"livable" poems
I.
Time passes, another
batch of refugees and migrants. Cities turn into
new houses of gambling and vicious cycles.
Some say only machines can speak clearly
and most humans have lost what they have earned
throughout all this time, just right on schedule.
To own our language,
and the relationships it sets into motion,
we learn painfully, repeatedly like sunrise
and sunsets.
Claiming our own spaces and demons
hidden in our conveniences and reflex routines,
and learning the tricks that has kept peoples
from fully healing from broken promises
and betrayals throughout time.
We own up to our language and its demons
every day and night that we toss and turn
into something feasible, edible, livable.
II.
Iba ibang uri ng digma.
duguang kasaysayang binabaong buhay
binubura ang lakas at memorya tulad ng siyudad
ng Songdo sa South Korea na ang ibig sabihin
ay "city with no memory".
Ito din ang isa sa mga modelo para sa New Clark City
na tinatayo sa Luzon. Sa dalawahang mga pamamaraan
ng mga naghahari-harian, nakikibaka ang anakpawis,
nakikibaka ang kamalayan ng pagpapasya at pagwasto
sa mga pagkakamali, na paulit-ulit na sinusubukang
patayin sa iba ibang mukha.
Mula pa sa panahon ng mga lolo at lola noong 1940s
hanggang ngayon, patuloy ang mga pag-eexperimento nila at paggamit ng panlilinlang at dahas, sa ngalan ng kalusugan, edukasyon at batas, upang ipain ang buhay sarili, lasunin ang lupang kinakain ang sarili. Kung hindi tayo mag-aaral at mag-iingat din, tayo mismo ang papatay sa mga sinisimulan. #
Sep 8, 2018
Sep 8, 2018 at 2:58 AM UTC
We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.
We shape clay into a ***
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.
We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.
We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.
__
"Lao Tzu is believed to have been a Chinese philosopher (a person who seeks to answer questions about humans and their place in the universe) and the accepted author of the Tao te ching, the main text of Taoist thought. He is considered the father of Chinese Taoism (a philosophy that advocates living a simple life).
Read more: Lao Tzu Biography - life, name, death, school, book, old, information, born, time http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ki-Lo/Lao-Tzu.html
Oct 26, 2010
Oct 26, 2010 at 2:38 AM UTC
Oh, how quickly does the moon reach the sky?
Made thy dwelling in the wide blue yonder;
Cold summer night limbers up without try;
The ether opens wide, to thee it grows fonder
Revolving in an eccentric orbit,
Desolate beauty of magnetic depth;
More captivating than thousand comets,
Making the earth livable is thy strength
Yet thine existence is causing the tides,
Waters and rocks rise and fall in each pull;
Creating rhythm and chaos inside
Oh how swift is the glide from full to fool?
Since earth holds thy not, slowly drift away
Howbeit, memories to the core shall stay.
Nov 1, 2022
Nov 1, 2022 at 8:39 AM UTC
Dragon – a reference to government or a leader with such great powers.
Economics can determine the future?
The decision making, which can force millions to abide to the law established by government, can determine the future. That’s it.
An extension of affluence for all,
But where is the long term?
Poverty and high unemployment,
Now an argument?
With two years to educational progress,
Juan Dela Cruz drew back and recoil.
Humankind’s race,
With such declining economies..
A need for taxation of the working class –
To stay number one, or should I say, the Top 10?
For those capable to success,
No full-time salaries.. No livable wage..
A further education..
Would it be worth it when a full-time was offered?
For the move of the dragon,
Is there a downgrade forecast for the nation?
GDP has been calculated, water dragon may not be drown..
Meagre realm’s tyro – for their incomes deduction.
(4/2/12 @xirlleelang)
May 27, 2014
May 27, 2014 at 9:29 PM UTC
Rain is refreshing in a strange, backward way. It shocks you out of a deep, prolific lapse of participation in reality and reminds you that you’re still here. You’re still corporeal, tangible, you can feel and you can decide. But rain is still rain. It can be cold and unpleasant to be faced with, or it can be warm and welcoming. Beconing you forth to splash and smile in the reality you forgot still applied to you.
I left behind the idea of full, around the clock consciousness during my last frigid thunderstorm. I realized, during a session already dedicated to realizations, how exhausting it was trying to live my reality to its current extent. How frustrating and soul-crushing it is to have the ambition you truly believed in and planned to embark upon, forgone by the limits of a situation you have no control over. I kept a small jar of ideas and plans in the very back corner of my closet. They were safe, they couldn’t be taken out back and shot nor could they be taunted and destroyed from the inside out. When I was cornered in my intruded closet, when I was taken by the collar and shaken for my truth, they were found. Both above-mentioned circumstances played out shortly but in the opposite order. That’s when it began to rain.
I decided on an alternative: selective awareness. I keep myself alive only feeling and participating when the rain is tepid and pleasant. When I feel the temperature beginning to drop, I fall back asleep, floating through lull and lash, until the sun comes to change the course of my simulation. For days, all I will see is fog. I’m lost and isolated, but that lack of direction comes with an onset of contentedness. There is no one who can see me wandering through a deluded course I have set for myself. I don’t know where I’m walking, I don’t know what’s in front of me, so the warm rain will give me a pleasant surprise as it melts away the fog and gives me hope for sustainable warmth.
The cloudiness that lingers in my head, even when I’m experiencing kindness and sensitivity, reminds me that my effort to make my reality more livable is as viable as staying completely shrouded in fog until I wander off the edge of a cliff. Eventually, as I age out of my simulation, I’ll have skin thick enough to withstand the hailstorm I’ll be forced to reckon with. Resilience is necessary, but hope exists. I often forget it does while I’m wondering, but serenity and light remind me that fog isn’t all I’ve devolved into. Rain will come, and so will spring.
Jan 28, 2019
Jan 28, 2019 at 9:39 PM UTC
I stand before you, not as an expert, but as a concerned citizen.
One of the four hundred thousand people who marched in the streets of New York on Sunday and the billions of others around the world who want to solve our climate crisis.
As a poet, I pretend for a living. I play fictitious characters often solving fictitious problems. I believe that mankind has looked at climate change in that same way; as if it were a fiction. As if pretending that climate change wasn’t real would somehow make it go away.
But I think we all know better than that now. Every week we’re seeing new and undeniable climate events, evidence that accelerated climate change is here, right now.
Droughts are intensifying, our ocean’s are acidifying, with methane plumes rising up from the ocean floor. We are seeing extreme weather events and the west Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets melting at unprecedented rates decades ahead of scientific projections. The scientific community knows it. Industry knows it. Governments know it. Even the United States military knows it.
The chief of the US navy’s Pacific command, Admiral Samuel Locklear recently said that climate change is our single greatest security threat.
My friends, this body, perhaps more than any other gathering in human history now faces this difficult but achievable task.
You can make history or you will be vilified by it.
To be clear, this is not about just telling people to change lightbulbs or to buy a hybrid car. This disaster has grown beyond the choices that individuals make. This is now about our industries and our governments around the world taking decisive large-scale action. We need to put a price tag on carbon emissions and eliminate government subsidies for all oil, coal, and gas companies. We need to end the free ride that industrial polluters have been given in the name of a free market economy. They do not deserve our tax dollars, they deserve our scrutiny. For the economy itself will die if our ecosystems collapse. This is not a partisan debate, it is a human one. Clean air and a livable climate area inalienable human rights and solving this crisis is not just a question of politics. It is a question of our own survival. But now it is your turn.
The time to answer humankind’s greatest challenge, is now. We beg of you to face it with courage and honesty.
Thank you
Sep 25, 2014
Sep 25, 2014 at 6:51 AM UTC
i'm back here again, **** it
incarcerated by silk and steel
i've made it livable to an extent
and the exterior is covered still
i have my own space, just mine
decorated with black and grays
sometimes i can see the light
and i try to hide away for days
cocooned inside here i cower
can't go out, i'm too terrified
i ignore the knocks on the door
there's persistent voices outside
"the key is in there with you
move around and explore
you alone can set yourself free
use your matches to find the door"
strike, watch a blossoming flame
it flickers, shadows shift around
the glow encourages another call
now extinguished, i don't make a sound
loneliness and fear is all I know
heavy chains hold me from the lock
those voices again, encouraging me
we're here for you always, let's talk
Sep 27, 2018
Sep 27, 2018 at 11:08 AM UTC
COLD, HARD flesh - a very lonely girl in a room filled with fluttering moths and fully-functional nooses
- Makes a game plan, in an effort to:
- penetrate your wavering, wandering, yet wholly conscious mind
(The fate - the fear - lurks in the futility, the fragility, of your unsuspecting ears)
- Equipped with: an anchor (the rock-climbing kind, in order to avoid a metaphor), followed by some paper (and a pen - the use of my blood as script seems overly dramatic), and - a concoction of incredible (and edible!!) proportions
THE GOAL:
- To become the smallest presence possible, to take up the tiniest amount of space in the real and imagined world, and to in turn envelope your very existence - like a Sunday driver in rush hour
- with emphasis on:
The slope of your neck - I could mount my anchor into it and climb for days; I could nest in your ****** Youth cut when I reach the top, I could build the world's smallest fire with the world's saddest hands
STEP ONE:
When secured in predesignated cocoon, I will unleash the first sheaf - a perforated edge - and enclose a minuscule fragment of my still-breathing soul (for your keychain, perhaps, but preferably your pocket)
STEP TWO:
I will mail you a fraction (incidentally, a subject I still can't grasp) every week until:
- I have decreased in size with each turn, I get smaller and smaller until my tangibility disappears entirely and the only presence left of me is a slip that reads:
- apply to areas affected (only as directed)
Wait! No, not only that- my very own subconscious now rests inside your "thinking cap"
- INTRODUCING: Your every day monotony, now littered with:
- 17 scratched mix CDs you didn't want to listen to
- 4 dogs I secretly liked (and only you knew)
- a bright pink dumpster, largely livable
- a rusted mailbox with an ocean in full
- soundless Skype calls in stolen sweaters
- alphabet soup with undiscernable letters
- the unfaltering presence of a cabin in the Alaskan wilderness - confused with the very small and haunted town I couldn't leave to see you - and last but not least -
The ceaseless, repeated chorus of "you belong to me", like an immortal fly in an endless August dream
Sep 15, 2013
Sep 15, 2013 at 12:52 AM UTC
My jet-lagged self sleeps early,
wakes early, sleeps again, reads.
Having watched one movie too many over summer
I relish the sounds designed above- a click
of a door handle, bare warm socks gliding
across wooden floor, the scrunch of toothbrush
against the rusting metal straightening yellowing teeth,
the few lone cars across the street, that hazy
early sound that only light can make as it
becomes aware of itself in my dorm room. What
kind of camera lens would make this moment more
livable and is it already dead?
Feb 18, 2017
Feb 18, 2017 at 4:39 PM UTC
There is a faint signal coming from orbit... Lets check it out..
There it is! What is it! Look wow! Its on a crash course!
It will crash land in the Northern Pacific Ocean.. Lets go!
There it is!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Splash!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lets pull it up! Careful.. Look at this thing..
Is there any way to open it? It seems dead.. Strange nothing we have will penetrate the surface.. There is no way of opening it.
Oh my god everyone come here.. Look all the light just came on!
Its leaving quick follow it!
We have been following it for days.. It has been collecting samples of dirt, water, and at times it seems to be breathing the very air itself.. Wait look something is happening.. Its taking flight! We need to stay with it..
This will be a international effort.. We all have to work together to see what this thing is doing.. So far it has visited almost all the continents on The planet.. Today it goes back to where it crashed.. In the northern Pacific.. As it arrives it lands in the Ocean.. It then gathers a large amount of water and booms back into orbit..
It later leaves orbit.. This was a Drone.. A drone that seeks a livable Planet.. A drone heading back to a dying civilization somewhere out there.. A drone that will bring something back.. All we can do is wait..
Apr 14, 2015
Apr 14, 2015 at 2:46 PM UTC
As the sun creases my eyes open
It ignites, starts an explosion
It continues the erosion
Inside my head
It all turns red
It's where it's bled
I shake the cobwebs from my head
Looking into the future with dread
New tragic things will come my way
Try as I might to keep it all at bay
The residue from last night's dream
The echo of my screams
The bright warm sunbeams
Can not chase away
The thoughts of the day
Where my demon play
I live a life where smiles are miracles
Happiness is only mythical
It all leaves me cold and miserable
Guess that's why I'm so cynical
All I really want is a life that's livable
Apr 5, 2016
Apr 5, 2016 at 8:38 PM UTC
Incuse your life,
With a mighty aim,
Perish your fear
And live with cheer.
Trow your potential,
Be the fantast.
Follow your desire with echo.
Because you're 'unbreakable you'.
Laugh with glee,
Be a livable tree.
Don't be dastard,
Jun 2, 2015
Jun 2, 2015 at 1:25 AM UTC
As the sun creases my eyes open
It ignites, starts an explosion
It continues the erosion
Inside my head
It all turns red
It's where it's bled
I shake the cobwebs from my head
Looking into the future with dread
New tragic things will come my way
Try as I might to keep it all at bay
The residue from last night's dream
The echo of my screams
The bright warm sunbeams
Can not chase away
The thoughts of the day
Where my demon play
I live a life where smiles are miracles
Happiness is only mythical
It all leaves me cold and miserable
Guess that's why I'm so cynical
All I really want is a life that's livable
So good morning people, don't mean to sound cynical
Hope your treasures safe from criminals
I hope your day is winnable
Jun 3, 2016
Jun 3, 2016 at 9:48 AM UTC
My account was accepted today
I was so excited to start.
I read some poems.
so good
This place
Hello poetry.
Is really nice.
I read a fiew people's words.
Ashton
Bleeding diamonds
Toxic moon
Its gonna make sense.
But they have some **** good poetry.
Ashton proves life can be livable.
Bleeding diamonds proves that he can havr fun and be serious through abuse.
Toxic moon has a genre of relations.
And ita gonna make sense lays it down flat for ya.
Hello poetry
My first night tonight
And i know
I love it.
Smash the hearts
Repost my words.
Though i have some questions
Like
Why does bleeding diamonds bleed?
Or why does ashton feel so trapped?
Things I'd love to learn
Here
On hello poetry
Jul 19, 2016
Jul 19, 2016 at 12:02 AM UTC
How do I start to explain
How much you mean to me?
I could start with a cute joke,
maybe quote Shakespeare...
...make you think.
I could make comments like
"I can't live without you"
But the thing is that I could.
I just refuse to let you go.
With you my days become perfect
You turn what is a bad into something memorable.
And while I could live on without you...
... I don't want to.
You have become my addiction in all ways.
I smile brighter at just the happy look in your eyes
...tells me that you love me as much as I love you
My stomach still gets butterflies when you touch me
and a feeling of pure heat with your kiss.
My knees buckle and I turn to mush when you hold me close.
When I look back at what we've been through in just this short time I smile.
It's true that we have been through more then anyone should
But the moments like when we started to talk...
...you first took my hand...
...our first kiss...
...that one afternoon we gave each other
completely.
These moments are what make it worth it.
So...how to start?
Jason, sweetie.
I would gladly crawl through hell to be with you.
I love you more then I ever thought I could love anyone
You have opened up my heart and soul to a happiness that I didn't know existed.
I look forward to spending each morning, afternoon, and night with you...
...rain, sleet, snow, or a perfect day
My life with out you would be livable it's true
But just as a shell of the life I will have with you.
Dec 7, 2013
Dec 7, 2013 at 10:22 PM UTC
She sits
Outwardly calm and cool
Flahes from her past forcing long repressed emotions to bubble and escape
A tear trickles down her cheek
Unnoticed
Decisions made
Consequences and regrets
Uncontrollable but livable
Except for the child
Thirty-five years of self punishment
One decision made from fear
Changing her life
He found her
May 14, 2015
May 14, 2015 at 10:39 PM UTC
It's been a year since I've yelled at paper.
Moving on from a tree that weeps and false hope in the sidewalk, I've been promoted to cigarette smoke and dust on the walls.
Asthma has come back from vacation and is here to stay.
Being woken up from lack of breath isn't my favorite "good morning".
My bloodstream tells no tale of my addictions.
I don't count how long I've been sober,
if you give it a number it'll bring it back to life, and who wants to beat a dead horse over and over.
Besides, it feels good to **** clean.
Life is livable.
Anyways, how have ya been?
Jul 9, 2015
Jul 9, 2015 at 1:54 AM UTC
I watch as she squirms under his grip
one hand over her mouth
the other at her hip.
I feel for the girl so pretty but worn.
She looks of an angel
though her wings have been torn.
Switch
I wake up,
oh god.
it happened again.
**** I can’t take this
I wish it was made up, pretend.
What can I do?
I am only a young girl
and he a man of power.
No one would care.
A man that, if accused, from a girl run ragged and bare,
only my reputation would turn sour, it’s not fair.
I listen for his footsteps
coming for round two.
I listen carefully
while chained here
there is nothing else to do.
How long was I out for,
god ****** what day is it?
I can’t even tell
Not after that first hit.
How long has it been,
who knows I’ve lost count
I can only hope the end is near.
The door opens again
light floods the dark room
the shadow of a man coming to light
the crooked smirk and rough hands
Greet me once more
I close my eyes and hit the floor.
Switch
The girl hits the floor fast
her head cracks.
He doesn’t care
she doesn’t dare
make a sound.
I don’t even see tears.
She’s weak she doesn’t even fight it anymore
She lays there
God ****** get up,
it isn’t getting better and I can only feel pity for so long.
She looks like a lifeless doll.
God ****** get up,
She lays there in thrall
of him.
Oh look he’s done.
Throws her once pristine and lively body to the side.
Shocker
that ******
****** her
touched her
and
wrecked her
and he thinks he can walk away.
Wrong, I won’t let her stay.
Switch
My head
oh god my head.
The crimson mark of his abuse covers my hands.
My body aches
I don’t know how much more I can take.
Switch
None
she won’t take it anymore.
I won’t let her,
it’s her turn to show him
the kind of of pain he put her in.
Stand up ******
stand up and fight back.
He is going to get his scotch and sit down.
wrap something on your head to slow the bleeding.
Make him start pleading,
and show him how you plan on succeeding.
Switch
Okay I’m up
and I can see him hold his cup
only his hand and arm are visible.
How typical,
but this is no longer livable.
And it has blown past fixable
so now all that is left is to end it.
I admit
it went on too long
but he was in the wrong
I feel our power now
she is with me
and it is time to end he
he who defaced us,
he who disgraced us,
he who wasted us.
Now we waste him
knife in his heart,
finally four years after the start.
It was we
who made he
Depart.
Oct 17, 2014
Oct 17, 2014 at 8:09 AM UTC
Let the devil in, it’s cold outside he’ll only be a minute.
All he wants are souls and things to make life more livable.
And if you shout to keep him out then maybe he’ll just beat it.
But he’ll find you and he’ll bind you and make your life so horrible.
So let him in, and give him some food and shelter.
Play some games and gamble souls in the end he’ll always win.
The devil’s gunna play his cards he’ll always play one better.
So have some fun he’ll soon be done, just let the games begin.
A squeaking, creaking, fills the room, the door swings softly in.
And with an air of lordly tide, the hansom devil steps inside.
He’s tall and bright and filled with sin.
So in this darkened dreary place let your soul confide.
Burnt crisp words flew from crusted lips as he sold a pretty lie to you.
And in return he’ll take the thing that died in you.
But it was yourself that did the deed, and hell was born inside of you.
Feb 29, 2012
Feb 29, 2012 at 1:28 AM UTC
Love that is seen in the smallest of moments, is what makes life livable
Mar 29, 2017
Mar 29, 2017 at 3:52 AM UTC
It occurred to me today that it take a lot of courage to be hopeful. One has to walk into hope with the knowledge that hope is just a dream, yet, with hope that dreams can come true. What a dichotomy!
Often we have no hope at all that a certain desire may be fulfilled. So much so that we discard the desire as a dream that is dead and buried, and turn to a journey where we actively work for someone else’s desires to be fulfilled. As we travel the road of fulfilling the hopes of another, our own hope peeks out from around the corner then darts back out of sight as soon as we turn to look at it…taking its essence with it. (Wait a second! I saw that hope die and I buried it a long time ago.) Then, it begins to get bolder, and stays just long enough for us to begin to recognize its face. Its essence invades you, almost against your own will, to make a real change in your life.
You begin to question…Do I dare to hope? Do I dare to take the chance? Do I have “reasonable confidence” that this can morph from being dead and in hell into livable reality? I cannot go through much more pain, unless the pain actually produces some positive results. Is this a real hope, or only real because I secretly long for it to be so?
Hope is just a…thing. But what courage it takes to dare to accept it.
I guess I have begun a new journey. A journey of hope…this time for myself and not for another. So for today, I choose to be brave. For today, I choose to hope. Today, I choose to rescue hope from the hell to which I personally banished it…come what may.
Jan 26, 2014
Jan 26, 2014 at 12:17 AM UTC
When I was young I was told to shoot for the stars
but once I got older I was told to climb a ladder
a tumultuous ladder
with rungs of compromise and concession
some of them just pointless lessons.
Ascenders climb to reach happiness
or escape misery
but I climb to climb
to occupy my time.
I spend all my energy climbing
while jet packs and rocket ships blast by me
their exhaust is blinding and suffocating.
I see bodies fall just as fast in the other direction
reachers who lost their grip
now fall to the bottom
reminding me of the gravity of my situation.
It's hard to say if I'll survive
when some people survive a fall from the top
while others die slipping two feet off the ground.
The fragility and resilience of life
seems arbitrary and random
but everyone ends up in the ground eventually.
Those above me constantly add to the ladder
so I make no progress.
Those below me constantly dig beneath it
so I keep sinking.
Climbing and going nowhere
suspended in air
at a certain point progress
becomes not falling off
and maintaining my grip
through extreme turbulence.
My hands are calloused and ******
the further up I go
the more intense the turbulence
until fear shakes my body
harder than the wind ever could.
The ladder starts splintering into my hand
until I don't know how much more I can withstand
so I devise a plan
to utilize my fellow climbers.
I find companions for assistance
I call them helpers
they're the top shelfers
I want to surround myself with.
They help me up the ladder
lifting me with encouragement
or their arms when words aren't enough
just to help me up.
Whenever I'm knocked down a few pegs
they give me back my legs
and hold my ladder steady
making life on the ladder livable
but they don't hang around forever
because this ladder I climb is mine
and everyone has their own ladder to climb.
I didn't ask for this vertical trajectory
but when my options are die or climb
I choose the ladder.
Aug 3, 2020
Aug 3, 2020 at 6:38 AM UTC
Silence is the beat of a dead man’s heart
Raindrops have never felt colder, at one
in the morning
A cigarette in the thunder and darkness,
destroying me
Satellites rolling from my shoulder blades
down my spine
Transmitting quiet thoughts into my
eyelids
Refracting memories at heartbeats a
second
This ambient sound engulfs
thought
And the pen stroke outruns the
thought
A few brews deep and you’re already thinking of
tomorrow
But those days are beyond your grasp, forget them for
the present
Where the tangible become reality, and reality
becomes livable
Reflecting a thought on the edge of
consciousness
And from our awareness comes
discontent
And the falling, heavy, raindrops, forget
their impact
Shattering like liquid glass on the tongues of
dying men
Sep 26, 2012
Sep 26, 2012 at 12:41 AM UTC
Everything else for me ends here and now...
I have found the way,
and I have discovered how.
Exactly what I will say,
and hope you all realize the time is now.
We must unite to take back what is ours.
We must work for the greater good.
We must DEMAND a fair and beautiful nation.
Where no one is judged on beliefs about creation,
Where no one can tell us we have to do this.
Where no one is born into less than livable conditions the government lets persist.
WHERE NO ONE IS HATED FOR THEIR RACE.
Where no one can stand to hate while looking love in the face.
WHERE NO ONE IS BETTER THAN THE POOREST MAN,
JUST BECAUSE THEY HAVE MORE WEALTH IN THEIR HANDS.
I AM BEGGING THE WORLD TO SEE ME.
I just want us all to be set free
Sep 15, 2014
Sep 15, 2014 at 1:15 PM UTC