"platitudinous" poems
What's it take
These days
To write a poem
That makes the world go mad
That brings the crowds to their feet
That spreads like wildfire
Through a dry winter forest
Is it those excessively long words?
The ostentatiously loquacious
Platitudinous ramblings
Of an insecure mind aspiring
To authentic intellect?
Is it perhaps...
the "creativity"
of varied spacing
or... could it be..... the lack
of capitalization
the loathsome little letters
screaming out
hey, look at us!
... or maybe it's
the punctuation marks,
littered, haphazardly
through the text
(whether used correctly)
or, theyre not?!
despite worrds mispeled
and a grammar might is broken
can these gimmicks increase interest
though miswritten or misspoken?
Is the trick alliteration
Whose bite brightly bids us
To center on the snappy sounds?
Although all along
unvoiced underneath
Ideas idle in the isles
(or perhaps the aisles)
Of the mind
To meld and craft and bind
Our thorough thoughts
And worthy words
Into lines
Which
Heard by herds
Raise the
Praise for which we
Privately, desperately
Pray
Maybe it's a magical mix
Of splendid in-your-head rhythm
Marvelous meter that perfectly clicks
Flowing smoothly without schism
Well-spaced stanzas
Well-used time
Well-crafted phrases
Well-thought-out rhymes
Well, maybe not...
those gems are often ignored
cast-aside, unread, even abhorred
Why?
Because the modern world
doesn't need your rules
your restrictions
your regulations
your misguided boundaries
your oppression
your antiquated ideas
of "the right way"
to write
to speak
to act
to live
to (fill in the blank)
No, what the modern world needs
is
Negation!
Contradiction!
Resistance!
Revolt!
And poetry whose words
Say the same thing
Repeat the same meaning
Echo the same lyrics
Rephrase the same thoughts
But in an ever-so-slightly
Different
Varied
Altered
Adjusted
Changed up way
Line
After line
Of synonyms
over
and
over
and
over
again
-----
What's it take
These days
To not give in
To narcissism's spiral?
But more importantly:
What's it take
To make my poem go viral?
Aug 12, 2018
Aug 12, 2018 at 12:17 AM UTC
how terribly dull
what pitiful fools
who can't think for themselves
and abide all the rules
how wonderfully clever
and unequal in measure
are those brave few who dissever
themselves, from platitudinous notions, and live free, forever.
May 19, 2014
May 19, 2014 at 11:17 PM UTC
Pickled on quixotic tonics
he strives for a polyglot's poise,
balancing plaster peas
at the end of his tippler's tongue.
But the rough-surfaced pearls prickle
his too-ticklish bed of pink,
and gulped down, he administers
only a lessoned indigestion.
Flipping the flop, he prevaricates
himself into the tight-fit corners
of a parallelogram traced
by unsolemn processionals
bedecked in platitudinous finery.
Their porous smirks drip sticky
reminders of a plethora
of previously pernicious exercises
and dampen his fluffy ambition,
prodding procrastinations until
his drunken promise dries out
to become a posthumous wish.
Apr 7, 2010
Apr 7, 2010 at 5:03 PM UTC
“but you are too old for apprehension.” her
voice had sounded so, and of this one’s voice,
‘you are never too old for wariness of
an unknown.’ responded astute, drunk
on logic. returned was breathless thought
to the void, filling emptiness with irony.
(oxymoron) and weened the way thru,
concision turned derision with repetitious
definitions that found no actual meaning.
all thought without justification and no
thought with classification. words,
actions, wailing:
empty, empty, empty
then existed less and less from want
of purpose. less and less from interest of
the known; this once forged fear of life. and
with impressive derangement, grabbing at the
only sober keychain. they, with twitching vesper eyes,
their hands jit’ for a false-meeting fix. to nix
the nihilism. and:
‘People can go **** themselves.’
words of this one’s voice. of her’s, “thank
god you’re alive.” from those days, when rains
ranted down, and the trains tripped us out.
those days of our wood’s reclaimed trailer. and
each syllable was never thought to be anything
until aged eyes ached for review those epochs
of breath. but:
‘People can go **** themselves.’
voiced in response to a romanticized thought. and
all epochs lingered upon are no more than a
journal of the winds that blew while we were present.
some diary of listless lust left undated. of the woods, of
a reiterate span in once anonymized transience. and falling
back, thumbing pages for proof of experiences passed into
skewered memory. left are three lines, ill-verbed, to represent
an entirety of past lives. of time once present in yellow-lit
motel room, of apocalyphic musings, and veering prophets
of doom. they, turned sincere apocalyphites. their prayers
writ boldfaced, platitudinous, in concern of endless words
restating – in constant rephrasing:
‘People can go **** themselves.’
but they just kept goin’ on without concern for the dawn.
Feb 1, 2014
Feb 1, 2014 at 5:26 AM UTC
Excuse my drifting-
I didn't mean to kiss you like that,
I was just trying to swallow the space between us somehow
because I think tonight the moon was stillborn.
All the tides seem broken.
The space is dragging with plaintive collectibles=
complacency in yellow-teeth cliffsides, and all the empty shells
in which we'd listened for the corners of our ocean
and heard it ebbing, relenting, reaching.
It rippled on our skins and made us twinkle then.
Now I'm missing you, the grating bottle-glass shards
are what my headaches are made of
and are what fill up my shoes.
When our spines unravelled, I heard rain-
letter-writing weather, bathtub weather,
knitwear-perhaps-on-the-beach weather-
but the puddles were coming from the sun.
I don't know quite when summer blew in.
We would have found canvas chairs in the park.
You would be taking pictures of yellow daffodils
in black and white with your big heavy camera,
and laughing at each sneeze because I'm allergic.
There's really no need now to listen in shells
for the clutter leftover in elegy-
platitudinous phrases, photographs, plenty more fish in the sea.
Words couldn't ever weigh the depths of it.
Only abrade and erode it.
Yours is a world that, for immeasurable gaps
and for whirlpools and whale sounds,
I am not a part of anymore.
But please excuse my drifting.
I will always love the echoes
and walk along the beach in search of shells.
Sep 8, 2013
Sep 8, 2013 at 11:25 AM UTC
posturing plentitude of platitudinous petulance
the sulking face of the pride of disgrace
pretentiousness replete, retorts repeated
a compensatory litany of honesty forlorn
what is your objective, your ultimate intent to be
a divisive monster of truthfulness, to be some sight to see
with all your money and ill gotten gain
you can not buy love, you can only by fame
Jul 27, 2015
Jul 27, 2015 at 2:28 AM UTC
posturing plentitude of platitudinous petulance
the sulking face of the pride of disgrace
pretentiousness replete, retorts repeated
a compensatory litany of honesty forlorn
what is your objective, your ultimate intent to be
a divisive destroyer of truthfulness,
to be some sight to see
with all your money and ill gotten gain
you can’t buy love, you can only by fame
Jan 24, 2017
Jan 24, 2017 at 3:30 PM UTC
Slight words and mumbles
Mount, quiet walks together,
Arriving places unwelcomed,
Cooking for one in a kitchen
Together, over filling glasses
Of wine and wordless smiles,
Leftover stories, stale company
Endless invites for new friends,
Road trips without bend, song,
The black comedy of dull, plain,
Platitudinous days.
Dec 22, 2013
Dec 22, 2013 at 5:51 PM UTC
.
Slight words and mumbles
Mount, quiet walks together,
Arriving places unwelcomed,
Cooking for one in a kitchen
Together, over filling glasses
Of wine and wordless smiles,
Leftover stories, stale company
Endless invites for new friends,
Road trips without bend, song,
The black comedy of dull, plain,
Platitudinous days.
Jul 9, 2015
Jul 9, 2015 at 5:32 PM UTC
.
Slight words and mumbles
Mount, quiet walks together,
Arriving places unwelcomed,
Cooking for one in a kitchen
Together, over filling glasses
Of wine and wordless smiles,
Leftover stories, stale company
Endless invites for new friends,
Road trips without bend, song,
The black comedy of dull, plain,
Platitudinous days.
Oct 10, 2016
Oct 10, 2016 at 3:46 PM UTC
Platitudinous, pusillanimous,
Pulchritudinous, posterior
Poseur, postulating pus bag
Posing as plenipotentatious
President POTUS, posturesome
Proudly putting paws on *******
Publicly preposterous woosie
Pretending propriety: a putz.
Eternal egregious eccentricity,
Endless empathy-less publicity,
Effectively inbalming ethnicity
Eviscerates any essential nobility
Excluding even existential energies
Of expectations of excellence
Instead enacting evolution-free
Economical inimical extortion.
Hourly horror holler hate,
Both houses holding hotheads
And hundreds of houris
Honoring honor-free hopes
Hesitation-free horrible haste
Hosing hope and helpmeets
Who have inherited helplessness
From heartless halfwit hoydens.
Boisterous ***** and boors
Beat beauty and belief badly
But beg and bawl for bounty
Bathing in bastardy and blood
But beyond bowing to betters
Banquets and bowers of berks
Badly bent beyond blessing,
They’re best boxed for burying.
Nov 12, 2017
Nov 12, 2017 at 6:00 PM UTC
I begin with some well-wrought clichés:
a face full of flowers
by a window,
a humming hearth where
the in-folding flames
hold a thousand roses by trestles of soot
while outside the leaves of the autumn trees,
by the iron-root and crocus-foot,
not yet undone of their crimson-chrome,
bypass all platitudinous theories
and reiterate a passionate
reasonless reason for making known
the incredible odour
of sunken hours
when snow had its own
impeccable bleach of flowers
and loaves had no need of wheat.
Drawn under, again and again
I have blundered upon innumerable halved hearths,
suddenly crestfallen,
downcast.
Jul 12, 2016
Jul 12, 2016 at 1:40 AM UTC
Slight words and mumbles
Mount, quiet walks together,
Arriving places unwelcomed,
Cooking for one in a kitchen
Together, over filling glasses
Of wine and wordless smiles,
Leftover stories, stale company
Endless invites for new friends,
Road trips without bend, song,
The black comedy of dull, plain,
Platitudinous days.
Aug 17, 2012
Aug 17, 2012 at 10:32 PM UTC
Slight words and mumbles
Mount, quiet walks together,
Arriving places unwelcomed,
Cooking for one in a kitchen
Together, over filling glasses
Of wine and wordless smiles,
Leftover stories, stale company
Endless invites for new friends,
Road trips without bend, song,
The black comedy of dull, plain,
Platitudinous days.
Aug 9, 2014
Aug 9, 2014 at 2:22 PM UTC
Slight words and mumbles
Mount, quiet walks together,
Arriving places unwelcomed,
Cooking for one in a kitchen
Together, over filling glasses
Of wine and wordless smiles,
Leftover stories, stale company
Endless invites for new friends,
Road trips without bend, song,
The black comedy of dull, plain,
Platitudinous days.
Jun 5, 2013
Jun 5, 2013 at 2:48 PM UTC
Slight words and mumbles
Mount, quiet walks together,
Arriving places unwelcomed,
Cooking for one in a kitchen
Together, over filling glasses
Of wine and wordless smiles,
Leftover stories, stale company
Endless invites for new friends,
Road trips without bend, song,
The black comedy of dull, plain,
Platitudinous days.
Nov 30, 2012
Nov 30, 2012 at 4:46 PM UTC
None arise just like when in need,
I scrutinize every possible one
Till its pulp oozes out infront of me.
Why can i not find it?
Do i blame my thoughts that are so obscure
Or the dubious heart that rejects everything
Or this mind that demands to know more than i possibly could.
I fear this might sound platitudinous;
Like every novice trying to be like those from whose hands words just flow
But these are my thoughts certainly. Sewed together in esoteric verses
Wait, I think a title has occurred to me!
"Puzzling" it shall be.
And my thoughts rewards me with satisfaction
Until the next time i try thinking of one
That moment, puzzling it shall be.
Apr 9, 2018
Apr 9, 2018 at 6:28 AM UTC