"maslow" poems
Plagiarism of worthless ideals,
that you so ignorantly hold high.
Shaking in amazement,
how can you call your self alive?
Totalitarian, lethargic lifestyle.
Ignominious displays of disaffection.
Constant contradictions;
out of your mind.
Caught up in the clouds,
cognition of mania and level debauched.
Up to high to realize, you're an “open mind” with locked doors.
Maslow, Skinner, and Darwin alike, turn in their graves,
over your lack of evolution.
Mar 6, 2013
Mar 6, 2013 at 2:00 AM UTC
So there is this pyramid.
We learned about it last week
This guy, his name was Maslow...is Maslow
maybe he is still alive. I'm not sure.
I don't even know his full name....I''ll probably do really well in this class, by the way.
So, Maslow, he came up with this pyramid.
A pyramid of physiological need. Ineresting right?
I think it is pretty interesting.
The bottom of the pyramid, the biggest part, contains the things you need the most.
Air, water, food, sleep...you get the idea.
The next part says saftey and security.
In order to live a fufilling life you need...
air, water, food, sleep, saftey and security.
Pretty simple
Then, this guy Maslow, he throws this ******** into the mix...
on the next level of the pyramid he puts love and belonging.
Love and belonging?
A necessity?
I have only lived about 19 years of my life
and I think it is safe to say that I have never loved.
Not really loved anyone.
I love my mom, I love my dog.
I hope that is the kind of love that Maslow is talking about or else
....I am not fufilling my physiological needs.
So I'm a little ****** up, yeah I could belive that.
To top this **** off.
Maslow throws Esteem and Self-esteem on the tip top of this pyramid.
Well now Maslow...hes really making my day
I got none of that either.
So here I am taking some notes in class and
Maslow makes me realized that I'm a pretty incomplete person.
Right here, in the middle of my Psychology lecture
surounded by at least 300 other incomplete people.
Sep 11, 2012
Sep 11, 2012 at 9:44 PM UTC
Oh love,
we're drowning in the monotony of motionless.
forget food, air, coitus
Maslow forgot something- movement.
not even, relocation.
simple movement.
Oh love,
let's pack a bag- buy a map
I feel like falling asleep to east coast sunsets tonight
waking up to Rocky's
wind through hair
sand between toes
let's fly a kite
ride a bike
*let's move *
seated, we die a thousand times
let's break in a pair of new shoes
to an afternoon hike
pack a picnic basket of pb&j;'s
move, darling, move
until our legs give out
and slumber wraps us sweetly in her arms...
in one another's arms...
somewhere far from where we began
move.
conclusions and origins are separate for a reason
life may have symmetry, love
but let's make sure not to mistake that with stagnation.
Oct 19, 2011
Oct 19, 2011 at 6:26 PM UTC
i’ll take
a side order of hash browns black
coffee to start the day (job security in a paper
cup) the blood the body whatever scraps of
christ i can salvage from the
supermarket and maybe i will have fries and a shake and absolution
for $100 alex can you supersize that please
May 24, 2012
May 24, 2012 at 3:53 PM UTC
No latte
no "three men walked into a bar ..."
no sun salutation
can give me that reinvigorating boost
no melody
(and for that matter no harmony)
no pedicure
no crisp fall walk
can ease my anxious state
I am unsettled, trying to find a surface to settle on
so I settle down to the lowest parts of Maslow's mountain
searching for comfort in edible bites and physical bits,
deep in the valley where I should not be
"How ya doin'?"
"OhI'mgood!"
Ain't got time for the real answer
Ain't got time
Ain't got time
cause I won't give it to myself
I was never good at prioritizing
Cause if I knew my priorites
I would remember what a priority it is
to bend to my knees
sink into the ground
and reverently gaze UP
I have not imagined the answers and peace I have recieved
You have to open your mind to see His work
He is visible
in earth and sky
Sometimes He has to remind me
but when He does ...
well, I can enjoy the melodies
and lattes
and jokes again
P.W.C.
Nov 9, 2012
Nov 9, 2012 at 5:56 PM UTC
You've been mine for a thousand years,
Through a mountain of problems, and a river of tears.
Living with me isn't done with ease,
But I'll never stop thinking of ways to please,
You're corporal self, this is sheer delight,
Folly and frolic until late at night.
The emotional needs I can handle my sweet,
Versed in Maslow and Erickson I'm ready to greet,
And make you feel safe both night and day,
Feelings never faltering, hear my words say,
My love I'm committed to your every desire,
It's not just my ***** but my soul that's on fire.
Each time that I gander into your soft eyes,
God calls your name, I peer up at the skies.
The rainbow of colors seen after a rain,
Include the color of your eyes, they drive me insane!!
The warmth of the sun shining sultry on my face,
Similar to the nights snuggling on our five by seven space.
The gentle movement as the clouds roll by,
Is reminiscent of massage, that at night closed your eye.
Even the falling raindrops landing tender on the land,
Compares to tears of missing you, wiped away with my hand.
I'll give you my all, refusing to fall,
you can't deny what you feel,
My pretty child, you drive me wild,
your emotions I don't need to steal!!
Please visit poemsbypaul.com
Sep 20, 2013
Sep 20, 2013 at 12:21 PM UTC
Sustenance for my frail body
contained in gel-coated pills
split into thirds,
one for morning,
one for night,
one to slip beneath my tongue.
A glass of water
–or milk, with breakfast–
rumbles through my throat,
resists peristalsis,
hits stomach.
The heater clicks on
as the thermostat flashes 68 degrees,
then shuts off at night,
replaced by
one sheet,
one throw blanket,
one quilt.
Your hand, inches from
my fingertips,
not yet near enough
for electricity to jump between,
will go unacknowledged;
one feeble attempt at loving within my means.
Feb 8, 2015
Feb 8, 2015 at 8:15 PM UTC
You have had your heart broken more than once,
Just as you have had fallen in love more than once...
And even when it's very likely that the cycle will repeat itself
Sometime in the future,
Remember that what can break a heart can fix it
And what goes through a painful ending can go back
To a beautiful beginning.
And whether you've given up on love
Learned to re-define love in a less dramatic way
Or looked at relationships in a more realistic way,
Debunked Maslow's hierarchy of needs by putting love at the tip of the triangle;
And when you watch those soppy movies you pretend to just laugh at how the cheesiness can never work in the real world!
The truth is that, there is always....always
A soft side of you willing to unleash itself,
To take the leap of faith.
To love boldly.
When and if only true love gives you that moment.
Jan 24, 2018
Jan 24, 2018 at 5:48 AM UTC
Gorging my eyes with the non-sense and the ******** of the internet.
Feeding my mind the comical lives of those on reality TV.
Is this really what the world has come to?
Our lives consumed with your lives,
consumed with their lives,
consumed with our lives.
Twitter ***** toast to tweeting.
Tweet your lives away you ******
Who thought that a piece of paper could be so powerful?
Who thought a piece of paper would dominate mans will?
Who thought a piece of paper could lead to our destruction?
Who thought a piece of paper could make a man ****
President painted on each paper.
"Look at all those Benjamins!" you shout.
I highly doubt,
that the founding fathers would want to be on a piece of paper,
a piece of corruption,
a piece of destruction.
We have destroyed what the founding fathers built.
A land of freedom, justice, and pride,
is now a kingdom to the modern day CEO's,
and the fame ridden ***** that patrol our TV's.
The average actor makes more in one movie than the year round shopkeeper.
A man who devotes his life to supplying the public with proper products and good service,
makes less than a man who does something that we don't even need.
We need food, water, and all the shopkeepers supplies.
But do we really need a movie?
I did not know entertainment was higher on Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
I would like to see you solely survive off of a movie.
I feel bad for my children.
The children of the future in general.
That is, if we live that long.
They are going to have it rougher than me.
And sadly,
I alone cannot make their future better for them.
Only we, as one, can make it better.
But,
that will never happen.
We are divided,
our will, divided,
our minds, divided,
our spirits, divided.
We will never be one again.
With that said and done,
I'm going to finish my dinner now.
Nov 26, 2012
Nov 26, 2012 at 10:05 PM UTC
I was suprised to see Robin
appear at the onset of dawn.
Looked on at my withdrawn self,
tucked on my shelf,
whereupon I return his look.
With his wings, he made a gesture
pointing out, out and beyond to
fields in a vesture of green.
Never I had I seen such pastal pastures,
nor known them to be so near.
Robin started to sing
of spontaneous adventure,
away from my miscellaneous thoughts.
Extraneous in nature for they did discouraged
this possible venture.
In an act of defiance,
I went to move, and felt a strain
tightening around my brain.
Denying the laws of science,
the frightening shackels restraining me
and my plumed heart from taking flight.
I struggled against the chain, I wiggled until bruised
and blood and sweat covered my skin.
The sticky heat of desperation consumes me,
wishing someone smuggled the key in
and remove these chaotic chains.
"I can't move," I cried to Robin,
expecting him to disapprove.
"I'm not like you. I can't just go and do what I want,
it doesn't work like that."
Even though I wanted to go.
My soul longs for it, to be like the Robin
where its only goal is to go
faraway like a bird of prey, flying high
complying to no one, just like Maslow wanted.
The reclamation of self-realization.
Robin did not reply.
Robin did not leave.
Nor did he grieve for me.
He simply waited.
This wasn't a rue.
He was glued to me and thus
Proving the legends true; of how
he got the mark of Christ's blood upon himself.
For he waited in hope
'til the day when I can cleave the chains
and he'll supply the rope
and reeve the opening of my escape.
But that day is not today.
Today's untimely end neared
with the threat of an upset sunset,
warning Robin that he must retreat
to avoid being a prisioner of the dark.
Yet, before he left, he nodded,
as if tell me not to fret.
For he will be back at sunrise
His wise eyes conformed
him to be sans falseness.
And I prayed to empty skies that I was right.
From my spot, I watch Robin's flight,
as night fell with gravity, pushing the sun down
and for a split second it turned to a green jewel.
I smiled like fool at Joule's "last glimpse"
feeling the chains, ever so slightly, loosen.
Nov 26, 2014
Nov 26, 2014 at 6:05 PM UTC
Desire
is a plump
fickle comely
***** Want is but
a breakfast in bed; Need
is a dump a *** and a trump
and a **** with a bodkin and thread
Apr 6, 2015
Apr 6, 2015 at 2:18 PM UTC
For the last five hundred years, posh “society,” is where the wealthiest and most influential people in the world mingled, inter-married and conducted business. If you’ve ever watched “Downton Abbey”, “The Gilded Age” or even “Crazy Rich Asians” you’ll know what I mean.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs - a psychological pyramid that describes human fulfillment - states that part of our human nature (once your basic needs are met) is the desire to attain social position. Having mere wealth is just not enough once you are in the top levels of achievement.
In the 1970’s Arab money started pouring into the west. Arab petro-dollars bought swaths of land in the UK, in London and New York. The Arabs dazzled everyone with their wealth and bling but they never penetrated posh society.
Then in the 90s the second, Asian wave, of new wealth washed eastward and they had a bit more success in society. But starting about 20 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russians started coming to the west with new money to invest - in the UK, in particular.
Russia became the billionaire capital of the world, oligarchs were everywhere buying anything not nailed down and eventually trying to insinuate themselves into posh “society”. Tatler (THE magazine of society) even began publishing a Russian version. If you were a wealthy Russian, you were moving up. By 2022, they weren’t too far from the edge of REAL success.
That’s what evaporated three weeks ago - with the invasion of Ukraine - Russia’s luxury infrastructure and their hopes of acceptance into posh society. Gucci, Chanel, Hermès, Dior, Apple and Tatler (just to name a few luxury brands) have left Russia to rot. If you’re Russian now, the chances of being admitted into posh society are gone for the next 20 years - at least.
You may say “so what?” Well, one way a dictator holds onto power is through mercantile largess. The granting of rights within the Russian sphere of influence - to control and distribute goods and services - is how oligarchs are created. The support of these oligarchs is important and transactional.
A man with a 100-million dollar yacht - looking at what chunks of their wealth may well be confiscated in the west - or lost to the Ruble’s collapse - could easily offer life-changing wealth to any henchman willing to end Putin one way or another.
Will this happen? I don’t know. But this is the system they’ve set up for themselves.
Mar 22, 2022
Mar 22, 2022 at 4:12 PM UTC
**“Won't do no good
To call the police.
Always come late,
If they come at all.”**
Thank you, Tracy.
Thank you for shining a light,
Drawing the world’s attention to the gulf
The gross variance in policing,
As it is practiced as we move from
One area of the city to another,
From one part of town,
Across the tracks to the
Wrong side of town,
Not the neighborhood where
Cops get out of the squad car after dark,
Ring your doorbell & politely remind you
Your garage door is open.
I refer, of course, to the same
Neighborhood with the best schools,
Libraries, public parks, and other
Fine & dandy amenities
Enjoyed by some its municipal citizens.
I send greetings from reality &
Say “Thank you, Tracy”again.
Now I’m hip to an area of town where
People have to shoot it out for themselves,
Where people contend with a
Quotidian Death Camp or Gulag,
A daily killing-field of extreme
Predatory desperation.
We’re taking a quintessential peek
Through a Social Psychologist’s lens,
Namely Abraham Maslow’s
“Hierarchy of Human Needs;”
Categorically speaking:
The ladder’s bottom-rung.
We’re talking basic human survival, here.
BTW I actually learned a lot in college, & besides:
**** You! I’m a Harvard graduate.
One last time I say
“Thank you, Tracy.”
I actually learned & continue to learn a lot,
From getting high & listening to music.
Life at the bottom of the barrel?
Sloshing it up with the
So-called “Dregs of Society,”
Which, by the way,
Would be a great name for a band.
Cue omniscient narrator:
Google "I want to Be a Pornstar.”
But I digress.
We were talking about a frightening alien planet,
A no-where place to be for
An intelligent young black girl,
Hoping for a fast car out of there.
Sep 28, 2016
Sep 28, 2016 at 5:49 PM UTC
You know, man
before all this went down
I used to think that zombies
were just a metaphor
Really? For what?
Yeah, like, for our struggle
to remain individuals
in a consumer driven culture
where identity is mass-produced
and we are pressured to belong
to some sort of group
or fit into some sort of mold
It’s like being the last survivor in a zombie apocalypse
it’s only a matter of time…
That’s some deep ****
Yeah, this is good ****
What do you think it means now?
You know, now that it’s really happening
It doesn’t mean anything now
Consumer culture is dead, man
People want to be able to eat and ****
and not have to worry about dying every day.
That’s Maslow’s hierarchy of needs man
didn’t you learn anything in highschool?
***** you, dude
What’s that diploma doing for you anyway?
Touché
Dude, puff puff pass!
Quit hoggin all my ****
****
Aug 5, 2010
Aug 5, 2010 at 9:00 AM UTC
Like a well oiled engine, my heart whirrs in pleasure at your sight
Found a biker boy and rode into the sunset
I'm a ship honey. Take me from my harbor
A sailor caught my helm and sailed into the horizon
Are you a black hole? Because you **** me in.
The physicist sat me on his lap and we got lost in space
Are you Messi ? Because I'm a Ballon d'or.
Shots were fired. Goals were scored. And they ruled the field together.
I have reached the top tier of Maslow's needs.
After extensive psychoanalysis, we found our counselors in each other.
If you're a rebuttal point, I'll always have you covered.
She and the debater found their grey patch amidst the black and white.
I'll make you a sandwich if you are male, white and a misogynist.
She found love with the racist and waited on him hand and foot.
I'll draw your heart with HB pencils and make an acrylic out of our relationship.
The artist found her bluetiful and incRedible.
I'm a South Indian who loves dosa, an uneducated Bihari, the patanjali promoting Hindu, the Muslim terrorist, the Christian converter, the Russian spy, the fake Chinese, the blond cheerleader, the ladyless female football player, the classy British, the poor illiterate, the fat American, the mannerless slum dweller, the conservative Indian woman, the dumb **** the unromantic geek, the bald science teacher, the old librarian, the charisma less nerd......
Stereotype found it's soulmate and lived happily ever after.
I fall in love with words. Ink is my blood. Emotions and thoughts are my food.
The poet smirked and said," Haha! Nice try."
~Pacific Wolf
Jan 9, 2018
Jan 9, 2018 at 12:06 PM UTC
What is love?
The butterflies in my stomach when I’ll soon be seeing you?
Counting down the days, the minutes, the seconds.
The fact that I think about fulfilling my need for you far more often than think of satisfying the biological necessities of life?
So much for Maslow’s Hierarchy…
The complete contentment inside me when I see you smile?
I have to admit, your grin is contagious.
The fierce confidence inside me while I bare it all for you?
Completely exposed, not worrying about my flaws.
The ironic insecurity encircling my thoughts when I don’t hear from you?
“What’s he doing?”
My desire for you?
Only you.
The urge I get to trace every contour of your body using my fingertips?
Shh, just lie still.
Love is…
Amazing
Exhausting
Inspiring
Frustrating
Exhilarating
No, simply indescribable.
So bear with my when I say…
I love your smile. That lopsided smirk.
I love your laugh. Such a fantastic sound.
I love how you dress. Uniquely, to say the least.
I love your compassion. It shows through continuously.
I love sleeping with you. When you kiss my back in the middle of the night.
I love…
I love…
I love…
I love…
I love…
Do I love you?
Who knows?
Who knows what love even is?
Do you love me?
Don’t answer that.
I’d rather not know.
May we are just lovers… but that is okay with me.
For now.
Nov 10, 2011
Nov 10, 2011 at 11:02 PM UTC
Sometimes i don't want to be tethered to yesterday
It's nicer to forget
But having eyes wide to the future
Requires retrospective respect
To reach the top of maslow's pyramid
You have to knock down the walls
Reshuffle all the cards
And see where they might fall
Your peccadillo was just a trigger
To the burst of autumn red
I've awoken from my torper
And turned reality on its head.
Nov 4, 2015
Nov 4, 2015 at 11:09 AM UTC
She was born in this world unable to see.
Her chubby cheeks complement her very large eyes.
She was an angel, indeed. Adorable.
I know I wasn't there but I can tell from the very moment I saw her eyes.
Her eyes...
The only part of her that stays the same, from the moment when she was a child until now that she is a woman.
Her skin is no longer the same, nor her mind, nor her heart.
But her eyes... her eyes speak of eternity.
Her irises shame the bluest skies,
and when they turn gray the wolves realize that the moon is nothing to her gaze.
And when I read the scriptures stating God makes me lie in green pastures and leads me to still waters,
I need not to read them again, for her eyes tell it all.
Your eyes show me the evergreen fields, your face is tamer than the peaceful waters.
Tell me then, what else do I need, when you're the best that God has to offer?
Now what do the seekers seek,
what do the doubters ask,
what do they decipher,
when your eyes have answered them at last?
Why did they spend their lives looking at the stars,
why did they waste their time breaking down atoms,
why did they put themselves in an endless search for the understanding of infinity,
when the second they gaze upon your eyes, they shall know immortality?
I can see. But I was blind, like a bat lost in the middle of the day.
Seeking purpose, seeking essence, seeking all the answers to all the questions.
I have dropped belief, I have dropped faith, I have dropped hope,
and so I have dropped love.
And I have never been this lost.
It's a shame when the thing you were searching, was with you all along.
But fate is so gracious to give me the answer,
and I cannot believe that it would be much smaller,
The summary of everything, of the cosmos, of my existence,
Lies within your pupils, your lenses and your irises.
Your beauty has quantized the irrational,
you made the skeptic trust for the very first time,
you have shamed the atheist for making him believe in God,
for he was convinced that your perfect existence must have a perfect creator.
You have proven that Copernicus has wasted his time proving the earth's revolution around the sun,
when it was crystal clear that the universe revolves around you.
You have proven wrong Maslow's heirarchy of needs,
when it was your words that shall make a man truly live.
Your eyes became the window to another world,
Through it I've seen the beauty of your soul, the hope of us all.
This foolish man has even been proven foolish,
searching the answers in all the places, despite the fact that you're beside me.
And still I remain blind. I can see everything, but still I am blind.
But now I shall cease my needless wandering and just stare at your eyes for the rest of my life.
Until I am in my deathbed, with your cheeks chubby no more, and your beauty defied by time.
Your eyes remain the same, and the radiance of your soul forever young.
And I shall tell you my final words,
to the eyes of my goddess, forever divine,
"I have seen the all the beauty of the world, through the eyes that weren't mine."
Dec 10, 2014
Dec 10, 2014 at 6:36 AM UTC
It is in our nature to create dichotomies,
particularly in the grayest of the gray.
How do you debate en masse,
in the absence of either or?
And so we ask—
for example,
at Harper High School
in the South Side Chicago,
where 29 current and former
students
were shot
in a single year—
we ask, disdainfully,
How do we Learn
when we can’t Breathe?
On the question of need—
at a beautiful school
with 16 security guards
4 social workers,
and more than 15 surrounding gangs—
we refer back to Maslow.
I went once,
to a high school full of
“at risk” students
and discussed dropout rates—
as high as 80 percent in some parts.
We gave them cards and figures,
and asked them to contemplate futures,
for example,
as a janitor or an NBA basketball star!
Questions so self-righteous in their ignorance
my cheeks burned,
asked to faces
six generations descended
from slavery
& six decades from
Brown vs. Board.
Are we not awed by the
logic in their response
to a system with little
historical or contemporary
evidence of their success?
We are sustained more by the
business of answering,
than asking
the right questions.
So maybe the question of
basic needs versus pedagogy
was always a false dichotomy.
Maybe, in fact,
general revenue funding &
destandardization of curricula,
universal prenatal care &
a rebirth of the arts,
do not exist in hierarchy.
Do we dare ask the question,
to everyone,
“What would you do
to make your heart sing,
if you knew you could not fail,
if you knew you could not disappoint?”
Nov 1, 2016
Nov 1, 2016 at 3:11 PM UTC
-
I am Pavlov’s dog
and I am famished.
I wonder if Maslow’s pooch got
free run of the food bowl.
I wonder if I will self-actualize.
I think of the paradox of quantum superposition.
I wonder about the rules for the evolution of a system.
Simultaneously, I do and do not understand quantum physics.
I bet Sigmund Freud had a rabbit.
ring ring
Jan 5, 2022
Jan 5, 2022 at 11:30 PM UTC
"Be All You Can Be," says the television.
"1800-USA-ARMY."
I almost chose it, the life the TV tells me.
I almost went away,
To be a brother-in-arms.
Now, I'm thinking about being a brother-in-a-frat-house,
it hardly compares, but here I am searching
So I can be happy.
An 8 year plan for self-actualization.
Maslow would laugh; at the Army ad, at me, and at everyone who follows a path they didn't carve into rock with a spoon.
Aug 21, 2019
Aug 21, 2019 at 2:20 PM UTC
Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Nerds
Okay, I’m the nerd, not part of the hierarchy
But you are core of my hierarchy of needs
Where do I place you on the pyramid?
But I don’t place you at all – you are
You are a hierarchy of, well, you:
‘Way up around self-actualization
And definitely among belonging and love
And the base, and the peak, and the center -
You are my hierarchy of truth
You are my pyramid of love
Nov 10, 2021
Nov 10, 2021 at 8:29 AM UTC