"literacy" poems
1.
Nymphomaniac-addicts,
Overweight bisexual vegetarians
Climbing trees to stay fit
and eating 80’s fried chicken *******
2.
just imagine
Aquarians full of class valedictorians
Swimming on display for graduation ceremony…
reverse-symbolism of how Moolch drowned His *****
3.
Better yet, just imagine
Holy wars,
Beautiful words written to describe the burning pains
Of holocaust...the Kristallnacht nights
Under the mistletoe,
Watching Hall of fame ball hawks on pivot toes
Driving through hoes
After the whistle blows
4
College Literacy classes teaching basic:
Ideas that good questions leads to good answers,
Reading reminders
Free association conceptual constructions
5.
But ************ professor:
free association **** shticks
misfires, false alarms
are all art, too,
Like sticking a dagger into an apple,
Not the edible, but the technology.
6.
Go head, deconstruct the philosophy
Of oral cute-tification,
according to the Tautology of Leviticus,
With the same three half truths, pogroms
against biological deviant... FLAGS!
7.
Cryptic gospels of a ************
Where three F.F.F’s
Stands for six six six
Like how 1mg of juxtaposition
And a dose of metamorphosis
is the repertoire of a king of curmudgeon
‘cause even the Holy Ghost
drinks from the cup of Christ’s blood.
8.
Reading,
Self-flagellation gospel-manual of Pope John Paul II,
At shrink sessions under the daze of heron Piper methysticum blunts
With sweet phat butts like lit lickerish that droop eyes
Like the psalm of Valeriana officinalis root extract.
Feb 12, 2012
Feb 12, 2012 at 12:46 PM UTC
UNEMPLOYMENT
All we hear about is unemployment,
Appears to be a global torment,
Couldn't we of think creative solutions,
New inventions, using less pollution?
New ideas, concepts for the plebs to need,
What can we invent today? Yes indeed,
We could start by teaching global literacy,
Imagine how many books we'd need!
What about one holistic food capsule,
Made in Australia, daily and healthful?
Then we could grow forests and sell trees,
The world does need oxygen to breathe.
We could sell books and food pills,
Get your own ideas, not such dills!
Let's hear this motto in our schools,
What can we invent today? Beautiful!
Jul 21, 2015
Jul 21, 2015 at 6:41 PM UTC
so someone remarks and thus a poem commissioned...
*a better world, a wish no one can turn a back to...
a literacy of mine own, a bridge too far...
but such a lie too glorious to ignore...
blessed be the wisher for he gave this day
water and wine to a lapsed Jew who reincarnates
the containership of body and soul from the Star of David,*
it,
burr~etched upon his chest, and embraces lost tourists
who unfated unfazed stumble
upon the guide dog of his verbal chicanery and funny bone,
smiling for as long as it takes to cross that last bridge,
nearer our god, you than me..
Apr 24, 2018
Apr 24, 2018 at 11:07 AM UTC
What is here so fine!
What does Nigeria define?
True democracy?
Mere literacy?
Good old days we praise
Today's faith we raise
Happiest beings on earth
Survivors, yes from birth
The world's awaited invention
Four Hundred and Nineteen(419) injections
Immune is the world, oh corruption!
Awareness a skin deep innovation
Rich geographical virtues
Hospitable family values
Wealth, milk and honey
Our destiny how sunny
Our hope the pride we know
Fulfilments the future we show
I applaud greatness oh!!
I hate Nigeria, No!!!
(c) obukov
Feb 26, 2014
Feb 26, 2014 at 7:01 AM UTC
Around the table,
Literacy discussion turned elitist...
Bemoaning some poor Johnny,
Son of a plumber who does not read
Beyond the practical need,
And has no desire to.
I stopped to check my sense of what I had just heard...
Was transported to a prairie farm;
Thought of my Father, then in his eighties
Who felt no need and no sense of loss
For not having read Shakespeare nor Kant
For missing Milton's Paradises and Hemingway,
For by-passing Black Elk Speaks and C.S. Lewis.
Every morning, he read his Bible;
Some nights he read the mail's
Motley collection of literature:
Ads and politicians and fanatics,
Demanding money and his time,
But mostly money.
"I don't have time to read!"
He'd shout when I suggested a novel.
What literature he had was in his head,
Poems memorized when he was a boy
In a two room school, or
His own lines, written as a young man,
Describing work and friends
Long distant now, but still alive
In memory.
Dad taught me how to read
In different literacies and different texts:
Nuances of sky to read the weather -
What chill or storm or drought was on its way
("Storm's coming, boys! Let's get that hay!");
Cows and calves and bulls,
(Which one was sick or well, dry or bred);
Ways to diagnose mechanical ailments
("Start with the easiest options first");
Metals, to know which welding rod applied
("Aluminum sags, and cast iron cracks");
Grain, rolled crisp between hard hands,
(a test of ripeness);
Cement, to blend the perfect mix,
("Clean gravel/sand, no dirt, not too much water!);
Conservation,
("Always keep some grain on hand" &
"Keep your fuel above half-tank").
So many literacies...
Dad, the Master Reader of them all...
No wonder he'd no time for books.
Dec 20, 2011
Dec 20, 2011 at 9:26 PM UTC
I am literate in daydreams
and letting my imagination rule my head
I am literate in music
where rationale can be abandoned.
I am literate in procrastination,
pushing away my mind-defying.
I am literate in heartbreak
which has been already over-endured.
I am literate in lazy weekends
spent with my sister and a remote.
I am literate in creating;
not masterpieces, but heart and soul pieces.
I am literate in ramen noodle and green tea afternoons
in sweatpants and sneakers with no makeup on.
I am literate in moment-capturing
and finding the right words to explain.
I am literate in thunderstorms
and dancing in between water droplets.
I am literate in heart confessions
over acoustic guitars and games of solitaire.
I am literate in wanting
and taking away from what I already have.
I am literate in wanderlust
and a wholehearted need to escape.
I am literate in color-coordination and clothing arranging
and bringing out all my best.
I am literate in kissing with desperation
and wanting to have it be effortless.
I am literate in wasting my time
in my head, in my heart, and in the clouds.
I am literate in everything mentioned
and so much that I can’t even say.
Apr 1, 2013
Apr 1, 2013 at 10:26 PM UTC
The Mockery of Fairyland
In silence watching, as fellow, fallow fairies dance,
Sylphs float above while gnomes furrow,
Donating water brothers.
Undine.
Spiritual creatures, unseen.
Creation of nature from nature.
Mankind evading.
Those fairies will still catch your eye,
In form of genus butterfly.
God forbid you meet them.
Stumble on their fairy rings.
You should never ever tell a fairy your name.
For in fairyland you may remain.
For safety's sake.
While you're out walking in the woods.
Inside out, you must wear your shirt,
Wear a ring of of iron!
So you can breach the fairies curse.
For in seven year cycles.
Fairies must donate to hell.
A good soul,Tam Hin.
Because he tricked the fairy queen.
She had to set him free.
Ti's said.
As man folk mate.
Fairies do true procreate.
In a way akin to ours!
Hybrid fairies once existed.
They were such melancholy souls.
Far too sad to live in fairyland.
Too fairy like to live on earth!
Titania she still sits waiting patiently.
For her Oberon to arrive.
King and queen of fairyland, in literacy.
Supreme?
No Fallacy!
By ladylivvi1
May 24, 2013
May 24, 2013 at 4:56 AM UTC
liquor
be
liquid literacy
explicit irony
illicit hide and seek
subsistent courage
submissive piracy
with a great
disregard
for privacy
or it
might just
be me
with this
cold
glass of whiskey
Aug 18, 2011
Aug 18, 2011 at 11:40 PM UTC
#18 | 31 Poems for August 2016
I want soulful conversations filled with happiness, love and laughter.
A little bit of red wine, Sade, Jill Scott and Erykah Badu will do.
Time is wasted so I patiently wait for the clock to get sober eventually.
The sincerity of my words is embedded in the movement of my verbs.
Hope you learn to love your thick thighs and those beautiful brown eyes.
I want to hold you in my arms until you forget what loneliness feels like.
I read your body like the pages and chapters of a novel that I never want to stop reading.
Reading the lines on a woman’s skin is poetry and too many men are illiterate.
So they will never truly understand the fact that liberty begins with literacy.
If you incorporate piano keys into my heartbeat, then I promise that you will fall in love with the melody.
I want soulful conversations filled with happiness, love and laughter.
A little bit of chardonnay, Maxwell, Jill Scott and Erykah Badu will do.
The world is nothing without you, the world is blurry without my muse.
Hope you learn to love your thick thighs and those beautiful brown eyes.
I don’t have much but I have you and with God on my side how can I lose?
Aug 18, 2016
Aug 18, 2016 at 5:15 PM UTC
All these stanzas look alike
they talk about the same things
with the same words, the same poem
written over and over again
like voices, whispers, copying each other
unable to feel and trust experience
differently, socialized for homogeneity
unified but dull, strong but obedient
their writing seemed the narratives
of machines unable to innovate
plagiarizing voices they believed were
their own, authentic, pure
their literary journals were a politics
of masters of arts and agendas of contests
like car commercials without a proper
enjoyment of speed, or our favorite writers
whose names we only knew because
they were the ones who died at the right time
while somebody was looking, reading them
but the bookstores didn’t know their
metaphors were weak, or their life’s work
was merely symbolic, that’s the thing isn’t it
poets are only symbols, as poems are only
fluff, paper, the labor of writers-in-residence
while the rest of the world are more
interested in serial killers and which stocks
might be worth getting into, and when to sell out
investing in words seemed silly to them
and, in my selected works there was nothing
of how to be a Poet Laureate or how to win prizes
exceptional or not, publication was left to amazon
state grants, fellowships, visiting writers
academics who never felt truly how to write
poetry at its heart was a colonization of artists
few could share what that meant, we were
the first illiterate generation, spending more time
with the internet than with books.
Oct 18, 2014
Oct 18, 2014 at 12:04 PM UTC
This is an Instrument a Verser must have
Without it, we cannot Write with Love.
This Tool, yet so small
Does so many for All.
Ink-Filled Skinney,
With a ball-soaked head.
Passing-out stains of Blue Blood
And creating Words which Read.
People throughout Literacy
Seek for this Sword.
To furnish their own Feelings
And Bsuiness in the Ring.
It all started,
With a large, downey feather
From the Swan's sacrifice,
Dipping the tip with sticky paint,
And scribbling onto leather.
Paper, in progression, was its Factor
Then came the Fountain - Civil Man's writing major.
This Pen does well
And so does much.
Ink goes up,
Goes down,
Though still plans to Blot.
However it may be,
How the Ball-Point was born.
"This is way Better!" People would say
And now - the New Century - is still
Used today.
And because of it,
Production was born
In Business, Literary and most
Of all - Journalism
Was so Progressive.
And so this ends,
This Tale of the Happy Ballpen.
Of Friend's in-take,
Which is needed much in the Open.
Mar 21, 2013
Mar 21, 2013 at 12:45 PM UTC
Every book I open
Every story I read
Another adventure I start
Another Life I begin
I live with them
And laugh
And run
And cry with them
I just don't belong
Not in the real world
But however unlikely
In literacy I find a place
In the end
The pages ripped my heart
They pull me apart
They ruined my life
And they changed who I am
Yet without them
My life is nothing
I am incomplete
The author who holds the knife
Dangles it over my head
With each character's death
A new tear in my soul
A new life in literacy
A gift not all can receive
Without literacy
I would have no life at all
Such is the curse of the reader
Do not feel sorry from them
Feel sorry for those those who do not read
For those who live but one life
A life a ignorace at that
Mar 10, 2017
Mar 10, 2017 at 11:42 PM UTC
Shakespeare would have failed Naplan,
That was not in his cunning plan,
Yes, his folks would have him tutored,
To ensure Billy became learned,
He would have lost his homework,
Billy did so not want extra work,
Shakespeare, that teen scallywag,
It was total fun, such a lad.
Now Shakespeare is a wraith,
Why, Billy, why? Teens sayeth,
As they serially fail literacy tests,
Why not abolish that Billy pest?
Tragic heroes and drama queens,
That's the teens writing essays on such scenes,
While Billy failed in literacy,
Teens do sense such hypocrisy.
Jul 31, 2015
Jul 31, 2015 at 5:30 AM UTC
Words blow
with the blast
Ink drops as oil to the flame
and burn the fire's light
Waved in the leaden air
the majesty of accuracy
scald the ears waxed with injustice
Literacy and liberty
are for all longing eyes
A witness to the silences—
to misfortunes ignored
to blessings need to be heard
to weak breath
trying to make sense of its existence-
the sonar in the deepest sea of truth
hears silences louder than speeches
Also, he believes in voices
voices stronger than power
Mar 11, 2013
Mar 11, 2013 at 7:55 AM UTC
Around the table, literacy discussion
Turns elitist...
Bemoaning some poor Johnny,
Son of a plumber who does not read
Beyond the practical need,
And has no desire to.
I stop to check my sense of what I have just heard...
Am transported back to a prairie farm
And think of my Father, now in his eighties
Who still feels no need and no sense of loss
For not having read Shakespeare or Kant
For missing Milton's Paradises and Hemingway,
For by-passing Black Elk Speaks and C.S. Lewis.
Every morning, he reads his Bible;
Some nights he reads the mail's
Motley collection of literature:
Ads and politicians and fanatics,
Demanding money and his time,
But mostly money.
"I don't have time to read!"
He shouts, when I suggest a novel.
What literature he has is in his head,
Poems memorized when he was a boy
In a two room school, or
His own lines, written as a young man,
Describing work and friends
Long distant now, but still alive
In memory.
Dad taught me how to read
In different literacies and different texts:
Nuances of sky to read the weather -
What chill or storm or drought was on its way;
Cows and calves and bulls -
Which one was sick or well, dry or bred;
Equipment to diagnose mechanical ailments;
Metals to know which welding rod applied;
Grain, rolled crisp between his hands, a test of ripeness...
Cement to find the perfect mix,
So many literacies...
Dad, the Master Reader of them all...
No wonder he'd no time for books.
Jun 15, 2014
Jun 15, 2014 at 10:02 AM UTC
So you think you are a master of techniques of persuasion?
You shallow pips-squeak, mediocrity is your mastery
the obsequious hoi polloi that surround you are the pitiable averageness of conciliation
Sophistry and subterfuge are your game of compromised facts
syllogistic arithmetic conceptualizing doesn't make anything so
your addition is flawed by your bungled bombast of banality and guile
fortunately for you, your crowd will never study logic
fortunately for you semi-literacy is de rigueur
You pompous swollen grandiose mass of hyperbolic gas
Fear is what you offer, lies are what you sell
your rhetorical flourish is as the stench of a waste dump
fetid, corpulent, fallow and febrile
toxic
half-truths, innuendos, ambiguities, conjecture and asinine aspersions comprise your specious fare,
fostering rumours, manipulating facts, you are the purported Biblical brood of vipers so extensively reviled against
Your relevancy is attributable to the dull stupidity so profusely prevalent today
Your "success" is the stuff of taint and treachery
You'll probably choke to death on a stuck piece of poorly masticated flesh
so appropriate and befitting the demise of a professional liar
Apr 28, 2013
Apr 28, 2013 at 12:44 AM UTC
Hey man, what's good?
Good;
Is good.
It is good.
I am good.
Gin is good.
Air is good.
Art is good.
Tea is good.
*** is good.
Tao is good.
Zin is good.
Yin is good.
Life is good.
Zen is good.
Beer is good.
LSD is good.
We are good.
*** is good.
Love is good.
Cake is good.
Time is good.
Yang is good.
Wine is good.
Black is good.
Sleep is good.
You are good.
To be is good.
Syrah is good.
Logic is good.
Metal is good.
Piano is good.
Feet are good.
Water is good.
White is good.
Steam is good.
***** is good.
Legs are good.
Music is good.
Coffee is good.
Guitar is good.
Honor is good.
Poetry is good.
Colour is good.
Cheese is good.
Arms are good.
Cellos are good.
Portal 2 is good.
Respect is good.
T'ai Chi is good.
Writing is good.
Context is good.
Literacy is good.
Hands are good.
The Sun is good.
The Past is good.
Wisdom is good.
Humour is good.
Fingers are good.
Whiskey is good.
Friends are good.
Teaching is good.
Learning is good.
Thinking is good.
Empathy is good.
Dreams are good.
Cannabis is good.
The Earth is good.
Digestion is good.
My pets are good.
Harmony is good.
Discretion is good.
Shrooms are good.
The Moon is good.
The Stars are good.
The Future is good.
Meditation is good.
Experience is good.
Philosophy is good.
Spirituality is good.
Dissonance is good.
Knowledge is good.
Perspective is good.
Respiration is good.
My Guitars are good.
Being myself is good.
My lovers were good.
Civilization V is good.
My Computer is good.
Self-discipline is good.
Video Games are good.
Having a Body is good.
Having a Mind is good.
Team Fortress 2 is good.
Having a House is good.
Having a Mother is good.
Being a Philosopher is good.
Being an Autodidact is good.
Kerbal Space Program is good.
Being here and now as me is good.
Being alive as a Human Being is good:
Having this opportunity to experience this holy reality is more than I was ever guaranteed.
Thus I give thanks
to all of these things
and Thus I give thanks
for all of these things.
Thus I give thanks.
Jun 22, 2013
Jun 22, 2013 at 7:00 PM UTC
~
October 2023
HP Poet: Maddy
Age: 65
Country: USA
Question 1: We welcome you to the HP Spotlight, Maddy. Please tell us about your background?
Maddy: "Retired Teacher now Media and Digital Literacy Educational Consultant and writer."
Question 2: How long have you been writing poetry, and for how long have you been a member of Hello Poetry?
Maddy: "Been writing since I was eight. Three years now as an HP member."
Question 3: What inspires you? (In other words, how does poetry happen for you).
Maddy: "Poetry wakes me in the middle of the night on airplanes and when I walk. It is still one of my best friends other than my husband, sister, and Best BFF Irene."
Question 4: What does poetry mean to you?
Maddy: "It is my friend and companion and is a precious asset. Without it my life would be empty."
Question 5: Who are your favorite poets?
Maddy: "Thoreau, EE Cummings, Sappho, MAYA Angelou, Carole King, Emily Torres, Mary Oliver, Millay, and many here on HEPO."
Question 6: What other interests do you have?
Maddy: "I love Travel, Photographer, Nature, Cooking, Theatre, Concerts, and Reading."
Carlo C. Gomez: “Thank you so much for giving us an opportunity to get to know you, dear Maddy! You are a wonderful addition to the series!”
Maddy: "Thanks and looking forward to it and your review of my book on Amazon."
Thank you everyone here at HP for taking the time to read this. We hope you enjoyed getting to know Maddy a little bit better. I indeed did. It is our wish that these spotlights are helping everyone to further discover and appreciate their fellow poets. – Carlo C. Gomez (aka Mr. Timetable)
We will post Spotlight #9 in November!
~
Oct 1, 2023
Oct 1, 2023 at 3:33 PM UTC
The Nigerian Princess
Philanthropist at her best
Could rule the world with her mind and soul
But healing Nigeria is her overall goal
The Nigerian Princess
She is more than less
I'd crown her queen
For her debut scene
Is literacy in Nigeria
She is Queen Panacea
Nov 3, 2013
Nov 3, 2013 at 1:32 PM UTC
The following is based on a true story. This dude came into my work 3 years ago and literally did not possess the vocabulary to order his food. I don't know what his story is, but he inspired this piece.
"ill literacy"
He spoke in code
like birds perched
on branches
singing
unintelligible tunes
only they understand
I watched him
in silence
my voice boxed in
my voicebox in
shock
at the witnessing
of a mis-education
illiteracy
personified
another
foster child
of the SUSD system
just another
“unreachable” student
deemed
“just another”
<17%
of stocktonians
have college degrees
17%
such
a juvenile #
18%
leastwise
is more
adult-sounding
in front
of every high school
is a flag
red
white
blue
ring
----------
middle
----------
index
only
the “just anothers”
can read
between the lines
May 16, 2013
May 16, 2013 at 5:44 AM UTC
*we won't die for ideals we once held dear, we'll now simply die for the numbers we can simply keep, but when it comes to ourselves, we'll die to simply keep a mistook numbering in order to readdress the ideals that are no longer appreciated in our numbering a loss of a tiger's roar, and more the microscopic ant digestion auditory exploding into a h-bomb for man to imitate by number but no essential authority: since once mammoth the authority killed man, now some sub-insect (virus) can **** man.*
if there's a group of people
who are assumed to be possessed,
then there's a group of people
who are dis-possessed,
and there's always the middle
interval mediating sales and
necessary priesthood
the two polars never mediate,
once the priesthood used to
cradle the illiterate ones,
now the priesthood uses the literacy
of the once illiterate ones
now literate, consecrating them
with something apart from holy water,
selective reading they testified
to be as calm as a lake, but turbulent
as a river the salmon swam against
the current to spawn:
the once illiterate ones now literate
are taught a second illiteracy:
watch the television, read the best-sellers..
this second illiteracy is worse
than the original one... half of us will
be water and fat... and half of us epileptic zombies
enslaved by a television... i preferred the first
illiteracy... at least we died for love...
this second illiteracy is worth a jackal's
cry and a ******* of paedophiles.
Feb 1, 2016
Feb 1, 2016 at 9:13 PM UTC
All weapons of
the fates you've sealed
Are no match for
this pen I wield
The power to
articulate
Ticking rhyme bombs
to detonate
The conflicts waged
gambling mankind
My perfect hand
is treaties signed
Hellbent hounds pray
like dogs, I hunt
Frontline this notebook
battlefront
With metaphors
of mindless drones
Like similes
to brainwashed clones
Whose C4 booms
and IED's
Can't build bridges
like ABC's
Or tear them down
with death regimes
By rusting through
the war machines
Flamethrowin’ my
verbal grenade
With ****** noun
scorched-earth tirade
On militant
cold-blood elite
King cobras know
I'm packing heat
Seeking missile
resolution
Winged raptor
devolution
Prehistoric
barbarism
Literacy
cataclysm
Stockpiling
extinction bones
We're cavemen carving
fallout stones
My Hiroshima
prose explodes
With nuclear
bushido codes
Released from my
katana's ward
To free my press
from shogun lord
Oppressing haiku
imagery
And samurai
epigraphy
Expressions of
my ronin soul
Omitted by
the daimyo
Satsuma is my
poetry
My final draft's
Nagasaki
Ink cartridges
strapped 'round my neck
I print no charge
or background check
And ****** every
live round free
Of innocent
blood elegy
And killing sprees
of gunned-down news
Domestic violence
black and blues
A Number 2
pencil dependent
Obsolete
lead-head amendment
Open carry
shoots a blank
Empty shell case
at my think tank
So grip this peace
then **** and pull it
**** my diction
write the bullet
Oct 8, 2016
Oct 8, 2016 at 2:10 PM UTC
Keep the youth medicated & sedated, then wonder why the literacy rate is doomed to decline. Birth us on a pedestal, then wonder why we have no incentive to climb. Build us from a violent genocide, then wonder why we've got guns pressed under our tongues. Kneel us before the clergy. Strangle us with your rosaries. Brand psalms into our wrists & make laws to control her ovaries. Value groupthink over independent thought & induce aversion to curiosity. Hang us between your revolving doors & shoot nationalism into our veins... Then wonder why we're so addicted to drowning our insides.
Apr 3, 2013
Apr 3, 2013 at 10:52 AM UTC
Expatriots await the nights in Kuwait
where the dingoes and dominoes and salamanders bait
the ladies in purple to their eminent doom
of sleazies and stabbings and babies in womb.
Don't get me wrong,
I enjoy a good time, if friends are around and we got a dime
or two
and a fire for the masses and we're shaking our *****
as if we are actually aware of the outcomes of our actions.
I know we haven't the slightest clue
what a Jesus Christ is, or if it hides under our beds at night
or if it was a Jew.
What's written in books can be written by crooks,
because literacy and knowledge are ******* beautiful
but can give one more confidence than the world has to share,
and the whole theory of Relative Pride falls to pieces when one has more self-efficacy than ability
and the children with their sweet little ideas and purity are not humble but fall victim to humility.
So what's in a name?
Letters, vowels, consonants and connotations
traffic tickets, family vacations
****** and protests (though not necessarily related)
teenage boys and ***** minds and those who have masturbated.
But who hasn't?
Those without names, or faces
or honesty or hands
probably have their members tied up in steel-spiked rubber bands.
I'll see you again in retox dehibilitation
and we can converse and create
while under the crutch of sedation.
May 22, 2012
May 22, 2012 at 5:46 PM UTC