"paltry" poems
1750
The words the happy say
Are paltry melody
But those the silent feel
Are beautiful—
8.5k
*break
astonishment at perception
of
a third-world child making it
up that totem-pole
amidst paltry conditions
even
beyond the half-way mark*
1.
a standing man
in silent message
and the woman in red
with thin-sling shoulder-bag
holding lipstick, weekly-ticket and purse
oh, how she frightens honchos out their skull
draped round her sister's head
shroud eternal
coughing
sore
2.
grannies recount lively griot-tales
where hope is never barren
young boys play in swamped dirt-trails
drawing absent father-figures in the sand
the wind has carried them off to mines
deep in the crust of earth's ire
adolescent future sits on labour-farms
where keen spirit is dulled with worthless hops
keeps the sly farmer happy
and he tells them the fruit is free
yet they've already paid for it
manifold
when she reaches twenty
she will have at least two kids
whose lives lie in the granny's luxury
while she runs off to the golden city-lites
to jump through higher hoops
for ****** spoils
all cheapened by long-term neglect
3.
there lies hope
unlost
in every girl-child
who goes to school
who finds encouragement
from words kindly given
if but from a stranger
*no hand-me-outs
no forlorn begging*
she...
the empowered mother of boys
will
help them to grow
into young men
of such sensibility
as to keep their hands
to deeds of honour
who, in turn
become fine fathers to daughters
they love and cherish
raise to be
luminary
*each step up
from that totem-pole
such a steep climb
strengthens invisible wings
and unworldly rewards
and when final rung is reached
heralds
untainted take-offffffff*......
S T, 27 aug
Aug 27, 2013
Aug 27, 2013 at 11:01 AM UTC
Ornery odious ordinate ostensive opulence ornate optimal
Motivity meatus meticulous morsel moribund mendacity monstrance
Lucidity lingam loquacity longevous licentious lurid languishing
Votary volition verve venery vector vauntness vast
Talismanically telepathy tantamount terrestrial tellurian transition tractive
Idolatry -ics incus ictus ichor icon icky
Yogi yowl yore yoni yerk yenta yantra
Gimpy gesticulation genre gestational glitch genuflection grandiose
Dastardly douceur denouement denigrational deplorable despicable desperate
Paltry potentate portentous plagiaristic pandemic plenipotentiary plenary
Jouncy jocular jeopardy jettison jurisprudence jaunt juxtaposition
Ramify repartee radix recital rectitude rendition repertoire
Beastly bartizan bodacious belligerent brusque blatant blasphemously
Enmity exigency exacerbation extemporaneous edifice eulogy exoneration
Zoolatry zoomorphic zilch Zephyr zoic zygosity zealotry
Sultry solace subtlety substantiation suborn subliminal sensorium
Unity ultimatum usurping unfathomable uncanny unbridled unary
***** hornswoggle horizon huckster homogeny holistic heuristic
Nugatory notch nostrum notorious nihilism nimiety nimbus
Wrathy wreak wroth wrought wrest wrangle warranty
Artistry autonomy articulation agility acuity asperity acerbity
Keeky kangaroo court kowtow kobold kleptomania kinetics kinesiology
Xylography xenophile xerophilous xylophagous xylem xanadu xenobiotic
Critically credibility critique coercion conjugational conjunctive corporeal
Queasy quasi quantum quintessence quagmire quixotic quantify
Flighty flippant flamboyance faux pas fornicatious fictitious finite
Jan 22, 2013
Jan 22, 2013 at 5:31 AM UTC
Paltry people project putrid opinions, propelled from puny pinpoint brains, in their pint-sized prickly pineapple pulp heads.
If they stopped and stayed silent, stood still and listened, stuff some significant people said would seep in, and seem simply superb when seen with acceptance and socially sensitive skills
Feb 3, 2010
Feb 3, 2010 at 8:14 AM UTC
Finite fictitious fornicatious faux pas flamboyance flippant flighty
Quantify quixotic quagmire quintessence quantum quasi queasy
Corporeal conjunctive conjugational coercion critique credibility critically
Xenobiotic xanadu xylem xylophagous xerophilous xenophile xylography
Kinesiology kinetics kleptomania kobold kowtow kangaroo court keeky
Acerbity asperity acuity agility articulation autonomy artistry
Warranty wrangle wrest wrought wroth wreak wrathy
Nimbus nimiety nihilism notorious nostrum notch nugatory
Heuristic holistic homogeny huckster horizon hornswoggle *****
Unary unbridled uncanny unfathomable usurping ultimatum unity
Sensorium subliminal suborn substantiation subtlety solace sultry
Zealotry zygosity zoic Zephyr zilch zoomorphic zoolatry
Exoneration eulogy edifice extemporaneous exaserbational exigency enmity
Blasphemously blatant brusque belligerent bodacious bartizan beastly
Repertoire rendition rectitude recital radix repartee ramify
Juxtaposition jaunt jurisprudence jettison jeopardy jocular jouncy
Plenary plenipotentiary pandemic plagiaristic portentous potentate paltry
Desperate despicable deplorable denigrational denouement douceur dastardly
Grandiose genuflection glitch gestational genre gesticulation gimpy
Yantra yenta yerk yoni yore yowl yogi
Icky icon ichor ictus incus -ics idolatry
Tractive transition tellurian terrestrial tantamount telepathy talismanically
Vast vauntness vector venery verve volition votary
Languishing lurid licentious longevous loquacity lingam lucidity
Monstrance mendacity moribund morsel meticulous meatus motivity
Optimal ornate opulence ostensive ordinate odious ornery
Jan 23, 2013
Jan 23, 2013 at 5:48 AM UTC
My phone has been hacked,
I feel gladdened to know, that
Someone's interested,
In what paltry things I say,
To my mother.
Jul 11, 2011
Jul 11, 2011 at 8:14 AM UTC
How many paltry foolish painted things,
That now in coaches trouble every street,
Shall be forgotten, whom no poet sings,
Ere they be well wrapped in their winding-sheet!
Where I to thee eternity shall give,
When nothing else remaineth of these days,
And queens hereafter shall be glad to live
Upon the alms of thy superfluous praise.
Virgins and matrons, reading these my rhymes,
Shall be so much delighted with thy story
That they shall grieve they lived not in these times,
To have seen thee, their sex's only glory:
So shalt thou fly above the ****** throng,
Still to survive in my immortal song.
4k
gone so long
fine memories line
your beauty face adored
paltry company by now
the made doll with her tight red smile
no secrets will divulge
pretty blue eyes held so wide
by violent stitches black
no blinking now and no excuse
the truth is all revealed
as the lie was all reviled
but once it was a simple sharing
blood along the line
mother strength to daughter
from she to me to mine
Oct 24, 2014
Oct 24, 2014 at 9:05 PM UTC
Enticing poppy,
an unwitting aid,
one vial of your blood
they **** to accrue.
I’ve never felt you
course deep through my veins
yet, my soul's tarnished,
family destroyed.
**** you, sweet flower,
repossess your gift
that eats from within.
We’ve no want for the
paltry donation
encased in syringe.
Apr 9, 2010
Apr 9, 2010 at 12:23 PM UTC
poor, slumped over and broken strangers
for a penny, share their paltry stories, one by one
snippets and scatters of half-truths and fables,
so raunchy they'd make Aesop blush.
don't deprive me of your salacious souls.
rented sea views with mirrors and doors,
unlocked drawers and white ***** floors,
with freshly dead ***** in claw-footed tubs.
rich luxury rich luxury rich luxury rich luxury
does that second home taste too sweet?
ears swallowed by bubble bath suds
head underwater, eyelids crushed and
stinging from the acrid chemical perfume;
drinking the bathwater in an unclean tub,
tasting notes of freesias and ***** green-blue.
Apr 13, 2013
Apr 13, 2013 at 4:57 PM UTC
And then we weren’t.
I learned more about you in our ending than I did in those two years
One minute you were my Heathcliff.
The man that I had looked for all of my life.
The next, a paltry reproduction. All of your pretty words dispersing like the death of a Tempe dust storm.
I will make peace with never understanding.
I will cease longing for something that never was.
I will heal
But I will always wish that I didn’t have to.
Oct 24, 2018
Oct 24, 2018 at 8:58 PM UTC
Holocaust Poem: "On The Slaughter"
by Chaim Nachman Bialik
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Merciful heavens, have pity on me!
If there is a God approachable by men
as yet I have not found him—
Pray for me!
For my heart is dead,
prayers languish upon my tongue;
my right hand has lost its strength
and my hope has wilted, undone.
How long? Oh, when will this nightmare end?
How long? Hangman, traitor,
here’s my neck—
rise up now, rise and slaughter!
Behead me like a dog—your arm controls the axe
and the whole world is a scaffold to me
although we—the chosen few—
were once recipients of the Pacts.
Executioner, my blood’s a paltry prize—
strike my skull and the blood of innocents will rain
drenching your pristine uniform again and again,
staining your raiment forever.
If there is Justice—quick, let her appear!
But after I’ve been blotted out, should she reveal her face,
let her false scales be overturned forever
and the heavens reek with the stench of her disgrace.
You too arrogant men, with your brutal injustice,
suckled on blood, unweaned of violence:
cursed be the warrior who cries "Vengeance!" on a maiden;
such cruelty was never contemplated, even by Satan.
Let innocents’ blood drench the abyss!
Let innocents’ blood seep down into the congealing darkness,
eat it away and undermine
earth's rotting foundations.
Al Hashechita ("On the Slaughter") was written by Chaim Nachman Bialik in response to the ****** Kishniev pogrom of 1903, which was instigated by agents of the Czar who wanted to divert social unrest and political anger from the Czar to the Jewish minority. The Hebrew word schechita (also transliterated shechita, shechitah, shekhitah, shehita) denotes the ritual kosher slaughtering of animals for food. The juxtapositioning of kosher slaughter with the slaughter of Jews makes the poem all the more powerful and ghastly. Such anti-Semitic incidents prompted a massive wave of Eastern European emigration that brought millions of Jews to the West. Unfortunately, there have been many similar slaughters in human history and the poem remains chillingly relevant to the more recent ones in Israel/Palestine, Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo. Keywords/Tags: Holocaust, poem, Bialik, translation, slaughter, massacre, God, prayer, executioner, hangman, blood, innocents, justice, false, scales, injustice
Mar 12, 2020
Mar 12, 2020 at 4:00 AM UTC
Acerbic antagonist alliterates agonizing accusations,
blasting ******* backbiter butting beautiful bombastic brainy blond bomb.
Cumulative cranial casualties cease caveman's cognitive coherence.
Doom digger derides Daddy's dangling dire dreary ****
Eclectic esoteric eccentric egotistical estranger;
Forthcoming fathoms fetch faithless fleeting father.
God given goblins gather gossamer ganglions;
Hell's hairy harlot harpies hover heeding Hyperion.
Ignatius imbibes irrevocably insisting,
"Jesus juggles justice's joy jarring jams."
Kindness kindles Kilimanjaro;
Malicious mountains melt, Mmm, morning marjoram.
Nothing negates Neanderthal ninnying.
Overt obsessions obfuscate original object of
purest passions, paltry past pinings,
quickly quieted, quelled,
resisted, relinquished, readily, ruefully, roundly
saturated, suffocated; surreptitiously silenced,
terribly torturing the thrashed tamed tormentor:
Ugly, ungrateful, unapologetic,
Vanity,
woefully wallowing, wailing, "Where's
Xanadu's
zeitgeist!?"
Jan 15, 2012
Jan 15, 2012 at 12:09 AM UTC
I live in a paltry cottage,
with a cosy fireplace
and rosewood floors.
It offers me solace
and isolation and yet
my happiness seems
to have lost its way.
Then,I gaze outside at
the brook that welcomes
the sunshine like a
ship on a dock.
I gaze and gaze and
Gaze until I can't anymore.
Across the brook is my happiness
amongst the wilderness,
that fades away into
nothingness. And here
I am, on the dark side,
with grey clouds and
thunder and how it
roars like a sad
crow who doesn't
know how to fly
Anymore. My eye
lids droop and I
want to forget that
I no longer feel joy
inside my heart.
I want to forget the
bitterness that has
resided from the start.
All I feel is loneliness.
Jun 25, 2015
Jun 25, 2015 at 5:07 PM UTC
I am Jupiter storms
Unabounded by time
Raging on
And eons
Can not hope to confine me
To unstable matter
And mass
Rearranging
My molecules morphing
To liquefied jewels
And my surface
A canvas
Of unrefined fuels
Like an abstract mosaic
Of swirling
Unfurling
Tempests of archaic
As constellations
And the ages I've waited
And slumbered and spun
Into memories
Faded
And taken the names of your gods
As my payment
Inflating my ego's
Mesmeric rotations
So quick to claim hearts
Of Europa's amidst
My seductive, enchanting
Illusory bliss
Venture into my centrifuge
Fumy abyss
I have pressed up my lips
Of a frigid, wet steel
And then sealed
With a kiss
What ‘nary
A planetary
Can resist
And as she revolves
Around me
And gives life
Io dances about me,
Callisto my wife
Ganymede my seed
And the rest of my progeny breed
Future needs
What the Earthlings will need
To make up for their greed
All will see
Look to me
In my enormity
As my reservoirs
Fill them
With infinity
Mar 30, 2019
Mar 30, 2019 at 3:44 AM UTC
hours drip slowly
onto a taunting empty page
the soul’s depictions brushed simply
a palette of whispered words
dry as if it were thoughts painted
onto a tightly stretched canvas
it's been said so many times before
similes,...
form clots at the tip of the quill
words,...
finally surrendering to gravity’s flow
as the ink scribes the paltry ruminations;
flooding the same stifled notions
another way into another moment
metaphorical sleights of hand
incarnate onto the absolving
sheet of parchment;
traces of past now’s ensconced
in considered words
miles of silent reverie,
spun,...
like a spider reprocessing,
carefully savoring
each fine silk thread of web,
spinning the womb of time...
© H.A. Rivers 2012 … All Rights Reserved
Aug 4, 2016
Aug 4, 2016 at 1:01 PM UTC
Every misused glass of water,
Every slight at sons and daughters,
Every successful missile test,
Cars idling, cows lowing,
All the chemtrails we don't see blowing,
Every dent, every theft, every lie and mocking jest,
Can't be held tight to the chest.
Distended stomachs, cardboard boxes,
Soup kitchens and needy churches,
Gay slamming and alternate choices,
These and more need our voices.
Add the carbon in our air,
Two-headed frogs warning, Beware,
The paltry state of our bees,
The fires devouring our noble trees,
The motors on our inland lakes,
These and more will not wait.
All that crawls, swims or wings,
All of us and everything,
Is everything to all,
There's no time to hesitate,
For I am the aggregate.
Aug 15, 2017
Aug 15, 2017 at 11:56 AM UTC
Most late summer days fade into night holding a tepid dreariness in their breath, beating away with the tedium of the sun from late July through early September.
Yet ephemeral as it may be, the life of early summer is purely sanguine in the face of its oncoming age, as willowy saplings sway in the blustering breezes of June, and sprouts of vivid animation appear all around.
This is when the soul heals, and out of the mulch rises new beginnings and the ripening fruit of various works.
In this early season of summer, many taciturn inhabitants of the flourishing earth made their home, and among them, Lily: a creature of reticence and intricacy.
She burgeoned in attitude and character as days crept forward, extending her limbs upwards in an eternal paean to the heavens― as such was her sinecure and quiet delight.
In this, she stood insular to her ubiquitous family, an outsider to the sisters who flitted about carelessly on the wind, satiny gowns of pink and yellow billowing as they twirled.
Always invited into the fray, Lily was evermore stalwart in her choice to keep out of their plainly sordid affairs.
Yet in her isolation, the night whispered to her many a berceuse.
The sleepy stars implored of Lily’s indolent nature as she gazed into their eyes, trailing across eternity into peaceful slumber.
The night sky held wonders and questions that filled her paltry existence but placed her in stasis with the decorated heavens of her dying season,
Left to wither away with the insidious heat and vibrant splendor of late summer evenings.
Aug 11, 2018
Aug 11, 2018 at 2:45 PM UTC
Corporations **** the core
Cuts the soul to ribbons
Takes all the labor
And pays back in paltry paychecks
That barely covers our debts
Whilst doling out pain and exhaustion
But the people are good
Hardworking and smiling
Straining to maintain
That spark of heart
That remains
While paying their bills
And feeding their family
The shift starts
And tired bodies
Stumble in
Factory already
Rumbling
Like last night’s thunder
People laughing and chatting
Lebanese dude calls me Habibie
Grinning and patting me on the back
Brown brother give me a knuckle bust
As he passes by with a playful gleam in his eyes
One guy doesn’t high five but bumps elbows
The Congo girls speak another language
Beautiful flowing and musically rhythmical
The Janitor sings Motown
In this factory town these are good people
The generators hum
The machine sings
Doing their thing
Hoses circulate water
Like life’s blood
Taking in the heat
And sending it away
Bringing back more cool water
That does the same
Cooling the loud and hot equipment
While the employees are stressed and sweating
Wearing muscle fatigue and sleep deprivation
Like it’s their second skin
The machines drums ch, ch, crack
Ch, ch crack like a musical number
While the workers hustle
A smoke break and a popsicle
Then back to work
A lunch break and a conversation
Then back to work
Last smoke break and a phone call
Then back to work
Leaving the factory body hurting
But still coming off
The assembly line a good person
Dec 28, 2015
Dec 28, 2015 at 12:47 PM UTC
The eulogies resound in stentorian tones for the great,
those of prominence, those who have ascended to the pinnacle,
those who have known power, and who have changed worlds,
whose names fall from the lips of every man, who are offered
unencumbered embrace, a deferential half pace backward.
But what of the good man, without position, sans societal perch,
whose wealth is paltry, accomplishment meager,
yet whose effort is no less herculean, no less courageous,
whose heart is no less pure, the good man doomed to failure
through paucity of talent, or missed opportunity,
or plain bad fortune, yet who resolves to continue, plod foot after foot to anonymous end, and whose name will not be voiced in so much as a whisper for all eternity.
Dec 5, 2018
Dec 5, 2018 at 4:48 PM UTC
As the last waltz playing in my jacket ceased,
Loneliness and longing spilled out,
Along with a few coins and a recorder
From my roomy coat pockets.
The phone booth stood there,
Frosted by icicles of promises
Never thawed to life,
Yet a haven from my impasse;
A womb for the stranded & unwanted.
I closed the door behind me,
And fed the phone a few coins,
Punched your number with numb fingers
And fogged up the insides of the glass,
As I waited to hear your voice.
“Hello?” You said, but where were my words?
I must have lost them on my way,
I must have fed them to the phone
Along with the paltry coins,
Could you hear what I wanted to say?
“Hello?” You repeated, a little alert,
I listened to your silence, trying to smile,
It sank like warm music on my heart,
Waltzes and sonatas were so cliché.
Where were my words? Just one would suffice,
Couldn’t I sum us up in a single word?
I couldn’t find the kigo to our season.
I had lost it, left it with you,
That and my voice
In the world I was forced to leave,
And all this while I was held,
Tenuously to you by this phone call,
Till I heard the strained dial tone again,
In this silent world I’ve come to inhabit.
May 11, 2016
May 11, 2016 at 10:11 AM UTC
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees -
Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out of nature I shall never take
My ****** form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
2.1k
sheesh
our session is paltry
taking hits betwixt talk
we've taken hits, how many have walked
or just simply dropped
from doping to coke
smoking and joking
over the line with too many tokes
our time's coming too
though we know not when
we'll go too
in the end
Jul 20, 2021
Jul 20, 2021 at 1:03 PM UTC