"stratagem" poems
We’re in a young-love recession.
Gen Zers are slow to trust and averse to risk,
we have, it seems, a particular social nervousness
about interpersonal exchanges and the symbiosis of love.
So we resort to situationships (undefined relationships),
a stratagem for closeness, with zero commitment.
You can flirt; you can kiss; you can dance.
You can have a crush so big it blots out the stars
You can have transformative romantic encounters
you can care deeply and get hurt badly
you can, in fact, be absolutely wrecked by love
All without ever being in a relationship.
Thank God we’re only young once.
.
.
Songs for this:
Die With A Smile by Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars
Busy Woman by Sabrina Carpenter
Mar 18, 2025
Mar 18, 2025 at 9:55 PM UTC
Push Pull
Push Pull
Your behavior is unequivocal
Begging for change in the spiritual
But you are broke
Tied down by the literal
When your only inspiration is clitoral
Life is bound to be miserable
It's karma you have provoked
Stealing hearts is criminal
Your touch has become minimal
Your stratagem subliminal
Love is so cut-throat
Nov 2, 2012
Nov 2, 2012 at 1:35 AM UTC
Egotist, the master of the ego mist
or some ego antagonist
he is so much there
in the center of a web
of regurgitated fears
recycling pointless
the old cycles of
night after day
life after chaos
but no death
after ego inflation
just a rusty song
of imprisoned moments
or undeciphered gnashing
all character is just the dust
you cannot grasp
grey ruminations
curses wiggling
in times devoid of innocence
the cruelty of a ****
refusing to wither
at the end of his cigarettes
a speck of self
is threading a stratagem
to severe the ties
for the ******* of distance
so that he can continue
uninterrupted
to mutilate his heart
no one can persuade the night
into whitening
like you clean your teeth
of curses
the rest is sadness
the dew would know it.
Jun 14, 2014
Jun 14, 2014 at 6:51 PM UTC
Sometimes i wish i was a silkworm
so that i could weave something beautiful
out of nothingness
and wrap myself up when i feel lonely
or scared.
Sometimes i want
oh so badly
to feel a lover's hand in my hair
just give me a sign
two tugs so i know you're there
i just want to make sure.
I am like a silkworm
because the thread i hang from
is so fine and fragile
but when woven together with more
we are strong.
I'm so scared that without you
I'll snap
I'll fall.
Hell, maybe i'll even cut myself down
and just walk away
unscathed.
unscathed?
i think not.
life is far too hard on us
to leave anyone unscathed.
from the moment we emerge into this world
the weight starts to set in
that's why babies cry so **** much
that's why i used to care so much
but what's the use.
once everything's gone to ****
you might as well enjoy
dangling
and watching the chaos ensue.
we are all ruined
we are all so broken
and ******
and that what makes it nice.
we are all ruined together
we've woven a fine tapestry of disaster
we spin destruction.
the destruction of innocence
the destruction of silence
the destruction of perfectly good bonfires
but that's what makes it nice.
We weave a web of bad choices
we like to pretend that we are spiders
we like to pretend that they're afraid of us.
but they still hold on to the illusion of calm
they think they can control us
conform us
or destroy us
and we play along because it's easiest that way
they can see us
and they are seeing a lie
because we are too cowardly to show them the inside
to spill our guts in the name of honesty
and confess our sins
to cut our silkworm threads
and trade our saturday nights
for shackles
because we are tangled up
in a spider web of lies
but it's nice
and i like feeling invisible sometimes
it helps ease your worries
if no one can place the blame
because it's not easy to find
someone so perfectly wrapped up
in a silkworm thread cocoon:
the only thing that holds me together.
i'm happy to be falling apart
i'm so happy to be dangling.
But sometimes i need you to give me a sign
two tugs on my silkworm thread
to let me know you're here
and i'll cut myself down
so beautifully ruined.
Aug 3, 2014
Aug 3, 2014 at 10:49 AM UTC
A deluge of earthly sins,
A waterspout on green leaves,
A hurricane among lull seas,
An equanimity of autumnal eves.
A dilated tale of mundane me.
A million abstruse blocks of C of Co²
A walker among you and me.
A wanderer lost in blue.
Attired by crimson lust of artistry.
A masquerade brew of red wine and dark coffee,
A stark blithe of sanguine comatose,
All drunk and clinging to the thin threads of this unstaged life,
All murdered by the sinical overdose.
The seascape choirs of ocean waves,
Embracing the narcoleptic yellow shorelines,
And evanescent castles
And sail headwind with a mystical concubine.
The iced conundrums of this lost forsaken echoes of winter breeze,
The insanity measured in ones & zeroes,
We're the kings of this deadbeat time,
And praised victories of unsung heroes.
The wanderlust sailors drank the skies,
In mixed cocktails,
And thy heavens sang to this night,
As a melodic madness of wild gales.
Her pale white body declares some love due,
As our lips bled rapture,
And rose a melodramatic cue,
Like words of a closing chapter.
Charged with the flow of adrenal enzymes,
A surrogate from affinity to serendipity,
For in flashback of these forlorn events,
I write this epiphany.
And though these letters are on fire,
And bestowed the bullets over armored heart,
For life exists in the heartache symphonies,
Like a stratagem cliché of painted art.
Call your unfurled knots of wrecked sanity.
A wildfire has gone wild within,
The eloquence thirst of your red lips,
Inked the words of love on this skin.
An audacious lover of seafaring,
Beside the starry onset of a beautiful dawn,
A tide of marvelous mystery,
Whose side are you on?
Its all fiction served with tea,
And through warm sips of this worthy minute,
Change is tempted to render seeds,
That swam through wind, till it escapes and wanders the infinite.
Jan 26, 2016
Jan 26, 2016 at 3:05 PM UTC
786
Severer Service of myself
I—hastened to demand
To fill the awful Vacuum
Your life had left behind—
I worried Nature with my Wheels
When Hers had ceased to run—
When she had put away Her Work
My own had just begun.
I strove to weary Brain and Bone—
To harass to fatigue
The glittering Retinue of nerves—
Vitality to clog
To some dull comfort Those obtain
Who put a Head away
They knew the Hair to—
And forget the color of the Day—
Affliction would not be appeased—
The Darkness braced as firm
As all my stratagem had been
The Midnight to confirm—
No Drug for Consciousness—can be—
Alternative to die
Is Nature’s only Pharmacy
For Being’s Malady—
1.3k
A girl.
A cute girl,
Starting the journey to
Her prime.
A smile.
A broad smile,
Mixing benevolence
With joy.
Who will be your special person?
Who will spur you from proposal to accomplishment,
Or exorcise an unworthy stratagem?
There will be many offers.
Step boldly, my precious.
When the time comes, you will choose wisely.
Mar 28, 2012
Mar 28, 2012 at 10:05 AM UTC
Spilled Dreams!
Hide not away.
Be not concealed.
No need to run.
Escape from a teacup of dreams.
Try to pull yourself out.
Be careful not to spill the contents on the grass
On a wild escapade.
Should you let your china teacup tip.
Your dreams will ***** the soil.
Become doused in muddy mess of moments.
Spread across the grass.
Then they shall be lost.
No stratagem to rescue them.
When they're gone.
They're gone.
Lost forever and maybe a day!
By ladylivvi1
© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)
Sep 8, 2013
Sep 8, 2013 at 12:57 PM UTC
Americans
Want
Less
Government
More
Freedom
Here’s The Rub
Official’s
Stratagem
Have Been
At the
Trough
For. So
Long. They
Are. Greedy
Rapid. Rats
Inspired songs
1)Money 1973
By Pink Floyd
2) nowhere to run to (nowhere to hide) 1965
By Martha and the Vandellas
Mar 15, 2025
Mar 15, 2025 at 9:46 PM UTC
the water was dark, as asphalt,
nothing could be seen, until
looking real close, the fish moved
so
slowly,
among the lowly seaweed,
if they could laugh, then seaweed
would
know
that fish
are ticklish
at this depth.
So in defence
of their weakness,
for their troubled
neighbours,
the fish as a group
has a stratagem, ahem
to release bubbles from
both ends,
but only while amongst
the seaweed.
©DWE012014
Jan 2, 2014
Jan 2, 2014 at 10:59 PM UTC
.
It can
be observed
that men use var
ious methods in
pursuing their o
wn personal obj
e ctives, t h at is
glory and r iches
One man proceed
s with circums pe
ction, another Im
petu ousity ; o n e
uses violence, a n
other stratagem ;
one man goes a b
out things patient
ly , another d o es
the opposite ; and yet every
one , for all this diversity of method
, can reach his ob jective . It can a ls o
be observed that the two circumspect
men, one willach ieve his end, the
o t h e r n o t.
Oct 22, 2014
Oct 22, 2014 at 7:42 PM UTC
He rushes out
And then
Back in again
In a never ending cycle
Of advancement
And retreat
His legions
Are cast by the Moon
Up above
From which he draws
His battle plans
In the sand
Which are just to be washed away
And become drawn a new
The Sun
Above all
Wreak havocs on his desires
Casting his army into the sky
And moving them into far off regions
But the King of Tides collects
And disperses In careful stratagem
Pushing forwards towards his ultimate conquest
To bring down all the mighty Earth
That opposes his reign
And drown it deep within his sea
Dec 11, 2018
Dec 11, 2018 at 12:53 AM UTC
My role as a poetic scribe is…
more than I imagined, or had
hoped to do; He qualified me,
as one of His spiritual nomads,
who digs within the Scriptures,
in search of those prized gems-
eternal lessons of Godly wisdom.
I’m not desiring some stratagem,
to con people in turning to Him,
but to share my heart’s delight
of a solid Faith in Christ; He
strengthens me and by His Light
guides me forward in Truth; by
this gift, I can softly voice
my limited understanding of His
Love for me; I opt to rejoice,
having accepted His sufficiency
for my Life; I’m an extension
of Today’s New Testament Church,
rising up with poetic ascension…
while embracing my true identity
in Him; by His Grace and Spirit,
I’ll write new songs, stories,
poems and hymns that will lift…
all eyes unto the eternal Godhead.
Feb 10, 2017
Feb 10, 2017 at 2:13 PM UTC
The skin, feels touch a cool gentle touch,
it has not felt one as such,
since the last time, replacements arrived.
It is such a tease this breeze moving slowly,
one minute and creeping lowly,
begging you to chase it close to the ground.
Suddenly changes swiftly, forcing curtains out,
of the way, oh don't pout,
the breeze will come back and get you to play.
Reaching up to the sky to stretch and tire you out.
You'll be a dried up leaf chaser, catch sand in your face,
one second slow next fast and faster to change the pace,
what a delightful tease lifting curtains moving branches,
Exciting flowers to dances,
go ahead play along take your chances,
not a cloud mover, it is just a breeze, trying to please,
Trying to put you at ease,
after days on end of summer heat,
still stale air and relentless heat,
be polite and sit still, offer the breeze a seat,
resistance is a bold stratagem, but your
weak, open your arms embrace them,
easy as pie, it is a breeeze.
Jul 31, 2013
Jul 31, 2013 at 11:22 PM UTC
What shall I speak
What caring words
Shall be the attractive
Collaboration in destruction
That will bury me in my death
What shall I speak
That will illicit ambitions
And by their presence
Renew my sorrows
What policy what stratagem
Must I employ and plead my passions
What shall I propose that has unfrequented effects
Where the eye may behold an honesty
Yes, where a charitable tongue
May offer a delightful engine off thought
To cure this unrecuring wound
Leaving speechless the voices
Of unremitting practice
Who would raise their arms in sequence
To hear what I shall speak
Words so piteously performed
Enough to swear all villainies to spotless chastity
Leaving all words to abomnibile untruths
That would shame stone angels
Yet friendly in their blind complaint
What shall I speak
That you may learn my thought
What shall I speak
Jul 25, 2012
Jul 25, 2012 at 6:09 PM UTC
It was raining and it was morning.
They sat in the car underneath a tree, upon a hill, overlooking the vast cemetery below. Clichès still have the potential to be beautiful, they know. Intellectual awareness allows for understood symbolism, the death of that which dies at a cemetery, the emotional downpour demarcated by rain, the interstitial distance of looking forward and down.
Silence and language working symbiotically as a stratagem to both hide and reveal vulnerability. The clichè of their location works with the conversation.
He is sad. She knows.
She knows the emotional location he lives within, she purposefully disregarded his eyes, those eyes that have always stared at her from the mirror, her eyes. The eyes of those with hollow love for themselves. The selfishness of selflessness, the facticity of unfortunate neurological tendencies, the self-imposed limitations.
They speak. He speaks.
She hears him speak, she who is devoid of empathy, she reaches empathy through his words, she hears the thesis of her own thoughts, she cries. She cries because he narrates her perception of herself, through narrating his perception of himself, and she knows the meaning of it.
He cries because it is his.
He looks away.
He says I don't want you to know the things about me. The things that are disgusting.
She loves those things. It's not enough. She knows.
She talks to herself, she talks to him.
She takes his hand, they cling to the ephemeral union.
It stops raining.
They walk into the chapel, the ashes of those who lived resting upon glass bookshelves, behind glass cases. They sit upon a couch in silence. They collapse, against each other.
Two women observe the marble of the mausoleum.
They arise. The women are startled. The women didn't see them sitting; they were three feet away.
He takes her home. They fade into wordlessness during the drive. They look at each other with desperation at a stop sign.
She says goodbye. She walks away.
They walk away.
Apr 12, 2016
Apr 12, 2016 at 3:48 AM UTC
I burnout in your field of black rot
Seedlings in hand as the quiet you took
Match can't take health you've displaced
As much I strike, the damage is done
Quill filled lady in red pilfering sanity
--But worthy of love, worthy enough
Witch of the East wind's casting bringing her flood
Of mirror images I can't bear to be
Whose right weighing the scale would weigh in the least?
Guilt laden innocence spinning directionless
Like it mattered at all which one of us two jumped first
I heard it was you
--From those who heard it was me
Apr 5, 2014
Apr 5, 2014 at 7:35 AM UTC
Who would have thought
she would ever do;
when they conspired and told
the secrets an artifice holds.
show me what's the sense
to gratify a wish
or catching a fish
in speaking of good things
and genuine thoughts
making them, lifting them up
but when you stumble you'll see
the negation of a being.
for every place you see your feet
on the same slippers & jeans
and with every person you speak,
you think again and again
if it's worth it or rather be grim.
with one step forward you stutter
but with a stratagem in mind
you'd do it all again and take the trophy.
you shush them up and then you go home;
you hear whispers, but tries to numb more;
with one pivot of words aback
you won't say a thing or two
with one spark of a little
you either bleed or chipper.
it's not insensitivity. it's not glitter.
the insolence of a child and dishonestly of fate.
but the wind is still rocking the chair
so where does it go, when all else fails?
Aug 6, 2013
Aug 6, 2013 at 12:02 AM UTC
“She didn’t give a **** about some of them, but she had grown to learn that inattention can be a stratagem to avoid pain, and that it is often misread as shallowness and indifference.”
Aug 2, 2013
Aug 2, 2013 at 9:04 AM UTC
Americans love human rights
The more they scream
The bigger the crime
A marketing stratagem
The confidence man devised
Unable to touch
'you will be Tailored a suit
If you say what you think
Off to jail you go
The *** will crack
In a violent act
Delicate china flower
The human rite
Oct 25, 2014
Oct 25, 2014 at 8:31 PM UTC
Hear the drumming?
On point
Off note
No tea
No sympathy
Battle drum
Stratagem
Clouded
Shroud
A waving flag
A wavering comfort
Peacefully
Pierced
Sharp pain
Dull wound
Pretty house with a white picket fence and dethorned rose garden, the bread crumbs lead to selfish tendencies
Detach
Separate
"Cut the kids in half"
Part for daddy
Part for mommy
Let them cry themselves to sleep
The drums shall stop
Divided worlds
United cruelty
Bedtime
Bedlam
Rush of blood
Knives out
The drumming never stops
Sudden isolation swallows them whole...
Mar 20, 2020
Mar 20, 2020 at 7:59 PM UTC
I distress myself not.
Vote legitimate if only thy true fate be known.
Spotlight awarded to thou unfavorable,
rather than attainment awarded.
Could'st cheerfulness no more become thee?
Yearned is thy cheerfulness to wax
a particle within thee.
However,
stuck be not.
Concern it no longer that my presence
be present or nay,
nevertheless what thy art feel remains of substance
to me.
thy stratagem ploy thee play
composing me the villain all round?
Absurd much?
Ventured me out of me restfulness
in search of contentment
moreover,
thy mental stability.
Yet it be my fault.
All be unceasingly my fault.
Me make thee despise me.
Me make thee shove me away
Nov 14, 2018
Nov 14, 2018 at 9:42 AM UTC
It's so incredibly terrifying
Their talking, I always hear them
I can't tell you what goes on in my head
I have to force calm breathing
Every action, they condemn
It's so incredibly terrifying
Such a fear so soothing
My soul is constant mayhem
I can't tell you what goes on in my head
When their mad their seething
Their angry with this poem
It's so incredibly terrifying
The constant noise is tiring
If I end myself I end them
I can't tell you what goes on in my head
I wonder how I'm still breathing
My end will be a stratagem
It's so incredibly terrifying
I can't tell you what goes on in my head
Aug 15, 2013
Aug 15, 2013 at 4:31 AM UTC
Objective upon objective,
They stack one upon the other,
Higher and higher indeed,
Until a snag scrubs it entirely away.
A new stratagem was needed,
A long term goal to help better align the rest of your life,
But steps must be taken,
And too soon they always pile up,
And the stratagem must be cast away.
This continues onwards,
Farther and farther,
Leaving The Frontman awash in an ocean of grey.
Jan 5, 2018
Jan 5, 2018 at 9:56 PM UTC
Days Of Distraction: The List
What can they be?
They seem to go on endlessly.
Helping out a friend in need;
Finding ways to heed the need(s)
Of several needy friends in need.
Ignoring things that might be done,
Might be some fun
And useful monetarily.
Ignoring requisites of I, myself and me.
Structure: that’s one key.
Thinking practically; harmony.
Priority to me, myself and I.
Life is simple.
Roof, warmth, food -
Summed up sample of the simple,
Which gives ample time
To carry out the other,
'Other' meaning tools which further
Happiness and satisfaction.
Paying bills and buying,
Days of duty and temptation;
Stress and tension:
‘Stressed out’ grown to idiom.
What to do about this ‘dream’,
For dream it is.
This is a list and not a scheme;
Not a plan nor stratagem.
Read and think, find out!
The answer lies in nought but thee.
(That’s you and me).
You’ll see
what works.*
Days Of Distraction 10.21.2017
Definitely Didactic; I Is Always You Is Me;
Arlene Corwin
*Chatted with my 'English rose' of a daughter (raised in Oxford, England now residing in Oregon, USA.) who complained of distractions which keep her from other, perhaps more practical or and/or rewarding things. It inspired these little reflections.
It will go into my collections: Definitely Didactic and I Is Always We Is You. By the way, my 16th book Birth, Death & In Between II went into publication today!
Oct 21, 2017
Oct 21, 2017 at 8:10 AM UTC