"penury" poems
I forgive you
Yet not forget
The bluish hue
With a scarlet
Tinge on my cheek...
Your abusive taunts
Endlessly woven lies
Alcoholic brawls
The redness of eyes
Glaring at me
With naked dislike
Of me and my family
And all my tribe...
Yet I always pardon
As this is a **** curse
Bestowed upon
Me for using your purse
To meet my needs
How can I forget
Those early deeds
My wants were met
With your toil n sweat...
I truly forgive you
As you earned fame
Women too came to woo
Without any **** shame
Threw themselves at you
For wealth and name
Success in your head
Women by your side
Your drinking was raised
As guilt made you hide
Behind the glass and smoke
You made your life a living joke...
Forgiving I have to be
For when you compare
Those beauties to met
I am just dumb and fair
With a plain Jane face
And meagre background
Who brings you disgrace
To those who surround
You and your basking glory
Yet I belong to your days of penury...
Sep 17, 2018
Sep 17, 2018 at 2:25 PM UTC
No country’s history makes us proud.
It is mere exploitation and colonization.
the poor were suppressed and oppressed.
The rich reveled in utmost luxury
And the weak lived in extreme penury.
The kings were fond of eulogy
And the poets excelled themselves in their elegy.
In the countries like India, the money was looted
the temples were plundered, and the system was blundered
And her progress was greatly hindered
Slowly the kings and kingdoms vanished
the so called democracies and socialism flourished
the bureaucracy and plutocracy replaced autocracy
Corruption and criminality maintained their status quo
After Independence, a new class emerged in India.
They became the rulers in the name of democracy.
There have been un-imaginable scandals
Money reached the Swiss bank like pearls in the ocean
India is a poor country but the Indians are rich
Mar 10, 2011
Mar 10, 2011 at 3:59 AM UTC
Sweating on my mat, I curse!
As the light dimly flickers
Off and on it wavers
Like a torch amidst a storm.
For the ten thousandth time I wonder
What is wrong with mother?
My aggrieved home and country
Her pain is mine to bear.
She has many a tale to tell
Troubled much from deep her belly
Wonder how much she can endure
Till body and soul give in.
She was blessed by the heavens
Much to the envy of all
Yet! Alas, she mourns
And weeps in pain untold.
Time and again she follows
Sheepishly trusting her shepherds
She has had a quite a number
With tongues unknown and known
Her plight is not their vision
As she inevitably learns
Her wool and meat and milk
Are all they dare to care.
She breeds enough to share
And feed her dying lambs
But much is lost to thieves
Who lurk in shadows of shepherds.
Destined for royalty she was
But penury has robbed her glory
Awake! Oh mother Nigeria!
And reclaim your lost birthright.
© Raphael Uzor
Feb 26, 2014
Feb 26, 2014 at 5:05 AM UTC
1219
Now I knew I lost her—
Not that she was gone—
But Remoteness travelled
On her Face and Tongue.
Alien, though adjoining
As a Foreign Race—
Traversed she though pausing
Latitudeless Place.
Elements Unaltered—
Universe the same
But Love’s transmigration—
Somehow this had come—
Henceforth to remember
Nature took the Day
I had paid so much for—
His is Penury
Not who toils for Freedom
Or for Family
But the Restitution
Of Idolatry.
5.2k
We thought we had the vampires done,
Cornered as we raised the stakes.
The fiends were caught against the font,
An end to this for all our sakes.
How foolish to believe
That the stake would push itself,
How blinded must we be
To think we'd help ourselves.
We fell back in confusion
As their eyes lit stars of blue,
Our fiery brand burned red in fear
But the flames sputtered out on cue.
We faced the devils in their line
But they withstood our empty threats,
And took us off one by one;
It was time to pay our debts.
They laughed at our misfortune.
And gave us back our forks,
They pointed at our dampened brand
And sent us back to work.
They drank from tattooed necks
And supped from elder veins,
And bled the middle dry
And fed upon their brains.
They tore up all our rights
And placed death upon a throne,
Who drove out justice in the night
While Liber's throat did moan.
They sold us all as slaves
To merchants draped in skin,
Cut from children's backs
As the devils slowed their spin.
So now we work until we drop,
Exhausted in our penury.
We're fed from blood banks on each street
While we think that we're still free.
The vampires grin within their church
And play at pious once a while,
And watch with glee as all they cut
Divides us up in our denial.
May 17, 2015
May 17, 2015 at 2:17 PM UTC
Poverty
This ailment clips my bare soul
My malady hides my ample sight
Penury loads my cognition. Watery hole
Shift not far my destination, yet too blight
It is corral, harvesting my living carcass
I don't egender chaff in the shining sun
this coop is an enclosure of my idleness
Like a jailbird my to be is limited and shun
*One day. My wandring ship will wheel
My fervor will ease and I'll scope my haven
My wounds and lesions will then heal
I will grab my revenue as in Heaven
May 22, 2015
May 22, 2015 at 6:19 AM UTC
Away, ye muses, all away!
Away with songs of finch and fay.
Away the jaundiced sight
That magnifies the firefly’s light
To bonfire bright;
That sets ablaze at once
My musing’s dimly burning lamps;
That ornaments with rhymes
The penury-stricken looks betimes;
That over-clothes the logic – lord
With fancy –swollen words.
Away, the partial love
That ‘boldens Nature to sit above
Her Maker!
This day I fasten eyelid doors,
With absence wax my ears,
With languorous peace congeal
My tongue, my touch, my tears *
That I within may pore
Upon the things behind, ahead,
In the darkness round me spread.
I lock Dame Nature out
With all her fickle rout.
Somewhere here,
In the darkness drear,
I myself with cheer
My course will steer
In the path
E’er sought by all:
Its magnet call
I hear.
Not hear, not here,
Apollo would his burning chariot steer;
Nor Diana dare to peep
Into the sacred silence deep.
Not here, not here,
Not far or near
Can mounts or rebel waves
E’er make me full of fear;
Nor evermore
Their dreadful grandeur to adore.
Not here, not here
The soft capricious wiles of flowers;
Nor swarming storm clouds’ sweeping terror,
Dishevelling the trees
And light-haired skies;
Nor doomsday’s thunderous roar,
Dismantling earth and stars-
The cosmic beauties all to mar –
Not Nature’s murderous mutiny,
Nor man’s exploding destiny
Can touch me here.
Not here, not here:
Through mind’s strong iron bars,
Not gods or goblins, men or nature,
Without my pass dare enter.
I look behind, ahead –
On naught but darkness tread.
In wrath I strike, and set the dark ablaze
With the immortal spark of thought,
By friction-process brought
Of concentration
And distraction.
The darkness burns
With a million tongues;
And now I spy
All past, all distant things, as nigh.
I smile serene
As I expose to gaze.
In wisdom’s brilliant blaze,
All charms of the Hidden Home Unseen:
The Home of Nature’s birth,
The planets’ moulding hearth,
The factory whence all forms or fairies start,
The bards, colossal minds, and hearts,
The gods and all,
And all, and all!
Away, away
With all the lightsome lays!
Oh, now will I portray
In humble way,
And try to lisp, if only in half truths,
Of wordless charms of Thee Unseen,
To whom Dame Nature owes her nature
and her sheen.
3.1k
*Hunger quivers in the heart
Waiting for morsel of love
Stricken with neglect for long
Hand that fed only remorse
Deprived of the nutrient of care
Heart's muscles weakened
Wary from the darkness
Cannot feel the soul’s pulse
Abject penury of feelings
Drove the loving heart to sink
Now lying in comatose*
Aug 6, 2014
Aug 6, 2014 at 9:38 AM UTC
Beholding youth and hope in mockery caught
From life; and mocking pulses that remain
When the soul’s death of ****** death is fain;
Honour unknown, and honour known unsought;
And penury’s sedulous self-torturing thought
On gold, whose master therewith buys his bane;
And longed-for woman longing all in vain
For lonely man with love’s desire distraught;
And wealth, and strength, and power, and pleasantness,
Given unto bodies of whose souls men say,
None poor and weak, slavish and foul, as they:—
Beholding these things, I behold no less
The blushing morn and blushing eve confess
The shame that loads the intolerable day.
As some true chief of men, bowed down with stress
Of life’s disastrous eld, on blossoming youth
May gaze, and murmur with self-pity and ruth,
‘Might I thy fruitless treasure but possess,
Such blessing of mine all coming years should bless;’—
Then sends one sigh forth to the unknown goal,
And bitterly feels breathe against his soul
The hour swift-winged of nearer nothingness:—
Even so the World’s grey Soul to the green World
Perchance one hour must cry: ‘Woe’s me, for whom
Inveteracy of ill portends the doom,—
Whose heart’s old fire in shadow of shame is furl’d:
While thou even as of yore art journeying,
All soulless now, yet merry with the Spring!’
2k
Current events are conducive
with nonchalant seeming pace
When future springs surprises
with time I will learn to face
Cheery is current subsistence
and freewill so far I propound
Confines once start stifling
I may break newer ground
Perceptive mind is still active
infinite inspirations all about
If my illusions start dissipating
new pastures I would scout
Resources are just adequate
for me to earn daily bread
In days of desolate penury
will take what fate’s spread
Traversed I have distances
to seek serenity for my mind
Treks in future if improbable
then peace within I will find
Environs are lush and verdant
their magic for one to behold
As autumn spreads it’s magic
with different shades of gold
Realism is a confusing passage,
through many an abyss and ridge
Each nuance to be vied aptly
while coming to cross any bridge
Oct 22, 2013
Oct 22, 2013 at 2:53 PM UTC
Angels make the bouquets
I see as I thumb through this Chagall book
life is served on a bed of blue sky
aspirations made of soft shells
like molting *****
these flowers bloom risking penury
to offer a glimpse of eternity
make themselves windows of the blooming tree
a prism in a subjective room
they chose their lives in alternative
and reflect themselves as canals of rainbows
I sip a glass of wine and ponder this page
the museums of silken selves the artist left for us
Chagall painted old age so devoid of color
and vitality
because he knew as we age
we empty our imaginations
into the angels
who then arrive
holding flowers
for the young
Dec 5, 2017
Dec 5, 2017 at 1:07 AM UTC
1500
It came his turn to beg—
The begging for the life
Is different from another Alms
’Tis Penury in Chief—
I scanned his narrow realm
I gave him leave to live
Lest Gratitude revive the snake
Though smuggled his reprieve
1.6k
at night his bed is so freezing cold
he craves for a woman's presence
a warm blooded gal he so wants to hold
long he's experienced the feel of absence
the joy of *********** no longer around
he craves for a woman's presence
this refrain doth in his mind resound
he needs a feminine flower in his existence
the joy of *********** no longer around
bereft of all that sensual maintenance
how cruel it is to suffer such anguish
he needs a feminine flower in his existence
by himself and ever does he languish
just one luscious kiss from a woman
how cruel it is to suffer such anguish
in never ending penury is this man
just one luscious kiss from a woman
at night his bed is so freezing cold
a warm blooded gal he so wants to hold
Oct 13, 2013
Oct 13, 2013 at 12:56 AM UTC
Who is it that says most, which can say more,
Than this rich praise—that you alone are you,
In whose confine immurèd is the store
Which should example where your equal grew?
Lean penury within that pen doth dwell
That to his subject lends not some small glory;
But he that writes of you, if he can tell
That you are you, so dignifies his story.
Let him but copy what in you is writ,
Not making worse what nature made so clear,
And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,
Making his style admirèd everywhere.
You to your beauteous blessings add a curse,
Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.
1.5k
We sat on the carpet in the bedroom
and I pulled between us that family heirloom,
a sea chest belonging, at one point, to some
grandfather or another, and we began
an apparently curtailed version
of the usual routine.
I wondered if that meant dire things
for my fate; as if all the events of my life
would be half as eventful, or if
there would be half as many of them, God forbid.
I can’t recall a particular atmosphere,
except that it was dim, and I guess
the old sea chest contributed
a bit of worn charm. And that same afternoon
I did burn some incense, but it could barely be smelled.
She asked, occasionally, for my involvement.
Tap one of these. Lay your hand on that.
And, uniquely in my life, I got the semblance
of controlling my destiny.
Soon enough, a picture began to form.
The five of cups: miserliness, a bearded man dressed royally,
alone atop a treasure trove, his children and former lovers
elsewhere, in loving penury, without a thought
for dear old stingy dad. The two of swords: some duality
out of the past, a war - always - between reason and love, and
how much I cherished them both. An awkward young man
who loved casually, without forethought and almost
without reason, and the brain he was far too proud of having
to use responsibly.
Finally, we reach the one in the center, and once again
I am required to invest some of myself in this card.
I hold my hand on it and am asked to imagine what it might be.
It is the Hermit. Her favorite, she explains.
He means a journey, alone. How alone, exactly?
Under normal circumstances, alone is a metaphor.
One can be alone in spirit, being not understood.
But you and I have been having arguments, and so
the implication is not lost on me.
How alone? And what journey? And to what end?
I imagine them, these arcana,
major and minor. They are collected
around a coffee table, for their weekly tea.
The Hermit holds up a pair of worn sandals
and a volume of sad amateur poetry -
the price of certain journeys -
the Lovers, their backs turned to one another,
produce a pitiful summary of a joint bank account.
The High Priestess takes from her tea cabinet
a samovar full of old dried blood, and pressed flowers
(lilies and lovers’ thistles)
and they all laugh and laugh and laugh
because they are not mortal, like us.
Feb 28, 2017
Feb 28, 2017 at 1:05 PM UTC
1675
Of this is Day composed
A morning and a noon
A Revelry unspeakable
And then a gay unknown
Whose Pomps allure and spurn
And dower and deprive
And penury for Glory
Remedilessly leave.
1.3k
Payday to payday
Is there any other way?
I’d call out a mayday
But what would I say?
I’ll pay it back someday?
But there is no way.
The outlook is gray.
Nothing saved for a rainy day.
Coins jingling in the pocket
Paper money makes no sound.
The coins are pennies and a dime
That I just found on the ground.
Some days my nest-egg can
Be counted as just a few cents.
I have grown used to living without
Much of a sense of recompense.
Payday to payday
Is there any other way?
I’d call out a mayday
But what would I say?
I’ll pay it back someday?
But there is no way.
The outlook is gray.
Nothing saved for a rainy day.
Nothing like any kind of income
About which I can easily brag.
No shiny stuff, never any bling.
No limo, no Rolex, no swag.
Though I did once dream of
Living in a ritzy sprawling place,
That kind of daydreaming is
For someone who won the race.
Payday to payday
Is there any other way?
I’d call out a mayday
But what would I say?
I’ll pay it back someday?
But there is no way.
The outlook is gray.
Nothing saved for a rainy day.
It’s often called The Rat Race
But I have a problem with that.
I saw a whole lot of fat cats
But I never saw even one rat.
I think it’s better to call them
What they actually happen to be.
They’re hard workers, underpaid.
They’re the working class, they’re me.
Mar 14, 2016
Mar 14, 2016 at 4:19 AM UTC
I am in penury; exhausted from these burdens of life,
Forever a loser? For I have never won yet a price.
I will not wrangle, I let them stoop at me so low
And I accept this discernment, for I have nothing to lose.
I do not have buoyancy to stay afloat in waters,
Scarcity of respect? Well, I am just nobody from nowhere
And I do not have puissance to climb any highest peak,
Also, pity words for them, for this tongue to be a speech.
Years were gone, still I cannot be an escapee for this maze,
Always in the midst of dimness since I have seen my face,
But I dream for that flare which will illuminate the pains,
With this persistence I own, I will search for it again.
I am nobody, and I am from nowhere, but I am me;
Being a stoic may not heal the wounds but can cool the flame.
If someday, people will glance at me standing on the top,
Hope to find not only that richness, but also that peace and love.
Oct 31, 2011
Oct 31, 2011 at 5:24 AM UTC
We are suffering today
From a disease called hypocrisy.
And it is the basest enemy
Of freedom in democracy.
It substitutes a dollar amount
For lives and souls and hope
And tantalizes the population
With TV, ***** and dope.
By the time the population
Wakes up and catches on
A new batch of crooks exist
The old got rich, moved on.
Every campaign promise
They will fail to deliver.
They will lie to your face
And sell you down the river.
Our women are widows
Our children are orphans
The churches want money
For larger pipe organs.
They wring their hands
Subject abortion to scorn
But, abandon them to penury
As soon as they are born.
They say they want nobody
To receive free ride Medicare
Then freely give corporations
Un-needed trillions in welfare.
The chant against big government
Is a perennial marching tune.
They’ll decide the kind of ***
And have control over wombs,
The world is a place today
Where the dollar comes first
And the children of the poor
Are usually treated the worst.
We are suffering today
From a disease called hypocrisy.
And it is the basest enemy
Of freedom in democracy.
Aug 16, 2015
Aug 16, 2015 at 6:41 PM UTC
There were thousands and thousands o'kids
Pushed down pits or stamped out in t'mills
Mekin theer bids fer freedom.
Aye...from the drudgery and slavery of serfdom.
Now I realise..all that they got was a sub standard plot..
..and two penny's to cover...their poor dead eyes
And in the parlours Ma cries.
It was the minimum rate from which..
..we still cannot escape.
The rasping and grasping maws..
..the jaws that still trap us in poverty and penury
It's time for the judiciary to alter the law
To give poor people more.
What the **** are they waiting for?
A return to the old ways..
..back to the old days?
I wait for the answer but suspect I won't hear
And wonder what year this can be
Or even what century.
Jan 28, 2013
Jan 28, 2013 at 3:53 AM UTC
1318
Frigid and sweet Her parting Face—
Frigid and fleet my Feet—
Alien and vain whatever Clime
Acrid whatever Fate.
Given to me without the Suit
Riches and Name and Realm—
Who was She to withhold from me
Penury and Home?
1.1k
long he'd feasted
on a diet of pining
so inadequate
twas his dining
he so yearned
for delectable
nourishment
his longing twas
in an infernal
discontentment
to savor of her salver
so delicious
to delight in her treats
so scrumptious
yet his dietary needs
were lacking
in care
he had so little
of a lovely
fruity pear
he sat at his lonely table
in a modality
of penury
living his days
aspiring to taste
the cherry lips
of a
sumptuous lady
Sep 26, 2014
Sep 26, 2014 at 1:13 AM UTC
A hawk is hatched
in the harlequin hush
inside the walls of library books
in their incendiary shelves
incline
invitingly
in carnal stories
in words that leave us billowing smoke
in scenes of innuendo...
A bird of prey in flight
even in a stationary perch,
he is a glorious sight
eyes full of limpid thoughts, & search,
levitating litany
like taboo
thrown across the room
questions and detours
from his gaze
uphoric pheremonal *****
My ***** is
in a penury of vigor,
my skin / proving red-rushed
weaknesses
for just his adonis sight
for just one fantasy night...
The humid walls,
with their olden and unbiased
silences
attend my quickened qualms
attend my entirety of suddenly
needing
to be caught in his talons' violences
craving
to be the meal ~ in a hawk's sight,
flesh ripped in lushious strips
to be inside his mouth,
to feel
my digestion...
We match growling stares,
feel the quicksilver pulse,
hesitation and realization
the super nova flares
heating my middle,
hardening my fiddle
creating new sensations
and worlds of wicked inflections
a warm nest
to rest, after the S
E
X...
A nervous breath,
as he stands
abducting his hardbound knowledge
odyssies in exquisite arms
a twinkle in his bestial-brown eyes
a pause, for crumbs to be sprinkled
on the path to reprise,
a piece of paper with a numeric surpise;
a name:
"ANGEL" flashing collegiate goods,
an endangered understanding
a naughty smile--a young mouth,
and i am a V-formation
heading for warmer south...
A hawk is hatched
from the harlequin hush
of the Flamingo Library,
i am ready
to fly beyond loneliness and February,
catch urgency's godspeed to Angel
in the tradewinds of our testosterone
his invitation scribbled on a corner piece of notes
i am guessing / i'm in control
i am the words unspoken
in these pages, in dusty scrolls
in the volumes on the walls
our endangered understanding
If he is there and nothing's there...
still must follow my volcanic hopes meandering
so to speak that entangling
his and mine / tongue...
how like a hawk in Spring
i am sprung...
(and understanding
how endangered I become)
Dec 25, 2015
Dec 25, 2015 at 12:45 PM UTC
Inflation is just another form of taxation
on the poor.
Was it Keynes who coined that phrase
back in those Bloomsbury days?
when the world was younger than now
when the when and the why and the who and the how
didn't matter
but now
it's appropriate
because of the awful state
we find ourselves in.
Was it him
Was it Keynes?
It seems that he was right
and if so,
then we must fight against poverty
fight against penury
we
could find insolvency
in our own back yard
Life is hard and they make it harder
raiding the larder
taking the food from your mouth.
The South
bleeds us dry
from the Tyne
to the Wye.
We really ought to get wise
and get rid of those guys
in grey suits.
May 11, 2013
May 11, 2013 at 5:32 PM UTC
infinity expands beyond
the penury of wanton
hunger in his eyes
knowing...
I'll lay prone as he
tastes my last breath,
beginning to end
bending...
me gently in position;
persuasion giving
pleasurable warmth
folding...
within his heat one
touch at a time as his
consumption left
me
trembling...
fore, he's all I know
as the sun sets
whispering our love
beckoning...
from our soul to feel
wants cling in between
lust and need as sunbeams
slide across the breadth
of Us
complete...
and the last rays ebb behind
the horizon; eclipsing between
uttered sighs and hungry kisses
buried in the essence of Us...
Jun 20, 2012
Jun 20, 2012 at 6:59 AM UTC