"sedentary" poems
“Being a farmer is like being a priest;
you take a vow of poverty
and make a pact with the Lord
that no typhoon will come
and destroy your crops.”
In the rise of sedentary human civilization,
The nation’s agriculture
Became the key expansion.
Its history dates back thousands of years,
With its development,
Has been driven and defined –
By different climates, cultures, and technologies.
The Filipino farmers:
Are they now a dying breed?
Numbers of small farms has dwindled,
With workers opting for city life.
But this trend could exacerbate food insecurity!
Yes, in an import-dependent country –
Already struggling to meet current food demand.
In the face of growing losses,
And from volatile weather,
To new-fangled farming tech,
Limited education makes them less receptive.
What took such toll on the agricultural sector?
Maybe the farmer themselves,
The investors, the buyers – maybe.
Now, it’s due to the government policies,
Our programs are good, yet so weak.
There’s excessive reliance on agricultural imports,
And corruption on the upper level.
Compounding the problem
Is a younger generation –
Largely, leaving rural areas nationwide,
And depleting the pool of potential agricultural workers.
They say it’s too late to do something;
But the mind-set of the younger generation
Still we can change
And make farming appealing once again.
(9/8/13 @xirlleelang)
May 27, 2014
May 27, 2014 at 10:02 PM UTC
mass culture is designed for complacency [ ];
the Great Depression of the 30's ended the Roaring 20's;
as radio brought WWII & TV Vietnam into homes
where easy-chairs & TV dinners reigned in cartoon
silence; Bud sneaks off to the garage to smoke bud,
when the innocent stoner gets a draft card,
turning radical, Bud grows his hair long &
giving the middle finger to some, peace
sign to others [decades go by when hideous was fashionable];
9/11 breaking our post-grunge
neo-70's-80's haze [for what, like a week - - -
then came the hoax of Islamophobia
spreading paranoia & nervousness in case
the terrorists missed anyone; the 90's
were already nostalgia by the time of the invasion
of Iraq; mass culture is designed for sedentary complacency
but when society is in upheaval
the media just has to wait
until it's all over to start promoting expensive baubles again - - -
Jul 22, 2018
Jul 22, 2018 at 4:21 PM UTC
Hate is a coiling gust of air seeking it's way out
Apathy sags,
murky and cold
in complacent instinct.
While hate can be tofu to a child expecting sweets,
apathy is nothing but the silent flickering of a neon vacancy sign.
Hate is bottled
yet bursting.
Apathy is free,
but sedentary.
Hate is muscular
it shouts and threatens
while the other beckons,
just to push you away.
One: lava fit into a mold.
Two: so hot it becomes cold.
Hate is the fire
and apathy the barren field of ash
from which no phoenix shall rise.
May 9, 2017
May 9, 2017 at 1:22 PM UTC
The old man told his story, lost within his troubled youth
His words quite labored, heavy... his raspy voice by now uncouth
At times mixing the conversation with gin and ice, and sweet vermouth
His eyes were clear however, and I saw therein...
a quiet truth
He talked of her at length, his thoughts concise,
composed... serene
At times he’d pause, efface another silent tear he’d wished unseen
His dreams would countermand the years... love and youth,
would reconvene
She’s waiting there for him you see… The girl with eyes,
of Paris green
Some had said her ways unsound, disposition... introject
He said she knew the rumors, and she thought them all quite innocent
He told of how she’d laughed at them… of narrow minds,
and intellect
He found in her the love he’d sought, although his hope remained suspect
He looked into her eyes, and saw the faintest touch of sorrow there
Shining through the gentle mist, and the eglantine within her hair
He felt somehow her pain, although she’d kept it obscure...
nom de guerre
And so his own mistakes were viewed, in Paris green...
and sad despair
Their time together thus unfurled within this anguished declamation
Of years now spent in solitude, with lost and lonesome lamentation
For one whose essence still bestows upon his dreams, in meditation
Aspirations there arise, to leave his heart in desperation
His thoughts remained unchanged, unbroken...
memories demure
He stood to mix another drink, then paused...perhaps his mind unsure
Gathering his memories, so past and present touch... concur
And then continued once again, his sad and doleful dream of her
I listened there, throughout the night... I lie in sedentary pose
Then as I fall asleep I see the here and now,
and then... transpose
I see myself in dreams with her, but why? my heart has not disclosed
I'm lost within some late, late hour envisage... or so I suppose
I then awake alone, to find my thoughts of her and then, no clearer
The snow outside my window cannot bring her memory nearer
Though I can dream of Paris green, and all those places, so familiar
Tonight I'll listen once again, and tell my story..
to the mirror
Dean Evans
1-06-15
Jan 6, 2015
Jan 6, 2015 at 2:50 PM UTC
How strangely coincidental,
it is, how nothing inspires you
with age,
that a shy, withered leaf parting sedentary waters,
is dewy-eyed dead yet unconsciously graceful;
such profanities of nature,
no longer expands your soul
like a burgeoning bubble which whisks you to write
carelessly-composed poetry over forgotten dinner plates....
it's a tragic symphony of desperate piano keys,
a blurring condition of blacks and whites,
age, and nothing but overused, age, is.
And so on lonely train journeys,
you craft a smattering of shorthand poems,
about how crackled, aged people on trains only have capacities
for whimsical jokes,
and nothing but dear,
dear whimsicality as life's
gilded philosophy,
when their bodies are no longer covered with
magic leaflets of hand-strung poetry,
for they are barren,
and if gods were gods of stanzaic hymns,
they'd open bloodless wombs of literary nymphs,
or so boldly believed,
the aged once-artist say.
Mar 18, 2015
Mar 18, 2015 at 9:25 AM UTC
I have cravings for you
that shatter and drown me.
Sometimes I want you so bad
that I hear echoes enhancing.
Then, other times my heart drowns
after maniacally nesting tsunamis
that lift then fall upon me.
I've been hit so hard lately
that the shore has become my lifeline.
On the borderline of consumption
I've been ordered to lay in lieu
of moving at my heart's suggestion.
My lips chap near purged wounds
as my shoulder and hip indent
the remains of our starvation.
Pearls form from my erosion.
A nearby sand castle is falling
with each passer's sinking step.
Merging into me, we become sedentary lovers
creating sound effects of restoration
that rest like my distal desires
as sediment on the walls of my longing.
Nov 24, 2012
Nov 24, 2012 at 3:57 PM UTC
The bear puts both arms around the tree above her
And draws it down as if it were a lover
And its chokecherries lips to kiss good-by,
Then lets it snap back upright in the sky.
Her next step rocks a boulder on the wall
(She’s making her cross-country in the fall).
Her great weight creaks the barbed wire in its staples
As she flings over and off down through the maples,
Leaving on one wire tooth a lock of hair.
Such is the uncaged progress of the bear.
The world has room to make a bear feel free;
The universe seems cramped to you and me.
Man acts more like the poor bear in a cage,
That all day fights a nervous inward rage,
His mood rejecting all his mind suggests.
He paces back and forth and never rests
The me-nail click and shuffle of his feet,
The telescope at one end of his beat,
And at the other end the microscope,
Two instruments of nearly equal hope,
And in conjunction giving quite a spread.
Or if he rests from scientific tread,
’Tis only to sit back and sway his head
Through ninety-odd degrees of arc, it seems,
Between two metaphysical extremes.
He sits back on his fundamental ****
With lifted snout and eyes (if any) shut
(He almost looks religious but he’s not),
And back and forth he sways from cheek to cheek,
At one extreme agreeing with one Greek
At the other agreeing with another Greek
Which may be thought, but only so to speak.
A baggy figure, equally pathetic
When sedentary and when peripatetic.
1.9k
On the internet
I begin to fret
When I keep learning my worth
Like I have been since birth
This thing called online dating
Seems to give me my rating
The conversation is scripted
No matter how I've flipped it
I conjure a hello hell
When they answer
In the form of lol
They strike a ko
Once they type ****
And my skin starts to fry
When I read kthxbai
I'm left staring at a computer
Wishing I had been ruder
So I become jaded
And develop a slick approach
My patience has faded
And I start to think like a coach
Drawing x's and o's
To get people I chose
There are those that stalk
And those that balk
Some just want to talk
And it's never their fault
There are those that are mean
And those that are green
Some are just teens
All looking to be seen
I'm the watcher
Their profiles remain the same as days become the past
I'm the botcher
I either go too slow or too fast
So I stay perfectly still
And wait for my fill
I become a scavenger ravager
When winter comes I am savager
To those I consider mere passengers
Other vultures migrate south for the winter
I remain sedentary on a power line
Frost develops on my wings
I seek warmth to survive
I see a dying stallion laying in an empty field alone
I swoop in for the ****
My quest for survival becomes one of comfort
For the taste of the stud infatuates me
And my enthusiasm overwhelms me
As I eat through its exterior into its heart
I find its diminishing warmth unsatisfactory
But I'm caught in its rib cage
And what was once sustenance
Is now my blizzard prison
It's a big derision
Not flying through the air
But also not quite a pair
So I wait for a summer that may never show
My life lit by the computer screen's glow
Displaying faces of people I'll never know
My vulture's talons buried in desert snow
Dec 20, 2017
Dec 20, 2017 at 4:12 AM UTC
I drive all night
The only way I know how to fight
I drive all night
To search for light
I noticed a possum
I thought it was playing dead
Until blood blossomed
Like a flower out of its head
My vision flooded by red
My heart filled with dread
My mortal anxiety only grew
When I realized I have blood too
I hear the deer
They're busy snickering and bickering
While my emergency lights are flickering
They scatter in different directions
After possible danger detections
They are timid and meek
They hide in remote foothills
People see them as weak
Because their kind doesn't ****
I followed a mad rabbit
That made a bad habit
Out of always running
And digging holes
It thought it was cunning
And made of gold
Until a predatory eagle
Made it feel less regal
I witnessed a raccoon eating and called it a thief
The next day I saw it lying dead in the street
Did my erroneous blame
Lead to its execution?
That's part of the game
In this institution
Every step
Could mean death
Just by making noises
You're making choices
There are jaguars and elephants in some places
There are humans in others
Predators have different faces
They could be your brother
On this darkened road
I reach a sedentary mode
When I approach a herd of stray cattle
In my mind there is a reciprocal battle
I could strap on a saddle
I know where to prophetically lead them
But the path of least resistance is freedom
Is it really right to use disciplinary order
To keep them within a fenced border?
This road is a loop
That passes by farms of no fruit
Or vegetables for that matter
Yet we somehow get fatter
Society bloats while it starves
Because we refused to see the signs that were carved
So mothers start crying
And vultures start flying
Because everyone is dying
We're always making new recruits
To drive along this predatory loop
Jan 31, 2018
Jan 31, 2018 at 2:58 AM UTC
Diastolic memory fills mind with blood
Heart purges other unforgettable serum
Gushing in and out; valediction, invasion
Scent left on bed sheets binomial theorem
Calculus, physics computing mnemonics us
Trust not sum of it, exponents baying flux
Participles and components abject humbling
Stumbling bio discourse create sedentary crux
Stupefying brain surgeons, those of heart too
Call in mathematicians, astronomers as well
No making sense of it, linguistic doctorates few
To tell of this push-pull sensory denoting hell
Not much time to live after lungs dispensed
Entrenched questions remain to be adoring
Extravagantly historians exploring
Unanswerable examining of this imploring
Must breathe the linens till all dissipation
Your essence in the ether of our resting
Place turned into mad languid laboratory
Conjuring back moments I am requesting
Sep 11, 2016
Sep 11, 2016 at 9:30 AM UTC
Atop our corroding
roof, the sage rasped:
I did not know
until the classic anatomy
of my blue jay's wish
had evolved to match
its sedentary lifestyle.
Aug 6, 2015
Aug 6, 2015 at 2:10 PM UTC
My condition is incongruent with the common presence
Black sheep identity burning eyes and hesitance
I move in a manner like weight attached lumbering
Unsure of myself, with no partner stumbling
Swimming in a glass half full and inattentive
Sloppy script pen tip like bull with red incentive
Reference to constructed concept subjective inference
Marker to my darker being written in this instance
Possessive and persuasive visitor leads me to temptation
Takes unpredictable control of my mental weather station
Precipitates with hate and tears me down with its erosion
Art starts with rain pain soon becomes an ocean
My breathing is done in desperate gasps
A fight for oxygen’s healing
Suddenly I am miles away
Far beyond the ceiling
Moving at the speed of light time slowing to a crawl
Cranium contained tragically between these walls
I wake to similar circumstances not changed to satisfaction
Expect a sedentary death from drone of human interaction
Hungry and reestablished, reminded now of morning
Clear mind and consequence come forth with no forewarning
Death lingers in the white noise that gestures from the mental
I open the gates to raiders as they pilfer sacred temple
Nov 13, 2010
Nov 13, 2010 at 5:35 AM UTC
Words that penetrate
The illusionary world of time
Creating a whirlwind
Feelings within the words
Creates an upheaval
Time itself cannot stand still
Words have the power
To travel beyond the known
Spiraling around the core
Of the world of consciousness
Bringing the unknown
Out of the shields of anonymity
For all to savor
Poet has the power to create
From nothing, starts the saga
Reaching a crescendo
Poetry uproots the sedentary minds
To a new realm of understanding
Words that are immortal
Mar 21, 2015
Mar 21, 2015 at 9:54 AM UTC
I went on a walk today
I took a different route than I usually take
Snaked through parts of my past i usually avoid
For the sorrow or the nostalgia they bring me
Past the elementary school I went to in the 4th grade
Where i made friends with bullies and wore sparkly shoes
Past the house i nannied in for probably a week before i disappeared back into the bottle
And, by accident, really, past the house i later had my first one night stand
But it wasn’t there
It had been demolished and in its place lay a field of snow with a sign announcing a new building project
I was struck with a surprising delight
The idea that part of my past was literally bulldozed felt miraculous
It occurred to me for seemingly the first time
That things really do change
Things leave and new things take their place
As sedentary as my life has become
It’s hard to believe that anything takes on a new form
Across the street from the empty lot is Liberty Park
A park i’ve avoided like the plague for the past few years
I can hardly stand to look at it
But after seeing the remnants of my drunken hookup destroyed
I felt compelled to step onto the park’s outskirts
A flashback of walking with my ****** to get smokes came
And i stood as i watched myself slink along the grass with him
I saw the way she couldn’t breathe and couldn’t think
And i hugged her and she stepped inside of my body
And we walked
Then sprinted up the path
Saying goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
Jan 10, 2019
Jan 10, 2019 at 3:39 PM UTC
The birth of atrocities
Selfish pursuits of extinction
Self-fulfilling prophecies
Nuclear flooding tendencies
A few extra dollars in the wallet
A few extra possessions in the home
Happily destroyed
With smiles and bombs
Convenience of sedentary annihilation
Consumerism consumes
The reaction to the rebel’s rebellion
Nightsticks, pepper spray, tear gas
Tasers and rubber bullets
Riots in the streets
Occupying protests
Acquired wealth amassed
Hoarded in penthouses
Blinders blind tunnel vision
Foreign homeland policies
Father and Mother pardon us
Children of the sun, the moon, the stars
Absolve us
Mar 31, 2012
Mar 31, 2012 at 10:40 AM UTC
Above my clouds I found
a color wheel, round
and sedentary like my body
used to be before I
claimed it as my home
Similarly, the colors spun and
swirled just like when
I walked for the first time in years:
light airy bees wings,
spiral striped feelings
And at first I fought
the unfamiliar lack of gray
and why was my head above the clouds anyway?
and what were these nameless things?
forgotten feelings?
What gave me away?
Standing straight becomes
easier with practice.
Feb 14, 2011
Feb 14, 2011 at 3:42 PM UTC
Disheveled as the fingers of morning
this sage in her sedentary stoic seat
needs no purge to enter gloaming
Ripped at the seams by eventide
with hair of finest wheat
she lingers fearless as the tide
Dormant dreams at sundown's door
chalk faced white as sheet
she drowns, in the ocean bellied floor
taken by the shackles of her wrists
on leaden feet
she walks towards the ether, in Gist
Jul 5, 2021
Jul 5, 2021 at 11:35 AM UTC
Look:
There is a sadness in the eyes of conformists.
One can see the same in those convulsing radically in opposition.
The sadness comes from lingering at a window of perception for far too long.
Engage those with sadness in their eyes. Listen to them, and they will also listen.
Both will gaze through each other's windows. Each will have lent each other liberation from their chains of perception.
These are concepts to explore.
I used to spend my days people-watching.
I now spend my days window-watching.
Do not become chained to a state of sedentary perception.
Walk through the universe's gallery of windows. It is an infinite hallway.
Explore the galaxies of the minds of others.
Explore your own.
Every star is an eye, a window to a different reality.
Get up off the ground. Sit no longer at your dusty window!
I urge you to break the gaze from your oh so cherished glass.
Break your chains. Discard your burdens.
For this is the only way that you may truly explore!
This is the only way that you may truly become free.
Jan 28, 2013
Jan 28, 2013 at 10:24 PM UTC
I have rocked-around-the -clock
doing a sedentary two-step
often sitting down when the music stops
and reaching for oblivion in liquid
finding life at the bottom of all oceans
dancing their socks off
Jan 14, 2015
Jan 14, 2015 at 8:16 AM UTC
Contemplation
A whole new nation
Inner-flexion
Introspection
Ponder think
Every blank
Most people are
reluctant
to change
Quite contrary
While others
Live arbitrary
Set in their way
Sedentary all day
I am labile
The one constant
thing in life
Is change
Ready or not
Life rearranged
Change can be
A beautiful thing
Caterpillar on the
Ground
chrysalis
All around
Butterfly
In the sky
Change is
beyond
Our control
All we
can do
Is go
With the
Flow
Inspired songs;
1)A change is gonna come1963
by Sam Cooke
2) Rolling with the changes 1978
By REO Speedwagon
3) blowing in the wind by Bob Dylan 1963
Nov 12, 2024
Nov 12, 2024 at 11:36 PM UTC
where the hell did you come from?
my callow frame in younger days
was cause for derision and nick names
i was “will o the wisp”
who disappeared when side-ways
magically reappearing when front on
i was lean and keen
a blonde-haired light surfing machine
now when side-ways there is a bump
a belly **** that wasn’t there before
was it habitually too much lunch
that steadily grew the paunch?
was it all those beers and cheers
over the years and years?
was it the invisible slide to a life sedentary
that expanded organs alimentary?
or is it a denial of my peter pan myth
that with age i just have to put up with?
anyway suddenly it seems to have come
but where the hell did it come from?
Nov 20, 2017
Nov 20, 2017 at 6:39 PM UTC
waxing, planetary
odd moonlight—
the faces are whetted to diamonds.
the paralytic shadow begins
to twitch;
benign light froths to full afternoon,
this sedentary creature in between teeth,
a clear consonant of dull air.
thereby gleaming, tapered to
a nightingale's song;
i take my place amongst the elements
of night: as if to say a new portrait in mausoleum crossed by grass and aureole
the laughter shattering its dull one—
a lurid memory, all to itself amongst
kindred of parks.
Nov 29, 2015
Nov 29, 2015 at 1:57 AM UTC
Coated in moonlight I take in your scent
The taste is sweet but the high is oppressive
My mind is haunted by the hollow embrace of your gaze
Swinging from hit to hit, always unbalanced
Your energy fuels my high and for a moment it all feels real
I want to stay in that feeling, building a log cabin in it’s lakeside shores
But far too soon I will be alone and realize my clock is bleeding
Last night’s residue lingers, the cold air tastes of honey and all at once I feel the need to *****
Struggling to accept my addiction, I say “I need to leave” as I relapse into your body
When you are away I am haunted by your pantomimed withdrawal.
I choke on the loss of productivity
High on you I feel sedentary in a galaxy of movement
Our finale, a supernova of light and lust shatters to drift alone and cold
I leave you behind, feeling a hunger to find a new drug with a different name
May 6, 2021
May 6, 2021 at 12:08 AM UTC
There's a man with cuts on his arms, probably accidental, perhaps I'm wrong
There's that girl and I think she's pretty
Over there is a dog, unleashed and he's barking at ghosts
In here is my heart and it stopped for a moment
That is a field and the grass grows blue, we don't know why
(On the park is where I first got high
In the bush is where love goes to die
At the shops I told a lie)
In his house we did more ******
Through the window I see her again, so pretty
You can see my eyes, they're watering
On the blue-grass sedentary, lays her body
Regretful hands are mine
Heroine life lost
- I'm sorry.
Jun 11, 2013
Jun 11, 2013 at 11:23 AM UTC