"malaise" poems
She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn
To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
And to win, wetting there, the words, "Good dog! Good dog!"
We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.
The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.
As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin
And her heart was learning to lie down forever.
Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed
And sent to school, she crawled beneath the youngest's bed.
We found her twisted and limp but still alive.
In the car to the vet's, on my lap, she tried
To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur
And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.
Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared.
Back home, we found that in the night her frame,
Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
Of diarrhoea and had dragged across the floor
To a newspaper carelessly left there. Good dog.
146.4k
Here is the inimitable Jeff Buckley's poem, "My New Year's Eve Prayer," which he performed live at Sin-é in Manhattan, NYC, in 1996.
"You, my love, are allowed to forget
about the Christmas you just spent stressed out in your parents' house.
You, my love, are allowed to shed the weight
of all the years before,
like bad disco clothes.
Save them for a night of dancing ****** with your lover.
You, my love, are allowed to let yourself drown
every night in bottomless wild and naked symbolic dreams.
You, my love, in sleep can unlock your youth
and your most terrifying magic;
and dreaming is for the courageous.
You, my love, are allowed to grab my guitar
and sing me idiot love songs
if you've lost your ability to speak.
Keep it down to two minutes.
You, my love, are allowed to rot and to die
and to live again,
more alive and incandescent than before.
You, my love, are allowed to beat the **** out of your television,
choke it's thoughts and corrupt its mind.
**** **** **** **** the ************
before the song of zombiefied pain
and panic and malaise
and it's narrow right-winged vision
and it's cheap commercial gang ****
becomes the white noise of the world.
Turn about is fair play.
You, my love, are allowed to forgive and love your television.
You, my love, are allowed to speak in kisses
to those around you
and those up in heaven.
You, my love, are allowed to show your babies
how to dance full bodied,
starry eyed, audacious, supernatural and glorified.
You, my love, are allowed to **** in every single endeavor.
You, my love, are allowed to be soaked like a lovers' blanket
in the New York summertime
with the wonder of your own special gift.
You, my love, are allowed to receive praise.
You, my love, are allowed to have time.
You, my love, are allowed to understand.
You, my love, are allowed to love.
Woman, disobey,
when little men believe;
You, my love, are Rebellion."
Aug 3, 2015
Aug 3, 2015 at 5:08 PM UTC
Strange malaise,
One I can't place.
Struggling of late.
Discomforting state.
Persistent lethargy.
Sloth-like and heavy.
Burning internals.
Frequent intervals.
No temperature.
No warning lever.
Don't know what's wrong.
Been rather long.
Medicine trough
Can't rid me this cough.
Expulsion so violent,
Incessantly recurrent.
Over a fortnight
This ailment I fight.
Still hasn't eased.
Can't be appeased.
Development is seen.
Now spitting green.
Not just all
That joined this brawl.
It's just the coughing.
No injury I'm suffering,
I haven't bled...
But I see red...
Oct 9, 2014
Oct 9, 2014 at 12:46 PM UTC
Feel empty in your post apocalyptic City of Angels,
Where not even your pets are real!
An electric android, a sheep or a frog,
The whir-flutter of micro-electrical wings of a butterfly.
Good, and so you ought.
Now grab the handles of your empathy box,
And in a shared virtual hallucination –
Feel: empathy, depression, pain, delusion and despair,
The outré myriad gifts of consciousness.
Billions of discombobulated and disconnected wrecks:
Adam's sons; Eve's daughters,
And among them simulations too,
Fakes! androids!
A phony circuit of implanted semi-conscious memories,
A hive of neural malaise!
Welcome to our world;
know how dead inside I am.
You, yes, you:
Need a pet to make you more complete?
Maybe you can afford
A Fake Fakir Flake like me who looks like Jude Law,
Sounds like Richard Burton,
And silently romances you like Rudolph Valentino.
Come and stick what’s left of your mind,
In here,
In hair,
Hear her:
har, har, har…
A box of lies...
A voice, Mercer's,
With texture from an age you neither lived in nor dared in:
Al Jerry's, a TV actor,
Droning on in pre-selected tones.
The real thing, the men, the women, the children - their animals -
Made in the wild, wild desert,
In the green pulsing savannah,
On the open crusted sea;
Now too, washed, choked, and drained,
Too many spliced and diced mutations,
Iterating your image:
The thing that was my heart,
My Child, now its imitation.
Oct 15, 2017
Oct 15, 2017 at 7:42 AM UTC
Dark is the night, by the light of day
Harsh are the words, which some people say
Grievous the malaise, which we often feel
Deep are the wounds, of a hurt that won’t heal
Lasting the wrong, to whom it is done
Fleeting the moment, when praises are won
Tragic the loss, of someone we love
Empty the feeling, when they are thought of
WIZDUMBs BY JA 619
May 20, 2016
May 20, 2016 at 10:02 AM UTC
awakening with the gradual rise
of the subdued heather hued sun
a palpable spectral silence permeated the air
the anticipation of celebration intercepted
by an enveloping phantom black malaise
hiding in obscure shadows
the terror of the twin towers final doom
elucidated quivers of melancholic nuances
rippling through the greying vicinity
my birthday september 11th a tuesday
my night to sing at abravanel hall
with the utah symphony
unable to serenade death
our voices remained indubitably silenced
in hushed wistful reverence
ensuing 9/11s channel somber sentiments
cloaked with annihilation while
dark visions occupy smudged iphone screens
this anniversary i will dissipate despair
transmuting dark despondency
splashing all with lucent petals of delight
i’ll live this day with passionate intensity
and those subsequent with equal ardor
ferociously painting back the light
i will raise my voice with effervescence
and sing in wild abandon
for my precious brothers that were lost
demonstrating devotion through a refusal
to be silenced by fear bestowing honor
with a conspicuous message that love wins
©2016janetaylor
Sep 11, 2016
Sep 11, 2016 at 6:22 PM UTC
While I don't suffer, or suffer from
Normal, eurocentrism, northern malaise,
Nor, academia, a blood disease,
I do mind manners in which doings
And not doings are done or aren't,
As it brings life and light to them,
Or it doesn't, for those most attached
To living or dying are most closely death.
This while acid rain from your closed eye
And an acre of rainforest falls each second.
Thus Earth's tears bleed for all you see is gray.
As machinations of travailing winds,
Miraging, veil, mirror narcissistic nihlistic
False-ego as self, do "..we(e),.." evince to be?
A republican chides, "put another poet
On the barbie", his idea of conservation.
Prump has had his exec. branch criminally:
Edit the official video and script of his
Helsinki news conference where tutin was asked,
"Did you help prump become president and did you
Have your gov't do the same", with tutin's answers,
"Yes I did, yes, I did..." + premeditatedly separate
Latino families at the border to torture them,
Dictate that "if they want to see their kids again
They have to sign away their rights and leave".
He just said, "don't believe what you hear, see",
Almost a quote from Orwell's '1984', in which
Is written, "this dictate of the gov't was most
Important of all, don't believe what your ears
Hear or your eyes see". Since altright universe
Invaders were installed in the Blackhouse we've
Known things will only get worse, what other
Reason could his "military parade in 11-18" be for
Except military rule, will the American daymare end?
Aug 24, 2018
Aug 24, 2018 at 7:13 AM UTC
helping myself
with the help of some helpful voices
helping me live
to breathe with some assistance
fill my lungs
the taste of your air
will serve as a substitute
until i can stand again
fill my ears with deafening sound
swim in my veins and fix me
cure me of malaise
soothe my aching bones
help me help myself
help me help myself
help me help the lonely
help me help the ones like me
Oct 5, 2014
Oct 5, 2014 at 8:59 PM UTC
C'mon out to the rattled caves
the deep-sea malaise
rested in the grey metamorphs
of an ancient coastal chain
Where Sisyphean slips of tectonic rifts
pull the molding clay
like play-dough
and old rock that turns anew
churned into
great catacomb stele
Babylonian towers far away
from the great
Mesopotamic
interstate
Surrounded by the immumerous trees
the military sharpness of their pine
quills writing their mark in the dirt
for a hundred turns or so
only to be rearranged
into the great intercontinental soil
Truly
multisolipsistual
And on the aggregate
held open the mists
of the vast expanse of ocean
beyond L.A
and stole the fruits of the tiny parceled condominium rainwater
from distance far away
angry men shouting--
"Give us back our life blood, GOD **** YOU!"
Filling the tanks of their fleshomobiles
running around and sweating it out
trading it for cloth and wiping their brow on
brown shirts
perturbed and disobeyed
But that great man with the chin muscatche
brought the rough riders out of their dome
into the frontier, riding trains
Off they go!
Seeking paradise in the sands
and the trees
and the coastal breeze
dreaming
of a world owned and seen
by the world
by man
and by all these things
It would be grand
But that rock has been seen before
in Luarentian islands long ago
or perhaps a great FUJI-SAN of the west coast
worshiped by critters and dinosaurs
You are late to the game, sweet dreamers, you!
These monuments give to honor due
not you,
no sir did you build these things?
did you mold these things
with the patience of a father
with the consequentiality
of the womb
and a motherly affection
for all things true?
the gift is for you,
remember your father's gifts
sweet princes of the earth
because they will outlive you.
And I walk along the stream
stepping upon these little bits of Yosemite
Pulverized mountain rocks
Renal Stones of the diseased
to which the water flushed out deeply
and cured the grey things from all that left them
displeased
hoping for more than just selfies
and sticking it to god's face
laughing at half-dome
climbing it and getting the better of ourselves
Believing we have achieved bliss
When in reality,
there is nothing to this which we can reach.
Aug 19, 2018
Aug 19, 2018 at 5:19 PM UTC
I contemplate these crossings illuminated by clouds
between a shape of thought and its veils
we didn't invent a screen-reality
it was already there, in the scriptorium of mind
I contemplate this geography known only by fingertips
unworded broken lines in tense bodies
I wonder about the lineage of tears, of hopes
how we grow old in this ardour, in the burning of bridges
I nod, I frown at the glaze of time
I move to the center of seeing like a novice
I gaze at the poliphony of being
at our Janus faced trade with flames
I say to myself it's good to decenter the "I" in this poem
however, there is no purity of words
height after height and depth after depth
we betray a simple evidence: we belong to the same air
will we regret our rush towards the malaise of thought,
will we be rowing over the theft of light?
an invisible will is building up, an antifragile declamation,
the soul's defamation
Sep 23, 2025
Sep 23, 2025 at 3:11 PM UTC
if words are food for the mind,
then here is a glimpse of mine
if words are drugs for the brain,
then here is why i'm so pained.
abandoned, abhorrent
abnormal, absent
abstract, abuse
addicted, anxious
betray, bitterly
blank, blasphemy
bloodless, breakdown
breathless, brutal
captive, casually
catastrophe, cautiously
change, cigarettes
crucial, clueless
damaged, dangerous
deadly, disastrous
disheartened, disconcerting
dramatic, dreading
eager, eccentric
ecstasy, eerie
effete, effortless
embittered, excess
faded, failure
faintly, fallacy
faltering, fatally
fearfully, finally
garbage, gawky
gibberish, gloomy
gone, goodbye
graphic, gratify
hallucinate, harshly
hazy, heartless
hectic, helpless
hesitant, hit-and-miss
idiotic, idly
ignorant, intimacy
illogical, imaginative
infatuated, intoxicated
jealousy, jittery
journey, journal
joylessly, judicial
junk, juvenile
keen, killing
knavish, knocking
knockout, knotty
knowingly, knowledge
laborious, lacking
lame, languishing
lifeless, literature
lovelorn, lugubrious
madness, maintenance
make-believe, malaise
mean, melancholic
mellow, melodramatic
naff, naivety
nameless, naturally
nauseous, nebulous
neglected, nervous
oasis, objectionable
obliged, obliterate
oblivion, obscurity
obsolete, one-and-only
pacifist, pained
pale, panicky
paradise, paralyze
passionately, passively
raging, ranting
rationalize, raving
realistic, reasonable
rebellious, reckless
saboteur, sadness
sake, sameness
sanity, satisfactory
scar, steady
taint, tangled
tasteless, tearful
telling, temperamental
terror, theoretical
unaffected, uncanny
uncommon, unconsciously
undesirable, uneasy
unfortunate, untidy
vaguely, vanish
vanity, vanquish
versatile, vicious
violence, voracious
waiting, waking
walkout, wanting
wasteful, weary
withering, wrecking
if words are food for the mind,
then you've seen a glimpse of mine
if words are drugs for the brain,
then no wonder i'm so pained.
-djs
Aug 5, 2013
Aug 5, 2013 at 11:21 PM UTC
Biology TED talk, Ken Burns WWII
Multiple choice plus open response =
Teacher cares, out there among the English
Mathematics, fractions to imaginary i
Anything can happen any time, I mean
Mass killing--public school, movie theater,
Post office when every mother wears a gun
Yet happiness permeates like CO2 + sunlight
Photosynthesis + electricity = burning bush
Hot tea, hot shower pleasure perfect rest
Early to bed, no more lies, complexity
Poetry about history, i.e. Wolfowitz
As for non-fiction, most things qualify to know
Astrobiology, search for LUCA, FLO
Minerals on Titan, organisms on Enceladus
Divination on Iapetus, peace on Earth and Tethys
Volcanoes and tsunamis, Big Red One and Private Ryan
Don't stay up late, take your vitamins
Sin and crime being nothing more than
Mental malaise, imbalance. Love and compromise
Tolerance, practice worksheets, brilliance
Prejudice and superstition, Tha's a wrap
Nothin doin, ain't gonna happen, freedom's when
Yes is mostly a blessing and No is always an option
Feb 3, 2019
Feb 3, 2019 at 8:14 AM UTC
Life is a maze.
Life is a phase
Life is a craze.
Life decays
Life can amaze
Life can be full of clichés
Life filled with schooldays, holidays, long delays.
Life is a labyrinth, with a Minotaur in the shades
Life is full of constraints
So leave the maze, untangle your hair and meet me in a different cabaret, I'll be there
I'll show you how life is just one big malaise, we need to fill the maze with a blaze of glory.
After all life is a story. The ending the same, we all die, but in between, we runaways from the maze can drop the chains and create our own tales of the maze.
And those tales can be quite amazing!
Sep 17, 2014
Sep 17, 2014 at 11:58 AM UTC
Love is for the poor,
and money for the rich
but wisdom is reserved
for those who caught the itch
of curiosity for the fact that they exist.
Those sparse few who dare
to put their faith into people
but expect not to see the eyes of god
inside of another man’s cathedral.
Knowing well that these lies and laws
could never guide us past the flaws
of good and evil.
Only believe in the dreamer
who refuses the role of a follower
and shuns the idea of a leader.
Be not deceived by status or acclaim
because it only makes you a disciple
of a product and a name.
Hold in high regard the tired hikers
born to the depths of the deepest valleys
and yet they rise before the light of dawn
like a striker to set ablaze the malaise
of these pedestrian days
that mock our souls
with monotonous toil.
This life is but an eternal recurrence
therefore every morn we are born anew
and that potential is a shot at transference
into something more eminent than you.
Become the bridge my friend
because there is no future
in being an end.
Oct 28, 2013
Oct 28, 2013 at 2:11 PM UTC
From freedom and serenity - forced back,
Within a heavy frame, I twist and turn.
Surrounded by darkness - sunlight lacks
Through peaceful ears, an alarm clock burns.
Feeling like someone once deceased,
I ****** myself from my tranquil sleep...
Stumbling to the kitchen, eyes half open,
I prepare my meal in a weary daze.
I will not dread today - I'm hoping,
As I race through traffic in my malaise.
Drinking in my last few moments,
I do what I must, but never condone it...
My interior seething from stress filled meetings,
These rules defeating - my lifeblood fleeting,
A blunt insanity from this calamity,
Through censored profanity, I scream "barbarity!"
Beneath the boots of automatic overlords,
We're trapped together - anxious and bored...
Our heads hang, our eyes bleed
Their talking styles belie their greed.
Our mouths move - connection we seek,
But we find our language strange and oblique.
Back home, on my couch, lethargic and pale,
Hypnotized by TV, my dreams turning stale…
A once free spirit, now a mindless drone -
My sense of identity is what they dethrone.
I assure myself, my soul will endure,
Friday at five, I’m told is the cure.
But, revolution’s muscle beats in my chest!
So, a simple existence, I imagine, my best.
This is my strife - I hate this way of life!
Words can’t explain the disdain in my veins.
So, I have no choice, but to use my voice,
To tell you all to your face, there’s no time to waste!
Everyday, I pickup my pen and face the end -
To light the fire, that from ashes, we’ll ascend...
Sep 21, 2018
Sep 21, 2018 at 4:58 PM UTC
Un-Scrupulous Malaise, must you too bleed
Then savour the Sauce which makes your Thoughts sink?
I could bill you for Libel; Or if need
To saddle the Horse called Radar-Stone-Pink
Her Name makes no sense; And purposely so
More than the Watch to her Father she gave
My Thought's own Mystery comes with a blow
That such single comfort would make me brave
Give to Mind Mind's Self; If it does exist
As one Mahatma told me through and through
Placate this Red Farm; Be strong to resist
Your stubborn Barn from which the Wind it blew.
Life would be feathery if you just dance
To this Musical but Simple Romance.
Mar 9, 2013
Mar 9, 2013 at 4:52 AM UTC
Well, it's almost here
the day that I retire
thirty years of servitude
not quite a funeral pyre
A planned escape
after years of malaise
thinking on what I'll do
starting another phase
I'll open up a glass shop
make some artistic pieces
fused, foiled, stained or blown
creativity never ceases
Maybe I'll make glass ******
something to please the ladies
custom designs and so ******
quality, as in Mercedes
Yes here it comes
for all the years I've strived
it's only just retirement
and yes, I'll still be alive
Turning out a product
designed to give life some joy
sure it's just a piece of glass
a hand crafted well made
toy
Mar 7, 2018
Mar 7, 2018 at 8:43 AM UTC
I have precisely not one but two stalkers, two malaise menaces in my hands. Well, not quite literally.
Its all in my head, you see.
They pervade my robust, iron clad, sheer willpower.
Hmph, not really.
The two little rascals, attractive ones at that, present themselves during frenzied times of scattered notes, inked fingers with frustration crashing in the air.
Frustration grows ever-so-slightly when they efficaciously whisper to you, it will only be five minutes.
They leech time off my circadian clock, inevitably painting black under my eyes.
A pair of smooth-talking liars, the scourge of the Student Underworld.
Their flamboyant, beguiling gestures of distractions, alas, it is far too much even for
my
mind.
Even doctors cannot prescribe a medical concoction to rid me of these pests!
Beware these criminals!
They need to be obliterated, removed, pruned away from us, young innocent seedlings.
I introduce you to... ughh...
Mr & Mrs Procrastination.
Dec 1, 2013
Dec 1, 2013 at 5:37 PM UTC
In day's prime, in summer's sweet eyelids,
Two lives arc, their eyes struggling to break a stare, sharing trysts through dulciloquent exchange,
After the deep blue blossoming lake. To avenge time, we sought it and drove our pupils
Down through the bluff and the green trees, limping past the arenose and albicant sands
Into it's quivering- I must say.
Hey fancy. You make me smile regularly,
I need you to know, because I don't always say so,
but if I didn't read what you write about
your interactions with life,
I'd definitely be not the half that I am of alive.
So thank you, from the perfume of my heart,
and the plastic that is my legs,
the opossum hair that makes me who I am,
and the light of my malaise.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 5:30 AM UTC
Before the thaw, my feet will be rooted
Into this nation’s primordial freeze
My muscles and bones will be acquainted with malaise
The sun’s altruism will be refuted
Before the thaw, I will struggle to find consciousness
The frost will leak through the bedroom window
And don the facade of a blanket
The door will prove to be bottomless
Possibilities will seem unachievable
The brain will itch for what it can not have
Buses will limp through congestion
And the blizzards may feast on the feeble
You may want to write of your misery
But your automation will halt in cataclysm
Because someone held a door open
For the gust that billows bitterly
Gastric emissions will become tangible
As smouldering wastes contrast against the sky with rancour
The wispy whites, marginalized into *****
And the world remains infallible
I will lack the tools of incision
To enact my life’s revisions
I will weep for my unguided millions
While I saunter into oblivion
After the thaw, I will smile
My expatriate soul will run in the whimsical wind
Of the morning dayspring that will march unto me
I will stand over a kingdom of honey-filled tiles
After the thaw, the arks will converge
Into the straits of the Bermudian Sea and the
Elusive Caspian Forest, where I will learn to love again
While bidding farewell to winter’s dirge
In the waking world, I will ***** a limestone castle
Where entropy will rule and the mind’s domain
Is left susceptible to perennial reverence
The sea, coloured true, nesting a fairgrounds vessel
In this Great Revision, gargantuan skyways
Will show the world how exiguous we are
That we must not wait for exodus to come
Should we fear to waste away
Into icebergs
Dec 3, 2018
Dec 3, 2018 at 5:35 PM UTC
Fingernails dug out of steering wheel
in the out door, not enough gin to ****
50 pushups. 50 more. Change my body
Maybe you won't ignore
Ambien, the lull of the ceiling fan,
the crowds of protestors disband --
the blanket warm, cosmos tease and can,
malaise, malaise, I'm trying to be active
and sane, sane for the next promise ring holder
and wine cooler queen, here comes the switch:
ether.
The night brings me back to you
by way of illusion --
you've got lingerie
I've got needs
You've got teeth
I've got shoulder blades
so it begins,
white knuckle, culling songs, strain on scalp --
I sing along, ancient melody, satin dirge --
precursor to your soliloquy and black venom urge
to scatter this bandaged man--
pieces in your hand,
collected and left on 100 dressers
for ill-informed future connivers
conspire
but I'm only tired of trying not
to look like a liar
so I blend into your blood
satisfied smirk from
transparent you
but what is the future
--a present hope
but what is the past
--a present memory
so we abolish each other now
betting on tangible mirages
in this delicious, miraculous night
the stars align
the planets collide
not an inch of you goes unkissed
not an inch of me goes without an itch
blackness and breath swirl and spit
me into a confetti end time without prophet or priest
only a skinny seed, and then the switch:
wake with a present hope of getting over
my present memory.
Oct 11, 2012
Oct 11, 2012 at 5:37 PM UTC
Cow itch circle the hills
Picking up speed, what a nuisance:
My body became numb: the torturous seeds
The native never seem move: by the “muckleheads”.
The itch and the sand flies: a duel team
I was the victim: The vice was on my back
Under house arrest, a meltdown I was so trap
It was time to leave all of the seedpods behind
Fever, malaise, drenching sweats and chills:
I remember once I told a fan, about my kind of therapy
My morning’s session, of cleansing the mind
A blast of my past: the uneven dots on my temple walls
Am I making a break through, nope I never had closure,
The groom wore red, on his special day.
I was the one that wore velvety black,
but I celebrated their reunion with a tall glass of
Ca’ del Bosco Cuvée Prestige Brut, Franciacorta DOCG.
Wine:
I’m far too clever to be taken likely:
So, I let my poetry writing do its own disciplined
"If you can’t be a poet, be the poem. – David Carradine"
Jul 27, 2018
Jul 27, 2018 at 9:54 AM UTC
I opened the page and read through the book.
Its title was --Hello Poetry!!.
BUT!! and this is a big BUT!!
It turned out to be overall a PRETTY but juvenile competition as to who could write the most rubbishy so called
'poems' in the Universe!!!
But to my amazement there was an even deeper malaise.
It was a cover for a competition to discover who could write most nauseous strings of meaningless associated words praising the brain dead scribblers of this twee juvenile ******* with **** licking adjective after **** licking adjective.
Emotional cripples all!!.
Do any of you really belive the **** you write is 'poetry'??? REALLY!!!!
I mean---come on!!
www.beyondenlightenment.c0.uk
Nov 28, 2018
Nov 28, 2018 at 11:47 AM UTC