.
1.6k
If the world were flat I would argue
there would be more suicides,
Jumping from the edge of the earth.
The act would somehow be more redeemable
Than say, swimming into a concrete walkway.
City crews wouldn’t have to wash the mess
and children wouldn’t see the naked truth.
The news could do an expose
On this trendy new trend
In the inward homicidal debauchery.
I imagine the lower three miles would be much like purgatory
The pale-blue breath holders
With their glass frozen eyes
All floating in the under earth
Not sliced and bleeding,
Or comatose from pills,
Or lessening the brain via bullet,
Or gas like Plath,
Not even rope burn from a hangman’s noose.
No if the world were flat, they would be floating.
Some stitched with government satellites
Payment in the mail for their families.
Why yes there are other benefits too
Like executions,
Orbital burial and visits,
even gps tracking.
But I am no sales man
You should talk to
Samuel Birley Rowbotham
He holds a parallax
Between history and accounting.
Feb 24, 2011
Feb 24, 2011 at 10:19 PM UTC
informed him, time for us to mitosis split
we be like half-torn pieces of paper
towel, ripped poorly from the roller,
edged raggedy, mishap misshapen
torn~apart
mismatched
he was standing on one leg when he
was informed, confronted, he retired to
the challenge of savasana, the corpse pose,
before speaking:
we are splitting our baby, product multiple
of the joining of our intertwining, a lessening,
and how can we give that up?
very Solomony of you, my torn report, not wittily,
which paused him from talking without thinking,
till he accumulated his perspicacious perspective,
informing me in his kindly lord of manor tone,
wisdomy superiority, advising me Brandy fierce,
that more appropriate, better than my selection
would be substituting his version more refined:
Solomonic
an actual word,
and i heard the sound of paper towel being
torn into many little pieces, and smiled with
end-of-poem finale,
exactly
*because he was so wrong for being right
one last time*
brandy
Nov 19, 2023
Nov 19, 2023 at 9:53 AM UTC
speaking only
through moves;
we are playing games
of chosen mad-libs
and retracing Uno steps
to find ourselves,
to return back looking
for multiple axes
so you or maybe I can
call bingo!
but I move, without you seeing
you return to reprise tension
lessening these enveloped expectations
rolling single digits
i'll fall behind, though you follow
this trend we seem to allow
hoping to land
on the same space
so that piece of you
may continue
Mar 16, 2010
Mar 16, 2010 at 1:10 PM UTC
I watch the loping invalids in the courtyard
nil by nil by nil feet
How to describe a sensation such as heat
to them? The interminable sun and so on
I wonder if they understand that
Light itself is not heat
whereupon the bell sounds
their minds divide and fog in the somnolent air
I look at a Dupuytren in the room
Cord around the chair
His clothes hanging off him
Trying to move his remarkable shock of hair
From his eyes
My room looks out beyond the yard
It is high up - precarious
Through that picturewindow, the world without
is framed, beyond the walls the oldtown
spires and roofing
I see my own sadness, my impotence
In every inch of the heights
the girls come back, propping black bikes against
the gate;
my legs are wrapped in a blanket
and I feel nothing below my waist
Through a system of cables and consent
my companion molls in Bergonic poise
each day the room behind his eyes receded, the heart
lessening
the birds gathered around the bathroom doors to be fed
He read about Escher in bed
waiting to be plugged
unbeknownst rigours of treatment, and
unbeknownst methods
until he forgot those days in Margate
the sound of his nieces
and everything he read about Escher –
the light makes dull
the precision of the thorn
Aug 6, 2013
Aug 6, 2013 at 12:46 PM UTC
Sky spits ***** flecks of
conversation onto swift
lips and the tooth knife
draws blood from grin
in the evening that is
probably too cold or
maybe just right.
I climbed the warehouse
wall in my head while
you watched my eyes
move up and over and
around and down back
to your denim jacket for
the sixth or seventh time
that evening and then up
to meet eyes with spots
from fluorescent lights.
I told you a story and then
we rewrote it for just a few
minutes in several different
locales with varying degrees
of passion and curiosity while
lessening the distance of feet
and hips and gaze to try to
feel something new and same.
Oct 8, 2013
Oct 8, 2013 at 4:38 AM UTC
he moved his hands like the wind,
they said he was crazy
I said he was from somewhere special
where the raindrops only fall on sad days
to match your mood
and the sun's rays are magnetized to those who
have hurt, shining on their wounds and lessening
their scars
I told them to be quiet and they grew buttons
where their mouths used to be;
one fell off of a little girl and all that came out
of her lips were butterflies-
they whispered "it's true"
and those people never looked at me the same
but every now and then a butterfly flutters by
and they remember something about a boy
with hands like a summer breeze and another
world where raindrops are tears and the sun
is healing, not harmful.
Jun 25, 2013
Jun 25, 2013 at 8:27 PM UTC
i want to climb a mountain,
i want to look upon the earth
from a different perspective.
to feel my feet flee from under me,
and to fall -
slip -
into a lucid madness.
i want to feel no fetter
as my body folds upon itself -
twisting free -
as the ground approaches me.
as the . . .
as the sum of existence comes to a point.
to be young and alone,
and your ears just wanna ring
and your eyes just wanna close,
to be young and alone
with no girl for the night.
(born in the wrong place
and at the wrong time)
it was in that one moment
that i was the
perfect level of righteous.
it was in that moment
that my vision
found a point of fixation.
it was in that moment,
when our eyes met -
when i was blinded by radiance -
that i heard myself whisper
' please destroy me. '
these thoughts travel upon
tracks derailed;
awaiting annulment,
awaiting loss,
awaiting rebirth -
awaiting eventual awakening.
"betray your gods
before they betray you,
before they deny you
your Soul."
(but i don't know why)
rearing,
i never spoke up,
to be unnoticed is
easy without a name.
a wanderlust spiritualist's
view of the world -
to be read. to be found crazy.
and i was layin' me soul down
when i -
a nameless one -
must have whispered
' please, destroy me. '
you abided.
Jan 26, 2013
Jan 26, 2013 at 6:18 PM UTC