"pontificate" poems
Empty skies embrace
Sparse cloud formations
The blues fade and overlapped hues
Sparkles crested in fickle delight
Lazy outstretched yawns of natural light
Sun’s glare glazed under Moon’s appearance
Embossed against the translucence of blue space
Everything up there is calm today
No rush or race or interference
Gentle indifference drifts to the West.
Staying dry for us
The beautiful simplicity of being Sky.
Stop and look around.
Cyclists trickle on painted pathways
Student groups pontificate about life
and the lecture they should all be at,
Lunchtime sprawls and **********
never ending spurts of schoolchildren
delirious for sausage rolls and E numbers.
Everyone in a rush to be someone
Going somewhere with purpose,
and yet,
Be indifferent
to each other.
The bland complexity of being modern People.
Nov 10, 2012
Nov 10, 2012 at 12:53 PM UTC
Verdant eyes, translucent pearls
speak in silent witness,
wounds unfurl
meaning revealed,
interrupted girl.
Safe in solidarity
prolific eccentricity,
the scandal of particularity.
Pouting mouth
grief - filled lips
alluring, set sail a thousand ships;
tempt me to leave harbor.
Arousing euphoria as such,
resistance, amity and distance
amour sans touch
her sense of humor transcends,
appeasing the mind’s thirst
a vogue sultana,
seasoned swagger
hair resplendent flame,
alternating cool, black
asymmetrical coiffure;
nonconforming demure
the renegade metaphor -
singular for sure, no cure.
Muted vanity, bathos piercing
the jaded circumference of banality;
pale protagonist servitude
the sapient palaver of the urbane,
covered patina of pretense,
induced coercion,
the commodity self
appearing abased
wearing lesions of lassitude.
Artistic chattel - eminent domain
preempting genius,
subsidiary of consuming narcissism
external locus of control;
surrender to the tentative,
fettered pendant, Venus in chains
arrested visionary bane
sterile savant, edifice of pain.
The soubrette, dubious incarnation
gravid ingénue of prevarication
imperceptible venue -
theatre of the absurd;
withdrawn siren,
solitude of necessity -
skin - slender veil of shame,
nearness loitering redemption;
moments envisage
the appointment with the soul;
ambiguity eschews clarity
awareness; ineluctable anxiety,
imago - centric confession
sacred pardon, seraphic venation
intravenous textures presume,
the tactile margins of liberty.
Therapeutic retrieval,
Sanguine,
beneath the portico of
individuation;
Your smile I hear,
recovered autonomy
blessed emancipation,
The scandal of particularity;
peculiar treasure
ironically captured
film, canvas,
prose profundity.
Ciphering as an ambling book,
I peruse you,
rendered captive
hypnotic avant-garde fiction,
spectator of denuded opacity
analogous reflection, I Mirror you.
A modest proposal - pontificate the imperative,
forgo the disposal, adapt your narrative,
the scandal of particularity -
resonate the echo, cogitate our propinquity
Love, imagination and destiny.
©2008 & 2011 W.S Warner
Sep 9, 2011
Sep 9, 2011 at 1:20 AM UTC
Ask me all you want my friend,
Seen it and been there,
Whilst you can sit, pontificate,
I simply don't care.
Mar 19, 2016
Mar 19, 2016 at 4:26 PM UTC
----
Sometimes they take over
The rhythms in your head
Nuances of rhyme schemes
The lines your muse has fed
You want to use a smaller word
Pontificate instead
It gallops through your consciousness
A wild horse - unlead!
The hooves go on like thunder
Upon the steed you ride
Tearing up the page
Pen in hand - astride
You are without a bridle
Legs grip the mustang's side
He has his own way
He is a beast with pride!
No - he has no stable
No - his blood flows wild!
Fed grass of the planes
He's restless as a child
A stallion - yes! A bucking bronc!
Unbroken - never mild!
Get into his rhetoric
He's always getting riled!
Write like you're a MUSTANG!
RIDE ON!!! You have no reins!
Get into his rhythm
The rhyme scheme is unstrained
Your footing is unsure
In uncertain terrains
Playing echo chamber music
Those cacophonous refrains
Bust that bronc!!! He's waiting -
Your own head unrestrained!!!
SoulSurvivor
(C) 5/19/2015
May 19, 2015
May 19, 2015 at 4:41 PM UTC
Let us contemplate the superiority of striking presumption, as it seeks to pontificate the order of architectural allegiance.
Oh, Grand Master of Greco-Roman antiquity, I bow before the sacred volumes of legal pronouncement where unseen rituals tangibly assert their authority over those who seek to embrace the ancient pathways of knowledge.
As the degrees of freedom transcend the definition of a mere mathematical concept, we must never forget the formulations of our Hellenistic forefathers who chiselled the shape of the Order into the annals of the future.
As we give thanks to Set, we acknowledge the blindfolded ceremonies of sibling homicide which encourage wisdom in this circular lodge of self-binding.
Harpocrates is our God of silence who gained sustenance from feminine anatomical structures – and we are like Isis who has been impregnated by Osiris.
So, as we cast our gaze beyond the rites of this ****** union, let us acknowledge those ***** masonry structures of obelisk stability.
Have you been born yet?
Jun 10, 2015
Jun 10, 2015 at 10:35 PM UTC
Wiggy doesn’t mean it is a wig
Just that it looks very like one;
And the hairdo is so ludicrous
That we can’t help making fun.
You act like an adolescent
Your orange hair is almost funny.
You utter the most inane things
Your disposition totally not sunny.
Wiggy little piggy, is what you are
As you ludicrously strut about.
You make yourself a laughingstock
From your hooves up to your snout.
You spout a bunch of garbage
High on the ignorance scale
Like you bought it all half price
At a dollar-store basement sale.
Snort and wiggle, grimace and scowl
It’s quite the side-show carnival show
You open your mouth and let fall out
Words that prove what you do not know.
Grunt and wallow in your own mud
Holler, howl, bellow and squeal
As if the lies you are telling us all
Amount to something valid and real.
Wiggy little piggy, is what you are
As you ludicrously strut about.
You make yourself a laughingstock
From your hooves up to your snout.
You spout a bunch of garbage
High on the ignorance scale
Like you bought it all half price
At a dollar-store basement sale.
So far, you are making yourself
Totally beloved in the Sainted South
But to most of us you would look
Better with an apple in your mouth.
You **** and moan and pontificate
And spout such bigoted wit
That the best place for you is
Guest of honor on a barbecue spit.
Wiggy little piggy, is what you are
As you ludicrously strut about.
You make yourself a laughingstock
From your hooves up to your snout.
You spout a bunch of garbage
High on the ignorance scale
Like you bought it all half price
At a dollar-store basement sale.
Apr 4, 2016
Apr 4, 2016 at 8:28 PM UTC
Verbosity
A patchwork quilt that I roll roll up in
Stitched with syllables
Like a little phonetic sausage
So deep inside you can't hear me go
Dur dur dur.
(insert self-deprecating quip about being a wiener)
laughing track
But it's cozy and neat.
And if you do
I'll rubix cube your dearest mind
Til I'm tucked deep inside once again.
And I'll softly pontificate about the genetic code
and how it made your irises not quite hazel
But still able to illuminate spontaneously
teal, laurel, cyan, the sea
And if you'll pardon my hyperboles
They draw me strong as an Atlantic tide
This ocean that ***** me the deepest inside
Aesthetically, the contrast is startling to your skin
An artist would capture the portrait therein
But really, all you need to know
Is they're the prettiest
prettiest ******* eyes
I've ever seen.
And I'm sorry
That when I get nervous
My heart is a little effervescent
My words become too efflorescent
(I seek not to strangle you with King's English Shrubberies!)
As you stand before me, incandescent
My dread is that you're
Evanescent.
...
But that thing about your eyes.
All you need to know.
That thing about your eyes,
Not to mince words
But I think
I'll feel that way always.
Jan 5, 2012
Jan 5, 2012 at 8:27 PM UTC
Into the Seasons of my mind I wander.
The gentle laughter that teased my tender ears,
Of my grandmother and her friends meeting,
Like ladies used to do.
The aroma of fresh baked cookies, cakes and pies,
Wafting in the cool Autumn breeze.
Back when women baked and were proud of it,
Back when there was Time...
Time to gather and just be glad to be together.
No harmful gossip, just the joy of friends
Willing to help each other through trials
That Life throws.
The strength of velvet bonds
Tied together for the common good of all.
Leading by examples, not needing to pontificate
On the deportment young ladies should show.
And me, proud to be included.
My Grandma's Shadow, adding my
Youth and exuberance to the occasion.
Learning about Life on that vine covered porch.
My apron was sized for my small frame,
I wore a dress, like the ladies present always did.
My hair coiffed, just because
I wanted to make my Grandma proud.
Oh yes, those were the days.
Before emails and internet,
When we spoke to each other and
Learned how important communication truly is.
Days, when it was good for girls to look like girls
And be proud of approaching womanhood.
Not subservient, but a partnership
That made men proud.
Yes, those were the Days!
Unforced laughter,
Able to face the world without fear,
Because we knew "Good" would win.
I'm grown now, I don't always wear a dress.
I live in a "Man's" world, contrary to my early years.
But I still smell the baking cookies, pies and cakes.
I still sit on my front porch .
My heart remembers my childhood
Though I must adjust to this fast moving Life,
I will always carry in my Soul,
As I long for the days of Poise and Ivy.
Deb Nixon
Nov 27, 2011
Nov 27, 2011 at 3:18 PM UTC
He is a mover and a shaker
And he’s certainly no Quaker!
Donnie Trotter from Chicago
is his name.
Whatever was he thinking?
This man from the
land of Lincoln.
When he tried to bring a gun
aboard a plane?
He’ll pontificate when pressed
(Just to get it off his chest)
How guns are bad
And people shouldn’t buy them.
His acts are against the law
He himself had voted for-
I wonder if the State
Will charge and try him.
Were he Conservative and White-
Not a Liberal, Black as night-
Voices would be raised
that we should fry him.
It’s Hypocrisy at its best
And this man has failed the test
In Chicago guns are banned
And for good reason-
If the victims could fight back,
What would be the fun in that?
Only criminals have guns
This hunting season.
Dec 6, 2012
Dec 6, 2012 at 10:15 PM UTC
I would argue that what is happening here isn’t the crushing of creativity but the addition of knowledge. As people get more knowledgeable they are better able to evaluate their ideas and sift out the ones that won’t work. Looking at the quantity of ideas for the use of a paperclip tells you nothing about creativity but the quality of the ideas might.
If we want pupils to be good at problem solving we need to give them a lot of knowledge with which to solve problems. There is no generic problem solving short cut we can use. The problem solving skills of “I need to put up a bookcase but have lost the instructions” is very different from the problem solving skills of “We need to resolve the conflict in the Middle East.” I we spent less time trying to find these short cuts we might have a lot fewer wonky bookcases and a little more chance of peace.
I can’t speak for all subjects and contexts but in secondary school geography we are constantly problem solving. It is what Geographers do but each problem needs a wide body of very specific knowledge. We look at how they would solve the problem of the UK’s energy mix, how they would improve housing in informal settlements and yes, even how to solve the problems in the Middle East (if someone without a knowledge of catchment hydrology tries to pontificate on the issue I wouldn’t give them the time of day).
The same applies to “creativity”. The ability to create is an important and wonderful thing. Music, art and drama should play a full and important part in the curriculum but they aren’t about teaching something as generic as “creativity”. They are about teaching the skills to allow you to be creative in that particular domain. Learning to express your creativity in art is unlikely to help you pick up the trombone and learning how to write is unlikely to make your interpretive dance any less awkward.
If you think that these things can be taught as stand alone generic skills (I assume you there is a 54% chance you are) then please do send me a lesson plan because I would love to see how it is done.
Conclusion
I think the term “21st century skills” is a nonsense. The generic skills that people will need in this century will be the same as they have needed in all of them because they are the things that make us human. I don’t think they can be taught in isolation. I don’t think we get better at “problem solving” by solving problems in different domains or better at “creativity” in one domain by practicing another.
Schools play a role in preparing children for the future and that role is to ensure they leave us as knowledgeable and well informed adults.
Aug 26, 2019
Aug 26, 2019 at 1:05 PM UTC
I poeticize, proselytize
Punctuate and pontificate.
I write couplets and rhymes
And I really do it all the time.
I exacerbate and exaggerate
With no desire to intimidate.
I make similes and metaphors
Indoors and even out of doors.
There’s cussing and discussion
And sharp literary impressions
Through diversions, conversions
Allusions as well as conclusions.
And with luck, no delusions.
Just syllabically deft fusions
Of some deferential references
With a deft touch of reverence.
I rhyme thyme with fresh lime
And cardamom with cinnamon.
Sweetbreads and shortbreads.
Chicken bones and licking scones.
Rhyming pumpkins with dumplings
And matching up filets with filberts
Just as cocoa goes well with Kona.
Marmalade can be a good marinade.
I rhyme chrome wheels and automobiles,
Freeway off-ramps and Tiffany lamps.
Cellophane and vintage airplanes.
Flapper vamps and streetwalking tramps.
Also Cinderella coaches and cockroaches,
Nothing is unfair game to a busy poet.
As well as RCA Victors and boa constrictors.
Since I’m a poet, everyone should know it.
Mar 23, 2016
Mar 23, 2016 at 5:22 AM UTC
She raised you, and gave you all she had
You did not listen
She was not overbearing
But she needed your bareness
The awareness
You lost long ago
She let you go into the wild, to make your own choices
Even if those choices mean her death
Knife in your hand with garlic breath
Joyous in the ****
Veiled violent negligence
Oblivious malevolence
Your innocent eyes
Red tinted, devilish yet despondent
Pontificate of poison
A laughing fat hedon
Crying now for pardon
But you will never **** her. She is bigger than you
Mother doesn't care
She will break you without blinking
She is Pandora and soon you will know
How hot the soil scorches, and how hard the wind may blow
Nov 21, 2021
Nov 21, 2021 at 8:03 PM UTC
We are the bearded men in union halls
grown tired of the world as it seems.
Until our demands are met,
there can be no more search for truth.
We’ve grown tired of the world as it seems
from folding chairs in union halls.
There will be no search for truth—
we’ll gaze at our navels and curse.
From folding chairs in union halls
we shall pontificate our malcontent.
We shall gaze at our navels and curse
these indelible holes in the Real.
We shall pontificate our malcontent
at the crack in the wood-paneled wall
that indelible hole in the Real—
it must be filled!
The electric moon in the wall
streams in seductions of blue shadows.
It must be filled!
we cry.
The seductions of electric moonlight
make thinking difficult.
We cry,
but the tears only make un-forgetting harder.
Thinking has become more difficult
with each failed arbitration.
Un-forgetting’s so much harder
when forgetting pays the bills.
All arbitration has failed and
our demands remain unmet.
So long as forgetting pays the bills,
we shall be the tired beards in union halls.
May 10, 2010
May 10, 2010 at 8:07 AM UTC
May this foolish boy let his mind wander,
O’er an impossible and pristine lake,
Pontificate beauty like no other,
So, my eyes can drink in all they can take.
I am sorry I don’t know you better,
Searing embodiment of Athena,
My motif isn’t even singular,
I have no motive in particular.
Just a call from my heart- so covetous,
I see your picture-perfect face light up,
Like bacons of fire, long since extinguished,
The smouldering ashes birth a phoenix.
Your perfect hair and the way that you stare,
Makes me wish that I was not here but there..
Aug 21, 2023
Aug 21, 2023 at 5:09 PM UTC
Pontificate
Set to sojourns music...?
And thrown the light of reason, to sate
Weal is a known seeker, of life intrinsic...
Westerly, the face of men
Has a column of seclusion, adding the facts
Of pride before litany's passage, a wisdom's question
Come to pass, with a realer first of lest, we act:
In favor of solemn derision?
The found privilege, has a callous fate
Where we are, the paces and passion of intuition
Hadding the silence we evoke, is a moment come too late?
Hatred, or by excessive gesture, the world?
Place a future of benevolence in front of a child
And the willingness of wishes to give a gift, or take one for
The lips of destined forces, the actual and the meager keep while...
A babyish face has the time, to remember the day as a friend has
Has a shown turn of courage, beginning and ending with cause
Sought the better of you, like a thread of persuasion is to ask
Can the arduousness you describe as a friend, be at odds?
The worth of hosting, a day dream...
Still to fore, the sanity of regency in the name of future loyalty
The winds of omnipresence, have the sense to live well, to deem
The stir of vanity in the lead, the welcome and or the doubted, to be...
A king about the reach and notoriety of views, here is loves vote:
Meant with maying guests, and the hope of virtue to come
With the worth of anger and bother, the vice we hold to fears cope
With the lip of liberty to prove, is our gift to teach its love?
Jan 26, 2024
Jan 26, 2024 at 12:08 PM UTC
This anodyne morning *** of tea,
Is clearing the nebulous morning,
Plans that threatened to topple on me
Have muted much of their scorning.
Still there is reticence to put to the shovel
This mound of pending work-a-day tasks
They clutter my head, my week, and my hovel
Snoozing away days behind farcical masks.
Why do you mock me, oh gods of inaction?
What did I ever do to your ilk?
Did I once neglect to grant satisfaction
Tributes in gold, obeisance or silk?
Secretly though, I plan retribution
For what this torpor is stealing from me.
I'll wield hours of output and contribution
Office deliverables and domesticity.
But oaths and threats deliver poor solace,
Whilst I pontificate, not facing my work
The monster of time still tends to his malice
And here I yet sit, among the tasks that I shirk.
Oct 7, 2013
Oct 7, 2013 at 11:33 AM UTC
By: Cedric McClester
You’re no Thomas Edison
Kanye take your medicine
That will make you reticent
And hopefully you’ll jettison
Sayin’ slavery was a choice
You’re no modern day Dubois
Why’d you give that notion voice?
You’re just making lots of noise
Black folks got their feelings hurt
Because you made ‘em feel like dirt
Too bad you were not inert
Instead of being so **** curt
Stop saying the first thing in your head
Give some thought to it instead
Then review the things you said
Before you have us seeing red
Why do you pontificate?
Better if you chose to wait
Then to come out and state
Things we’re sure to debate
You’re not adept at history
And that’s no great big mystery
So why do you do this, you see
When the results are blistery
If your thoughts are in a rush
What comes out your mouth is mush
You’d do better just to hush
Than to make black people blush
Though I accept your apology
But you offended more than me
Which may be hard for you to see
Yet contrition is the key
Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2018. All rights reserved.
Aug 30, 2018
Aug 30, 2018 at 11:49 AM UTC
"You are having a bad day." he said,
looking up from my work i noticed
milky, blue eyes seeping- they were shimmering in the shadows,
of his fluffy spider-legged brows,
and secondary to his stupendous
potato nose. lilies. beep.
my heart may have skipped a beat, wondering if
another patron had taken offense
to a dispassionate expression that wore me more than i, it.
he fumbled with a money clip, already withdrawn. large, arthritic, veiny hands. looked down grappling--with ***** bills, smelling of ******* g-strings and *** sweat. was my mouth open, was i staring? baby pinks and stark white, peppered with
gentle,
fuchsia
explosions.
he tossed down a ten and reached in pockets that seemed too low, contorting into a teapot. short and stout. i heard coins mingling together. a discussion among themselves. hushed metallic whispers, pontificate on
the merits of
coin purse over
pocket travel.
here, reemerged a fist, clenched weakly and shaking, he dropped exact change on the ten,
they hesitated in vibration against the laminate counter, and spun on edge in circles.
"some" he said- my stare averting.
..."some" he repeated, only when i'd managed to meet his eyes with again,through an imagined haze of misunderstanding... sweet scent, shivering orange pistils, raining microscopic yellow dust. stargazers. i shifted the change from the counter to my hand.
"are worse
than others."
i delivered him his change in bills, the familiar clink of coins in my drawer somehow deafening. and i couldn't break my curious stare, he turned sharply, flowers wrapped in pink tinted cellophane, which crinkled in a whimper from his grasp.
he limped away, mud on his heels.
back to the cemetery.
Aug 21, 2011
Aug 21, 2011 at 12:51 PM UTC
What are you thinking?
What are you made of?
You brush against me, it's like steel
what is it, to live in a body made of granite?
Your expression so down
In the afternoon, come to think of it
in the morning, too
Why? You tell me nothing
The power, you must be a blank to me
I see you eye so many women
Their ******* make you hot, I see in a meeting
Their long hair, like your daughters
When they hold it up, and sway towards you
As they pontificate, arching their backs
in your direction
Showing you their feminine articles on their chests
As your eyes zoom in
You are wicked, little man
You can't hide it. Never learned.
Mouth moves, like a baby wanting a meal
You are aging
Painting your "girls" rooms
While your wife wrings her hands
The girls have grown and don't come home
Will they come if you spackle?
What drives you?
Little man, with power over me
I imagine, myself covered in oil
Doing a dance before you
Seeing what it's like to be naked for your
emptiness
Oh, power, that I don't have
Oh, little man, that is what I want
That power, not what lies behind your eyes
Oct 9, 2012
Oct 9, 2012 at 9:59 PM UTC
What came about in a time of wandering.
The consolation getting me by was
knowing it would end,
I could go back
I could go back to how it was
I could go back to how it was when I remember happiness
I could go back to how it was when I remember happiness
although the time,
then,
was not.
Coming home to where I am safe
and where I can be anywhere but here.
I got by in dreaming of stories to tell
that reflect where I have been,
where a path of solitude crossed theirs
and voice where I fear most in going.
I busied my mind in the folds of the concepts,
and I was not afraid.
I came to where I knew I would
but still I can't stop wandering.
The house is here, and I am inside
but both of us are empty.
I know the stories that haunt these halls
even though I could lose my mind entirely
wondering what they mean.
Is it common
Am I lazy
Am I standing in a place that never existed
and if I exist
why.
I am losing the grip of
whatever it is that actually cares to know,
if even anything is worth knowing.
Insight recognizes a pattern
I never will find where it is I am going.
I ought to just stay here, soon it will be snowing.
I'll wait here.
Closed off, abandoned, derelict, haunted
DANGER: DO NOT ENTER
you are unwanted.
I guess let it collapse
on its own; we can't pay
for demolition faster
than natural decay.
If you visit
it is to test the
structural integrity,
else to marvel at what could have been,
pontificate
upon why she
is what is left.
Or theft.
I wish I could collapse into myself
to be consumed within
the black hole in my chest,
so that my lifelong companion,
loneliness, cannot follow.
It is where
it is nothing
and where nothing may follow as a guest.
Jan 6, 2016
Jan 6, 2016 at 6:22 AM UTC