"simplified" poems
1400
What mystery pervades a well!
That water lives so far—
A neighbor from another world
Residing in a jar
Whose limit none have ever seen,
But just his lid of glass—
Like looking every time you please
In an abyss’s face!
The grass does not appear afraid,
I often wonder he
Can stand so close and look so bold
At what is awe to me.
Related somehow they may be,
The sedge stands next the sea—
Where he is floorless
And does no timidity betray
But nature is a stranger yet;
The ones that cite her most
Have never passed her haunted house,
Nor simplified her ghost.
To pity those that know her not
Is helped by the regret
That those who know her, know her less
The nearer her they get.
26.4k
She came from heaven & laid her head
Down next to mine.
It felt like I had crawled into the sun &
Realized that everything was not
what it seemed.
She became an island
One my emotions began to explore,
Simplified to pacing in circles
walking back and forth.
She came from heaven & laid her head
Down next to mine.
I'd realized that I never seen the sun
set.
My gratitude today hopeful
of the invitation into tomorrow.
She defies the gravity of my world
Jun 11, 2022
Jun 11, 2022 at 6:30 PM UTC
They say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder
But sometimes I ask myself, how can this be?
Cause when I look with my eyes, I only start to feel resent
and I begin to despise, the things I realize like
how my women of color have been simplified, and hypserxualized
how the black woman's body has been used and abused and now
It personifies, sexuality and promiscuity, out of all the things media feeds us these are some of the worst lies
You see cause black women are queens, and when white culture saw their worth, they were rattled
They couldn't help but try to minimize and de-legitimize, and put a guise over the eyes of all that viewed her
She is not just a big *** big lips or hips
She is the mother of humanity, in her essence from her hair, to lips to her fingertips she is a Queen, and she is to be respected.
And I will die for her honor, We will not go back into slavery days, I will not stand here while she gets up on stage naked and her body is dissected, and her soul, her essence neglected, her heart, her mind infected.
From these queens come the workers, the Kings, without the black woman we have no past and we have no future
We must protect the black woman, for she is sacred like scripture.
Mar 8, 2017
Mar 8, 2017 at 3:51 PM UTC
It's 3:09am
I'm im the library
Desperately trying to write a research paper:
'LGBT Familes'
How fitting.
Caffeine courses through my veins
Coffee overloads my bladder
Bathroom.
I hate bathrooms.
When you have no gender
The simple act of relieving yourself becomes a chore
The heavy weight of that key decision
Chokes your lungs as you stand outside the doors
Two doors.
Men.
Women.
Not me.
The choice becomes simplified:
While I sometimes pass as a man
I often do not.
I can choose the men's bathroom
The consequence of which could end in physical violence
The same hate I explain through my essay.
The same fear that plagues my community.
The women's restroom is also an option
The consequences likely less dire than the former:
Heavy side eye and the potential of yelling.
A much safer choice.
Obviously.
Per usual, I walk into the women's room.
I take three strides inside.
Then I stop.
I've never used the men's room.
My fear of violent reactions has always won.
Yet at a time like this
How likely is it that someone is inside the men's room?
Now is my chance to face my fears.
Now I have a safe chance at peeing in peace.
In a bathroom potentially more suiting
Of my gender identity
So I turn around.
Let the door slam behind me.
Half a step into the men's room
The smell of rancid ***** hits my senses
Toilet paper liters the stalls
I have missed absolutely nothing in my years in the women's room
Women have nicer facilities
A significantly more advanced hand dryer
Cleanliness
Air freshener
Men do not have these luxuries
Now I question,
Do men not take as good of care of their bathrooms as women do?
Do the workers intentionally prioritize women's sanitation?
What causes this undeniable divide?
Is the messiness of the men's room a result of their conscious decisions?
Or simply a response to societal expectation?
Regardless,
I think I'll stick to the women's room
While I add bathrooms to my compilation
Of more discrete gender inequality
Oct 31, 2017
Oct 31, 2017 at 2:23 PM UTC
"And in a funny way, the shaving of my, uh, head has been a liberation from, uh, a lot of, uh, stupid vanities really. Uh, it has simplified everything for me, it has opened a lot of doors maybe." - Stephen Malkmus, Jo Jo's Jacket
the first layer of skin i shed
was the bra
rid of the foreign metal sculptor producing a deep rift between skin
my third eye, swallowing gazes
rid of my **** , my ***** , my rack
replaced with sacks of fat and nerve and milk ducts
hanging, existing, for no one else
not even myself
the second layer of skin was the painting of the face
the concealing and erasing of imperfections, the lines of laughter of sorrow of life
redirecting attention and importance to the bow and symmetry of the lip
no longer did i have to put myself on in the morning
i woke up as i was, as i needed to be,
bare and uninhibited
my skin now breathed, and for no one else
not even myself
and then i grew another layer of skin,
made of dank tangles to protect my age,
i stopped shaving the years i'd walked this earth, shedding my womanhood
the skin grew to my armpits, little tufts of sweaty, odorous mother nature dozing in a fleshy convex nest
and to my legs, were the tangles wrapped around my ankles
preventing the spreading of the legs for every life
for not every life wanted what was not tame
and what was not tame no longer wanted to be.
my body did not conform,
for it was not brought into this world to be consumed for the pleasure of others
it exists for no one else,
not even myself
and as i was engulfed in this hairy wonder of my own body
i shed the last layer,
the shaving of the head
my brain, my being breathed
porous and exposed
vulnerable to weather and whispers
but i was all at once naked and calm,
having finally peeled away the layers of ***** over-sexualization and constrained femininity that had molded this meat sack that serves me,
a bundle of circuitry and solution balancing and bobbing on the neck
for i exist for no one else,
only myself
Aug 17, 2018
Aug 17, 2018 at 10:48 AM UTC
I.
*“You can only fight the way you practice”
― Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy*
His lessons started late
As always, and as always
What is thrown is a question
You grip tightly
around your fingers
as one would,
as one always should.
With a branch he beckons:
“Come” he asks,
*“if a stick is struck from this angle,
what would your answer be?”*
Always, the old man taught
With each strike, each parry,
Each disarm and lock,
Each time my knuckles
Would hurt. This way
he makes it sure
that my body
remembers.
This is always
the first step.
My mind might forget.
But the body
Remembers.
II.
*“It is difficult to realize the true Way just through sword-fencing. Know the smallest things and the biggest things, the shallowest things and the deepest things.”
― Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings: Miyamoto Musashi*
With him, everything starts
The vague quality of nonwords
Taught from pain, simplified
Through science:
the fulcrum and the lever.
Each joint, each turn,
a pattern to comprehend,
all things work in context:
*A framework of the undeniable
Fact:*
*the world is separate
In only these two words:*
Taub at Tihaya
The colloquial words for
Face down and face up;
This is a pattern
of the body.
III.
*“If you wish to control others you must first control yourself”
― Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy*
Tihaya
The lesson starts
When he presses
His thumb forward
to a hand asking for alms
like turning a doorknob
too far to the right.
Taub
when I pull back
four fingers
on a giving hand
too far to what is left.
these are the means
for control.
When I know
How much is necessary
To push or to pull,
To teach or to break.
- 18 October 2017
Oct 18, 2017
Oct 18, 2017 at 5:57 AM UTC
*The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will be live-*
The revelation will be streaming through your Windows
laptops and smartphones.
The revolution will be blogged
Tweeted, liked, shared, RE-blogged RE-tweeted
and Stumbled Upon in between
midnight ************ sessions
sandwiched between funny cat memes.
The resolution will be HD.
It's evolution will be high speed.
The whistles will be blown at with frequency.
The revolution will be commented on;
Scrutinized.
Vandalized.
Scandalized.
Stylized and advertized.
People will pay attention -
People will forget to mention
that some stand up, occupy, riot
and die.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution be streaming live
through the filter of your choice.
The facts will be democratized.
The democracy will be corporatized.
The corporations will personified.
People, objectified -
Spied on and villainized
The powers that be will will lie, deny, and try to justify.
The people will be disenfranchised.
Prisons will be privatized.
Death drones will be utilized.
No one will bat an eye.
Because revolution will be multiplied, over-simplified,
The violence, normalized.
Lives, sacrificed
to satiate the Golden Calf's appetite.
The revolution will not be televised
but Jerry Springer will...
Go figure.
Jun 30, 2013
Jun 30, 2013 at 12:45 AM UTC
Society forces us into boxes
PLEASE CHECK ONE EACH:
[ ] Male [ ] Female
[ ] Straight [ ] Gay
[ ] Child [ ] Adult
[ ] Black [ ] White
Check
Check
Check
Check
My existence cannot be simplified into your boxes
I am more than society's simplistic ideas
I am more than the sum of your boxes
Apr 15, 2014
Apr 15, 2014 at 11:05 PM UTC
Where goes the time when it flies?
Simplified by expression, and stained by clarity.
Smudge by lucidity
smeared by simplicity
tainted by intelligibility.
Tempus fugit as in time flies.
Sharply distressing with painful feelings
to the point of mental instability
morning or night
we become possessed with its mystic dealings.
Where goes the time when it runs?
Not a solitary explanation is found.
It happens and it won’t stop
until life terminates as well
without cause.
Derived of rationalisation
lacking understanding
short of justification
bursting with vindication
persistently and with conviction.
Where goes the time when it sails?
From the second that we’re born.
Where were we existing?
We cannot be so sure
Cannot recollect the past
Not for the first five of our years
Memory so blur, so shadowy
Hazy with distortions
obscure and confusing
Unit our mind starts slowly to recollect.
Where goes the time when it escapes?
The chronology of life so mysterious.
Nothing can solve its ambiguity
for time is a complex case
with an infinity of secrets.
What’s the obsession when we have so many setbacks
drawbacks and obstacles
obstructions and conundrums
to take care of before time perishes away
and leaves us stranded in oblivion.
Oh time, you magnificent of all mysteries,
the high and mighty of ambiguities.
Show us mercy and explain
we are not detectives of secrecies
your spell with us reflects on the whodunits.
Oh time of things past and yet to come
give us a clue as to what is to derive!
“Remember”
it softly replies “Make most of your lives”
“Once I fly away no one can have a replay”.
Apr 2, 2013
Apr 2, 2013 at 6:11 AM UTC
Note: This is a running conversation between Dom Scruffy Lobo and me (his submissive - bunny)
From the Dom
Each day I grow more in love with You
Each day I feel your presence
Each day you submit yourself to me
Each day without hesitancy
How could I be so lucky
To have found a boy so sweet
How can I grow this bond
Until we one day meet
The Wolf preys on bunny
A dance to do eternally
This Wolf devours His bunny
With love so merrily
All-in-all love so complex
But still love so simplified
To be near you
And hear you moan
To Me you give your life.
From the submissive
I wish I could tell You what Your love means to me
But that right now is an impossibility
There aren't enough words in any language that's known
To quantify these feelings You have grown
i wish i could tell You how much I love you
But that is also something I cannot do
In the language of dragons and fairy and magic
The words might be lost, truly tragic
But listen to my heart as it speaks to yours
I know Yours hears the right words by the score
The magnitude is greater, greater than great
The intensity of our love i just can't narrate
But trust and believe i'd give my life up for You
Trust and believe serve and obey i'll always for You.
Jun 16, 2021
Jun 16, 2021 at 5:22 PM UTC
My recollect is of the each,
The Two
And within the Two
One is the One
Holding and using our lead and ink utensils
as if they are weapons for winning at Love,
and reasoning for our written duel
Expressing desires the voice would customarily sever into dissection
Permitting authority to the crafted scripts *********
and may it’s barrier lay
over the possibility of a broken and scattered tongues communicate
Giving our internal intent its day
the way hoped it would speak
Expecting the requited, the return
was a pesticide over wide horizon,
Where the organic surprise of rainfall kept us neutral and thankful
And apart,
our minds maintained with
and of our other
With no need for philosophical proofs only the inner felt proof
Of forwarding shards of sentiment
with compiled assurance
and a dispatched formula
the best way we could phrase
Alongside images
that came in and held tight
in sectors tucked away and reserved from the cherished
to this day are still to be amazed
Spontaneous placement of universally synchronized jewels and stones
Of not have to have
[Only the simplified, pushed down and planted fact]
Of want her to have
So when away,
You feel a personal, singled-out
appraisal of praise
Feb 20, 2019
Feb 20, 2019 at 9:07 PM UTC
Stagnant,
Entertaining Ideas,
Slowly Mauling Thoughts,
Over Manifesting Mindless Acts -
Complexity Turned Suddenly Simplified -
Outburst Magnification Aligned,
Creative, Innovative,
Viral.
Sep 18, 2012
Sep 18, 2012 at 9:25 PM UTC
This is art of simplifying love.
If you have no friend,
You don't have to go to the club,
And get drunk with strangers.
Let's get drunk together.
If you have no time,
You don't have to talk to me for hours,
Just simply text me,
And tell you're okay.
If you have no money,
You don't have to buy me fancy food,
We can eat the instant noodle instead.
Or I can cook and eat by myself.
If you're bad at remembering,
You don't have to remember our anniversary date, nor my birthday.
Just remember me,
Or simply remember my name.
If you're not in love with me,
You can start learning it,
Or simply throw me away.
It's way more simple than faking love.
Feb 22, 2016
Feb 22, 2016 at 7:47 AM UTC
After weeks spent parading around, letting everybody and their mother know the day is near, we are finally here. It’s the night of your 21st birthday. 3 shots, 2 beers, and a joint or four later, and I’m feeling pretty alright.
Your mother brings out your baby book, the entirety of your childhood life simplified into pictures and momentous small enough not to cause the pages to crease, meticulously placed between two hard covers.
She flips through the album, licking her fingertips between every other page and reading aloud the entries with the most significance to her. Suddenly she stops and points to a date.
January 19, 1997. The first time you smiled.
I look over at you and you smile back at me. A smile so radiant, there’s no need to explain the significance.
Jan 29, 2018
Jan 29, 2018 at 11:21 PM UTC
We revel in the artist's gaze.
See us, artist, we say.
Scale us in the geometry of your sight.
Objectify us, break us down
To our vital light,
The zero shade of being,
Our essential black and white.
But what if the figure becomes the ground?
Does the artist’s vision ever come to rest?
Does she halt the eye’s restless turning,
Instead hunger to be seen? Fathomed? Expressed
In basic hues, simplified, resolved,
Into the object deconstructed, the mystery solved?
Spotlight and camouflage,
Revelation and disguise:
The chiaroscuro of the artist’s eyes.
Then where does beauty reside?
In our eyes, beholders,
Invited in yet held outside?
Or in the starlight, sunlight,
Lamplight as it plays
On the seer seen in beauty’s gaze?
Jul 24, 2015
Jul 24, 2015 at 10:02 AM UTC
A satisfied appetite is a simply joy
Overlooked and simplified
Like a growing urge, a salivating need
That is entrancing and glorified.
Everlasting for moments we call meals
Forgotten in time, lingering above
But the taste, the lonesome lover pushed aside
Gazes afar and near wanting to be enjoyed again
The young lady with a tongue of raspberry delight
And the matured widow with darkened cacao lips
Ripening nectar of a sliced peach center
Halved and topped with mascarpone crème
The man with a skin of caramel glaze
Caressing and savoring
With a fragrance and scent
Of hazelnut coffee indulgence and sin
In the pursuit of a brief love affair
What oral sensation did my taste buds want?
My odyssey of gustatory endeavors await
Through the seas of lined people and waiting staff
Generous portions and humble pies
Decadent desserts so rich you’ll die
Vine cherry tomatoes sliced and sauté
Over al dente rigatoni in a roasted cashew sauce
A robust aroma and savory appeal
Basil leaves with garlic strips
Olive oil to top the surreal
Hubristic meatball aborigine
Elysian cuisine or many dreams
Teasing the senses, warming the pit
Of flowing pleasures
And tingling fingertips
Without moral measures
And succulent wines
Rotisserie lamb falling of the bone
Seasoned with Sicilian herbs
And paired with broiled asparagus
Drizzled with lemon juice
And a glass of Merlot
Spices I hardly know
Lachrymose apologies beside a bottle of faded sorrows
With love there is pain, passion endured through the names
Thin soups, flavorless and dull, feeding street-thrown bums
Breathing hard against the delicatessen glass
Hickory smoked hams, pepper-seasoned pastrami
Vinegar cultured pickles and hard dried salami
Unpleasured, without measure, at one's leisure.
Forever my endeavor
Blackcurrant tea laced with slivers of gooping honey
Layers of cinnamon hair atop olive skin
red-painted doors with cedar trim
crushed almonds mixed with hazelnut butter cream spread
devilish rounds of crumbling rum-swirl bread
Smells and wonders, tastes so ...
oh god
Divine and sublime.
Jul 22, 2013
Jul 22, 2013 at 5:42 PM UTC
Raining down everywhere
Autumn tastes bittersweet by the river.
I want to paint the land in abstract
Subtle lines of a new day.
To delight and inebriate the few that call for courage.
But a whisper of cloud takes forever to appear.
And dead leaves are piled up in corners blown by a strange wind.
I wonder, what keeps them there?
The shallow water of the River Fen flows to impress,
But the warmth has now gone.
A heart sunk in mourning and bleakness comes without sound.
I see the couples walk by hand in hand, unaware of the bitter
sweet breeze that blows from winters harsh advance.
The old man walks alone days of youth in his heart,
But he looks back without sadness, without nostalgia.
A life simplified of images, and now he is able to
comprehend the world.
But who wants to know this?
As for me, I will keep on drifting away,
Or break up into many parts,
But I remain who I am!
Searching for you in this land of drifting souls.
Nov 4, 2017
Nov 4, 2017 at 4:59 AM UTC
Boo!
I love you, darling!
I always will.
Even if you disappear.
Because we are a math equation.
Numbers and variables,
Exponents and everything else.
It may look complex to some or
Maybe it makes people sick to look at,
But there are tricks and it is easy to figure out.
The simplified equation comes down to
Us*love=
Sep 16, 2013
Sep 16, 2013 at 10:33 AM UTC
Ten years ago if you would've stopped me
on the street and said that I'd be stuck
at a dead end job, divorcing my husband of fifteen years,
and dividing three kids between two houses and twenty miles,
I would've spat in your face with laughter.
We never intend to have our life's plans crumble
before us, watching our spouses change into different
people and our children pick themselves apart
because all the words their parents say are fights
disguised in jabs and cracks at each other:
the time
they don't have,
the money
they don't have, the love
they
don't
have.
And in ten years, two people can fall apart the way
a river branches into separate streams, continuously flowing away
from their source, navigating bends and crossing the silted mud of life together
until they split up.
And everything we take for granted,
those necessities of life, are broken
down into their basic elements. Water is merely
hydrogen and oxygen. A marriage is but
two people
who can be divided,
simplified, classified, jarred up, studied,
separated.
*Two streams diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not see this coming.*
It just happens that way.
Life just happens
that way.
Mar 21, 2015
Mar 21, 2015 at 8:45 PM UTC
I want to keep my inner child alive
The more mature I become, the faster he dies
I want to keep his wonder in my eyes
As my curiosity blurs along with time
Who he is, is getting harder to define
Losing his small hand's grip from mine
Maturation is going to make me blind
The vibrancy of my colours subsides
His childish traits are falling back inside
The outside world and him do not coincide
Hardening my heart that use to be kind
Leaving with his pieces that use to be mine
He retreats to the corners of my mind
Burying himself in memories of time
Because that is where his happiness lies
In my childhood when the world was wide
I place myself behind too many lines
Building a box using all the right signs
Growing up into expectations assigned
Resorting to a life so simplified
Mar 7, 2019
Mar 7, 2019 at 12:48 PM UTC
Down, into the water, girls face, first
In the grey depths
Astride. Legs
twisted in still
shoulder hunched over, still -
Words. Perfectly poised
to but a few chairs, at tables
Empty some, clung to the edges by a few
small girls - a few.
Who else to watch? Nothing else to do
Bored though. Writing notes still
Why not?
Women tell fables, tales and fables
Anecdotes of politics. As little as they're able
simplified for softer ears.
Shes beautiful. Quite. Well, she's not bad
sitting there, grey hair, clad
coat and perfume; sweet smelling politics.
Soft around the edges.
Don't stand up.
Quietly exit
Learn nothing.
Feel cold. Inside. Lost hope
Utopia slipping through manicured fingertips like soap.
Dec 15, 2016
Dec 15, 2016 at 3:50 PM UTC
The life a man does boast is but a tryst
Between the egos of his Cosmic gods,
Who jest at gnarly oaks and monoliths;
At twigs we humans foolishly are awed.
Yet such does not render us simplified;
Too great is Cosmo's pride in their amour,
But secrets we'll uncover, stratified;
Acceptance, such a silent petrichor.
So let the veil be lifted, let us see,
Existence as gossamer as the veil,
Fragile as the primrose, less the beauty,
On us, we hope, these Lover's dreams won't fail.
At night we dream of worlds beyond the stars;
Sits on their smallest finger, all of ours.
Apr 8, 2015
Apr 8, 2015 at 9:51 AM UTC
'Under the sky with you..
I wrote a line for you
and as your eyes found the Moon's,
those stars were fixed on you..
'Everything is beautiful, your broken smile too..'
And back at the tree house, I
wrote a poem for you well, tried*
but it was way too simplified..
I needed bigger words like;
The juxtaposition of this composition is too excruciating to be euphemism now..
... So darling let's be real,
You and I, we both know how we feel..
'craving love from others but rejecting it from ourselves..
If only my hugs could heal,
maybe then I could love myself..
'Lying on the field, eyes closed..
I thought of my bow and arrow,
'how I've tried to set the target on your heart,
but the thought of hurting you made it hard to let go..
Do I take your breath away?..
Or am I just a breath away from doing so?..
Oh I just want you. So. Bad.
'So bad that if you hurt me,
I'd hurt you back..
'Write a song, a traumatic chapter for dramatic impact..
If only feelings could change..
but maybe your feelings will..
Maybe one day you'll see everything is beautiful,
.. and I can be too.
Nov 27, 2014
Nov 27, 2014 at 2:14 PM UTC
Tranquility can’t be obtained
from external sources; ultimate
peace must come from within…
one’s own soul; when trained
by the local Church, ideals
of Truth’s tenets are taught;
they’re meant to elevate our
thinking, whereby what’s real
or true… becomes much clearer.
Life is simplified as false steps
are avoided; self-confidence grows
with Faith’s maturity; when nearer
to Jehovah, our Life is enhanced!
For His peace surpasses all human
understanding, where tranquility
dwells; when Faith has advanced,
you’ll find tranquility… more often!
Oct 28, 2016
Oct 28, 2016 at 1:45 PM UTC