"specificity" poems
start
set the scene...
somewhere enclosed, close and closed
like a bed
(tight, restricted like, uh, the world all around me, how fitting
now it’s political)
on a morning
and maybe the sun will be rising,
or setting−yes−to represent the ethereal dusk of my cognition,
Say I’m with someone−don’t identify whom−it’s meant to be a mystery:
unfinished, left.
it could be you
and I’ll search the dictionary
for words to make my pseudo-philosophical, imagist, absurdist poem obfuscated, esoteric,
tanquam yet favillous; beyond recognition
So that it sounds like Dr. Seuss,
that is, a Dr. Seuss that knows Althusser, Derrida and the early writings of Flaubert.
add some random enjamb-
ment. cut out the capitalizationandspacing. start a sentence;
end it. Section break
Oh, I’ll need more words, you know, to remind my peers of my intellectuality,
-out of place words that don’t actually mean anything:
Specificity or
literati
that’s good. Now, to end-
bring it to a close in one all-encompassing word:
(to be read over-dramatically)
pretension.
Jul 31, 2013
Jul 31, 2013 at 3:26 PM UTC
For a moment, I can close my eyes and my senses blur,
My thoughts lose specificity and fade into nothingness.
I'm not worthless or any of those things I shout at myself.
My nose, my mouth, my throat, and my brain tingle;
I am swirling with the fragrance and taste of more than yesterday.
Perhaps it won't last, but for now I'm alone in my basement,
And I've lost track of the thoughts that aren't okay with that.
Dec 8, 2014
Dec 8, 2014 at 2:37 PM UTC
Inertia the process of doing nothing
Contradiction the art of jumping intellectual rope
Intellectualism the active engagement in educated debate
Spinning the result of which is dizziness
Dizziness a state of uncertainty
Debating the conversational to and fro
Art is conversation nothing more
Conversation a non productive but necessary social engagement
Formal education
Relative information specificity
Consider the ****** lilies
Consideration Debate Intelligence Conversation Inertia
Mar 8, 2012
Mar 8, 2012 at 8:03 AM UTC
I. the smell of sad
odorless colorless like ***** similar familiar sidewinder effects,
musty invasive, it has no specificity, no locale centrale, well closeted,
saddling sadding, in place, plain sighted better to toy our lives,
pervades persists, worse lingers, impervious to sprays
and even everyone’s good literature (even Will S’s),
good wishes good intentions and mood prayers
to the nearest lay god
on duty at the spiritual emergency room on weekends,
still stink
don’t think that this poem is for you; solely for the writer,
your doppelgänger ****** your mirror’s inside hiding out place,
I,
who has your sadness smell into my skin cells creepily crept
waft woof and warp wet weft-woven
into the sad receptacles hidden in my
head’s cubbies and the palms of my tree hands-covering face
there are cures so wonderful and inexpensive but unavailable
at the local Rite Aid, though they are the right aid recoverable,
so closer than close, so close that the internist
cannot prescribe them because he must inject himself first
because the live bacteria in the antidote can **** all
this odor lays down bamboo-strong roots;
to eradicate you must dig down deep,
six feet perhaps more, with heavy earth moving equipment,
uproot at the source, follow sad always all-the-way down and the root
great god gone,
but the saddest truth
stench odor yet present***
Dec 1, 2018
Dec 1, 2018 at 10:54 AM UTC
Since Love is a word that is clearly defined,
I was sure it would be much less than easy to find.
But please decipher it’s meaning be my Rosetta Stone
How to manifest in person to keep me from alone
The one I’ve wanted and needed to fill my vacuous soul,
One whose substance would fill my red but black hole
My collective attention would never escape her.
How can a concept so complex be drawn out on paper?
We’d be perfect and free we’d be perfect as “we”
But love is too broad for such specificity.
I’ve hoisted my thoughts until they were too high to still see
Wondering how love could even be in the dictionary.
Alas I’ll search ‘till transformed, my hairs all turn grey.
The only place I’ll ever find love is in the section after “K”.
Apr 17, 2014
Apr 17, 2014 at 12:20 AM UTC
He’s a spoiled rich kid
In the land of the one percent.
He feels no remorse for
Those who can’t pay their rent.
He’s popular with fools
And a bunch of toothless boozers
All the while laughing
And calling them all losers.
The favorite son of the GOP
Says nothing with specificity.
He just makes vague promises
He has no idea what his platform is.
He only knows if he stirs up hate
He will win certain delegates.
He won’t be held to the fire
Half-truths work for him just fine.
He’d prefer you not inquire.
Nobody makes him toe the line.
He is paraphrasing fascism
Like he’s the one who invented it.
It’s like Germany in 1930s
They could have easily prevented it.
The favorite son of the GOP
Says nothing with specificity.
He just makes vague promises
He has no idea what his platform is.
He only knows if he stirs up hate
He will win certain delegates.
Here’s the way to make it
Work the best for a new dictatorship.
You take the populace along
On your traveling one-man ego trip
After your party has published
Scurrilous big lies about the opposition
Then spread a lot more rumors
Which gives the voters their ammunition.
The favorite son of the GOP
Says nothing with specificity.
He just makes vague promises
He has no idea what his platform is.
He only knows if he stirs up hate
He will win certain delegates.
Mar 15, 2016
Mar 15, 2016 at 3:35 PM UTC
Can't see the forest for the trees
Blinded by specificity
Laser sight for **** I don't need
Lending from my sanity
On cranium spending sprees
For all things that should not be
Store them all so perfectly
Like they're treasured figurines
A preserved psyche crazy hard to free
Carbonite Han Solo in deep freeze
No Leia to barter for release
Huttese wont work, no trip to Tatooine
Vader breathing disturbs my sleep
Palpatine "do it" on repeat
My Empire Strikes Back with relative ease
To quash anything that provides relief
Cos I'm not okay, but I am
Film flam tryna find who I am
Hell in a disenchanted dance
All my chemicals romance
Distorting where I began
Never quit, my only plan
Exhausted but here I stand
Hoping soon I'll understand
Why I feel so ****** repeatedly
'Cause red is the new black speaks to me
A funeral for a friend harming me
Bring a celebrant for my old psyche
Now bend my arms to look like wings
So I can fly free from that part of me
'Cause I buried it deep so purposely
It can stay stuck there for eternity
Jul 4, 2023
Jul 4, 2023 at 5:05 AM UTC
The desired gene could be found
In each cell of the body,
But it expresses positively in few cells.
A trefoil factor encoding gene I mean,
It is found in the intestine
TFF1 is found exclusively in the intestine.
TFF1 is also known as pS2
Meaning protein for specificity 2,
2nd gene discovered for specificity protein.
TFF1 protects gastrointestinal mucosa,
From any injuries that may result
Out of pathogenic invasion.
The trefoil factor 2 encoding gene
Is also found in the intestine
But TFF2 plays a different role in the body.
TFF2 is also known as pS1
Meaning protein for specificity 1,
1st gene discovered for specificity protein.
TFF2 protects gastrointestinal mucosa,
From any cancer that may result
Out of oncogenic activity.
And the third trefoil factor encoding gene,
It is only expressed in the female womb
But TFF3 is crucial for a successful pregnancy.
I love my field of study very much
And I respect my major guide,
Dr Ashok Kumar Mohanty, he is so wise.
Jan 19, 2017
Jan 19, 2017 at 8:17 PM UTC
We are the people we are
Far from the people we should be
Humor makes up the difference
In every uncomfortable instance
Humor I must know
To soften the blow
And make life enjoyable
Humor is always employable
Negativity carelessly creeps
From somewhere deep
I feel tragedy
Grabbing me
I must rhetorically escape
These problems will deflate
Once I receive a joke
After taking a ****
With familiar folks
We're all somewhat stand-up comedians
In front of our friends
The pros have no way of seeing them
So specificity we lend
It can be trite and true
Or bright and new
Curing the blues
To help get you through
To keep from constantly imagining
The endless amount of tragedy
I must have a sense of humor
To ignore the hectic rumors
Or the life ending tumors
Or the treacherous suitors
My only tools are words
And all my words are tools
Turning sages into fools
If they want to bring me down
My words can steal their crown
The albatross around my naked neck
Is my greatest source of comedy
Adding perspective to a stacked deck
Turning drama into Dramamine
Putting on a mask like Halloween
When the darkness follows me
Humor keeps me from wallowing
In my own self pity
I'd rather feel giddy
I hate myself so much sometimes
Humor can help remove that grime
Not getting rid of it completely
But not letting it cut so deeply
It's the only thing that can treat me
When life decides to beat me
I respond by feasting
On pain
And ******** out harmless humor
Which drains
The sensation of being a loser
That feeling you get when your friends laugh
That feeling you get when your friends clap
Like violent gunshots in the distance
Humor alleviates the agony of existence
Mar 17, 2018
Mar 17, 2018 at 2:39 AM UTC
The ceiling fan is deafening
and my vision is as unfocused as your appeal
both spearing forward in fierce concentration
only to phase into vagueness, midway to their destination
As you continue to speak
my eyes continue to blur the scene
and I hear a series of moods, rather than words:
Anger... Anger... Injury.
Injustice, Pleading.
Righteousness. Vulnerab-- Demanding.
Reason... Reason... Reasoning.
I sit this way, fuzzing out your face
and decide it's effective, attending to your aura
selfishly shielding myself from the specificity of your language
but listening, intently listening, to your atmosphere
ringing out against the drone of that **** incessant ceiling fan.
Jan 20, 2014
Jan 20, 2014 at 9:47 PM UTC
Religious zeal and explosive prowess make incendiary bedfellows
searing calculating moralism where all fall short and deserve to suffer
self righteous corrupted calumny put forth in a sally of sectarian selectivity
your ilk is heading for Hell and I'm (already there) not
fanatical zealots marginalize intellectuals with their mythical mire of mucked up claptrap and copious lack of a priori specificity
a glorified preposterous plethora of pompous pontificating platitudes
the sins of others they deplore but of themselves they don't keep score
Sunday's best is Sunday's worst
you sanctimonious ******** just can't leave people alone
who elected you to point fingers anyway
Jesus was born in a barn to an unmarried woman
And your mommy got shtuped when you were conceived too
you don't walk on water you insolent impertinent fool
the brain police can't wait for Sunday's
oh the satisfaction of a mutual admiration society
knee-jerk hackneyed pavlovian dog speak
Is anything anymore real if you jump around and shout about it
recipients of adulates get accustomed to sycophants
fawning complacent obsequious kiss ***** and Sunday suck-ups
pass the plate
May 5, 2013
May 5, 2013 at 5:14 PM UTC
Narrower than anticipation...
and wider than its
happened hour,
otherness for day...
trailed by specificity.
Where the path may
be the breakage
of the heart, and
the step that mends it.
Jun 8, 2015
Jun 8, 2015 at 4:38 PM UTC
you awake, and your blood
it’s changed, wrong color,
which color matters not, just,
it isn’t what’s supposed to be,
the wound that wasn’t there yesterday,
won’t/isn't being healed, somethings wrong
you don’t need to admit the admission,
no supposition, the truth, it will out you
wearing the weariness in/on your eyes,
your forehead and anywhere it matters
even strangers double take, cross over the
street to avoid visiting your visage
sometimes it can’t be helped, enormity
seems insufficient to redress overwhelming
gonna give up this wretched writing gig,
recording date & time futile & unimportant
the everything everywhere every day is
well past the Nevery, but specificity is not
yeah gonna take a breather, a whole season,
put aside the reasons, no more deep cuts
when the portico spaces shout, sorry ,closed,
in spades, but you don’t feel it or care
go off and cater to yourself, knowing in
advance, that work won’t advance you past
the point of return, who, you’re too wounded,
no forward, the past is clout clouded, rough
the word some is a totality, what you got,
is something else, & need another something
taking a break from fools and friends, at now,
ain't any difference, gonna lie down, yeah,
lie down or lie up
because
sometimes it helps
Feb 8, 2025
Feb 8, 2025 at 10:12 AM UTC
I'm thinking out of order
last things first,
the middle at the end.
help me stay alive
my eyes are open wide
images are blurred,
ideas, they collide
I'm hoping
that somehow
out of this
I can write out my
indecision and my crippling over-inspiration
beauty and detail
are leaves
shivering and sidling
up to me in the wind
trembling, and swiftly
only just out of my grasp
when i reach out to muse
upon their frail lace,
veins of understanding
an intricacy for which I am greedy
distractions are taking me
on paths I never desired
to walk
they're dark
and unfeeling
though endearing,
engulfing, whispering, promising
I find wonder
in nothings
diction is taking me
I am kidnapped
the ransom is specificity
I'm falling further
into impermanence
reaching for reality
Dec 13, 2011
Dec 13, 2011 at 7:47 PM UTC
a quote from Samuel Johnson, or Dr. Johnson, the storied eighteenth-century poet and essayist who once said:
“The sole aim of writing is to enable readers a little better to enjoy life, or a little better to endure it.”
<>
our “sole aim,”
Oh what burden the doctor places on our shoveling pens,
to be earthmovers
that dig trenches, uproot earth,
that lies and hides our faces, entombing our hearts,
eliciting and erupting emotions that cannot be contained,
nor controlled,
indeed, deserving of replanting in
our shared selves, transplanted into a communal flowerpot
of our multi bursting colored commonality
lift my composing tools,
peer into
winter blue skies guarding the towers of
Manhattan isle, longing for guidance.
lusting for specificity of direction,
how,
how, to easy our burdens
with carefully selected and
careless wonderful words,
words that deal out caring uncarefully,
with a graceful recklessness of abandon
that open thy tears,
lift up the edges of your lips,
so that my duality is your duality,
the burden shared.
the burden eased…
to cry and laugh simultaneous,
lift and lighten,
a momentary distraction,
a cut flower in our vase,
that lasts but brief,
yet with each gaze repeated and
repeatedly,
well stains us with
eyes uplifting
Feb 4, 2024
Feb 4, 2024 at 8:37 AM UTC
Originality is overrated
We are at our most original
The moment we are born
The rest of our lives is for specificity
Not for staring in awe at something different
But building with blocks already used
Style is arranging those pieces in ways
that are pleasing to our species
Humility is gaining pieces from others
Specificity is collecting as many components as possible
In the most unique manner available
Because when I'm traveling
I have a destination in mind
And it's not just anywhere
It's a specific city
We must sift through the mud to find the diamonds we build with
The dew forms on the grass at night
It's beauty eludes us until morning
As our terrace becomes a tower
Specialties become more apparent
As our tower becomes a tomb
Glory becomes more transparent
Not wanting to be a cliche is such a cliche
Tradition is our foundation
For we're only truly free once we're given constraints
Who do we ***** these facades for anyway?
Do we want everybody to enjoy our lobby?
Or do we want one person so interested
That they climb the rungs to the top floor?
I'd prefer the latter
So I continue growing new wings on my structure
To attain specificity
Until the day someone comes along and says
"Oh my God, I **** with this **** so hard, how did you know?"
I'll respond
"I have no idea what this is or how I built it."
But I built it for you
Jun 26, 2017
Jun 26, 2017 at 11:30 AM UTC
Place the moniters on the right surface.
Everything dances to a diferent frequency, hert
Scanning a pond of rocks
Recognizing
Each fingerprint, pit, dimple
I rerealize now the specificity of everything
And amplify anything
listening in on the correct…. His/her voice can be heard
A medium is its own sea.
Jun 14, 2016
Jun 14, 2016 at 2:09 AM UTC
I forget too often that not everyone sees me the way I see me;
Not everyone knows there to be a bleeding heart sinking solemnly behind my ribcage
Nor the rattle that my skull makes from too many poor decisions,
The scars on my knees and legs that tab a memory of a something somewhere in the history that is mine,
The lack of lobe that inhibits my passions for specificity,
The anger that bubbles within my veins when I neglect the rose bushes I've slept in for so long,
The tuft of hair that throws itself to the wind, proving to be the small stubborn part of me,
The knowledge that has escaped me with the miles I burn on four wheels,
The physical pain that plagues my valuable parts that become less and less worth something everyday,
The weight that overcomes me sometimes when I feel myself through waves of gravity,
The form I place to my inner and outer self: nothing good, smart, or attractive.
I suppose the mirror has darkened over the years, the veil has been placed lower over my eyes so most of the view is felt through shadows that are drawing me day in and day out, begging me to make a choice.
I suppose that it's not the way I'm perceived though, I ought to remember.
Nov 18, 2013
Nov 18, 2013 at 5:41 PM UTC
The impress of form 'neath a veil,
Her scars are but sediments of sentiments
Outlining without specificity the ebbs
Of her dark, internal reservoirs.
Scrolls of indiscernible braille,
Her slashed forearms convey
In archaic lexicon the innermost
Artistry of her sanguinary soul.
One finds within her labyrinthine mind
Innumerable subterranean recesses-
Balmy hollows carved of ashen loneliness-
With room for one and one alone.
À chacun son gout;
She traverses with ethereal placidity
The bounds of her self-erected walls,
Searching for nothing and everything
Apr 11, 2013
Apr 11, 2013 at 11:10 PM UTC
Creating realities after realities is a nice practice,
A bit dangerous as well when done myopically.
The ability to empathize to points of others’ specificity,
Writes a narrative now more than one can see.
We take our blinders off,
And open the doors of the world.
Be cautious in listening to the self alone,
For other beats may give you a better rhythm.
Why remain the protagonist
In an epic of false dichotomies?
When you can be no one
In a prose that makes sense arguably?
A step back is a mere change of direction,
Nothing is similar as fire may be the basic stuff of the universe.
Breathe the air of the proverbially found boys,
Yet be sharp to be conscious of the notes you hear that you enjoy.
Oct 15, 2018
Oct 15, 2018 at 11:23 AM UTC
The time stops
Rearranging memories
Some good and some bad
Kisses of future makes them last
Good one just touched the empty rood
Bad lost the journey on its way home
A day well spent
It whispers again
But ,
Again mind interrupt
You just forget the empty lanes
The one waiting to be walked on
Missed steps ,
Cart wheeled there
Head upside down
World looks brand new
The dawn appears
Sun hollers
Cheering for the day
Ahead,
Journey still goes on
The moments joined
Beautifully ended voyage
Other pals
Weeps the most at last,
On the death bed
Where the Soul rejuvenates
celebrating the life
That remarked its specificity
Oct 10, 2018
Oct 10, 2018 at 9:07 AM UTC
I’ll never forget.
MiniStop, Intramuros.
2016?
I had long graduated, the mortarboard
now a naked head of hair. The gown
now dilapidated jeans, and an overfitting
shirt. The fancy shoes now knockoffs
caked with mud and grime.
The little store was hot. Small.
On walls: baby cockroaches took chances.
Trash bags dog-eared below snack concessions.
A brown goop spun, the tungsten overhead
made no noise. Was there music? Was there
some commentary about love or crudeness on the radio?
Always self-conscious, I retreat to
the inner racks. Magazines lay there vacuumed, unpurchased.
Outside the picture window, an afternoon beamed its sun kiss.
I think I didn’t end up buying anything, because before I could,
some college boys entered. At the instant, I turned to them
and felt curiously incensed. This odd duality of envy and sympathy.
I was you, I’m me now. I want you, I’m not you now.
To look that young yet mature, to have a schedule.
To saunter inside the store before, during, after class. The
choice to enter, to parade, to be so vital.
The college boys, their plackets, collars,
their image. These hot-blooded men finer than me, stronger
than me. All handsome, winsome, reckless and brimmed with
swagger. Me? I stood examining the force, the association.
We’re all merely similar men, and I’m at a similar age, and I can
be a similar form factor. Mimic their teflon skin; shed my stucco,
leatherbound flesh.
And as soon as I attempted to undermine their specificity,
I lost my own place. I found that there’s no connection at all.
Other than I know nothing about the boys,
and the boys know nothing of me.
Sep 13, 2017
Sep 13, 2017 at 12:23 AM UTC
in caked in minute flexing avarice of the dumb spiteful sun i,m;
it laps constantly the empire of your ***** with its caving greedy
light
the effortless virus of its tongue whose buds are placid heaving
minstrels; aptly rapacious guards; with pointed spears and blades lusting
your rind most clangorously in the habit of its golden languor
devouring the specificity of your hips
the prim bud of your clavicles
and
and
the dim musky sanctum of your pleasing eyes
(kind sockets brimming jade splinters
)
and the sweet shock of your moss. between your thighs.
i hate him. the sun
Sep 4, 2010
Sep 4, 2010 at 1:48 PM UTC
Disjointed flashbacks
and coincidences
--regurgitating, bubbling up
surfacing--
faint aftertaste
lingering then fading
Episodes disentangle and defy
Chronology
Without cause or consequence
They return to me like
Sand to the ocean
--dispersing and settling
dislodging and rearranging--
Separate scenes of specificity
Activated by change circumstance
Stirring sensations once
Lost to the churning tides of
Time and Space
Engaging emotions once forgotten
Now set free by the
Endless eb and flow,
Dissipating
Memories, thoughts, dreams
Rising up from and
Returning to
The Void
Exchanging
Manifesting haphazardly
Ever-awakening
The tapestry of
Experience unfolds
Threads of Time and Space
Unravel
And as the pattern
Recycles
The forms change
but the substance stays
the same
Oct 19, 2014
Oct 19, 2014 at 2:14 AM UTC