"opposing" poems
jordan is a star athlete,
envied by all
on the opposing teams.
jordan is also creative,
and intelligent,
and an all-round amazing
human.
jordan is strong,
and powerful,
but also delicate
and emotional.
jordan wants you to know
that she doesn't have to
conform to gender stereotypes.
she knows her place in
this world -
she knows that her place is
wherever she wants it to be.
she is independent
and doesn't need your negativity :)
- v.m
Aug 9, 2018
Aug 9, 2018 at 9:30 AM UTC
Papers, Papers, Papers
Whiter than aching teeth,
Whiter than whites of tilted eyes,
Whiter than funeral wreaths.
My hands shake as I write this,
Filed away myths; Stolen lined sheets
My index finger chained by red tapes,
words mix and ground breaks,
I'm the one the world forsakes
Yellow maize, littered leaves,
all twisted into
black ink and clean sharp white paper blades.
-------"I am in a bit of daze," I tell myself, "look at those flaccid bits;
there lay the logs who use to be the jungle of my childhood dreams."
------"Don't be amazed," I replied, "these leafless branches and twigs are for
your Papier-Mâché degrees."
So I listen to my second self once,
the more logical cynical satirical one,
Treading on the plot of their paper works,
playing crosswords as anxiety uncork
my thoughts turn to the bankable orcs,
just as my career forks
Maybe I should be like my mother,
Marking numbers on a deck of cards-- waltzing with Chance.
Maybe I should be like my father,
Toiling for some rich men's grandson-- seething in Trance.
Maybe I should be like the Other,
Going along with the system-- thanking myself
beneath a cap, a diploma, a piece of paper.
I wore these books like bank notes tuxedoes,
I was promised the world by the credits I borrowed.
Must I go along with the mechanism of their game,
or should I rise up against all odds
Opposing, debating, rebelling against
this bundle, this trouble, funneling me into no-tomorrows
Or must I write it all down,
in my prayers against their lawyers, who need no reminds
Or must I shred, smear, and tear the papers with my own bare hands
But what will I ever be to them, friends?
A papercut, perhaps.
Aug 19, 2018
Aug 19, 2018 at 9:33 PM UTC
What they don’t tell you in school,
while you’re trying to remember
the difference between prophase and metaphase
chromosomes and chromatin
is that really
biology isn’t science
biology is life
See, divorce
divorce is like mitosis
slow to start, but quick to finish
Begins at prophase
when conflicts arise as your family’s nucleolus,
your family’s unity
disappears
Your carefree life, your chromatin,
coil and change
become tight, tense chromosomes
Outside forces, mitotic spindles,
residing in the cytoplasm
start creeping towards your parents
to separate their souls
Metaphase:
you’re all lined up
single file
ready for battle
Centrosomes, middles of each new life,
poised opposing each other
with their spindles latched onto you kinetochore, your middle,
like a dog with it’s leash
Anaphase:
everything separates,
your world’s torn apart
and you’re left silently
watching
alone
as your sister is torn from your life
Telophase:
the pain starts to lessen
as you uncoil
and your broken family’s nuclear membrane
begins to reform
Once the paper’s are signed
once the cell’s wall’s rebuilt
your old life is over
and the process
it’s finished
See, they don’t tell you
don’t think you need to know
that
divorce is simply biology
and
mitosis
well, it’s life
Oct 29, 2014
Oct 29, 2014 at 12:21 AM UTC
750
Growth of Man—like Growth of Nature—
Gravitates within—
Atmosphere, and Sun endorse it—
Bit it stir—alone—
Each—its difficult Ideal
Must achieve—Itself—
Through the solitary prowess
Of a Silent Life—
Effort—is the sole condition—
Patience of Itself—
Patience of opposing forces—
And intact Belief—
Looking on—is the Department
Of its Audience—
But Transaction—is assisted
By no Countenance—
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Dear Unity, be proud of the work you've done.
Working day and night, leaving complaints to none.
With your calm blue aura, full of peace.
People from sadness and separation, you release.
Dear Unity, extending the branches of your unifying tree,
Watching over like a flock of birds flying free.
Amalgamate the opposing forces of destruction and war,
Spare them from the unnecessary deaths and gore.
Dear Unity, reunite us with our long lost friends,
So there will be happiness and laughter as broken hearts mend.
Clear the miserable loneliness haunting around,
And stop at no cost until the cure is found.
Dear Unity, oh unity, our guardian angel in disguise,
Getting rid of the hatred, betrayal and the emotion; despise.
Dear Unity, you are all for one and one for all,
Thank you for being there every time we fall.
Jun 11, 2014
Jun 11, 2014 at 6:15 PM UTC
I'm bisexual
Or "bi"
This doesn't mean
"Wants *********
It means
"Sexually attracted to my gender and my opposing gender"
I love boys and girls
This doesn't mean
"She can't make up her mind"
It means
"I was born bisexual"
I just came out
This doesn't mean
"Attention seeker" or "just a phase"
It means
"I'm just now feeling comfortable enough to tell you"
I'm bisexual and really proud of it.
It means that
"I don't care about the haters and I'm happy with who I am."
Jun 30, 2015
Jun 30, 2015 at 1:14 AM UTC
This little man that I know with money in his sockets and routine in his pockets has self proclaimed that he is a tight *** When I envision a *** such as this, I imagine a bundle -- of securely aggregated, perfectly sharpened number two pencils. The businessman just shy of adulthood and too tired to remember –even the beginning of his of disclosure, denied his struggle to acclimate a multifarious lifestyle, appropriately suggested in the form of a triangle, and a circle, both of which embody polar opposing adaptations of humanistic routine.
The two shapes: The circle, denies the break in motion by imposing a constant cycle of diligent compression, there is no room for pause only steady flow and relentless drive. This influence of life impression slows down the heart, body, and soul while speeding up time. This particular commitment accommodates the dry colorless beings that embrace and accept boxed imprisonment.
Traditionally, the triangle denotes rhythmic patterns that elevate and drop to a point in which imposes a healthy reflective pause: progression, reflection, balance. As stated, as a provincial approach, a regular triangle flat on its base, peaking at the top represents a healthy, solid life routine. In contrast, the triangle can be flipped upside-down introducing an entirely new dynamic, composed of flat-lined monotony, tapered off to a regressed realm of destruction, regret and disorder. Despite the uniqueness of the standard triangle model to the man in question, it is important to compare the negative reflection, for it applies to the entirety of this investigation.
We used to be lovers, he and I. We shared my giant pillow-top that I bought on the black market for a meager two-hundred fifty. -- A mere steal at that rate.
We occasionally exchanged ideas, mainly about ethical concerns related to globalization and the environment.
I attempted to give him a cooking lesson once, but that failed, indefinitely. The bust was not my doing, but simply, a great disinterest on his part; or better yet an inability of not being better than me at something.
Everything has gotten so crowded.
Jan 18, 2010
Jan 18, 2010 at 1:17 AM UTC
Amid the verbose magicians
Seeking kinships
And sailing deep into their arduous mists
Watching them peddle their afternoon
To a handful of smiling children holding their breath
Amazed in gentle body trick
The older men of age
Leaning deep into their creased chins
Stroking the grizzled fat
Blinding light of soul
Staring down the barrel of life
Striking the enemy one last time
And yet smiling
sober,
Met of match,
taking care of their kids.
Then there's the cold-clocked dudes
On the phone pushing buttons
In a button-up raglan
Lost indistinct
the promised land
The golden shores swept away by
inconvenient time
Left shopping in an auto mall
"Won't you look at the time?"
7.07 APR
Boy what a steal!
And Steve maddened and screamed
As the lines blurred instinctual between opposing teams
And the oven dinged a great alabaster slant
Leaning towards the new millenitants
Rise up!
***** the wheel
Turn the axel from pistons
To alkaline metal
And doubt with great monumental
Quality
That the machine borders all
And we cannot retreat
And while I sift bouyantly between the waves
Searching the puzzle piece within the molecules
Reconnecting with the things
And representing
dreams on a 66 hertz screen
I call rather failing
Towards a black rocked shore
Towards the sweet Dorigen
Of my dreams
Finding an integral of time
And space
And calculating the intangible slope
Of my desmise
With the imaginary constiutent
Of that lighted mind.
Jul 30, 2018
Jul 30, 2018 at 4:24 PM UTC
the human heart and the human mind
two paradoxical entities, that seem
forever at odds
and yet, for a pair that has
such incontestably opposing objectives
the two are rather similar in their endeavours
to achieve the means
to their respective ends.
they're both searching.
constantly.
and they don't seem to know
what they're looking for.
but the day they stop seeking
is the day the heart will stop beating
and the mind will abandon its working.
raaste alag, manzil ek.
Sep 22, 2014
Sep 22, 2014 at 10:06 AM UTC
It was the end of the world when Ares met Mars
Supposed to be counterparts, brothers in arms
But on opposing sides they stood
Couldn’t see eye to eye
And instead of stemming the blood
Each took an eye for an eye
Until in time the whole world went blind
The sword attacked and the spear struck back
But that’s what happens when cultures clash
When cultures collide
With anger and hatred it starts to divide
But nobody wins, cos the dead look the same on both sides
It was the mother of all storms when Jupiter met Zeus
There could have been a deuce; could have called a truce
But each wanted more and more
The two as black as thunder
And instead of stopping the war
Each stole the other’s thunder
Until in time the whole world went under
The thunder attacked and the lightning struck back
But that’s what happens when cultures clash
When cultures collide
With anger and hatred it starts to divide
But nobody wins, cos the dead look the same on both sides
The underworld shook when the earth caved in
Pluto and Hades together couldn’t take us all in
We didn’t see when being heartless
In wanting the best of both worlds
That the second of the two would be darkness
And together the weight of the worlds
Would send us crashing down to Tartarus
The rivers overflowed and the fires turned to ash
But that’s what happens when cultures clash
Dec 16, 2016
Dec 16, 2016 at 7:54 PM UTC
His brother’s on my arm;
Cursing the opposing appendage,
For I’d killed his only sibling.
And I’d lie.
And I’d die.
I’d admit to none other,
But come the beer-scented blood he’d know –
My sibling’d just been married.
My other sibling’d just cursed mom.
My other sibling’d kissed a girl.
And the other, more just than most,
Ventured nether; near and dying.
Leaving me ripe
And if only pursued, by all that’d ever odyssey;
Family, vengeance and nature.
So to, brother feeds.
And I’d lie.
And I’d die.
And I’d admit to none other –
His caress and how my arm’d gone lukewarm.
The only, “kiss,” in years and almost a first,
Come lonely soul to feed, in addition a few more.
Jun 11, 2015
Jun 11, 2015 at 9:24 AM UTC
The Story
by Kamal Nasser
translation by Michael R. Burch
I will tell you a story ...
a story that lived in the dreams of my people,
a story that comes from the world of tents.
It is a story inspired by hunger and embellished by dark nights of terror.
It is the story of my country, a handful of refugees.
Every twenty of them have a pound of flour between them
and a few promises of relief ... gifts and parcels.
It is the story of the suffering ones
who stood waiting in line ten years,
in hunger,
in tears and agony,
in hardship and yearning.
It is a story of a people who were misled,
who were thrown into the mazes of the years.
And yet they stood defiant,
disrobed yet united
as they trudged from the light to their tents:
the revolution of return
into the world of darkness.
Kamal Nasser was a much-admired Palestinian poet and Palestinian Christian, who due to his renowned integrity was known as "The Conscience." He was a member of Jordan's parliament in 1956. He was murdered in 1973 by an Israeli death squad whose most notorious member was future Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Barak (born Ehud Brog) later ruled as Israel’s tenth Prime Minister from 1999 to 2001. His adopted Hebrew name Barak means "lightning." As a younger man, Brog/Barak was a member of a secret assassination unit that liquidated Palestinians in Lebanon and the occupied territories. In the 1973 covert mission Operation Spring of Youth in Beirut, which was part of the larger Operation Wrath of God, he disguised himself as a woman in order to assassinate Palestinians. The raid resulted in the deaths of two women, one of them an elderly Italian. Two Lebanese policemen were also killed, along with the poet Kamal Nasser.
Nasser was the PLO's most prominent Christian and he enjoyed "great appeal" in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq "both as a distinguished poet and likeable personality." He was the “conscience of the Palestinian revolution,” according to Nazih Abul-Nidal, who worked with him on the magazine Filastin al-Thawra. Nasser “had the most democratic outlook of all Palestinian leaders at the time,” he recalls. He respected opposing views, admired the commitment of young people, and was a major recruitment asset for the Palestinian revolution. “That is why he was put high on the hit-list.” The previous year, the Israelis had murdered another renowned Palestinian writer and activist in Beirut, Ghassan Kanafani, by booby-trapping his car. Nasser’s successor, Majed Abu Sharar, was also assassinated by Israelis, in Rome in 1981 while attending a conference in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Keywords/Tags: Kamal Nasser, Palestinian, Palestine, PLO, Conscience, Ramallah, Christian, religion, poet, Arab, Arabic, Arab Spring, betrayal, conflict, courage, devotion
Dec 9, 2021
Dec 9, 2021 at 7:55 AM UTC
When you come face to face with your own mind
Is all you find, growing wild within
Are your eyes seeking to find
The Golden Fleece
Once again
Are you suddenly fleeing where clouds have gathered
With a burning candle raised on high
Wondering if you have mastered
This profound race of life
Not a tear, you cry
Do you continue walking within opposing views
Saving certain parts of all you find
Thinking surely it’s up to you
To tame the wildness
In your mind
When you come face to face with your own mind
Can you gaze upon the wildness and smile
Not give a care if the fleece you find
Yet enjoy the journey
All the while
Jan 1, 2011
Jan 1, 2011 at 9:05 AM UTC
What little sunshine being recognised
Out of a storm flames approaching disorder
Building vast contradictions without impediment
Widespread in antiquity with alluring interpretations
Constituting mutilated transformations whose opposing
Lies stinking and fly swarmed, rotting at our feet
Jul 27, 2012
Jul 27, 2012 at 4:29 PM UTC
Looking at myself now,
I am not sure that I recognize
any piece of who
I used to be.
Our cells are constantly
replenishing and replacing,
and technically speaking,
I am not at all
the person I once was.
I understand that I
am a collection of my experiences
and that everything I have
done has led me to this moment.
I do not know what has come of
the choices I
made opposing this.
The patches of my skin
that only said yes
when they meant it have
peeled away and are
replaced by the fresh
tissue of compliance.
If I am
the sum of my experiences
then why are there no
scars on my thighs from
the times I smiled?
If I am
the sum of all of my experiences
then why is there
a fracture in my arm from
anger but not from love?
If I am really
the sum of all of my
experiences then
why does my body
only show my regrets?
May 1, 2014
May 1, 2014 at 8:53 PM UTC
one more for Joni and the one who accuses me of
"owning the courage to care so blatantly."
<:>
accused of writing with blatant courage,
a 4 credit requirement for caring
blatant is a word of merger -
open obvious unsubtle and unashamed
and a dissembling misleading one!
it is all of these and yet can be a contradictory mask of
opposing, differing faces
my blatant is none of these
but appearance only
**** muses keep me coming back
to a particular lyric,
keeps seeking me out, so successfully, wherever I go,
I hear it
it’s invading my both sides now
the dizzy dancing way you feel
you think I have my own blatant courage, untrue!
so oft you mistook my dizzy dancing,
all fluff all humbug so obvious so ashamed,
a cover up, a most subtle cosmetic pretense of the truth -
of
no courage at all
and yet (they mock)
you do care...
just another of my peculiar
life’s illusions
(self-delusions)
I really don’t have blatant courage at all
Jul 3, 2018
Jul 3, 2018 at 9:18 AM UTC
The sunrise greets the morning dew,
to paint the sky with a vibrant hue.
The last night has passed and a new days has come,
advertised perfectly by a morning’s sun.
Alarm clock birds hold no button to “snooze,”
nothing left from yesterday, so now nothing left to lose.
Go hesitantly wipe the sleep from your eyes,
and politely greet the oncoming sunrise.
The blissful sunset that once held the night,
sped off within our starry eyes so fast.
The brilliant, blinding, shining light,
tragically drifted off, lost in the past.
It separates the long days from the glorious dreams,
and divides them into hostile, opposing teams.
A sunrise and it’s rays can always carry hope,
that maybe one day it’s possible to move on.
Either surprise fairy tale, or tasteless joke,
maybe my sense of humour is just somewhat wrong.
So remember to always bless a sunrise,
but never, ever more than a sunset.
Both light up the passing, fading skies,
that cover our shaking regret.
At night, we all strive only to peacefully sleep,
to **** the hours before the sun makes horizon’s leap.
Apr 19, 2017
Apr 19, 2017 at 10:30 PM UTC
Don’t love me.
Please, don’t love me.
I know myself, we’re quite close actually, and let me tell you, you don’t want to fall for her,
you don’t want that girl, I hate her.
I hate her because I know her so well and I know how horrible the truth can smell.
Don’t love me, because even I know to hate myself,
the vanity that despite this loathing I might actually believe that someone could fall for me.
Don’t love me.
Don’t love me, because I met Heartbreak once and she left me gasping for air
and I will never meet her again.
I refuse, so if you love me, please be aware that when you do,
some day I am going to leave you, battered and bruised, because
twisted self-preservation has taught me all the tricks to keep myself afloat by drowning you.
Don’t love me.
Because as much as I will love you, I’m not friends with Commitment,
and whenever I see him on the horizon I set off running in the opposing direction.
I will treat you like there will be no oxygen unless I’m holding you,
but when you’re the one reaching for my hand I’ll become the wind.
Commitment is not my friend, I said, but no one listens.
Don’t love me, because I am a tornado, a storm to chase until I’ve taken everything from you.
Don’t love me.
Someday, you will be married and happy, and I will
whirl back into your life like the hurricane that has never been named after me, and
you will believe that all your scars
and your broken heart
have healed enough that you can run with me.
But I have razors between my fingers and wedged in my teeth,
and your scabbed over heartstrings will be powerless against me.
I am an expert at running, at hurting, at ‘maybe’s.
Don’t love me.
When you ask me for something more,
I will tell you that I am not ready, because I never will be.
Chances scare me, and trusting someone so much will always be risky.
I will tell you that I am not in the right place for your Commitment,
for your future Heartbreak,
and you will tell me that you understand but you’ll stick with me,
and fire will consume everything.
Don’t love me.
I can’t even go a few years with a friendship before
burning it all for at least a few evenings, but we’ll always rebuild the
rickety ashes of the bridges we’ve passed.
Don’t love me.
I’m only saying it for your safety.
Sep 27, 2015
Sep 27, 2015 at 11:22 PM UTC
* "Our cattle graze, the wind breathes." -Garcilaso *
It was my ancient voice
ignorant of thick bitter juices.
I sense it lapping my feet
beneath the fragile wet ferns.
Ay, ancient voice of my love,
ay, voice of my truth,
ay, voice of my open flank,
when all the roses flowed from my tongue
and grass knew nothing of horses' impassive teeth!
Here are you drinking my blood,
drinking my tedious childhood mood,
while in the wind my eyes are bludgeoned
by aluminum and drunken voices.
Let me pass the gates
where Eve eats ants
and Adam seeds dazzled fish.
Let me return, manikins with horns,
to the grove where I stretch
and leap with joy.
I know a rite so secret
it requires an old rusty pin
and I know the horror of open eyes
on a plate's concrete surface.
But I want neither world nor dream, nor divine voice,
I want my freedom, my human love
in the darkest corner of breeze that no oen wants.
My human love!
Those hounds of the sea chase each other
and the wind spies on careless tree trunks.
Oh ancient voice, burn with your tongue
this voice of tin and talc!
I long to weep because I want to,
as the children cry in the last row,
because I'm not man, nor poet, nor leaf,
but only a wounded pulse circling the things of the other side
I want to cry out speaking my name,
rose, child and fir-tree beside this lake,
to speak my truth as a man of blood
slay in myself teh tricks and turns of the word.
No, no. I'm not asking, I, desire,
voice, my freedom that laps my hands.
In the labyrinth of screens it's my nakedness receives
the moon of punishment and the ash-drowned clock.
Thus I was speaking.
Thus I was speaking with Saturn stopped the trains,
when the fod and Dream and Death were seeking me.
Seeking me
where the cows, with tiny pages' feet, bellow
and where my body floats between opposing fulcrums.
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(Author's Note: For those of you who have read "The Outsiders" by S.E. Hinton, here you go.)
I am used to insults
after seventeen long years.
I should be, I create
half of them
and suffer through all of the rest.
I lived in New York for part
of my life, so
I am also used to violence.
I am able to rebel against everyone,
opposing gangs, the Socs,
even my own little posse of greasers.
They are like brothers to me, and
I am willing to lay down my life for them.
Not that I'd ever say that out loud.
I am not without pride
and I have quite the reputation to uphold.
I am rough, tough,
and a guy you want to have
on your side in a rumble.
But at the same time, I have seen to much
for a kid my age.
Fighting, blood, and a good guy getting in trouble
with the law for something he didn't do.
Death is the worst.
I am affected most by this, so I have built up a wall.
I am truly the one on the edge of our gang.
I am an outsider.
I am a greaser, a hood,
and proud of it.
So you can call me what you want to,
but
I am used to insults
after seventeen long years.
Dec 2, 2012
Dec 2, 2012 at 7:50 PM UTC
354
From Cocoon forth a Butterfly
As Lady from her Door
Emerged—a Summer Afternoon—
Repairing Everywhere—
Without Design—that I could trace
Except to stray abroad
On Miscellaneous Enterprise
The Clovers—understood—
Her pretty Parasol be seen
Contracting in a Field
Where Men made Hay—
Then struggling hard
With an opposing Cloud—
Where Parties—Phantom as Herself—
To Nowhere—seemed to go
In purposeless Circumference—
As ’twere a Tropic Show—
And notwithstanding Bee—that worked—
And Flower—that zealous blew—
This Audience of Idleness
Disdained them, from the Sky—
Till Sundown crept—a steady Tide—
And Men that made the Hay—
And Afternoon—and Butterfly—
Extinguished—in the Sea—
5.1k
Derive the joy, magic and warmth of addition by connecting your soul to another's, yet remain independent as singular souls.
Meet the interference of envious, bitter and resentful subtraction which gives the process of separation from the souls you have connected to.
Both opposing forces with obstinate motivations coordinate unconsciously for the creation of an entrance-exit cycle in human interaction.
The pinnacle of human interaction is interceded by multiplication who compounds the congregation of the independent souls into a cohesive unit called groups and eventually society and nation.
Nevertheless met by the malevolent, destructive energy of division which ruthlessly breaks apart the products nurtured by multiplication, smashing them with propaganda, discrimination, and segregation.
O' how I exclaim that division is the truly nefarious power.
Apr 21, 2016
Apr 21, 2016 at 8:22 AM UTC
Can you spot those wild zebras,
trotting across noisy plains of green?
Can you spy them with binoculars,
huddling together in familiar scenes?
Can you observe these wild zebras,
emblazoned with their traditional stripes?
Can you recognize distinctive patterns
of opposing colors of black and white?
Can you form an opinion regarding
the thoughts of wild zebras at play?
Can any semblance of ‘Fashion Sense’
force a duality of stripes to rule the day?
Can you number the size of the herd
or even call out specific zebras by name?
See their necks encircled by dangling whistles,
as they continue… to officiate the football game.
-Joe Breunig,
Poet/Author, Reaching Towards His Unbounded Glory
Sep 18, 2013
Sep 18, 2013 at 2:32 PM UTC
Distance brings proportion. From here
the populated tiers
as much as players seem part of the show:
a constructed stage beast, three folds of Dante's rose,
or a Chinese military hat
cunningly chased with bodies.
"Falling from his chariot, a drunk man is unhurt
because his soul is intact. Not knowing his fall,
he is unastonished, he is invulnerable."
So, too, the "pure man"-"pure"
in the sense of undisturbed water.
"It is not necessary to seek out
a wasteland, swamp, or thicket."
The opposing pitcher's pertinent hesitations,
the sky, this meadow, Mantle's thick baked neck,
the old men who in the changing rosters see
a personal mutability,
green slats, wet stone are all to me
as when an emperor commands
a performance with a gesture of his eyes.
"No king on his throne has the joy of the dead,"
the skull told Chuang-tzu.
The thought of death is peppermint to you
when games begin with patriotic song
and a democratic sun beats broadly down.
The Inner Journey seems unjudgeably long
when small boys purchase cups of ice
and, distant as a paradise,
experts, passionate and deft,
hold motionless while Berra flies to left.
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