"nineties" poems
Start slow...
warming... up...and...below
forty five degrees
to the left...right...others go nineties...
some freeze...from locked knees
they don't mind...they'll recover
before the hour is over...
Detach self
from what
surrounds
but...still aware
connected...
agitation
soon to be lessened
eventually....calmed
Focus...
exercise
stabilize
synchronize
visualize
internalize
energize!
Endure!
An ant bites at the back of your ear
something's crawling on your tummy
beads of sweat, drop across your eyes,
or inside your ear...you feel the cold touch within
A bee, a wasp...sometimes, a fly
circles very near your face
makes your wall of
concentration, crumble
tempting you to lose count
of the movements
testing you...
if you might still stray...even
a step away...
if, to your weaknesses
you would still succumb
will you be distracted?
or stay focused?
Let eyes, and mind blink
One...two...three...quickly!
be grounded!
stay on the right track.....
Exercise!
...visualize....
... internalize.....
...never give up!
Sally
Copyright September 21, 2015
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
Sep 21, 2015
Sep 21, 2015 at 12:09 AM UTC
Am I looking for love in Alderaan places?
Most of my SerenityXEnterprise ship jokes go over her head.
I feel like a John Cusack boombox blaring out nineties-age spaces.
Like a comedy no one's heard of, I'm Better Off Dead
without the love I'm not sure that I can find because then is it
really possible to find The One like Neo? (Haha. Get it?)
Like (p+l)(a+n)=pa+pn+la+ln, (Okay, Deep Breath) the universe is trying
so hard to foil my love PLAN. (That one was ****** but the best I can present)
I know you'll be saying "I told you so" when
I realize the narrow parameters of my search are a little naive,
but don't say I'm the Average because that's just Mean!
My love is like Ash Ketchum; I need it to be the very best.
My love is like Ariel; If I leave you I wanna know I'll be mist!
I just needed to pull a Sasha Grey and get it off (on) my chest,
I've already got my music, rhymes, and make-up. Give me the Kiss.
Sep 10, 2014
Sep 10, 2014 at 2:33 PM UTC
Death I see, that ugly spectre,
Coarsely overshadows youth.
Lame, they look for interaction
With the bondman. Shame, forsooth!
Drowning in the dams of liars
When they could be shining lights!
They believe what e’er is told them,
****** in by the TV sights.
Culture told them there’s no future,
There’s no healing for despair.
Bet they never read the Bible –
Words of LIFE spelt loud and clear.
There’s no need for this attrition
Of our children. Give them truth.
Let them listen to the old ones –
Hard they learned the facts of life.
By the power of scripture they have
Overcome the skull and bones.
Into joy and peace they’re marching.
Youth could follow in those zones.
Up to them to stop and listen.
Perhaps the media got it wrong.
Find a person in their nineties,
Who survived the wars and so on.
They are old because their attitude
Enabled them to plunge right in,
Boots and all in right perspective,
Shake and move, the truth to win.
They’ve believed in right and beauty,
Principles and sacrifice.
Not for them the great self pity
Serving death – man-trap device.
Rather they’ve bent over backwards
To embrace another’s need,
And serving, felt the great dynamic
LIFE FORCE. Yes. They were a breed!
Jan 8, 2014
Jan 8, 2014 at 9:48 PM UTC
The nineties sold us unity:
bright sitcoms,
Benetton colors,
commercials where everyone smiled
as though inequity had been resolved.
But the decade bled on screen—
a Black man beaten on asphalt,
a truck driver dragged from his cab,
bomb dust in Oklahoma,
children hunted in a school corridor.
Unity was the costume;
violence was the stage.
Then came a Black president.
For a moment,
the story looked complete.
"Post-racial," they said,
as though history had closed.
But the mask split.
Social media tore out the gatekeepers.
The hate that had been muted
found its tongue,
found its profit,
and screamed into the feed.
Division pays.
Unity does not.
Violence is systemic,
holistic,
from home to street to state.
Silence makes it whole.
The ethic remains:
If it is wrong, you stop it.
Otherwise the cycle turns,
profitable, endless,
calling itself America.
Aug 19, 2025
Aug 19, 2025 at 5:45 AM UTC
Our town was to have a rail-line
Circa the mid eighteen nineties
This story has surprised my ears
A local amateur historian apprised me just recently
Documents to support this claim are archived in Sydney
Not far out of our town
On a well know property in the district
Two surveyor pegs are still in existence
Marking the route the rail-line was to track
Though the Forefather's rail-line was never bedded down
The powers that be government leaders of the day
Shelved these impressive plans
They never saw the light of day
Ribbons of steel not coming to fruition
Leading to our town
Other town went ahead rail-lines were established to them
Out town alas and alack missed out
Look where Tamworth and Armidale are to-day
Rail being in their favor
Our town was left to languish and to be dispirited
Going no-where no-where to go
Our Forefather's now lay in their graves
Not quite resting in peace
Their rail proposal for our town unrealized
Good ideas die along with good intentions
Hence their unsettled repose
Our town could have been a regional town
Industry and population dotting the landscape
Rail would have assured our place
The Forefather's rail proposal long since shelved
Consigned into the passing vapor of time
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 6:45 PM UTC
my grades have dropped from nineties to seventies and i am incredibly sad.
my heart has been dropped down countless flights of stairs and i am incredibly bruised.
my body has dropped off of a balcony from thirteen stories high and i am incredibly gone.
Apr 29, 2014
Apr 29, 2014 at 2:45 PM UTC
Purp-Purple Purp-Purple in my blood, cut it, cut it, cut it
Let it bleed, blee-bleed
Sipping on the lea-le-lean
Smoking that dank
My blood stream-stre-stream
When the codeine hits
It hits real hard
When the codeine hits
It hits real hard, hard-hard
Drop a rancher in, let it-let it splash
Splas-splash
Turn up the system, ***** let the snare drum
Crash cra-crash
Rolling through the hood, chevy dropped low
(Lo-low yeah)
My Chevy real lo-lo-low
I said my leather and wood Chevy dropped low
Johnny's in the basement mixing up the medicine
Mixing up the-mixing up the medicine-med-medicine
**** C's in the backroom letting all the ratchets in
Ratchet-ratchet-ratch-
Letting all the ratchets in
Dumping out cigar trash-tra-trash
Fill it back with the hash-ha-hash
Sip that lean slow
Bringing the good old nineties back
Ba-back
Said bring the good old nineties back
Apr 16, 2013
Apr 16, 2013 at 5:26 PM UTC
Powder blue adam
Won't somebody **** me please
I miss the nineties
Jun 26, 2014
Jun 26, 2014 at 1:07 AM UTC
building purist æsthetic
proselytizing solar-powered heliolatry
commemorating historic concert
sensing dark forces
fokken lekker antwoord
pumping sensory overload
featuring high-tech dee-jay
admiring gelato micro-truck
laxing laying lazing
"doing something nasty"
continuing quality content
entering another cathedral
journeying without borders
"exactly one year
since visiting vatican"
appreciating full-time gigasphere
awaiting pyongyang performance
depicting unlikely crowdsurfer
foreseeing exponential improvements
furthering esoteric agenda
sensing profound incompatibility
data-mining people's infidelities
anticipating futuristic caffeine
perfecting invisible propaganda
researching mind-control techniques
polishing psycho-social weaponry
sensing social embargo
flourishing frantic fanfare
admiring longitudinal monument
parodying marketing slogans
cycling through österreich
eyeing dystopian disneyland
streaming crosswords extended-play
herding glass kittens
deleting idiosyncratic fragment
loremipsum-ing laconic loudmouth
receiving ultramodern telegram
eigo-ga wakarimasu ka?
guzzling duck-fat fries
encouraging panic selling
(juxtaposing past incarnations)
getting black-and-white privilege
renewing boutique account
relishing cinema poutine
re-entering hibernation mode
opening old windows
continuing zoo motif
absquatulating excessive excesses
nullifying originality claims
proliferating protean persona
disappearing sidewalk alphabet
shrugging opprobrious moments
enjoying vertical alignment
re-entering cyberpunk paradise
approaching island sun
soaring beyond monoliths
trivializing extraneous argy-bargy
decreasing character limits
dumping generic accounts
uglifying commit message
escaping into idiosyncracy
moonshining great lake
exuding idiosyncratic propaganda
living nineties' dreams
making occidental cuisine
envisioning idiocratic president
expropriating your time
ascending homely helix
singing fat lady
Sep 12, 2015
Sep 12, 2015 at 12:12 PM UTC
We dine on Tuna & Merlot red wine
a single car's headlights shine
traveling down a road
so many stories untold
you're selling your old flat
in the Georgian house
we all lived in
back in the colorless nineties
when the music was bad -
Westlife, Take That, Spice Girls
& everyone
wore either black or blue
it seemed, on this Island
& your boys were still small
& my family holidayed in Cornwall
& I didn't yet know I could write poetry
when you move away
I shall be sorry to see you go
Aug 15, 2015
Aug 15, 2015 at 7:33 PM UTC
A little oasis occupied in a cafe
that approaches capacity.
Three opposite, two adjacent,
a couple at the windows to the right.
Six or seven more around the corner, out of view
Early twenties guy, has a slightly too-small zippered sweater,
with head down and a two-handed hold on his phone
the left relinquishes its grip for a minute to wipe across his face.
Late fifties man in a blue,zipped, baggy, sweat shirt
and early-nineties hair gone grey.
A phone too, but of a more palm-and-fingertip interaction
with pursed lips and an occasional surveying of the room.
A quiet girl at my right leaves and four chatty middle-aged yoga ladies
squeeze onto the table for two.
They obliterate my concentration
and I resort to a cocoon of headphone noise.
Their too-strong perfume forms a veritable blue cloud
and leaks into the taste of my tea.
Jan 6, 2015
Jan 6, 2015 at 3:40 PM UTC
I confessed my adoration declaring my undying affection along with my true intentions
You declined most gracefully (clear and concise)
Narrating you do not share the same sentiments, (it was a forgone conclusion)
Letting me down eventually yet elevating my spirits every time you smile;
If you reciprocated even a decimal point of devotion or a fraction of affinity I hold for you
Metaphorically speaking it would acquire the vast space that now occupy all the stars in the known cosmos
For my affection towards you ran across time through galaxies extending throughout the infinite interstellar, finally resonating to the heavens unsettling angels and almighty god
In space time is redundant; direction hold no relevance and gravity is absent
Similar to the romantic intentions you have for me – literally none existent
You will always occupy that pedestal you once accused me I have erroneously placed you on
I will always hold the candle for you, step off a bridge if you asked me to
I would rather deserve medals and not have them; than to have medals and not deserve them
Very much like you – case and point
Maybe you are like the sunset I only have the privilege of admiring its magnificence from a far
But never to retain it for myself I have to let go once the dusk disappear giving way to the stars
But I like to still envision; let my imagination run rampant; then contemplate in accordance to the “Many Worlds Theory” that somewhere in the unknown multiverse, vibrating in a different frequency, we co-exist ecstatically ; now living & sharing an apartment in New York city; enjoying Chinese takeaway drinking cheap wine while listening to all your favourite songs from the nineties. (Specially the Goo Goo Dolls, The Verve and Matchbox Twenty)
Sep 12, 2018
Sep 12, 2018 at 4:20 PM UTC
Come join the British Army;
And take the Queens Shilling;
You won't have any problems;
We'll take care of all your billing;
We'll make a man out of you;
Or a woman as the case may be;
In the Army of the nineties;
With ****** equality
We are a modern army;
With modern management systems;
Such as TQM and H & S;
And lots more bursts of wisdom;
But in this modern world of ours;
Don't forget what an army does,
And training and development;
Is to give us all a buzz.
Yes we are a modern army;
But we still serve Queen and Country;
And it's getting more and more difficult;
With ideas from the gentry.
We don't ask for much in life;
Just to earn an honest bob.
So cut down on your ideas;
And let us do our job.
Sep 25, 2010
Sep 25, 2010 at 11:34 AM UTC
pretend not to notice
load sidewards glances
like bullets
the way the metal itches my skin
makes me feel like tin foil
alright, is that right?
this numbness makes it hard
to tell , the least
well alright
is that fine?
why do i ask?
queen of s and m
why do i ask if youre fine?
you were fine when we lived off mud
felt like we were the nineties.
quit your revenge plans babe,
your friends tell me about them
I'm always one step ahead.
I'm so sorry i couldn't beat you up
hard enough to stay my queen
serenity, i miss the way
you would love to hear of your death
why? my death wish
is to be your lover for life.
why? is it the pain i can see in your piercings
skin deep, and conversation pieces
you once asked me why i never ended it
knowing that you'll float away to other *******
show them the tattoo of my skull, on your back
drink and inject whatever you want for months
but come back to me as scared as ever
it makes me feel like your king.
Nov 1, 2013
Nov 1, 2013 at 7:24 AM UTC
I think back to the sixties
taking charge of our new life
two hippies lost in limbo
that's when I took you as my wife
we grew up very quickly
the time to play was done
we sold out and got established
now that we weren't two but one
I close my eyes just to focus
I close my eyes to make you clear
I close my eyes so I remember
I close my eyes to bring you near
I close my eyes and wer'e together
I close my eyes so I can see
I close my eyes because I miss you
I close my eyes , once more we're we
we hit the disco era running
more run away than run toward
on every street there was a prophet
selling the new word of the lord
the beatles quit and that was tragic
elvis died and that was worse
our music wasn't just evolving
our music was leaving in a hearse
I close my eyes just to focus
I close my eyes to make you clear
I close my eyes so I remember
I close my eyes to bring you near
I close my eyes and wer'e together
I close my eyes so I can see
I close my eyes because I miss you
I close my eyes , once more we're we
the eighties was about consumption
we took ******* like all the rest
you were judged by your possessions
to have the most made you the best
in the nineties things were different
our lives were both put deep on hold
the doctor called and said a tumor
I remember all I felt was cold
I close my eyes just to focus
I close my eyes to make you clear
I close my eyes so I remember
I close my eyes to bring you near
I close my eyes and wer'e together
I close my eyes so I can see
I close my eyes because I miss you
I close my eyes , once more we're we
decades no longer counted
time went by just day by day
stage four was the conclusion
I mean what else was there to say
I lost you late that summer
you passed away after a fight
you battled hard to keep on living
before you ventured to the light
I close my eyes just to focus
I close my eyes to make you clear
I close my eyes so I remember
I close my eyes to bring you near
I close my eyes and wer'e together
I close my eyes so I can see
I close my eyes because I miss you
I close my eyes , once more we're we
I have the pictures to remind me
but, you are clearer to me when
I close my eyes, let my mind wander
I go back now to way back then
I can't describe you to another
unless I see you in my mind
I close my eyes and I am happy
my life is better when i'm blind
I close my eyes just to focus
I close my eyes to make you clear
I close my eyes so I remember
I close my eyes to bring you near
I close my eyes and wer'e together
I close my eyes so I can see
I close my eyes because I miss you
I close my eyes , once more we're we
Apr 14, 2014
Apr 14, 2014 at 11:33 PM UTC
Lately I've been feeling as if everything I'm writing belongs
under the kitchen sink with all the Comet and various brands of bleach and the
rest of the junk cleaning supplies that haven't been used since
the early nineties.
Ideas are scarce,
thoughts aren't making the cut,
and I feel like I'm in a more disconcerting version of ***** Wonka's glass elevator
riding robotically in this box,
puncturing others' moments with its corners like they're
gigantic, ecstasy-encompassed balloons
capable of doing nothing more than
launching weak waves of laughter
that languidly dissipate when they reach the
hard exterior of my cage
Jan 23, 2013
Jan 23, 2013 at 2:59 PM UTC
Blackbirds backwards
and your solid foil to my boiling yawn
is remembered
I’ll always love you my dude
even though it’s mostly memory now
we travelled odd eighties early nineties
hinterlands
full of clear stupidities and hidden
immutable truths
but I’ll always hold
ridiculous dry heated cricket pitches,
run dark *** and loose joints
as what drove us
“What should we do today?”
“I dunno”
Jun 18, 2021
Jun 18, 2021 at 6:09 PM UTC
Sometimes I can feel it yes I can
I'm wrapped around your little finger yes I am
The way you do my head it just ain't no good
The way you do my head not like a good girl should
She'll slink up behind you bro
She hid in the garden don't you know
Everybody said she was before her time
She'll sneak up behind you and commit the perfect crime
But it's alright yes it's okay
I'll get some of what I need just for today
The coffee's going down and I'm waking up
She has a whole lot of baggage enough to fill a truck
Down by the waterfront she'll take the plunge
She made it through the nineties she lived through grunge
She'll sneak up behind you bro
She hid in the garden don't you know
Everyone was saying that she's before her time
She'll sneak up behind you and commit the perfect crime
Jun 18, 2015
Jun 18, 2015 at 1:42 PM UTC
I dreamt he sent
a care package
A shabby box
filled with
wall sconces
from his
******** apartment
half filled tablets
thoughts and doodles
with a note
to not abuse
substances
and a really nice
vinyl pressing of
some nineties
spoken word piece
with one or
another unknown
ska
alt rock
grunge
band
That sure was nice
of him
I must have
sent some good
psychic *****
Spirits
they call it
Sep 26, 2021
Sep 26, 2021 at 12:20 PM UTC
The war began at Fort Sumter
It was launched by the greys not the blues
John Brown defended his actions
It was now the South's war to lose
Brothers were turned against brothers
The states were at war from that night
The country was clearly in trouble
And with one shot, did begin the fight
It's time to celebrate freedom
On a day eating hot dogs and pie
Towns decorated with bunting
As fire works light up the sky
In the summer of nineteen sixteen
On an island known here as "Black Tom"
Munitions reserved for the allies
Were sabotaged, bullet and bomb
The US now entered the World War
They were allies but not really allied
When another plant blew up in Kingsland
America, came in from the side
It's time to celebrate freedom
On a day eating hot dogs and pie
Towns decorated with bunting
As fire works light up the sky
The second world war was in progress
America was sitting it out
When Japanese planes bombed Pearl Harbour
They were at war, of this there was no doubt
Almost one half of a million
Americans died in that war
They died fighting for freedom
Just think, there could have been more
It's time to celebrate freedom
On a day eating hot dogs and pie
Towns decorated with bunting
As fire works light up the sky
Television brought war to the masses
A young soldier seen from Ojai
Interviewed leaving for battle
He was leaving, not hoping to die
Veterans came back to no fanfare
They weren't hero's, the war was not theirs
Back home, they now fought a new battle
Thrown away, where nobody cares
It's time to celebrate freedom
On a day eating hot dogs and pie
Towns decorated with bunting
As fire works light up the sky
The Gulf War began in the nineties
A war fought like none ever seen
Targets were sighted by missiles
Watched on monitors all lit up in green
And then came nine eleven
The war was now brought to our land
I support the soldiers for going to battle
And if you meet one, go shake his hand
It's time to celebrate freedom
On a day eating hot dogs and pie
Towns decorated with bunting
As fire works light up the sky
Freedom is something you fight for
It's something you celebrate too
Sons, Daughters and wives have laid down their lives
So we can all live like we do
It's time to celebrate freedom
On a day eating hot dogs and pie
Towns decorated with bunting
As fire works light up the sky
May 10, 2017
May 10, 2017 at 9:02 PM UTC
There are little folds on your neck
as you sleep
that look like hair scrunchies, I am a little girl
again though in a big man’s embrace.
You were born in the eighties
I am a child of the nineties, had a neopets
sugar daddy at age ten
and I think it could have been you, you, you
that painted my acara rainbow
told me it is okay
to be gay and straight at the same time.
I have not looked at a girl since you
nor remembered how their skirts felt rubbing
unfolding against my thigh.
I had not even said “yes”
to anyone before your big man embrace
because I thought that being silent
was the same
and I think Peter Pan stunted your maturity
so you could help me grow up
too.
May 10, 2013
May 10, 2013 at 4:25 PM UTC
*This is a club scene poem, so
imagine classics from the nineties
and fearless girls drinking from beer tins-
this is that night you want to omit
and not remember,
this is every night you’ve had to dance
and not wanted to.*
He dropped his drink
for the red-bra-girl;
she thought it the rain,
but instead it were a wasted
drink down the cigarette drain.
Girls in Jack Daniels
who don’t like whiskey
nor dances,
nor the sting of alcohol
upon their tongue.
Jan 24, 2013
Jan 24, 2013 at 12:11 PM UTC
And I really do mean men. And mostly white men.
I learned that at Columbia film school
In LA, at USC, all those male filmmakers were somewhat suspect
What they made, could not often be called "art" but even worse
they tended to extreme geekines
They wore ***** athletic shoes everywhere and spent long hours on sets
in t-shirts, wearing caps with the name of their film on them and not smelling particularly fresh
They were not particularly athletic in a city that sport "muscle beach."
But here, they were MEN. They could hold their own in any test of masculinity
as art is a serious undertaking, and requires great powers of the intellect
And here, where most life is spent indoors, the men dressed well,
in proper leather shoes that had names, and followed the fashion of the bohemian moment
which was not considered bad, maybe because you need clothes so much there
You are always freezing or sweltering and sweating. You freeze outside in winter
and you sweat when you come indoors. In the summer you boil outside in hot
and air conditioned New York, like you are in purgatory, and then freeze again in the air conditioning
To have that artistic authority, no woman can come close
It isn't a woman's world, at least in the early nineties in New York, it wasn't
Such a dissapointment for me since I thought I could somehow slip through by sheer cleverness
It's like a black person hoping to be identified as white. It can't be done.
There was a place for me, like no matter where I hid in a cinematography class
in the front, middle or back I always became the woman who is photographed
to demonstrate lighting
"You learn the most up here" said Beta Badka, in a thick Ukrainian accent as he set me on a stool
But that's not where I wanted to be
I longed to be taken seriously, telling stories about women, about girls
and having them be respected with that same cache
that came with stories of men
Nov 25, 2012
Nov 25, 2012 at 8:10 PM UTC