"skepticism" poems
1413
Sweet Skepticism of the Heart—
That knows—and does not know—
And tosses like a Fleet of Balm—
Affronted by the snow—
Invites and then retards the Truth
Lest Certainty be sere
Compared with the delicious throe
Of transport thrilled with Fear—
6.3k
A poesy to those who earn a life of little recognition.
Beneath the fabric of the world’s tainted expectations, lies what many fail to explore, few discover and the luckiest cherish.
Blessings that cannot be traded, bought, nor sold.
A benison unable to become impoverished.
Gifts that grow and sprout delicious fruit.
A colossal heart of gold.
The hue’s of their soul glows intoxicatingly bright,
and guide those in the dark.
A benevolence whose warmth is palpable to the lives of those surrounding them,
with out a demand,
and only a thirst to love.
With unfamiliar brilliance, these people fall anonymous.
Many of the carriers unaware of what beats within.
Blind to the beautiful wake of life trailing behind their actions.
They smile as if nothing has been done, where everything has.
Their inspirational hearts, when noticed shine so much beauty, you’re left in bewilderment.
As skepticism fades, cynicism falls, hate dulls, and questions are left with answers.
As fear is replaced by freedom.
You watch the kindness ask for nothing,
as only a desire to follow remains.
Dec 5, 2016
Dec 5, 2016 at 11:24 PM UTC
The whole concept
of adulthood
is one that seems to
trespass
from the ever-anticipated world
of the theoretical,
just to barge into your life
one night
like an uninvited drunken friend.
It will never really “hit you,”
but it’ll come **** close
the first time your aunt
offers you a glass of wine
as she and your mother
gossip frankly about
your father’s mistress—
you sip on cheap Chardonnay
and pretend to be used to the taste,
as they talk with
a middle-aged bitterness
of the man you were raised
to believe was too virtuous
to be in debt for some glitzy
engagement ring that he
bought to restart his life
with a woman he left your mother for
shortly after the pandemonium
of a guiltless affair.
The man
whose brutishness
you were told to overlook, cradling
the sparse memories
of when he’d tuck you
too tightly into bed, or
when he’d tell you that he loved you
even though half the time
you really didn’t believe him—
The man whose love confused you,
whose clumsy attempts
of fatherhood
kept the heart of a young girl
perpetually guarded
by a cautious skepticism—
The man who brought you into
a world he found absurd
as carelessly
as he raised you to face it,
torn apart
like every illusion that makes a child,
the ashes of which
that slip through your fingers
inevitably declare you
another bitter adult.
More wine will reveal
that your beloved father
is a controlling ******
and his relationship
with that *****
the whole family hates
only appears to be functioning
because she lets him have
all the control
he couldn’t exert on your mother,
even though you’ve had dinner
with the two of them a couple of times
and if you had met her
under any other circumstance (though
you’d feel like a traitor
if you said it aloud)
you wouldn’t think
she was all that bad.
In red, declarative letters
I want to write to any children I may ever bear
into this bittersweet game of ********
we play that we’ve since called ‘life,’
that when they first gaze with awe
at the unattainable grace
with which every grown-up seems to navigate
the world they created,
with all the pain of tax-paying and womanhood,
I want to scream
that we don’t know what the hell we’re doing either
and if at any point I try to convince you otherwise
you should tell your mother
that she’s full of ****
Nov 12, 2013
Nov 12, 2013 at 3:25 PM UTC
he wasn't
exactly
what I expected
him to be
he kept his hair short and messy,
wore funny clothes and enjoyed
comic books, Daft Punk and
ginger-lemon-tea-brewing
of all things
and bless,
he thought his earrings
made him seem tough
In the end, it was
his confidence
that won me over
his smiley eyes
so seamlessly dissolved
my doubts and skepticism
and took with
them,
unexpectedly,
my heart
the kisses he'd plant on my forehead would
drag me into
his silly world where
wonderfully weird hats were worn seriously
and music played on our
candy-coloured 2000s cd player
while we read together
on the couch
he offered to massage
my feet and I blushed and thought
that I was falling for him and
he laughed and pulled me
close into his chest
while I wept with joy
for I'd found
happiness
Nov 7, 2017
Nov 7, 2017 at 8:15 PM UTC
I hate your ********* skepticism.
You sit and look at me from across an
Empty expanse of blood-red tablecloth that might as well be
The divide between galaxies.
I try to stay calm when you ask if
"Alternative" pronouns are being used
As a "social experiment" in GSA.
I look away.
My heart pounds.
My face flushes.
It is only for the sake of the young kids present
That I do not mutter any obscenities.
I take a deep breath.
I tell you, slowly, carefully, that
No it isn't an experiment.
They have chosen to use plural pronouns
They, them, theirs,
Just as legitimate as the "normal" ones, male and female.
Why should anyone's name be tied to
What they were born with between their legs?
You answer back in a long drawl that is so full I skepticism
I could choke on it's ignorance.
"Okay then."
Two words, two words that make me rethink everything
I think about you, my father.
I was filled with hope when I listened to
Tales of love and life,
Freedom to marry who you want.
You support gay rights, Dad,
But I'm left wondering:
Do you support all my friends?
The pansexual and gender-fluid and bisexual and homosexual and demi-sexual and those who chose other pronouns?
What about the transsexuals and asexuals and third-gendered and pan-romantic and sapiosexual and queer?
I turn away before I reveal my hurt to you
I will not open up this can of worms again, I'm sure.
I thought I knew you.
Now I only know how much more I
Respect
Compared to you.
May 21, 2014
May 21, 2014 at 10:30 PM UTC
"You're so beautiful,"
says
Mr. You-Deserve-Better.
His friend,
Joe I-Can-Be-Different,
nods in agreement.
I'm just Miss Single-20-Something
searching for companionship
finding nothing
but the company
of every one-track-minder
in the Greater Portland Area.
I've been promised the moon,
stars,
a few planets here
or there.
Receiving just grunted approvals
from two-pump chumps
with over-active sweat glands.
So excuse the skepticism
clouding my judgement
as I roll all man kind
into one conclusion:
You all bark like dogs.
If he acts like one,
and smells like one,
I'd say Bingo
is his
name-o.
Just save it.
This Jenny has been around the block.
Your flowers will die.
Your chocolates will go to my hips.
For now,
your name is Mud,
and you can call me Miss Independent.
May 22, 2012
May 22, 2012 at 9:31 PM UTC
Waiting for him,
Was like a,
Mindless abyss.
I thought,
This time I should give it a shot.
Add plus venture,
Into a realm full with pleasures of flesh.
Rather waiting to lie in sepulcher.
Thence came the wooers,
On horses, chariots, planes and cars,
Courted me to the foreign lands of brand new emotions.
Greasy, exotic, curious and even obscure ,
To satiate my hunger,
They poured,
And I sinfully devoured.
Ooooh!
A whip here.
Ouuch!
A tickle there.
Aahhhhh!!
The sheer unfolding of their classy work.
Every night lusciously they came,
Wrapped me in an awe of satire, skepticism and imagination,
Not to say of the bruises they gave,
Tears I shed of Anger,Pain ,Love and Hate.
Still I followed them blindly and agape,
Because a new world in me was taking shape.
Of Shakespeare, Freud, Tolstoy, Eliot, Byron, Wordsworth and my then fav,
the great Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
A medley of fantasy, fact-fiction, comedy, realism and romance.
Oh!
What not I chanced upon.
All emphasizing emotion, imagination, scientific and natural thought.
There was no stopping of these gnawing hunger pangs,
None lasted more than a one night stand.
The foolish me, unaware, cascaded in the fatal encounters,
Not knowing the pangs are of soul to reach the supreme ******
Thence came a Seer
The Prophet,
The Wanderer,
The Forerunner,
It was as if he can rip me with his thoughts,
And see my soul through that tear…..
I distinctly remember that divine night,
The moment I held him in my desirous hands,
I was no more in dual fight.
Things started falling into place,
Was no more in that abysmal space.
Still I would say,
It’s a current phase.
This soon would also evade.
New Lover ,
For every new night…
To cut a long story short,
Just so,
Because of your low attention span,
The lover, the poet , the wooer
Was the great
Khalil Gibran.
Jul 5, 2010
Jul 5, 2010 at 1:05 PM UTC
Virgo in the ascendant,
Saturn in decline,
A retrograding antidote,
A calculated rhyme;
Overtones of melancholy,
Undertones of mirth,
A surfeit of misfortune,
Of musery a dearth
Faithless Fortune taps her foot,
While plotting my demise,
A rhythm most unruly,
A metaphor unwise;
In minutes and in seconds,
She wreaks havoc on my pen,
A glib faux pas, no coup de grâce...
And so I start again.
§
_My zodiacal tendencies,
Triumphant in their prime,
Fade to skepticism
As life spins on a dime._
Nov 11, 2021
Nov 11, 2021 at 2:22 PM UTC
i see love and light and cringe
at its generic quality, all the same
all beautiful and endearing and encouraging
and i can't help but feel the cynic in me laughing
at the mawkish displays and efforts
and at my own generic skepticism
just one charming quality of my
self deprecating form of narcissism
Nov 18, 2016
Nov 18, 2016 at 11:18 AM UTC
Philosophical epistemology strumming adventures
Albeit, coherent mental decoding stratifications structured
Supposedly our world rests in our minds, revolving knowledge
An entwine of conceptual abstract flowing within oneself
The mind in the “I” the “I” a reality lived in my experiences
George of Leontini, a mine mind approving solipsism exploring innatism
Imaginative insights that nothing exists, the secrets secreting secrets
The knowledge behind the veils that remains un-communicated
A reverse of normality and known existences, moral disposition
Hypothesis of depersonalizations, adventures of self internalization
Justifications for what lies outside the Medulla Oblongata
Skepticism and just alternatives to western philosophy
Subjective unapproved experiences only robust in one’s mind
Descartes abstraction of inner experiences, reciprocated paradigm
Intuitively, perceived lived formulations of "Cogito Ergo Sum"
Psychological conscious undoubted individualistic thoughts
Berkley explored perspectives that physicality is an embodiment of the mind
The mind a decoding visualizer, that encompass the non-existent
An idealism marriage of ‘metaphysical’ and epistemological philosophy
The intense esoteric “dualism” verses the fiery “monism” reality
Mind boggling differentiated truths bleeding with blinking unresolvable hypothesis
The jiggered methodological, streamlining the un -logic sequential beats
Feb 19, 2016
Feb 19, 2016 at 11:56 AM UTC
May the branches of your cherry tree
Blossom fruitful and ripen beneath a kind,
Soft sun.
May the sky remind you it's okay to cry
Even if there is gold upon the loom
And green in the field.
May your mind be full of skepticism
Never criticism.
May you remain pure and strive to
Avoid ignorance.
Bliss is achieved upon crossing troubled water
Aim to avoid the security of a bridge.
Ignore cold shoulders:
Bathe in the sun.
Remember wind pulls petals from the strongest flowers.
Weeping willows sway in the wind like waves.
May it swallow your spine
Permeate vertebrae
And pull you deeper into blue until lungs beg to brake.
Emma,
I will sleep beside you until the rain comes.
Jun 26, 2013
Jun 26, 2013 at 10:50 PM UTC
My walls will cave in (just like placards stacked up horizontally fall back with the wind) along with every wave of anxiety-
Right then, I will fall short of words, or rather lose the intelligence of speaking-
Goosebumps, butterflies, shivers and my heart dipping into the cold Pacific won't just be defense mechanisms.
My heart will appear to jolt awake and then dead repeatedly by the society I put myself in;
I will feel electricity running around in my veins, often sparking out of my eyes as the salty tears that trigger short circuits
The ones they say could be caused by the heat-
Indeed- but it's also the cold, the wind, rain and the snow
Words like unknown, unforeseen and anonymous manifesting and getting under my skin- make my jaws quiver and heart dip.
Often my gut nudges me to stand and to speak and to, for once, not fear an omen before I deliver a speech,
But when I speak, though my mouth moves to enunciate what I remembered from the paper,
And as I attempt to collect and reflect my confidence through my features,
My fingers tremble as I try to fit them into my fists behind my back-
These legs shiver behind the pedestal, hidden under slacks.
For people think these mere trifles shouldn't ******* the silhouette that I bear,
Fear of the unknown? Don't be scared, scared!
My nerve ends nervously make my fingers dance as I attempt to provide them a temporary occupation-
'Cross your fingers, close your fists,
Pretend to text, you're better than this.'
So dear me, oh dear me I am sorry-
I am sorry for constantly holding you back;
Sorry for all the chances I did not let you take, all because
I sometimes tend to diverge my faults out as through a prism,
And have always been someone who can never jeopardize her pursuit for perfection.
Sorry, for the seeds of my anxiety have given birth to the roots of my skepticism-
For I paint doubt over every pretty scenery you etch in my mind,
My inhibitions and myself, thinking things over, rewind, rewind.
If I were Rapunzel my anxiety would be the tower that holds me encapsulated- a hostage;
With no demands whatsoever, only a plain, ruthless, endless need to cause damage.
Aug 5, 2016
Aug 5, 2016 at 9:05 AM UTC
Claus, Santa, the
Is a huge enigma to me
And probably many others
My enigmatized sisters and brothers.
Enigmatized, possibly stigmatized,
It beggars logical thought
All the confusion and pain
This concept has brought.
For over two centuries
Surrounded with mysteries
An alternately jovial and evil guy
Brought bounteous gifts, could fly!
Gave coal to the misbehaving,
Or nothing much at all, saving
All the good stuff for good kids
Who were careful with what they did.
We have read of Saint Nick
And Sinterklaas; take your pick
Of which legend blended with what
To become the guy we were taught
Sneaked down chimneys at night
It you kids didn’t sleep tight.
While this is all very typical
It seems rather biblical.
Claus’s eye is on the sparrow
So we must walk the straight and narrow
Or go down into his big naughty book
And he will ultimately decide to look
Askance at any chance of gifts for you
No matter how much begging you do
Write to his eternal rotund self.
He’s an unforgiving old elf.
And there’s that flying reindeer thing
And the way he’s rumored to go zipping
Around the entire blessed world in one night.
That, to me just never seemed quite right.
It’s bizarre and incredible is exactly what.
Do the reindeer have jet engines in their ****
And how can one tiny sleight and eight beasts
Tote those thousands of truckloads at least?
No, the whole thing sounds bogus, in its base.
And that whole North Pole/tiny people place
Where they slave on making toys all the year
And thrive on hot chocolate instead of beer?
Elves must be a rather dim gang of workers.
No union leaders? No malingerers? No lurkers?
I have tried for decades, but it doesn’t add up.
There’s too much questionable in this holiday cup.
I’m going back to the idea I thought as a child.
It’s easier to believe and not nearly as wild:
It’s Mom and Dad behind it all, it’s a big lie.
And my final bit of skepticism? I can tell you why.
The kids in my little neighborhood get given
Gifts with no relationship to how they are living.
If all this hogwash were actually true
Bunches of them would get coal too.
Dec 12, 2015
Dec 12, 2015 at 6:39 PM UTC
Considering belief, dispositions dutifully mixed
Two fingers of skepticism, with ample deviation
Followed by a pony of existentialism riding in
Mad man's drink is bitter but,
At this point all he can accept
Chin deep in the highball glass
Sinking amongst the buoyant
Gulping down helplessness
Yearning for the forgotten island
Where belief was once believed
Apr 13, 2012
Apr 13, 2012 at 11:59 AM UTC
*my rough and tattered edges like sea glass
smoothly rounded by her passions
relentlessly polished by intimate contact
with her welling water and earthy grit
the reality of her excites me
humbling any romantic doubt
dispelling any fantasy skepticism
instilling a will for the moment
she is energy in pure spherical form
encircling this scattered life
she holds for me a sense of place
a bookmark to poetic existence
just as bands bind magic barrel staves
as rainbows secretly circle underground
as concentric rings indicate growth
love will revolve even as it expands*
Aug 29, 2014
Aug 29, 2014 at 4:26 PM UTC
Default! Default! parties from the left cried!
But the people said no, they still had their pride
They viewed these parties with some skepticism,
and tackled the problem with true stoicism
There were no riots, no violent demonstrations,
as was evident in many other debt ridden nations
We simply put our heads down and got on with the task,
answering all of the questions the world had to ask
And now through our efforts things seem to have improved,
with a deal on the promissory note having just been approved
We still owe the money but we have more years to pay,
we can only hope our grandchildren will pay it off one day
There are green shoots of recovery, all is not lost
We learned a valuable lesson, though at a significant cost
We have done well though we cannot let down our guard
A sentiment echoed recently by one Christine Lagarde
We cannot get carried away with president Obama’s praise
For Enda Kenny on Paddy’s day, of all the days!
though lauded in Europe as a good example to everyone
we must not relax, there is a lot more to be done
But after all the cost cutting, redundancies, pay cuts,
all we get from Europe now is more ifs and buts
And I know this is wrong before I’ve even said it;
but for all of our hard work, would Europe not give us some credit?
Aug 15, 2015
Aug 15, 2015 at 9:38 AM UTC
The gruff factory worker
in the coarse leather boots
and stained zubaz pants,
yelped with displeasure
when the tour guide of
the Pullman company town
revealed himself to be a
PhD candidate in English
during a Q-and-A.
He questioned his credentials,
dismissed him as overeducated,
as soft-palmed, not of his caste,
loudly declared that he was
just another bureaucrat in waiting.
"Institutions just exist to perpetuate
themselves; they don't care about
the people, just about keeping
themselves alive," he theatrically
confided to his friend,
wanting to make sure he heard him,
took note of his flagrant, raging skepticism.
"They got to pay the lawyers."
"All these institutions, they don't care about the workers."
We strode on, amid the shadowed reaches of the empty train car factory the owners long ago abandoned to the rustling prairie,
left to the wind and weeds and elements.
Sep 5, 2018
Sep 5, 2018 at 4:16 AM UTC
Light seeps through the
Window cadences of rhythm
Like a heartbeat
Of true intentions
Misconceptions dodge the soul
Dust particles pass my face
Proving I’m still alive
Somewhere inside
This shell
At night my astrolabe
Can not contain the measures
Of uneasiness and skepticism arising
In this government induced anxiety
Sep 16, 2019
Sep 16, 2019 at 3:58 PM UTC
Hold on for a moment-
For some moments never hold-
Cold is the feeling-
Warm is the snow-
Let insecurity free fly away-
Live for tomorrow-
Die for today-
Hand held dilemma-
Hand held pain-
Roof top skepticism-
Basement virtue games-
Stood in front of you bare ***** and open-
Bottle to bottle-when trust was spoken-
Smoking cloud-
Disappear now-
Gone with the wind-
Lost in the crowd-
A part of me will always be missing-
Teaching hard lessons-
Learning-
Forgiving-
Oct 25, 2011
Oct 25, 2011 at 8:23 PM UTC
invisible
stolen from the naked eye
beyond understanding
floating in enlightenment—
you cannot be touched
you glow,
you shine,
you blind
an illusion, a mirror
beyond the depths of realism,
into skepticism;
a wall:
paralyzed,
empty
longing to be heard,
a whistle in the wind—
a shot in the dark
closing in,
an abyss;
past surrealism,
into oblivion
reach out..
make contact,
accept your call
don't delay,
time doesn't wait;
it is now—
or it is never
Jul 6, 2012
Jul 6, 2012 at 12:41 AM UTC
see, i did have you right the whole time
broken promises of a three
all i wanted was to be in your arms
broken promises are all you ever gave to me
break the skepticism
your first love will always break your heart.
Oct 22, 2012
Oct 22, 2012 at 3:02 AM UTC
I think back to the days
when I would come over
for play dates
and we would
explore the world
being adventurous
energetically carefree.
It was simple
how our friendship worked
no tall tales behind
each others backs
no feelings were hurt
no secrets
no lies
no whispering.
We were all best friends
hanging out together.
A group formed quickly
and divided even quicker.
Stories embellished
to promote one’s own
popularity, creating
laughs and turning me
into the black sheep.
I learned not to trust
any of you.
Skepticism became my
new best friend.
The best thing I thought
was to leave it all
forget everyone and
begin somewhere else new.
That place didn’t really
seem quite for me either.
So I returned. Some
accepted me back with
open arms, but I still
couldn’t trust it.
I didn’t know who any
of you were anymore.
I struggled opening up
and accepting you all.
I wish I could have done it.
I wish we did reunite.
I have forever wanted to
be back in the group.
But the group is not for me.
It never was. It never will be.
Sep 26, 2013
Sep 26, 2013 at 11:44 PM UTC