"perfunctory" poems
Misunderstood
Making decisions that some may find hard to swallow.
Ethically, my soul may seem hard to follow.
Some clash with me and claim I'm just too hollow.
But those who quit may find themselves suppressed by their wallet.
I'm misunderstood because they misunderstand
That I don't do what I should but I make my own plan.
Because what I will do is not always what's good for me.
I try to pursue the truth to make my own ends meet.
Recycle, save the the trees, but don't ask me to concede.
I believe it's the truth that will always set you free.
Life is precious but only one life has no meaning,
Populations come and go and eventually blend into the green.
We are part of a whole that must carry ourselves on.
We can't get caught in the moment and put perfunctory blinders on.
We need to focus on greater good like we really should
And prevent ourselves from becoming truly misunderstood.
I can see all the sides to this perpetual story, man
Like the reflections from the great scrub, John Dorian.
Sap stories of pressure and plight make me sick.
Just **** it up and try to live your life in the thick.
You are always nothing unless you can make yourself.
Struggle is completely natural and we must all try to fight for health.
If you spend your life to only strive for material wealth,
Then you will never truly come to ******* know yourself.
Maybe one day when you finally come to your senses,
You'll realize your whole life that you've been completely senseless.
Your goals have only served to benefit you immediately.
Now you can see that once again you have absolutely nothing.
The rise and fall of this material life creates emotions
Of unbearable strife ending in your utter destruction.
And you'll realize that you've just been herded through the motions.
And at once your life will end before the reconstruction.
Like a flood that caused the soil to avulse,
Society will shift at the last beat of your pathetic pulse.
This won't matter to you but it will effect everyone else.
You left this world misunderstanding yourself.
The life we lead
Will always be with us.
The things we seek
Are within us already.
The price we pay
To seek our necessity
Will always be...
(x2)
Oct 2, 2010
Oct 2, 2010 at 5:55 AM UTC
Tip Your hat
And curtsy low
The masses so mandate absolute guile
A handshake, a smile, a proper and refined bow!
To adorn thy head and semble wit
And do your best!
Take pride with etiquette
If not informed
Ye won't last a mile
And differentiation between animals distinguishes you,
Resplendent child
Wash your hair and underclothes with soap
Lest ye resemble sow
And goodness dear
Have I forgotten now?
Always remember to smile!
So I'll take your Winter clothes with zest
I'll scramble on point
No unruly mess
Oh, did i forget your coat?
No, I've got it, relax, care for a smoke?
My apologies, please forgive my latency
It must be warm in here for my blood
In fact...
Boiling over kettle within
Prevent me from committing sin
I do wish to vent
Pick up this pen
And release red wells from his dainty, fragile neck
Or...
The underbelly. It's beknownst to me entrails are thick
Now whatever shall I do with this fresh clutter?
I'll act for free, so cordially!
With my chivalrous lines
But can you, my friend, respond in kind?
After all, it's only common courtesy
It's over now, my fantasy
It dissipates with urgency
And this is my confession
Yes
Imbibed in me from every grueling, tedious lesson
An implication of uniformity
The daydreams borne from the perfunctory
Jun 30, 2014
Jun 30, 2014 at 7:56 PM UTC
We sense it because it comes inexorably,
this is the beginning of good-bye.
Her eyes avert his, a touch with no
feeling, a caress more cautious than
caring, a kiss when lips do not meet,
this the beginning of good-bye.
A perfunctory placement of the hand,
a conversation moribund, sipping
scotch and sodas in silence, a call that
never comes, memories that have grown opaque,
this is the beginning of good-bye.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Jun 17, 2019
Jun 17, 2019 at 2:37 PM UTC
perfunctory actions
zombie habits
sheep normalcy
blindly following the cud chewers
lemmings fall to their deaths
slowly
genetically engineered crops
dusted with pharmaceutical poison
laced with irradiated petroleum pesticides
fed to the babies of the poor –
wealthy voyeurs eagerly tune-in
as the impoverished masses rot
for viewing pleasure
leisurely strolling across manicured lawns
those in power scoff at the growing spectacle
unaware that the cake is stale
and the masses smell blood –
hurriedly, accountants shuffle tax rates
mix those with interest credit
season it with mortgage fees
and serve it on wall street
place mats
taking stock of stock market gains
gamblers do double gainers off high rises
adding to the flesh being consumed by the under class
under classed –
underclassmen, underpaid, stretch under ware elastic
as waistlines expand with the debt ceiling
both symbolizing the slow decline of
the American dream
screaming into the sewer
fewer eyes look back as disease dulls the iris
loss of the inner shine
glowing reflection of living organisms
fading as the day
slips into the blue-black –
night falls on a nation of imbeciles
brain dead patients
broken by depression and weight-loss scams
hearts crying out for care
personal and compassionate
instead are met with sterile robotics
and sanitary “C” students dressed in white
fearful of lawsuits
and spiders
they prescribe to symptoms
without knowing insurance number 87319A23-S1
is a human being, just like them
also living in fear
of the same establishment –
Jun 24, 2014
Jun 24, 2014 at 1:33 PM UTC
Pretence to be what you are not
Compounds the very way,
You spout the cause and issuance
Of guilt in interplay.
The moments carved from honesty
Cause sweat to run between
The shoulder blades of conscience
And beads of guilt to gleam.
Gut squirms in apprehension,
Those averted, eyes do coax
A riot of indecision
And shrill nervousness to broach.
Sweating brow is glistening
There’s a tremor in the fist,
Wide, dancing eyes unsteady
And a reluctance to resist.
A perfunctory bark of laughter
Occasionally forced between the teeth
And a loosening of the bowels
Betrays a quivering beneath.
These symptoms to the practiced eye
All unveil the hidden truth,
That surreptitiousness in it’s starkest form
Shall reveal you as ....uncouth.
Marshalg
Victoria Park tunnel
11 November 2010
Nov 10, 2010
Nov 10, 2010 at 4:40 PM UTC
One of the most humorous conditions that a creature could burden itself with is a somnambulant desire to be to it’s own liking .
Maxillary extrapolation although a positive political expectorant is likewise a practical partiality .
I prefer to be philanthropically phenological although rational impedance is my histophysiology . My present participle is practical pragmatism and tertiary transcendentalism . Xenoplasticly speaking I feel alone but plausibility is a probationer in reflective self awareness . Atrociously impetuous I proceeded amidst heinously horrendous heckledom . Adequate inflection is a relevant relative to retaliatory regression but I digress . Paraphernalia is a practitioner to plausibility’s cause and should be assimilated through cognizance not perfunctory preferentialism .
Hegelian humanitarianism must supersede political subterfugalism or all may be lost in quagmire .
Jul 24, 2014
Jul 24, 2014 at 3:48 AM UTC
My anomalous trip thus far has been dichotomous.
Harbingers motivate my advent: a chorus.
Acceptance of frolic ventures sent: a quest.
My sneakers meet familiar soil at last.
Designed to be a panacea, yet I fall ill.
Sleets of rain impact my soul: a slight chill.
Hazed trance, awashed clean of all acrimony.
A lurid stroll, downhill, parallel, perfunctory.
I, a stoic mercenary, avenging my ties tonight.
Arcane magic flow through my veins, my sight.
Moisture sparkle, glistens through my mental maze.
Resistance, control: I attempt to regain ablaze.
Synaptics fuse, burn, misfire, discombobulate.
Higher functions remain: calculus, formulate.
Veritas! Visual focus be on 2D layer sharp.
Disintegrated data sung with melodious harp.
Laissez-faire slayed by Communist meritocracy.
Mental hierarchy arise from wayward sorcery.
My affection for her nets only melancholia.
The amity cease... yet reborn by spying cornea.
Upon a hill from sea to sea brings forth diplomacy.
Lively lads, enshrouded in black; they be prodigies.
Persons of worth: one stranger joins their ranks.
If my creed offend, beg you pardon pranks.
Silent drizzle softly sings of night and majesty.
Lament under moonlight, behold gray sanctity.
Ne'er shall dreadful turmoil befall our facilities.
Literature conceals such divine secrecy.
Aug 28, 2010
Aug 28, 2010 at 5:15 AM UTC
loathe — july 17, 2013
reëstablish the current which made being whole
no, not just in another life since fragmented whole is nothing tethered to the waist. that’s what belts are for. if you say so
monitor it like
you would anywhere
the trajectory is clear : light the torch of multi-orbed sensation
where we wait on the cusp
of the whole
perhaps in another life, we dare to suggest it. i don’t dare. if i did, i would consider myself a pigment of this pallet
i don’t breathe limited expectation
scientific claims
they’re just as good as dead to me. perhaps the whole can be related and consume our progress. there is too much to see. too little methods
methodic function isn’t perfunctory yet. a push is required. jumpstarting will only cause sparks.
i know something better
so sit down and move to the right. the light’s blocking my view and i cannot surmise unless i’m granted a complete oversight. nothing backseat, because we all know
that is reductive
paint splatters on my face
i
am
frozen
the colors reimage our complexion and erase the mistakes until we are whole
[ uncertainty is the new guarantee ]
introspection is a form by which we do so. everything we see is incomplete. our eyes need to be adjusted
to the [ uncertain ]
adore — july 29 , 2013
black blue strata pillars spruces flutes
eclectic aftermath debris snaffle pop
chute-in whelked chrome lugubrious
lifeblood : trans yes mutate pro-ohms
in timehalts wyoming woodsmoke
screened scans : rancid gemini rotors
hulks histories back - lying supine arts
( please remind me to act regimentally )
Aug 22, 2013
Aug 22, 2013 at 5:27 PM UTC
Shrill, elegant scales,
swirl to form the mighty beast.
Fire spectacular, crimson sheen
splayed; a dire circumstance,
flowing around the base.
Attempt to merge within the vision,
the whole shape recoils;
not in fear, but in haste,
for the contents under pressure
would destroy,
a perfunctory account,
of the grandeur that must lay beneath.
Away with form to a single point,
free to contemplate the burden...
reduced to the atom, where I split
and split and split,
and swirl in to the mighty beast.
From the vantage, I show my crest,
my tongue a serpent's, my eyes glow
and cut across time, my wings an ornate fusion;
in this context simply ornamentation,
but none have gotten so close as to reduce to
an atom, and follow to a single point...
so I let out a mighty shrill sound and burn my surroundings...
spent and swirled,
a reduction comes after a sword strike,
a critical blow...
pierced heart.
No Matter, I swirl to a single point.
Lay eyes upon me again,
my metamorphosis shall rise,
and for that blow, I shall unleash new form,
and let forth a deafening call
to my ancestors, for the strength to endure.
I swirl,
and swirl,
and swirl.
http://www.robross.ca
Jun 10, 2010
Jun 10, 2010 at 2:56 PM UTC
Catatonic inscriptions etches through my textile discernment
Insidious cycles of turmoil encased within a festering distress
Uncertainty obscures my comfort into a chaotic complacency
Transforming the subtle movement of thought and bewilderment
Through the re-occurring sequences of paranoia and my uneasy psychosis
Haunting the whole of this psyche and the mental state I've come to fancy
A tell-tale apprehension of merriment and contentment may be a dismal reality
All the while being obsessed with the unfavorable outcomes I conjure within
But, I can't get enough of the disarray that breeds within my frail skull
So distant from what I feel in the ecstasy of my self-selected normality
The meek proposal of sanity has little to hold against these crooked grins
As this chaotic thought process leaves rationality as a vague ideal to null
Expansive introspection has no limit to what is perceived as validity
And, to be enveloped in the ambiguity and delusion of fact is so enticing
We all know that we've all come to recognize the fabrication of our own truth
The futile attempts to obtain an immaculate conviction in pure solidity
Is so wondrously perfunctory and constant as the life that i'm living
That I dread the day of departure from this hysteric observance of aging youth
May 22, 2013
May 22, 2013 at 10:58 PM UTC
Thu. Aug 11 2022
7:16 AM
~ for Julia and Joanne~
good neighbors
<>
a renewable habit apparently, again, a first poem of the day
(FPOTD), comes early, this old practice, me-bedded and mugged, with music ear installed drowning the noises of television blah,
iPad rests on left leg, left hand pointer finger ejects capsules
of letters, charmed into existence by the Barber adagio.
the Weather Channel forecasts morning-rain and my window
to trample and shuffle this deteriorating body rapid closes,
and the sun, weak, in concession speech, begs pardon, throws
off a few miscellaneous rays by way of apology, fooling no one,
except for the hopeful, itinerant poets, & the bunnies-neath-the deck.
know now you understand the poems entitlement, as is my wont,
you’ve been invited inside, sharing eyes and senses, you journey
today from a vantage no one else possesses, just you and me. Later,
we will drive to the Parrish Museum, studying modern painters,
each will inquire, a poem for me please, I nod sure, perhaps?
promise little, deliver less, is this your best? A travelogue of the
mundane, the little things, that do not stir your heart, smile tears,
and make you think wish I was there, or this, being
just too-me-boring?
The brain growls, no one making them read this perfunctoriness,
nonetheless, you apologize, pardon the no-angst trivia of daily life.
like the acid reflux bile, swallowed and returned to whence it came.
before it invades, tarnishes the peace of our surroundings and
the pleasure of your company, as I read your writings,
*worth so much,
filled with so much angry pain,
I want to easy-soften the everything,
if this missive, takes you-nearer, to the calmer~closer,
this poem, you transform it from perfunctory, to just, simply*
perfect.
8:18 AM
Shelter Island
Aug 11, 2022
Aug 11, 2022 at 8:37 AM UTC
You come and go,
like a ocean wave, the victims of gravity game. I am a child running towards the water, as the moon pulls you away, but as soon as it comes rushing back; I am running away from the manifest roar of you:
It lingers in my ears, like a the ringing of a bell as you walk'd into my world. I can seem to escape you, you haunt me. Every where I look, run or go to hide you are there with your piercing words and lost smile.
Giggling like a fool, you soon stop and for a perfunctory moment, you realize I am not worth the chase. I am not worth the foot ache, the lack of breath, the wind stinging your eyes, that create golden tears that trickle down your face.
You begin to flow away, effortlessly gliding away from me, towards the moon. Your lost lover, the intruder in our game of two. I close my eyes, and take my place, because once again this is my game and you are mine to chase.
sjr 1/14/16
Jan 14, 2016
Jan 14, 2016 at 11:05 AM UTC
Peerless profundities profusely proffered,
Produce prolapse and propensities pro-fluent,
Presumption presides, practitioners pilfer,
Perception perfunctory, penance penurious.
Dec 24, 2011
Dec 24, 2011 at 11:10 PM UTC
A black maid enters.
Cowed, inarticulate,
she makes obeisance to her mistress,
our erstwhile heroine.
She is given a menial task
in a perfunctory fashion,
and you thrill at this splash
of historical colour.
But her mistress's command
is irrelevant. She is fully engaged
with two vital functions
with which I have entrusted her.
The first: she has bathed our heroes
in moral ambiguity -
she is a shortcut to complexity,
rendering the important characters
doubly fascinating,
bathing them in pathos.
The second: she has pleased you
as you recognise your own outrage:
"Why must she be black?
Why can't they treat her better?
Don't we live in finer times, you and I?"
And a happy reader
is a reader who will proceed,
enlivened, vindicated, affirmed.
And thus freshly enslaved,
she returns
to the sculleries of my imagination
as we press nobly on.
Jan 18, 2015
Jan 18, 2015 at 5:39 AM UTC
In the pitched tent
the red coated troupe
and yellow buttoned clowns
drown within the spectators laughter
like cuckoos spit
lost in their swirl
I imagine morris dancers
perfunctory as whirling dervishes
far surpassing the circus masters revel
Jan 22, 2014
Jan 22, 2014 at 3:04 AM UTC
I used to be a mover.
I ran, and danced, and climbed trees.
If I saw somethng I wanted, I reached for it, worked for it, or asked an adult to get it for me.
I would fidget and squirm at the dinner table and in Mass.
I did not question, I just did.
I used to say things.
I sang, rhymed and questioned with impunity.
I behaved as though everyone was hanging on my every word.
People were constantly telling me to be quiet. I made them listen.
My voice connected me to the world, it proved I was real.
I used to laugh more.
Giggled, chortled and chuckled with glee.
It was my first reaction to anything new and novel.
It bubbled out of me, tickling my throat as it filled the room.
I measured the worth of a day by how much I had laughed.
I used to get lost in things.
In the fields, in untying knots, in books, especially in books.
I deliberately took wrong turnings just to see what was there,
and hid under my bed with a book and a torch and spoke to no one.
I felt so disheartened when I found my way again.
I used to create.
I crafted, sketched and wrote for hours at a time.
It just poured from my fingertips. It was only completed when the smile came.
A bright, beaming smile, bursting out of me. I would burn with furious pride over 8 lines of mispelled rhymes about a purple monster.
I believed the only things you own, are the things you make.
Now I am uncertain.
Tentative, unsure, and above all; Silent.
Now I only move with a destination in mind.
I am economical and perfunctory with my movements.
I don't know how to use words anymore, the language has changed.
The pen feels uncomfortable in my hand, while I agonise over the exact right words.
Being lost frightens me, and seems like a waste of time.
Creating things (non-edible things) are just extra pieces of baggage you must carry around. Pointless and deflating, they chew their way into every part of your brain to fester and breed.
And people know when you've got poems gnawing your thoughts, and they will instantly distrust you.
But now.
Right now, as I near the end of this train of thought.
The Mover awakens within me. I smile and crave company.
I have a sudden yearning to once again take a wrong turn.
I will not sleep tonight.
Mar 3, 2012
Mar 3, 2012 at 6:54 PM UTC
Our conversations are tepid.
Perfunctory, they run in circles,
hamsters on wheels, wasting time.
I don’t care how your day was.
Undress while we mention some
senseless detail about the weather,
buttons still done and silk pulled
over your head to save seconds,
so we can lose them between us
and pretend it never happened in
the morning.
*I only kiss you when I’m tired of being
alone.*
V. K.
Jul 16, 2015
Jul 16, 2015 at 3:14 AM UTC
Stomach plummets --
Cold blooded fear
Expressionless eyes
Open wide, mechanical
Blinking -- quit thinking
Go about your business
Don’t even nod
One foot and the other
In a perfunctory march
A slip and it’s over
They’ll turn and then stare
Raise up a finger,
Eyes bugging, mouth hanging
Expectantly before it comes:
Loud distorted ringing
The sound of your demise
Apr 6, 2017
Apr 6, 2017 at 8:31 PM UTC
Have you ever missed someone so greatly,
till your heart grieves dolefully from dawn to dusk and dawn,
your soul achingly starves of rendezvous,
yet you let the innocent remain as is.
Only, surreptitiously hoping,
that you two would run into one another unpredictably,
as if mother nature coincidentally let you two converge,
or as the God unexpectedly grants your bedtime prayers.
Because, you barely can stand
having your very own deceptive, polished outer shell
cracked down.
You hardly let the scrupulous persona
envisage your constant cravings
for his perfunctory good mornings, eloquent wordings, and dainty giggles.
And, by no least,
you’re afraid he will sneak into your ice-masked, truthfully fragile personality,
only to discover your non-seraphic quintessence.
Jun 8, 2015
Jun 8, 2015 at 12:16 PM UTC
I'm writing a poem of alliteration,
Promising perfunctory proliferation,
Rendering ragged rambling randomness,
Scribbling stupid spasmodic silliness.
Finding words requires a Thesaurus,
Collecting curses chirography causes,
Needs necessitate natural nuances,
Instead incredible imaginary influences.
This task is beginning to wreck my head,
Beating boredom before bed,
Wretched wistfully wandering words,
Agreeable arrangements absolutely absurd.
Keeping it logical is becoming a bind,
Maelstroms merging, mashing my mind,
Deranged, despairing, definitely diminished,
Fortunately, fudging finally finished.
Cinco Espiritus Creation
26/09/17
Sep 26, 2017
Sep 26, 2017 at 3:46 AM UTC
*unfailing clockwork come,
no surcease tendered from its
onerous, regulated,
on-time scheduled,
yet, untimely demands
arise to serve,
serve the sentence,
the sentence of
"out, out,"
whether candle or spot,
but there be no out,
damnable or otherwise
flailing words,
uttered no matter how,
the burden of the inexorable
is freshened daily,
yet horribly unchanged
failing words,
dent not the injustice of,
the condemnation of,
tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
for if the play's the thing,
this thing,
on the morrow,
performed eight times a week,
the sound and the fury
of applause fading,
a chiming of intermission ending,
the sets struck,
yet the tick of tomorrow,
is but the tock,
the switch off
of today
that
Doesn't Work
the script, well memorized,
it's mastery demands perfunctory performance,
and
an ending that sates,
but playwright,
none provides,
his woeful signature
his pas de coup,
signifying
that tomorrow returns faithfully,
desirious of its unfulfilled dissatisfaction,
for it kens none other
though calling out,
"out, out,"
but there be no out*
Jun 11, 2015
Jun 11, 2015 at 4:25 PM UTC
Steel and grain let escape,
Settling into the depths of the woven wool,
The citrus dust of the emerging art.
"Roll the blade like an ocean wave."
The regimental wooden curls advance on my vision
As my teacher's eyes take in the familiar sight.
As they fall, my mind wanders
Wonders of the flakes - was there no music in them?
Perfunctory: "You're doing well."
Maybe I would die like that too?
The grace, the courage?
Like an arching rebel of the grain.
Oct 23, 2011
Oct 23, 2011 at 7:52 PM UTC
The veil is now unravelled,
the storm dust now blown,
when left with the calm after the storm
even deciduous time seems forlorn.
There is the perfunctory trial
of breathing air to sustain,
yet in the end, I revive what,
the beliefs I let go,
the conviction from which I abstain?
I then saw reason, in this miniscule delight
of finding a realm that is positively alight
with candour and supremacy,
they regale without caution,
and entertain as they must,
in words left unspoken,
they reveal more than just.
The truth though is bespoken,
within the confines of deceit,
while the soul hunts for absolution
the mind quakes in defeat.
Annihilation is the quest,
that brought me to this place,
the answer that will be found,
is am I in passing,
or here to stay?
Nov 15, 2012
Nov 15, 2012 at 11:05 PM UTC
i can't exist
yet here i sit
pondering and wondrous
drums pound and clang
my heart the same
perceptible, still undertrained
i cannot lie
but always try
plunging over, horrified
so here no more
and there not for
pejorative excelsior
I've written less
to curb excess
predominant post-modernists
Oct 12, 2016
Oct 12, 2016 at 2:30 PM UTC
So tired
of living
in a concrete jungle
Filled with too many people
who are nothing
but strangers.
Jul 9, 2018
Jul 9, 2018 at 11:25 PM UTC