"subset" poems
“death everywhere, not age or ancient, just an infiltrated lack of life”
a puzzling, troubling line in a personal message,
instantly isolated for further review,
needy indeedy for a second medical opinion,
for it’s a description of two,
an actual place and a state of being
a place where death seems more commonplace,
not from agedness or honor,
but from a madness drunk from a special cocktail of
heat, guns and pseudo-rock stars, with beer chasers
imbibed by those who imagine themselves INRL
in a movie genre of specialized urban cowboys,
subset horror flick,
self-appointed angels
part of a world view
so pervasive that it infiltrates the mental water supply
and modifies the pure children early on
demeaning existence, with a sense, a sendup,
life is unreal, cheap, so taking it-is ok,
justice delivered, for we angels,
are subset,
angels of death
in a country where
seven out of ten believe in angels,
and one in four confident that
the sun revolves around the Earth
look to blame
polluted water
the ever-overheated atmosphere,
bringing typhoon and storm,
I do not know
*how be sun and water,
the essences, the originations of all life
today come to the planet days still
clear and warm,
yet can not infiltrate our personal mystery,
respire, re-spark the notion of the spirit,*
the simple sanctity of life peculiarly human
Sep 21, 2018
Sep 21, 2018 at 12:59 PM UTC
If we were the kind of friends who unironically
raised our glasses in toasts,
I would give one to the generation too comforted by the ease
of a honeybee in the plaintively nonexistent mind
of a tulip
To the generation, or at least its subset
that wrongly feels representative, who stumble drunkenly
or maybe just tiredly out of tents
to **** in the view of their friends, who are still at the fire
because the tent was too cold
To those who did raise their glasses in a toast
on New Year’s Eve at what felt, with the ball drop
not screening in luddite protest, enough like midnight.
Beginning with “dear friends” and a couple laughs;
concluding with “now let’s get ****** up” and
a couple more
To those who proceeded
as directed, clinking their shot-glasses
and swigging them back. If only because
they were not tulips.
Jun 28, 2014
Jun 28, 2014 at 12:09 AM UTC
1) (insert dessert name for skin here)
2) mysterious hair goddesses
3) the back wall of a hip hop video
4) temptresses of your own design
5) the entire land ruled by drama queens
6) your lowkey fantasy
7) your direct blame
8) the subset of a subset of a stereotype
9) the loud and proud
10) the celestial bodies walking through your neighborhoods
11) the only magic act you can see again and again and still not know how it works
12) not the Madea or the Precious, but somehow still the Madea and the Precious
13) trees banding together for the sake of their own leaves AND to sustain the forest
~~a.s.f.
Jan 8, 2016
Jan 8, 2016 at 5:26 PM UTC
~For Lila and the others~
there exists
a subset of us,
those who
for whatever reason
do not write,
but “just” repost
other’s work
Above see the word
Just
emboldened
for this selfless task
is justice inherent
For this act of bringing others
to our over constrained attention is an
action of justice,
or more profoundly
doing away with
injustice of
our human limitations
We could spend days entire
pursuing the works of others,
but life and the extraordinary demands
of writing anew, when the spirit is upon us,
are oft unable to spot, isolate, and
highlight
capture
the best of the rest,
and bless those
who reorient our eyes
away from our own bounded rivulets,
to the tried and truly, away from
habitual familial familiar good stuff,
but bring us revelations of gems,
caught within the mass maskings of missives that grows hourly, exponentially to
out attention,
to reorient
our attention,
to their filtered selections
Let us say in unison then
a blessing of gratitude
to The Reposters:
Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Ruler of the Universe, who has granted us life, sustained us, to give thanks to those who enable others, to reach us this season
Jan 15, 2025
Jan 15, 2025 at 2:42 PM UTC
One train leaves Santa Fe going east at seven eleven
destination's unknown and the speed is irrelevant
Another leaves Boston at eight twenty five
We know when it left. When will it arrive?
If eighteen percent aboard are practicing Christians
and twenty eight percent are worshiping Krishna
what percent will be spared when the trains have collided?
Which subset will have a better chance of survival?
If there are five homosexuals with their life partners
and thirty two fundies with hate signs and markers
What are the odds that of the forty-two mentioned,
that ten gay folks survive. Was it divine intervention?
If you factor and account for wind speed and sun
If you double check your figures (and carry The One)
Are those who climb from the wreckage unharmed
more righteous than the ones who lie dormant and calm?
How long will you stare silently at the equation
searching for a solution that leads to salvation?
When all is said and done at the end of the day
There are no survivors, so says F=ma
Apr 16, 2012
Apr 16, 2012 at 11:21 PM UTC
The first lesson in being here is inherent to be here and that is breathe, yet the second is that we are (can be often) separated by willingness. Others are not an extension of our own. It can be a self pitying and even painful experience especially if our needs are woefully neglected. By the time it is deduced others willingness comes with other awareness than our own a form of self responsibility has set in, albeit active/reactive. We are spawning fractal-ly from here, the new from there.
All is selectively derived and subset from the greater with regard to identity, memory and consciousness. All flows perfectly from such accordance...
Aug 28, 2012
Aug 28, 2012 at 12:51 PM UTC
In our subset of society we
worship sweet caramel syrup and
double tall soy lattes with extra foam
and extra shots of whatever
can keep us pumping through
marathon long meetings
where we meddle
in our market’s perception
of health savings accounts,
a muddle of mindless
power point presentations
and persistent pencil tapping
on a cold granite table top.
We cannot blame the
young baristas with tattooed
arms and early morning
smiles for simply slipping
us the goods- we must blame
the comfortable coffee pushing
peddlers with heavy pockets,
the evil executives
who sit in their soft leather
armchairs and export
expensive beans from South America.
They empty our leather wallets
but fill our bladders;
offer less calories for
a slightly heavier price-
only $4.15 for a Grande
Caramel Frapuccino Light,
so many in our stomach
that we undoubtedly
will email ourselves into a
caffeine induced coma.
If we could see the constant account
debiting that swarms cyberspace-
millions of dollars transferring
between molecules-
we would drown in
the onslaught of dollar bills into
the hungry
Starbucks black hole that is
never full.
Mar 31, 2010
Mar 31, 2010 at 12:27 PM UTC
Silhouetted against an orange sunset
in expectation of eve's subset
Halloween night, black cats
with green eyes vie for bats
ink-of-night garbed witch flies
on a straw broom in the skies
she concocts her plan to broil a brew
a potion, a mighty how-do-you-do
to poison anyone who thwarts
take note of her nose warts
don't cross her or you will surely die
and she will **** if her plans go awry
Oct 10, 2014
Oct 10, 2014 at 11:21 PM UTC
I'm gonna run away from humanity.
Stop eating, defecating, urinating,
consuming, moving, dying, lying, loving,.........(the samsara subset; with a cardinality of the continuum)
I'll take a long good look at God and say,
"Thanks for the apple mate, but I've got bigger fish to fry:
Thanks for the life, but it wasn't all it was cracked up to be."
There was a telephone booth
next to me which I promptly
occupied. I stood there waiting,
wading in my brain seizures.
Someone came an knocked on
the glass saying, "Hey man,
I need to use that thing!"
"I'm waiting!" I say.
"Waiting for what?"
"A phone call from God."
The reply sent shivers down
the spine of the receiver,
sending some kind of
illegible morse code.
The telephone line spoke in tongues.
If you couldn't tell, I'm a pretty jolly fellow.
Fun to have at parties, where I practically **** at all the mirth.
Not because I'm some kind of offset of Richard III, where it's some kind of "winter of discontent," I'm not some kind of scrooge ******** myself out of happiness! it's a much deeper objection.
If you must know, it's because of the trees.
It's life that makes me love death.
It's the beautiful that makes me ugly.
Jun 10, 2016
Jun 10, 2016 at 3:21 PM UTC
why the occurrence of something highly improbable should be inherently noteworthy
Here is a way to produce Here is a way to produce
an outcome a poem
almost certainly almost certainly
never seen before in never seen before in
human history human history
and never to be repeated: and never to be repeated:
Shuffle a deck of cards. Shuffle an alphabet.
The resulting deck, assuming The resulting deck of letters
the cards are shuffled correctly, if the letters are shuffled correctly
should only occur on average should only occur on average
every 52 *51 *50 *... 21 shuffles, every 26 *25 *24 *... 21 shuffles,
because this is the number because this is the number
of possible permutations of of possible permutations
52 cards, all equally likely. 26 letters, all equally likely.
This number is incomprehensibly large, on the order of 1068 or 534 using letters
100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,
(or half that with an alphabet)
Every person on earth could
write a gibberish poem once every nanosecond
for the expected lifetime of the universe and not even put
a dent in that number.
Is this why then is there not a GOOD poem written
every time letters are shuffled about
the astronomically unlikely event
that just took place?
Because letters are not numbers, the subset of sequenced associations called words (in the English language) is about a mere
~ 220,000~
But, each year, an estimated 800 to 1,000 new words
are added to the English language
That is still a heck of a lot of possible combinations and is the reason why the occurrence of something should be inherently noteworthy
at all.
So writing a new combination of words is still pretty difficult,
and writing an intelligible and intelligent
mind moving combination
is a rare thing indeed.
Should you happen to write a poem and get even a single read, that is a pretty miraculous thing because the subset of the billions of English reading persons on Earth who also read poetry habitutualy
read is the square root of pi, or 1.7724537398758821888.
which ain’t a lot of people.
So, if you wrote a really good poem today and a couple of people read it, liked it, that highly improbable event is highly improbable, about the same chance that someone else exists with your exact DNA (excluding any identical twin) is a reallly low number
so, consider yourself really, really special. I do.
Mar 25, 2019
Mar 25, 2019 at 8:12 AM UTC
musing on memory and all that
re its capabilities, its utilities
and wondrous
abilities, to cover, recover, and
surprise surprise uncover the known
and unknown, what was, what is and
what there is to dis-cover, for memory
is a tricky ole ******* you recall what you never knew at all, forget the address where you lived twenty years ago, and don’t get me
started re telephone numbers
of
old lovers, who get got gone good away
and the combination of a subset of their
digits is likely to be on a discarded lottery
stub, that stubs your shoe too
cannot remember all the women I’ve ever kissed, but I remember the kiss, and that’s
a fair trade off
pretty bad at remembering, birthdays, anniversaries, but that’s because my electronics believe me of this obligation;
Not the obligation to buy a present,
On time, but the kindness keenness of
doing the action, is you an in Nate satisfaction, One gets, when crossing off a line item on your to do list
Sometimes the choices between remembering,
and being dismembering, when is definitely preferable to the other, and though you are not present, I hear your moaning softly
I know I know!
So take a moment to make sure all those critical dates to others, are in your calendar, electronic, and I recommend minimum one week ahead alerts; and one day before as a fail, safe
Do it now or fail to be safe
Feb 11, 2025
Feb 11, 2025 at 3:13 PM UTC
I want to draw
what is in my heart
cathartic pictures
screaming the pain I feel
but I have neither the talent
nor the ink to express
all the skulls I see
dancing in the subset
Aug 14, 2025
Aug 14, 2025 at 3:36 PM UTC
yes, oddball me, when the subset sunset worshippers clutch their ooh and ahh pearls, moaning nothing compares to the beauty richness of, the serenity vision of a slipping sun
putting us to bed with a restful aura
***** that
me pre fer
a sunrise powering its way to ********** asserting its power of life and death over this earthly satellite, one of its obedient servants, reminding the flowes to open bloom, the grains of the field to ripen, the animals to re~warm from the cool night, emergence of humans from their protective prophylactic shelters, and commencing to observe their surroundings with an admixture of
silenced glee, and fresh resolution and a quick uttered prayer of thanksgiving for having so much precious that we possess in so far as we were born naked, and be burrowed same, but in between that, we own
temporal rights to love, appreciate
and to
being a human story
of
glory unique
Jun 8, 2025
Jun 8, 2025 at 9:16 AM UTC
I am the big loser,
and you are a God,
say, lost a precious jewel,
And shall feel sorry and sad.
You got an army,
and you got also mine,
your got captured a subset,
an intentional sublime.
All the grief is yours,
and all I am is a suspect,
hurting the clean,
in almost every aspect.
hurting myself,
for every script unlocked.
all eyes on me,
all your ears are blocked.
For I am the sinner,
you are a saint,
you have no shortcomings,
So you can't be blamed,
So I am the ****
all is reversed,
I'm just a piece of stone,
and you're the center of the universe
Apr 20, 2011
Apr 20, 2011 at 1:48 AM UTC
I travel in a living dream
of sailing between the stars
which wink at me as I pass by
and cast their silvering light
upon my night,
changing my eyes of brown
to purple and shadows
of clear amethyst
to the blues of giants
to greens dim and dark
Reflected in my aura
that moves along the wake
of my boat composed
of memories, both the sweet
and the sharp
My boat shaped like a moon
crescent with ends and peaks
pale yellow of sun reflected
and shadowed with the past
of eclipses and lunar quakes
My goals to see a nova shatter
to sail beyond the minds sunset
to push the boundaries I have made
to meet and greet the new unknown
to find an atoms subset
My boat rocks gently heaving
upon a dragged time frame
escaping with twists and turns
while dark matter plays its game
of sublime hide and seek
I straighten my road with paddles
made of left over quasars
I sip a drink of singularity
and pause to admire the colors
of past and present stars
Aug 29, 2016
Aug 29, 2016 at 7:00 AM UTC
Sapient sentinel
synthesizing simple structures
shallow stereotypes
so many new opportunities
and people to talk to
so many new ways to fail
smart people respect the skill it takes
and appreciate the effort
smart people will laugh
You'll be more than you were before,
and a subset of yourself.
Jan 14, 2016
Jan 14, 2016 at 8:51 PM UTC
Inside everyone of us exists a chorus.
A picture-present, set of voices.
In this abstract, I find thought & reality
to be a singular unit.
Each conglomerate sings of a present desire/want.
We are made gods in this place, bounded of course by the limitations of our own imagination.
Some thoughts are wicked, some thoughts are pleasant.
Some thoughts must be simply kept wholesome, to keep the world from our essence.
Sadly, i find that nothing i conjure is 100% my own.
Each spin of the web is a subset creation of some else's ideas, someone else problems. In this i find that free will of course is also evaporated.
i the author stands on the shoulder of another.
in this realization i am set free.
Oct 2, 2017
Oct 2, 2017 at 9:55 PM UTC
Your eyes denied your lips
couldn't quit requesting
it knows what feels right
Your lips says you were busy
but your eyes came asking
no need to fight.
Open up everything in here except the curtains
I bet there will be no sympathy
call me crazy cause I won't listen to your Latin language with apostrophe.
My mind is out of control
please forgive me,
tell me you've missed me
the only time to put you first
away you go but your absence left more than a bare chest.
Your love was more than you could control.
I will prove to you my hunter's love
I need you like you do
blow me a red kiss after sunset
lights on white candles
containing us like a subset.
Mar 10, 2018
Mar 10, 2018 at 7:17 PM UTC