"smugness" poems
"Over here"...
but nothing.
The scene continues
unabated by my presence.
Plastic smiles and lustful eyes
bountiful but not for me..never me.
In the mirror' s unforgiving gaze
I am unrecognizable
Replaced with a crude rendering
of my previous likeness
fashioned by children
with lumpy imperfect clay.
Silence replaces loving laughter
that used to follow my witty banter.
Silence and stares. Sympathetic stares
tinged with smugness and fear.
"Over here...over here..."
still nothing.
Jul 25, 2018
Jul 25, 2018 at 11:06 PM UTC
Please be aware, the arrogance of a Burglar
that breaks into your home and steals your
property is permissible
Please carefully note that the arrogance of a stinking bully
that oppresses you and wants to cower you down
is permissible
Please take into consideration that the arrogance of a gang
that terrorizes and bullies is permissible
Please bear in mind the arrogance of liars, twisters, slanderers
fraudsters and defamers is permissible
Please remember the arrogance of fringe lunatics to unjustly
condemn and victimize and bring chaos and destruction
to an innocent human is permissible
Please keep in your appraisals the arrogance of a misled majority
to impose, mob, obstruct, harass and hound is democracy
in action and is permissible
Please note that the arrogance and ignorance of offensively discriminating against any foreigner or minority member is permissible
Please note to work hard and earn an honest living is Arrogant
Please know to stand up to criminal bullies is Arrogant
Please know to stand up to stinking bullies is Arrogant
Please know to speak up for yourself is Arrogant
Please note to refuse to be cowered by thieves is Arrogant
Please know to refuse to be browbeaten is Arrogant
Please know to refuse to have your confidence drained is Arrogant
Please know to stand up to adversity is Arrogance
Please know to not be weak and Feeble under pressure is Arrogance
Please know to have self respect and be self assured is Arrogant
Please know to possess your own mind is Arrogance
Please know to offer as much as a squeak when being unfairly and unjustly treated is Arrogance
Above all please know that we invented the English Language and have the sole knowledge as to what constitutes Arrogance, whether you like it or not, and if you protest about that, you are ****** guilty of Arrogance...my friend!
Please be strictly conscious that Arrogance is weakness, mental weakness. Falling to the desires of our darker instincts and
succumbing to conceit and smugness.
Please pay particular attention to the salient fact that Arrogance
portraits a total lack of human decency towards other humans
Know that when arrogance ceases humanity ascends.
And we we all live in a lovely perceptibly white and wonderful world
Oct 5, 2018
Oct 5, 2018 at 5:09 AM UTC
Do you realize that races are overrated,
since God is no respecter of persons?
Colored perceptions of hatred and bigotry
may ultimately destroy our existence.
Who needs people that:
• Lack brotherly love and respect for others
• Lust for power, wealth and **********
• Lack vision and purpose
• Lack maturity and wisdom
• Have attitudes of superiority
• Are poor in spirit
• Lack discipline and self-control
Colored attitudes, regarding skin tones and hues,
pale in contrast to uncontrolled emotions.
Without responsibility and accountability,
people get themselves in trouble rather quickly.
Who really wants or needs:
• Red’s lustful, passion for someone other than your spouse?
• or Green’s destructional envy of others’ wealth or possessions?
• or Yellow’s fear, smelling of ***** from peeing ourselves?
• or White’s collection of powdered deaths?
• or Blue’s inner sadness or coldness towards others?
• or Brown’s poverty, shame and overall uncleanness?
• or Orange steadfastness for a Godless life?
• or Purple’s smugness from a self-conceived ideal of royalty?
• or Black’s foreboding sicknesses and death?
Our human collective needs to find real commonality,
within this brotherhood of man, as planetary stewards.
Under girded with a genuineness of concern and love,
true understanding can lead to harmonious relationships.
We all have the ability to commune with God’s Spirit;
however, we each must have a desire to do so.
Utopia may be unattainable, unlike… unity of community.
And yes, I forgive you, for thinking I might be racist.
Author Notes:
Loosely based on:
Acts 10: 34; Gal 2: 6; Deut 10: 17; 1 Pet 1: 17
Learn more about me and my poetry at:
http: //www.squidoo.com/book-isbn-1419650513
By Joseph J. Breunig 3rd, © 2012, All rights reserved.
Apr 11, 2013
Apr 11, 2013 at 7:42 AM UTC
Finding myself dismissed
For my slow speed
And small size
I see there is no use for speed in the eternal
As there is no use for size in the infinite
For I have the tortoise way
As God has given me this glorious shell
That the world may throw down
Its smugness and contempt on me
For it just rattles like rain of a roof
As I draw my head in
I hear the pitted patter
Of the world's pain softly
Raining down on me
I relax in the warmth of my own shell
They may keep their childish ways
Their one upmanship
For I do not seek the high road
But the low
Where my heart brushes with earth
And I feel close to God
For I love the earth so much
That I did not choose to be born
On two legs and tall
But on four legs and small
With my heart as close
To the earth as possible
For I love the earth so much
Bound to the earth I appear to all
As they laugh and chuckle
In their disregard
As I am humbled by the earth
And my own limitation
But God rewards me with long life
As he does many gentle souls
For I will be hugging the earth
When they are long gone
And their empires have fallen
Listening to the whispers of a tortoise
Will bring you great joy
For seldom will such love be matched
As they guard the earth
With their warm heart
And shield it from the harshness
Of the World
With their beautiful shell
Where underneath an intimacy
With the earth is fostered
and can only be known
By the beauty of a tortoise
Feb 28, 2014
Feb 28, 2014 at 6:30 PM UTC
Lifetimes ago
Behind a sofa, on hard floor, we slept entwined,
Warmed by lust – and those eyes.
Waking early
Another appetite took her
She wanted bananas
Not coffee, nor toast, or foie gras
But with whispered twinkle –
Bananas.
So I braved the detritus of folly
The beer can minefield, the tangled bodies of fallen angels
And stepped silent, into Finchley Sunday morning.
Welcoming the early sunshine of Maggie’s suburb
With the smugness of a man fresh loved.
The corner shop, door wedged in anticipation of heat to come, was dark
Looking up the old man fixed me with dark, dark eyes
Raising one eyebrow said he, “Bananas?”
“Yes”, smiled I
And I knew there was so much to know
Lifetimes ago.
Learning still.
Sep 16, 2011
Sep 16, 2011 at 5:11 PM UTC
I used to laugh at my mother
when she told me that I'd go crazy
from reading all of those books and that
I'd lose my mind trying to get my PhD
attempting to unclothe the universe.
Now I wonder why she didn't laugh at me
and my ignorant smugness and speeches
as I struggle to piece my sanity back together
from the countless blows of all this learning
which has failed to make me whole.
Jan 6, 2016
Jan 6, 2016 at 4:05 PM UTC
smugness covers only skin
but it can't cover what's within
when there's nothing left to win
why would we want to live again?
smugness smothers other men
the stuff we cover with a grin
we are the same without within
but we would rather play pretend
Jan 13, 2016
Jan 13, 2016 at 7:32 AM UTC
Cracked concrete, soaring sky scrapers
Hundreds of shoes patter across the ground
Designer summer collections of 1988 worn by many
Horns chant an uncomfortable song
And the streets,
littered with humans, cars and buildings,
can barely feel the sun.
A Georgio Armani Suit can be seen in the crowds,
Double-breasted, jet black.
It's cool style attracts attention in the midday sun,
as does it's owners confidence.
Expensive product makes his deep brown,
perfectly slick hair appear black.
His unidentifiable expression intrigues many,
a certain smugness lies within it.
His confident, conceited business strut reflects his situation;
A successful, handsome commodities broker
with a blood spattered rain mac in his $3,600 Ralph Lauren briefcase.
Jun 18, 2012
Jun 18, 2012 at 5:56 PM UTC
Where do I begin?
Should it be at the height of fog hours,
doping up infallible images of affection,
among sifting smugness,
end over end in my sun-stroke mind?
Should it be it all tore down from closed doors,
every imperfection, every cyst, reworked by
some sort of Mortician,
consumed by grandeur for his practice?
Or should it be at the exact
moment
that all was realized– astuteness to
how fragile every meter of my unused offal really is?
Second to sick second, and day to well day,
all woven itself into a tapestry thats harder and harder to recall
Sew the squares, and caress the texture with tips of printless fingers
Each inch calls– no, howls –out into the basin where I sit
Howls of pain
howls of stone
howls of criticism
howls of analysis
ripping through the brail that's sung to the bone
Tell to beg, where do I begin?
Nov 23, 2012
Nov 23, 2012 at 12:19 AM UTC
BATTERED CHILD’S TESTIMONY
Ayad Gharbawi
1995
A sunshine that sparkled quietly
Rainbows of necessary ambitions that wilt
Oceans of hate collapse in evil
Evil for fun, evil for no reason
A sunshine someone dreamed of
Dreaming from the sorrows of the crooked,
Twisted and repeated years
Where a little girl receives **** as Man’s
Reason and desire’s needs.
Life anywhere continues
Ancient woman weeping
Modern woman crying
The intervals and gaps mean nothing to me
For the bleeding ones
They march in circles
Circles vague as their lives prescribed.
Irrelevance is a powerful concept today
I exist here today
Soon, I shall be as ancient as the others
While the intelligent people continue
With their words of reasons and smugness
Students in classrooms I have never seen
Pour out their literature on sanity and its values
And are repeatedly taught
The intricate values of zero;
Out there, children on drugs and dull careers
And learning Evil’s persistent wisdom.
Trust the none
Hate the all
Survive for the only one
That is you.
And you may feel
And achieve a measure
Of dust’s worth
While the storms of the powerful
May stampede upon your heart and love
What you feel, my imaginary friend
Is an act of irrelevance
Irrelevance to the globe of toiling people
What you feel, you must forget
What you love, you must abandon.
And, as you shall wilt soon
You too must turn away
And face the death of the Meek
The death of the unknown Christs.
Dec 23, 2009
Dec 23, 2009 at 6:45 AM UTC
I’m angry at the world
For not playing fair
And then mocking me
When I do
I hate all the apathy
That stands and observes
And makes no attempt
To enforce the rules
I’m angry at all
That I have to give up
To wait for my turn
And take only my share
I hate that the meaning
Of good has been altered
To apply to group ethics
That are coated in shame
I’m angry to see
How the cheaters will win
And honesty comes
A poor second
I hate all the smugness
(Check Paul Ryan’s face)
And those who are like him
Cheating their way to their goal
I’m angry to be cursed
With the gene of fair play
Permanent - same as
The brown of my eyes
I hate that I have to
Spend so much time hating
Hate is an acid
Dissolving my soul
ljm
Mar 25, 2017
Mar 25, 2017 at 10:17 AM UTC
The more poetry I read,
The more I feel sorry
For consumer culture
And middle-class smugness.
They take such a kicking -
Yet they struggle on.
Nov 11, 2012
Nov 11, 2012 at 9:46 AM UTC
Felled canvas, blushing colors my life’s stitch ceaselessly applied
What portrait stretches and looms it’s casement to my soul?
If all deeds behold with no aid of cloak, for sins sore shame to hide?
Needle pricked fingers recount thy yarn.
Shall I gaze upon a short winged angel, laced in gutters, where sensuality is defined?
How skillful the likeness of my windblown heart?
What shades of scarlet ooze that aching part?
Will I hesitate looking at past reckless deeds?
Woven with flare but so careless of needs.
Does smugness suspend me in self sapid stitches and ghost like thread for inches and inches?
How large the spool my decent breadth hold, done in shimmering shades, subtended in gold?
Dare I hope it be worthy to admire when shown?
Humble glory, my life, hung behind a King’s throne?
Mar 16, 2012
Mar 16, 2012 at 11:35 PM UTC
The twisting and turning, grumbling, churning, elation, desperation and more.
Reflexive minds compacting semiotics until an inevitable meaninglessness rears up in smugness.
*"There is Nothing here.
Nothing for you
Nothing Of you.
Nothing."*
The mind begins again, fumbling, stumbling, eureka-ing, ambling, grasping and more.
Reflexive minds compacting semiotics until an inevitable meaninglessness rears up in smugness.
*"There is Nothing here.
Nothing for you,
Nothing Of you,
Nothing."*
The mind will not accept, that it, in it's biological supremacy, is simultaneously, Nothing.
A joke.
Some vapid expression of consciousness.
The mind will only protect, that which it most values; Esteem.
Reverence of it's own structure.
The Marvel.
A human, student, sales-assistant, a sister...
...Something? ...Anything?...
*"There is Nothing here.
Nothing for you,
Nothing Of you,
Nothing."*
The mind is a tool, one of the most primitive.
Natural selection adding accessories like some distasteful outfit.
The mind means well.
Aching to Justify, with inelegant adjectives, it's fondness of itself.
Petrified of it's "Nothingness";
The wordlessness that conveys meaning no mind can ascribe to language.
*"There is Nothing here.
Nothing for you,
Nothing Of you,
Nothing."*
please Stop mind.
The thrashing and the squirming,
stop flexing your Precocious Verbiage.
just stop.
.
.
allow Me to quell your convolution, using your own Pig English;
you are unequivocally a Thing.
And, there IS Nothing here.
And it is NOT For you.
And it is not OF you.
//It//Is//Nothing//
you, Are a possession,
I, the possessor.
Therefore you,
My most precious of things,
Will never fathom Me.
.
*Because you are Something,
and so, you are not.*
But I am Nothing.
For, I - am.
Dec 19, 2014
Dec 19, 2014 at 12:39 AM UTC
Thugs and tyrants tempting fate?
Fallen kingdoms threatening war?
Hordes of immigrants at the gate?
Hang this placard on your door:
good intentions cannot fail;
liberal smugness must prevail !
Children ***** while cities burn?
Tortured corpses, sudden blasts?
Armies surge, regroup, return…
your gentle snowflake counsel lasts.
Smug and godless never falters;
smug will save your sons and daughters.
Hilarious, this global village.
Flags of doom unfurled on high…
throats are slit as death-squads pillage;
****** madness stains the sky.
What matters most: you’re open-minded
(smug beholds the world unblinded).
Christian faith? You blow a fuse,
babbling to your New York Times;
crusades with jihads you confuse
apologizing for their crimes.
Hashtag snark will save our day
smug, enlightened, global, gay…
Apr 5, 2017
Apr 5, 2017 at 6:59 AM UTC
The deck was shuffled
The table was set
The players awaited
To place their bets.
As the cards were dealt
She thought of the past
Hoping a change in fortune
Maybe today, at long last.
She glanced at her cards
Felt a joyful rush
For she had been dealt
A high hand, a straight flush.
The game went on
The cards began to fold
Until left were but two
Raising the gold.
"Another raise of stakes?"
He toyed, with a smirk
"Why not?" she hit back,
His smugness drawing her irk.
She pushed all her chips
And coins forward, all in.
"I'm risking everything" she said
Wiping off his grin.
"I call it." he said
After a long searching look.
'He's bluffing' she thought
'Like a bait on a hook.'
Her hand she revealed,
Causing a moment of pause.
"That's that" he said
"It seems that I've lost."
Her leap of joy
Brought a smile to his face
The royal flush he hid
Had not gone to waste.
Apr 9, 2016
Apr 9, 2016 at 6:29 AM UTC
His smugness cannot be captured, its like trapping water with a net.
Yet his foulness attracts the masses, and leaves me deathly sick.
Jan 5, 2013
Jan 5, 2013 at 5:17 AM UTC
plagued by lethargy i am led through the internet
by an unseen monarch whose name is Boredom
until i go cross eyed
what does the good king Boredom seek?
not wenches or jesters or feasts to quaff.
the good king Boredom seeks to cease
but it isn't as easy as that
a battle looms...
Boredom rallies his armies with the deafening cry of a tyrant with a cause
and we descend with the dull and vacant hum of somebody who has work in the morning
storming the gates of the internet
we google things and browse youtube
we play meaningless games
and curse our broadband.
all while scrolling through a virtual popularity contest
a bottomless cesspit full of our hobbies, our thoughts, and pictures of us on holiday
we sit and judge eachother
the stench of jealousy and false smugness hang in the air
facebook is indeed, the great masquerade of our generation.
a battle ends
no wars are won
still the good king stands tall
still he looms. we are enthralled.
and so the cycle continues,
a swirling void of
acronyms and bigotry
of arguments and fallacies
no empathy, all lies.
stopping us from doing anything productive
or real
and like lambs to the slaughter
we are sent to our doom
by the good king Boredom
his cause is just, but he'll never learn
take advice from myself,
and instead of spending time doing something useless
find an outlet for your creativity
i ****** out a load of hyperbole
and here i am now
free of the Good Kings reign
Jul 5, 2014
Jul 5, 2014 at 7:07 PM UTC
They sweep into the cave, swirling about the abridged quietude of their presence;
Constantly smiling at all events that may occur or not, and the testing of resolve;
Dark air pervades, and hangs still, as perfidy nibbles at the feet of a companion;
A hot dizzy essence enters the mind of an exhausted, prostrate,pleading traveller;
Nor is the dweller moved by the entreaties nor realities of other existences within;
Sweltering sobs penetrate all those who enter the self-contained residence-beware;
There is no caring force amidst the eerie egocentric joys-the megalomania here in;
Habitually unmoved and mired in the smugness of some perceived elevated state;
Only terror flows as the bats eye and circle the treasure of impending importance;
A blinding light impels the occupant to stagger toward the entrance-the issue lost!
May 12, 2014
May 12, 2014 at 10:07 AM UTC
Music is so much more
Than just rhythms on a page because
I can hear the bass in someone's chest
Or jazz in their laughter
And I can find music
In the way people's voices rise and fall
Or the sound of their lungs
The low trill that comes from the smugness in someone's voice
Or the fast strings of someone panicking
Some people sound like a piano, smooth and quiet
While others sound like the thunder of the brass,
Unable to be missed, but capable of tender moments
Because no one is less than an orchestrated piece
No one notices the subtle parts at first,
Like the vibrato in the solo of their thoughts
Or the sudden accelerando of passion and arguments
The forte pianos of being tired of fighting
Or the single flute of absolute euphoria
But when you return again and again
You fall in love with the way
Words seem to rise from their feet and wash over you like fog,
like a bassoon
Or the quickly improvised comments that fills you with a sense of warmth and safety
play with the strings of your heart like a saxophone
Because nothing compares to noticing the people
Who are made up of nothing else but music
Jun 25, 2014
Jun 25, 2014 at 11:24 PM UTC
with each step they trample
the confidence of the women
astounding to onlookers
yet incredibly dim on the inside
they are creatures of privilege
with each step they spit
on the unfortunate they pity
with their smugness
they think they are the truth
Feb 21, 2012
Feb 21, 2012 at 2:09 AM UTC
*perfomrer between recitation:
the crescent moon chin between recitation
revealing smug*
(huh? blue = noun, bluish = adjective,
but smug = adjective and smugish = noun,
even though smug is closer to verb
of the doing part that modifies itself: a noumenon,
and smugish is a name of a quality kindred...
but blue, and bluish?! yeah,
smugish, wrinkles nearing the comedy stretches
marked by consistent smiles...
yes smugness is a definite article
and smugish is cryptological half-revelatory
indefinite articulation);
*poet between recitation:
i’ll just fill up vanity with as many heart attacks
to **** me as i have hearts.*
Nov 27, 2015
Nov 27, 2015 at 8:12 PM UTC
I’m addicted to my bad boy
like a druggie snorting on crack.
Bad boy- my succulent junk food.
Toxic love dark as chocolate black,
you do more harm than good.
This attraction is not healthy.
There is a strange dopamine hit,
though I’m discarded like a used toy-
I chase the thrill for him to commit.
Abusive and brazenly rude,
smugness as fat as greasy cheese,
his hurtful bites leave me hungry.
Shame clogs in cholesterol plaque-
infecting ailing arteries;
I’m going to have a heart attack!
Bad boy, why do I crave such ******
(c) 2019 Jo Swan
Jan 3, 2019
Jan 3, 2019 at 9:28 AM UTC
My deepest desire?
Hold you in my arms for one blissful moment, one last time.
My greatest joy?
Watching your rare, handsome smile.
It made my heart flutter to painful extents.
Those warm early summer nights, where our bodies moved as one.
Your taste, your smell, your touch, the feel of your skin under my fingers
Those short, brief expressions of early love.
I knew how hard it was for you to mutter them.
And I was grateful, happy and fulfilled. For it was hard for me too.
Your gentle ways, the absolute pleasure of your company.
Finally, two lone wolves have found each other.
But alas, it was not meant to be.
Distance and time created an insurmountable rift.
The perpetual silences, the lies, the disrespect. The void of confusion.
The love I felt soon became resentment, then anger.
Refusing to go down without a fight, that is my warrior nature.
My words of concern where only met with drunken mockery. Condescending. Smugness.
He never loved me. Something changed. It was useless.
No explanations that would soothe a chaotic heart.
Sometimes, the best thing is just to walk away.
But the rage and confusion remain, like fire embers on a dark night.
Jul 25, 2014
Jul 25, 2014 at 8:55 PM UTC