"officious" poems
I was looking when I got lost
ignoring the bill when I saw the cost
Saw my future in the turbulent waters
Of the porcelain pool into which I was tossed
Bemoaning yet accepting the fate I was enduring
Upon hearing the sound of the handles clank
I relinquished all control
as I began to roll
Gave no fight of self preservation. as I sank
The echoing swoosh left its sound in my ears
Then solid darkness closed in tight
So much more vivid than night in absence of light
The water was thick and seemed to be swallowing me down
Any oxygen of life seemed a fast fading memory
As all the while I could feel a gathering momentum
Like a ride through some putrafied tunnel of .... well...now all ephemeral in it's sudden ephemerality
As I was
Blasted loose from that officious muck
Propelled far far beyond the cascading flow
as a lust for life returned in a flash
I flicked one fin and then the other before allowing sweet gravity
To carry me down affording me that glorious splash.
Wow! It thought ' this is an enormous and wondrous bowl '
Oh oh oh!
That poor little goldfish that had suddenly become the hapless to happy victim
Of a frustrated and angry parent who had lost all control!!!
GOOD LUCK little one...you will need all you get!
Question/ riddle of sorts.
Anyone know the reason for my naming the. poem this ... bit of
i _ _ _ _ _ twist?
Jan 5, 2019
Jan 5, 2019 at 12:24 PM UTC
the lockers rife with clowns and the frittering of time as the ***** boys got ready to work their ***** minds down at the ***** factory and boast about ***** things too often degrading and unkind.
I tried to stay out of it
until one officious co-worker
had the gall to ask,
“what’s your preference in women?”
whereby, my response was,
“I see my women like flavors;
white women are too bland,
black women are too flavorful and
Indian women are a bit over-seasoned.
you need the right amount of spice.
Latina women got it but they cheat
so, I’d have to go with Asian women.
they’re perfection is unmatched.”
laughter emerged and rumbled
down the grey factory walls
where the metal tin roof had rattled,
the ***** air pervaded with rust and tears
and a mouthful of peanuts were spat onto a grimy floor
they laughed and kept on laughing
until their bellies burst
never have they heard such
a response like that before
and I just went back to work,
treading in the depths of my own conviction,
not really seeing why I wasn’t
being taken so
seriously.
Jun 6, 2025
Jun 6, 2025 at 11:07 AM UTC
The Street Cleaner
He is not a lucky man, but he is happy but one day he won on a lottery ticket,
not a not a big sum of money but enough to by wheelbarrow got permission
from the local council to keep the town's streets clean. Happy, telling himself
he was self- employed and could sleep till nine in the morn if he wanted to.
A busy bee a busy bee he was till he collided with Mercedes was taken to court
and his wheelbarrow was confiscated to pay for the damage. He had a bike and
got a local garage to put a two- wheel contraption to fasten to his bike, the town
got rid of its trash again until an officious policeman asked him if he had a licence
for this he didn't and it was confiscated. Now he had a jute sack slung on his proud
shoulders and a walking stick with a nail attached, a weapon a police officer said
he was carrying a weapon in public and he was prosecuted. He didn't show up
to the hearing and when the law came around, he hung from a rafter sometimes
even serious optimists give up and with no cleaner the town sank into misery,
plagued by vermin the population fled, a town given into paper napkins pizza boxes
and burger wrappers and the poor who had nowhere to go. And if this reflects
the life of a typical inner city of our English speaking world it is purely incidental.
Aug 14, 2015
Aug 14, 2015 at 3:42 AM UTC
That rusty needle to my skin always make me crack a grin but only for a moment. It pierces me like a fearless bee trying to find a way to survive. I know it's bad and it doesn't feel good, but it's the only thing I know. I'm so used to your shameless games and your nameless frame I forgot how to glow. You're my ironic drug dealer. You're a hypocritical ****** hero who is always so officious with your feel. I don't want to feel that's why I feel you cause you're numb. Your heart is made of shallow ruins while your mind is made of city streets. I try to run but I need the needle piercing deeply in my epidermis as I weep "call the pity police" but no one comes because there is no pity. You never drug me on purpose I stick the needle in myself, knowing I'm going to need better health. I'm choosing your satisfaction over my beating heart. One day this needle, this drug, this feel, it will all go away, and I will find more drugs to help me stay, alive.
Apr 15, 2013
Apr 15, 2013 at 12:02 AM UTC
Isn't it strange living in another person's head?
It's like Being John Malkovich,
or Anne Sexton
as I rode along with her
wild rides into sand at the beach,
lost in Boston again,
inside a mind
that was different but still mine
because I saw
that very street lamp she did,
and in her advice to me,
that yet unborn memory
that would never be,
I heard her words in soft puffs
of nicotine-scented tickles
in my ear, warm air
before young lungs
had ever breathed in,
and I cried
because she was speaking to me,
though she never knew it
when the words clattered
from that old Remington
like a machine gun-
I was just an idea
she never really had,
a wish in soft feathery hair
on the chest of man
she shared lust with as he slept,
not knowing he would father
a specter delivered from a womb
that had closed for business.
Our walks
along an asylum lawn,
returning waves
to suspicious grass,
green oceans to get lost in
after sewing leather wallets
from our own hardened skins
as if projects could ever fix
the worlds of sin we lived in,
pandering doctors offering
officious pretense of cure
against the sweet furies
of sunrises, sunsets,
earth worms and *****
So, can I cry
having crossed a divide
into another,
for moments residing
in the soul and belly of a mother
who was never mine,
though I feel her pain
as if we own it together?
Apr 18, 2010
Apr 18, 2010 at 6:59 PM UTC
Gotama was unlicensed
went to graduate school
in caves along rivers
eating one grain a day
seeking the happy place
where great beasts and ships
gratefully anchor and lie in the sun.
Christ laughed at thin laws
refused to relent
poured glowing love
all over the Pharisees
and isn't it sad
that officious therapists
blindfolded to the heart
spew grey diagnoses
to describe pathologies
ignoring the daimons
of each soul
labeled in their great sad files.
Rumi cut a great poem
into his thigh with a dagger
and loved when people read it . . .
Smell the wind. Eat mutton.
Do not waste your days
inventing litanies of sadness
looking for broken places
in your heart.
When the doctor asks for his fee
reach inside your chest
pull out your heart
hold it before him
say nothing.
Apr 9, 2012
Apr 9, 2012 at 9:25 AM UTC
There’d been a factory here once,
Squat red brick structure
Suffused with too much noise and too little ventilation,
Built for the purpose of making typewriters,
Unwieldy, cacophonous clanking anachronisms
Whose time, like the town it occupied,
Had long since come and gone,
The only businesses on the sad little main drag
Being those shabby, tattered concerns
Which flower, improbable and cactus-like
At the intersection of the vagaries of memory
And the ascent of decay.
Nothing sits here now,
Simply an empty lot returning to Nature,
Although half-hearted attempts
To accelerate that process have not taken root,
As the soil, fouled by metal shavings, solvents,
And only God knows what else,
Has proved less than amenable
To anything save weedy shoots and scrubby boxwoods,
So it sits empty, impossible to build upon
(There is liability in every spike of crabgrass,
A potential lawsuit in every patch of clover)
And wholly impractical as parkland.
The firm which owned the site erected a fence
To keep whatever was in there in and everyone else out
(In their final addition of injury to insult,
The check they gave to the fencing company in payment
Bounced higher than a child’s rubber ball)
But a generation of winters and general inattention
Have left the chain-links a patchwork affair,
And though the “POSTED” signs remain
(Their original angry and officious red
Having faded to a benign maroon),
Enforcement of their edicts is spotty at best,
So we sit, unbothered and alone,
On an odd little mound at the back of the lot
As the dusk begins to take hold,
I, in an act of mad optimism, the peculiar positing
That there are good things yet to come,
Grab your hand, intertwining the fingers with mine.
Aug 16, 2018
Aug 16, 2018 at 10:56 AM UTC
...besides the LORD, and my menfolk: Nobody.
(sonnet #MMMMMCMLXXXIX)
I meant to 'gin: Officious. Sunday thence
With echoes of religious duties they'll
Assure you's needful, 'til in sheer betrayl
Tis sin to not be there and an offense
To sleep-in, whilst the shabby bow from hence
To cold hauteur and know god has a scale
Whereby we measure worth by gain's detail--
But I've forgotten whither, in a sense.
Come, which is better? Oh yes, to be sure
Like he said 'long ere: "say whatever--" to
Add, "--but stand on it too." If church is poor
Cuz that's pretense, so is aught falsehood. Do
I be a hyp'crite in love too, well you're
Allowed to censure me. Who owns me? Who?
23Oct16a
Oct 23, 2016
Oct 23, 2016 at 11:25 PM UTC
A is for anything to end this suffering
B is for broken, breaking like my fragile state
C is for careful, cautious of these eggshells
D is for disaster, destruction of what we had
E is for empty, emotionless cries in the night
F is for false, fake like the lies we tell ourselves
G is for grief, grieving not over the dead but mistakes
H is for horrible, hatred the purest of black
I is for insanity, insomnia plaguing my sleep
J is for jaded, just lacking in many emotional departments
K is for knavish, kiddish behaviour I exemplify
L is for lost, losing faith, happiness and you
M is for mistakes, monster at heart and in action
N is for nonsensical, never-ending
O is for officious, obnoxious demeanour and persona
P is for pathetic, powerless to make the right moves
Q is for quitter, quick to leave and walk away
R is for resentment, relationships aren't for men like me
T is for turmoil, turbulence beneath the wings of trouble
U is for understatement, underestimating
V is for violent, vindictive almost as if by nature
W is for wishful, waiting for something new
X is for xenodochial, but never to those who matter most
Y is for youthful, yokelish and distasteful to be around
Z is for zany, pertaining to the cause of most problems
Jul 15, 2016
Jul 15, 2016 at 8:49 PM UTC
It was one of those places which,
We were instructed with stern tones
And the occasional smack to the ****
That we were not to go,
A place of childhood sing-song
(*River man, river man
He’ll sink his teeth right in your can*)
And, later, of clandestine beers and smokes,
Or furtive encounters
With steady sweethearts and short-term solutions.
He’d set up something akin to a lean-to
Hard by a reasonably well-sheltered bank,
One wall of rocky dirt, the other comprised of lumber
Which had been abandoned or purloined or somewhere in between,
And if you resided in that narrow niche
Where you were too old to be scared shitless of him,
And too young to dismiss him out of hand,
He was of a mind to accept a bit of company,
Possibly share a bit of somewhat-warm, store-brand soup,
Even a bit of coffee, if you’d developed the taste for it.
He’d been in the merchant marine, or so he claimed,
Driven there by the search for some constancy
He’d never been privy to in a land-locked world,
Figuring the ceaseless expanse of the ocean
And the regularity of shipboard routine the vessel to all that.
He’d been deeply disappointed, of course,
The waters a kaleidoscopic maelstrom of blues, grays, and purples,
Alternately hammock-smooth and Gothic furious,
All in nothing even mildly evocative of the regularity of the seasons,
And so, he intimated, he’d jumped ship in some unglamorous port,
Living on the run (though for how long was an open question,
And the whos and whys of his prospective captors
Not a subject that he nor his listeners were of a mind to broach)
But he’d never quite been able to shake the lure of the water,
And so he’d set up housekeeping by this particular stream,
Convinced the current held some epiphany, some augury
Which occasional suggested but never truly spoke to him
(*Can’t trust the water, and can’t trust the land,
And that hain’t left me much ‘n terms of other options,*
He was wont to cackle twice or thrice an hour.)
One day, before some of us were of a mind to see him leave,
He was gone, leaving no trace behind,
Perhaps run off by some officious sheriff’s deputy,
Perhaps by his own leave, searching for some river bed
Which spoke more sweetly, more distinctly,
Or perhaps he came to believe there was a third dwelling option
Somewhere on the banks of the jet stream its ownself.
Jan 5, 2017
Jan 5, 2017 at 9:54 AM UTC
Nothing has changed ,when they ended this law game .
Before its Negate,it had just remained a name .
Still young is Ousted, knocking the doors for a job.
They had become feeble ,day and night they only sob.
Dread in the people ,if they Distle for their Right.
In the prison,how they can be out for a day light .
From home to office ,Nowhere they are seeing their fate.
At all ending ,dither of youth is going to be so bate.
Going to Pvt. schools,by set down a resume there.
All is good,but we can not give You 1500 above here.
Everyone is praying for Us,Officious for us to be alive.
Love from the family ,they never ever let us to Drive.
Hope the "Head" will feel,the youth as their own.
Will do for them ,a great ,as for and very soon
Apr 13, 2020
Apr 13, 2020 at 1:55 PM UTC
Restless to know
if she would reciprocate,
for tomorrow I can’t wait.
A smile, a suggestive glance, even a blush
will keep me going
in this city of mush.
Officious night ,
obstacle to day
slumber away to make way.
Dec 20, 2021
Dec 20, 2021 at 3:15 AM UTC
You can twist the way a man sees the world.
Do you think that sounds ridiculous?
What if you did it over time with subtlety and diligence?
The audience is largely uneducated, so remind them of their impotence; tell them any other source of facts must be regarded with suspiciousness.
Whisper to them over breakfast and slowly introduce corrosive dissonance; outright lie to them at dinner,salting in some truth for spicy antithesis.
Those who run the country are up to something mischievous; their lives, their fine America, have been eroding with precipitance.
Remember empowered yesterdays with a sad and tearful wistfulness; twist the needs and rights of others with pernicious lies and maliciousness.
Invest their government with conspiracy and its policies with wickedness. Remind your audience that freedom was torn from kings by well-armed militias.
Introduce the savior as a shining instrument of religiousness; defend his faults as small and frivolous and his right to rule as unambiguous.
When shocking reality dares assert itself, denials must be vicious and officious.
A rescue mission must be launched and certainly they must be participants; banners from the gift shop will form a team identity and a certain moral equivalence.
The leader will whip the angry crowd, stoking resentment with fabricated incidents, swearing, “I will be with you on this great crusade and you will be my instruments”
As the mob storms off he will slink away; he was only there for stimulus.
Hear the old republic creak as the President flexes his insolence; he’s seen that no blame can touch him, so he’s filled with proud ambivalence.
What will it take to rein him in? What kind of obvious stimulant, with thousands already dying every day and our society marbled with brittleness?
Jan 8, 2021
Jan 8, 2021 at 8:44 AM UTC
Because “Harm” (cool nickname) and “Mac” (again!)
Being both in the Navy and also at the same time
Lawyers
Are doubly entitled to be officious, full of **** and themselves
******
Yet really are
in spite of this entitlement
two of the most lovable Lawyers no, Characters no, people no, beings no, spirits
in the history of
shows at 9pm no, prime time television no, television no, theater no, performance arts no, arts no, art no, human experience
wait
I think I went maybe 1 too far
Plus
That short fat chubby guy whose name I can't at this point remember (he's sadly funny)
Plus
The Admiral
who always seems to be
at a minimum
mildly ****** off
at all times
reminding us
that while “Harm” and “Mac”
are off at home
near the end of the show
enjoying their lives
The Admiral will be, (usually) unshown, in the wee hours
in his office, pushing the paper
that makes the World go Round
Feb 12, 2019
Feb 12, 2019 at 5:16 PM UTC
The weekend sprinted past without acknowledgement. More time travel than sleep. Feels like I never left this desk. Did I go outside? Sunlight is a forgotten fancy. Everything buzzes in artificial, mercury-vapour gas-discharge, office white.
Strong coffee, mouth-only smile, and emergency chocolate at-the-ready.
Digital calendar fairy sweeps her wand - plink.
Upcoming meeting onset.
Wince.
Nearly go-time.
Deep breath.
I need help.
Close my eyes and consider my options.
In silent prayer, I call on my battle-allies. My conflict squad for the tiny, inconsequential campaigns that are laid out before me, scheduled neatly in 30-minute increments.
Sarcastic skirmishes with witless weapons. Budgetary disbursement battlegrounds, each heralded by a twinkly bright plink. Officious double agents and grinning traitors. Good sense and basic decency defeated ad nauseam.
Inwardly, I flick through my mental deck of cards. Mythic personality avatars. Figurative and emblematic. Mostly trusted, often helpful allies and collaborators. My squad. Grown over years. Battle-honed when the stakes were substantially higher.
Nine of Swords, Nymph Aegina
Scared and small. Of water and steel
Daughter of rivers
Mistrust, despair
Reduce, retreat, conceal
Queen of Swords, Pallas Athena
Warriors and winter. Shrewd and tough
Strength and judgement
Challenge, compel
Defeat, critique, rebuff
King of Cups, Charles the Great
Gifted and keen. Springtime and fire
Patron of culture
Consider, rethink
Exhort, create, inspire
Five of Wands, keening Achos
Dust and torment. Deep distress
Bringer of weeping
Commend, lament
Regret, bewail, profess
Queen of Wands, Lady of Lorien
Fearless and brave. Of summer and tree
Wielder of Light
Perform, protect
Assert, direct, decree
I select our Lady, knowing that Aegina and Achos may vie for a cameo.
Channelling my Queen of Wands,
I arrange my face
and await the knock at the door.
Oct 28, 2024
Oct 28, 2024 at 5:42 AM UTC