"overpopulated" poems
i called him my city
and so
before our door closed shut,
he asked me one thing
why?;
"it is nothing close to the countryside" i said
"polluted,overpopulated
-filled with wretched souls and dingy structures
dusty air and noisy traffic
and yet;
ill always call it home"
Sep 12, 2015
Sep 12, 2015 at 3:00 AM UTC
Our life puts the "Sh..." back in
"Chicago."
This pulse could race, slow to a dull thud or stop and curdle like the residents of a container of milk who've been left out, and still you will never love me.
Gobs of waiter phlegm we never detect in our bowls of soup and teapots beg our forgiveness and howl for our affection, and are invisible.
But where is the crime in not loving
when we are not loved?
How could there be a crime in not loving,
when we are loved poorly?
Loved so poorly we cannot afford
to ask ourselves where is the crime,
thus implying innocence.
We put the "mice" back in
"monogamous."
tip-toeing, silent but for mere squeaks, nearly inaudible whispers,
furtive looks, and how we run away, screaming,
or, like mice and Chicagoans all, we freeze.
Aquiver with fear, iced up in the Polar Vortex, hands raised in the policeman's spotlight.
But where is the crime in not loving
when you are not loved, or loved poorly?
Loved so poorly we cannot afford to stand up straight,
We scurry close to building walls,
trying not to be seen or see each other as we curse our fate.
Where is the crime in not loving those whom we hate?
There is no crime, but still, not loving is the heart of all crime.
To feel so deeply unloved we wish to destroy ... you name it.
Blot out, ruin and erase them; our enemies, our families, lovers, and even the world herself.
Jab a knife into her verdant hide and twist until black blood flows.
Gouge out mountaintops seeking iron for our towers.
Remaking her grace to build our graveyard.
These vibrant phosphorescent tombstones, overpopulated pillars of mutual isolation reach up into the clouds.
Announcing to the universe, we trumpet a loneliness as profound as it is absurd and ugly.
Jan 8, 2015
Jan 8, 2015 at 6:48 PM UTC
When did loneliness in a crowded room become a goal?
Eavesdropping on inspiration; indolence.
Like my art, pockets of brilliance are found
in the wreckage of a market town
with nothing left to sell. All those discordant
ideals of escape and of nothingness.
Still waiting for that ***** of light
which must always break through.
Isolation becomes a component of personality;
a need for space in overpopulated surroundings.
Like my art, pockets of living
congregate in moments torn from the clock face,
in lines of laughter and grief; the five o'clock champagne.
All that revel in maladjustment,
all who laugh at death,
those who had given up on The Lie.
When did my life reduce to words and symbols;
stealing poetry from the street-preacher's leaflets?
Like my art, pockets of reason
form amongst the senselessness of meaning;
how love sits different on every tongue,
how wine hits sweetly only in the need to run.
I have grown tired of running away,
this stalwart need for acceptance.
A want for a panic room,
a need to fall to pieces, undisturbed.
Apr 10, 2015
Apr 10, 2015 at 12:15 PM UTC
An ounze of gold, found in a river
Assessed as a diamond, swallowed in an ocean
When we met in England.
All of Aisa is painted in platinum
Diamonds in Bankok, too sordid to be seen.
If you had rare sight, extinct 2900 BC
You may see race in the reflection of platisation
And the ability to chip it off is as harmonious as it gets.
If not superiority found you, and alimim forefathered you
To follow your blessed unique connection
Narcissus is not all around you, nor is any other God
What exists as greatness is only you.
In true great form should be existentialism
Instead you think you are untouchable
However ignorant I find it
When my mother bought me here as a piglet
She said I would always stand alone in stoicism.
Mar 30, 2014
Mar 30, 2014 at 3:23 PM UTC
Surrounded by obscurity without gloom:
the depths of calignosity suffocate every speck in ebony ink.
Yet, every molecule breathes with ease.
It is the crushing, bewitching hour of eternity in nightfall.
A sigh exhaled is impassively terminated by the midnight dusk;
sound is silent here.
Emptiness gapes as the leviathan's gob
thick with gelatinous mucus,
vast, however jailing:
closed and unknown to the living universe.
The saliva sparks in a moment, as a release of static charge,
even though no solid is sensed, never-mind two touching
loaded with electric friction.
And then again, as a sparkler of summer's independence
now holding for just more than a whim.
An explosion.
Flecks of bright stains scattered within the physical aura breeze past;
they ripple like wave crests under a kaleidoscope moon.
Colors arc in the resistant free current: endless lightning.
The vacuum is an overpopulated city
of which the blind could never take census
and the ignorant believe to be mute.
Visual speech fills the void of sound.
It is the starlight of a body.
Jun 15, 2014
Jun 15, 2014 at 9:14 PM UTC
Lucid in a lush landscape, baked by burning Savanna sun
The undeveloped endlessness all encompassing
My feet sink into the tender tissue
Of Green Mother and Infinite Father’s lovechild
The watering hole is overpopulated with thirsty families
Suspiciously inspecting the albino primate
I make undeterred deliberate steps skirting hydration
Drawn to his penetrating and omniscient orbs
A genuflect to show respect, my head bowed and gaze on ground
The mighty titan mimicked me and extended peaceful welcome
Gradually I rose and full-figured, approached
Warily, minding his twin osteoscimitars
Hello friend, he said
I heard you coming from several years away
I have been waiting for you
In a thousand forms and figures as the shadowy shapes you doubted
But Wisdom, how?
Baffled now, as I follow worn creases of age
That line his cracked and withered face and date his hardened hide
Come see yourself as I see you, he said
For we are as old as your mind is young
And he led me to the liquid, still and reflective
My own visage now ancient
You often sought me out, and I never hid
But I always came too late
I am with you in every action
Every success and every mistake
I was your hand when you learned to hold on
And your ears when you learned to listen
I was your adrenaline when you lost control
And your uncut blood tunnels when you learned to live
I was your arms when you hugged a forgiving embrace
And the nausea you felt when you lied
I did not mourn you when you died and scattered
For you returned to me as many; come, we have much to teach and learn
We will raise the bulls of a generation
Without another word, I mounted sacred pachyderm
And we became a vortex for wandering energy universal and fluid
The venerable sage and I rode as equals through the night
The savanna sky resting its tired eye at last
Jun 2, 2011
Jun 2, 2011 at 6:36 PM UTC
It was like we were wrenched from Morpheus' grasp and shaken, until our eyes adjusted to the harsh light and our bones stopped their clattering. We make like tea bags and steep in hot water, letting the dregs of the past day settle at our feet.
We drag our feet through the quicksand pavement and trudge through the black-tar roads to work. War is rampant in the world and in people's hearts, we see murders on screen and deceit in the streets, we're observers to the horrors of humanity. All we can do is watch with pained eyes.
Our minds are barraged with arguments and advertisements, ethics have been defenestrated, our worries overpopulated, our patience stretched thin and beaten cacophonously. Our consciousness is beaten down with pessimism, our thoughts devoid of hope.
Our souls weep at the state of things, the martyrs gather in drones at St. Peter's gates. We do good only so people will be good to us, we greet each other with half-smiles, and half-truths. At the end of the day we drag home, our consciences heavy with the burden thrown upon us.
But we meet again, we kiss, we embrace, and we join hands and strip ourselves of these mundane garments, we’re a mass of hands and skin and long sighs and worn-out smiles,
and with tired eyes, tired minds, tired souls, we slept.
Nov 21, 2014
Nov 21, 2014 at 12:34 PM UTC
It’s like passing a ******* kidney stone that doesn’t even exist, one that lingers and claws on your minds eye like a cyst upon creation
it’s a focus shift, a pool of indifference, a cry before an inner audience uninterested in the parchment, too jaded to focus and too faded to care
it’s an outside perspective on your own ******* process, “this guy’s mouthing off like he’s got something to say, who is this ******* and why should we care”
it’s when the ratio of happening to happenstance breaks the mold of your monotonous grind, when the words set to define the sounds of a generation fall into a digital pool of overpopulated subterfuge
It’s a deflated message and an idealist’s shift to anarchism, too ****** off at the cynics and too distraught to bother with a response
It’s like starting to **** off, giving yourself blue ***** and not calling yourself back for a second date
Sep 26, 2013
Sep 26, 2013 at 7:47 AM UTC
I used to be an intern for CD Tech Health Corps
I worked with stipend money
Through Trade Tech Community College
I was trained to learn about health in
The communities of Los Angeles, California
And how it affects us as individuals and as groups
Some things I already knew like how the government
Allows liquor stores, fast food restaurants and loan offices
To be overpopulated in middle class and ghetto communities
To cause: misery, addictions, and poor work ethic
But people got used to it, even though it’s obviously unfair
What I didn’t know is by law there is supposed to be
A limit on how many fast-food and liquor stores
There are on each corner in the community
I learned from watching the Michael Moore video called Sicko
That the pharmaceutical companies own the hospitals
And they pressure the doctors, nurses and other staff employees
To refuse to help some people if they don’t have health insurance
Or they make it difficult for the people who are qualified for it
By making these ridiculous rules and requirements
I saw a grown man cry to God for help, because he was very sick
But the insurance company wouldn’t cover his
Medical procedure… a few years later he died
I learned that: France, Canada, and England run their hospitals
With more efficiency and compassion than the United States:
A visit to the hospital is free; they provide safe transportation home,
Give patients money to catch a cab, and they believe in
Treating their citizens with resect whether they’re rich or poor
C’mon people we live in the most powerful country in the world
And we supposedly have the best health care system on earth
We should back up that reputation, embrace the Obama care
Or come up with a better health care program to help all of our citizens
And we should be more Godly about how we treat the less fortunate
Nov 4, 2013
Nov 4, 2013 at 10:42 PM UTC
We’re running out of time, wasting it
On *** and money and food and sleep.
And we sometimes forget to be happy.
We forget about important things
Like crowns made out of dandelions and kissing in the rain.
But I think I have figured it out.
I had to retrace my steps, start from the beginning
“When I was a kid I used to cut my wrists”
and if that’s not bad enough
I finally grasped that everyone else did too
And I can’t even remember why I wanted to die
But when YOUR daughter is found dead
pumped full of pills
and hate
How do you tell your wife?
do you even remember to cry?
Light up a cigarette
Pour yourself a drink
you try so hard to feel something so you won’t have to think
about the mortgage, the baby, the unemployment checks that stopped
coming last month.
And you’re bored.
But LIFE is not something that you watch.
I get confused when I hear complaints
about the kid next door
because he’s playing his guitar too loud
But his neighbors
never sit and enjoy the music.
There was a dark Friday
When eighteen thousand people were buried or never found in Japan,
and I heard people safe in America saying,
“well, the earth was really overpopulated.”
While I shed a tear for every single soul that would never get to go home again.
And it still didn’t feel like enough.
I’m still trying to figure it out but I know that
We’re just complex connections
of molecules and nerve endings
and blood cells, protons, neutrons.
And we’re NOT going to live forever.
And it’s not our fault that we can’t understand that there is no time to be worried
There is only feeling.
Scared feelings and blue feelings and numb feelings
and the blending of these things,
FEElings
finally create this thing we call love
and no, we don’t understand it.
all we know are
*** and money and food and sleep
and sometimes love gets lost in the days
and no, we don’t always remember that it’s there
I am forced to watch Hate being passed around the circle like a bottle of cheap wine
and everyone takes a sip, because it’s what you do.
And that’s when I plug my ears
contemplating why God didn’t give us instruction manuals
but I’ll try my best to figure it out
Jun 1, 2011
Jun 1, 2011 at 6:30 PM UTC
i saw dark gods walking the earth
tall strong broken women and men
with hearts connected and on fire
i saw children playing in peace
and growing in love
i smelled health and abundance
in the winds of change
what should we do when
doing is outdated?
we shall lie upon a mountain
and call out to the heavens
and drink nectar from only
the juiciest of fruits and
realize our Truth and sameness
we made music so we could remember
our true selves we wrote
poems and moved our bodies
to rhythms no one ever knew
i saw our lands overflowing with
the milk we extracted and
pasteurized and bottled
and delivered but never drank
being intolerant of the lacking
flavor in dry white toast
we are the very lands we
couldn’t bury our ancestors in
we couldn’t let anyone
take the seeds they’d sewn
the ancient ones
the ones who planted the seeds
for us seeds that overpopulated
an unsuspecting nation
on the brink of collapse
Aug 12, 2021
Aug 12, 2021 at 7:00 PM UTC
I’ve got a thirst for a life that I can’t live
And i’m stuck in my head again
I guess it’ll all have only ever been daydreams
And when they find my body
They’ll say reality tore her apart at the seams
Her hands were too small
To catch all the rain that fell
So she drowned in a river
Of empty pain
I didn’t know it was possible
To feel empty
And to hurt
At once
My limbs sting
With everything
I never was
With never having been enough
And you’ll say
Baby (maybe)
How could you do this?
And I’ll whisper
From my ***** grave
I loved you just the same
I love you just the same
Sometimes
Life
Is just too much
Were getting overpopulated you know
Too many of us here
It’s a big planet you know
Give it a hundred years maybe
And we’ll all be gone
You can forget about great-grandchildren
I’m doing us a favor you know
One less person on the planet
I don’t want to live insignificantly
I had big things planned
I was going to do everything
And more
I don’t know how I ever believed this when I have trouble walking out the door
Or taking a crowded bus
Or looking someone in the eye
I’m doing us a favor you know
I only ever caused you pain
And dismay
And you only ever pushed me away.
Jul 22, 2013
Jul 22, 2013 at 2:44 AM UTC
the immersion in media
i feel weaponized
part of an inhuman condition
a heated communal militia head space
gilded with fear but splintered of opinions
sperming in a holding pattern
like fish in a overpopulated aquarium
we're stunning ourselves on the sides
batting at it to for an expansion
frenzy of communication
but other life continues
seemingly untainted
indifferent
certainly
see !
the
birds
aviate
and i feel
there is reassurance
the worlds life will outlast us
what's the worst that we could do ?
we'll not be taking it to our grave ;
a pharaoh tombed with ornamental company
Aug 25, 2022
Aug 25, 2022 at 12:28 PM UTC
*Evergreen soldiers at the whim of Alraus
I've had a recurrent dream of the enlisted warriors
abandoning their post , occupying the fertile grassland
in a chess type move to gain control
Free of shade , of root-bound thirst , of choking
moss gathering unchallenged in overpopulated arbors
A celebration courtesy of the Robin Knights , the Chickadee troubadours ,
the Cardinal gentlemen at the Court of Queen Chestnut
Slash , sugar , loblolly and white oak
Persimmon , hickory , honey locust and dogwood
The myrrh of gardenia , magnolia , honeysuckle and tea rose
Earthen red clay , white sand , black loam and kaolin
Grasshopper cellist , cricket flautist , a chuckling crow with a
Spanish guitar
The toad trombones , a bluebird violin solo , a mockingbird reads
a touching poem that even sways the worker ants into a brief pause
The Old Forest becomes pasture and the grassland young woodland
The dove cue the night , the katydids croon to the moon ,
the bullfrogs 'pooka-dooka' and the lovers swoon* ...
Oct 20, 2016
Oct 20, 2016 at 5:24 PM UTC
Theres something
I would like to ask
Sitting in this coffee shop
Watching as time laps
In this country that we live
A part of a mass
Yet divided
Amongst social class
I imagine now a cow
Eating green grass
And kids
Being sent to class
Learning
Green is what lasts
As we eat
We raise a glass
While somewhere
A cow eats green grass
Overpopulated and overgrown
Do the farmers farm too fast?
Sep 5, 2014
Sep 5, 2014 at 1:17 PM UTC
there he was
arriving on main street
carrying a backpack
and a suitcase
both stuffed with
papers
“WELCOME TO THE TOWN
OF FORGOTTEN POETS.”
said the shadows that
watched from the
windows
of nearby buildings
He didn’t like the
sound of their
voices
but he sighed
and dragged his
tired feet along
they were almost as
tired as his soul
and just as hurt
He'll have to live on the
streets,
for the town
was overpopulated
Sep 14, 2021
Sep 14, 2021 at 6:42 AM UTC
. One scar from someone who was supposed to be the one to hold me up through my life. No instead she abandoned me, left me like some trash on the side of a road.
All though I can't blame her I mean she would have to look at me the rest of her life, I’m a daily reminder of what happened to her and she hates me for that.
I cant help it though, but you know what aren't your parents suppose to love you unconditionally?
Scar number two…. Oh and don’t forget about being ***** by someone you trusted with your life, the person you are suppose to go to in times of need.
You're expected to **** it up and continue on in life as if nothing ever happened. Why is that? Society society society its always labeled people as this or that.
If you were beat up then its your fault you ****** someone off, being bullied….
My personal favorite being ***** is your fault “what were you wearing”, “were you asking for it”, “what were you doing”???????
I mean since you were wearing shorts you wanted it to happen. No, the word means no how about people listen to what the girls saying not what shes wearing.
Shorts or a dress doesn't give you automatic permission to do whatever you want, if her mouth is saying no then the answer is no.
You can't just buy peoples love, trafficking makes me sick those are people nobodys property.
This is an overpopulated planet, selfish people killing and hurting one another. How do you cope with it?
Feb 19, 2015
Feb 19, 2015 at 10:26 AM UTC
Will you hold me when I'm too sad to move?
Buy me watermelon and watch me eat it with chopsticks.
Show me that I'm not alone in a world that's overpopulated.
Observe how I pick leaves from trees while I walk.
Could you help me understand myself because I'm uneasy about it.
Sit by me.
No, go away.
I need to be alone.
Wait, I need someone.
Notice my frown when I try to dissect the thought I just had.
I'm confused.
Stare at my feet as I carefully place them over each crack.
Sidewalks are stupid.
Consider that I might not feel anything.
Consider that I might be overwhelmed.
I'm confident.
I'm worthless.
I'm scared of dying.
I want to die.
I'll say I'm listening.
May 17, 2016
May 17, 2016 at 4:02 PM UTC
A little poem stirs me awake
in the morning, before the alarm goes off.
It follows me around as I brush my teeth -
dashing left and then right, pecking
continuously at my unkempt scalp
In the afternoon it is the shadow
that sweeps the dusty street behind me,
imitating my short heavy steps
pretending to be on its own journey
I nudge it gently away as I enter the office
but it is the words floating from my boss' mouth,
the hot tea warming my assistant's cup
the glass windows as they swing back and forth,
and the tiny drops of water that magically
turn to air as soon as the cleaner's mop leaves the floor
In the evening when I sit to read a book
it ghosts ahead of my eyes,
stooping after every few words
to put the next into a plastic bin,
transforming the page
into a crossword puzzle
Until finally I throw up my arms
shuffle to the overpopulated table
and begin to unravel the message
sent from the neural galaxy
that was awake when the rest of me died
Jul 24, 2015
Jul 24, 2015 at 9:31 AM UTC
i used to think this corner of your heart would be overpopulated,
but i was so wrong;
i now know this corner of your heart is empty,
all except for me;
i have begun to realize how alone i really am now,
with only this small piece of you left;
i've been thinking of what i wouldn't give to get more,
because it'd take to long to think of what i would;
Dearest, im lonely, and cold, and so very tired in this little corner of yours.
please come back. ~cp
Sep 3, 2014
Sep 3, 2014 at 2:18 AM UTC
I come from a moldy house
With human tall grass,
I grew up with water balloon fights, Saturday morning cartoons,
And the child like imagination I still carry.
Happiness, sunshine, and rainbows were all I ever was.
Things like gangs, **** and even death
Were all unknown to a child’s mind.
I come from the lazes, the loud mouths,
The goof-offs, the gammers,
The writers, the poets, and the crazies.
From sunshine to isolation,
Sandy beaches to hard concrete
A lone fixed house to an overpopulated town house.
Struggling daily just to put food on the table.
Keeping up the grades just to get to that end of the bridge we call high school.
Bearing false happiness just to get through life
I come from the breaking sweat father breaks every day.
I am from the goals and dreams my parents have accomplished
I come from the center of the universe
Growing wings and flying down to the Earth below,
Landing on the majestic, blue calm waters.
Like that lone forbidden fruit gently falling off the sacred tall
Dec 11, 2011
Dec 11, 2011 at 4:03 AM UTC
There's a force between heart and heart
a cling to my skin your lips
feeding me, ever so slightly
caressing your forehead my hips
Like being illuminated
brimming the surface with fire
chemicals overpopulated
heart beating -- a live wire
This feeling of constantly wanting
the craving and yearning for you
depicted in only my laughter
no movie or book can elude
I've decided my soul's in my stomach
because of it's constant uproar
as if Happy and Free lie within it
matching dances with wings as they soar
and the skies might be sullen and weary
the leaves are falling to die
but flowers bloom rosy on faces
while the sun spreads butter in sky
I hold your hand like a memory
so soft and sacred in mine
while staring at handsome strong fingers
our life marks growing like vines
Forever may end tomorrow
or could be a lifetime with you
but I'm burning the past, facing the sun
and smiling in eyes of green, blue
So keep smiling deeper and deeper
pulling me, in tight long embraces
Your the man I wished for; you found me
long talks under stars with our faces
Oct 9, 2015
Oct 9, 2015 at 1:01 PM UTC