"substantive" poems
<>
it’s not even 6am, restless night, or wrestled night, ain’t much difference, see the **** geese on the water’s edge, I dutifully slip out of bed, awakening no one, dutifully slide in to my slip-on sneakers, grab the white umbrella next to the front door, dutifully, steadily, my first chore of the day, walk deliberately (and carefully) to make them get them get heck away, into the sound, and to cease polluting the grass where children may play…
standing at the waters edge, task finished, the sky commands examination, there is within the cumulus textured, multi-pastel, thick curdled pastiche cloud banks, overhanging the world as far as one can see, a substantive hole appearing in the sky revealing a blue heaven….what one believes, prefers should be, but what is, in fact,
not a…given and we are a but, partly cloudy day, a partly clouded observant person…
this reminds me that there are holes in all places, everywhere, in my disturbed sleep, where I spend hours of triangulating in dreams, what I cannot pin down:
who I am, what I am, my purpose on earth, though I know where
I am, though not even, most critically, why I am…
is this a poem?
this thoughtful cursed query sits behind my eyes, frontally lobed, perpetually asking, judging me, these words, repetitiously heard,
one is not fooled,
it is a simple self-evaluation test, only an ask,
what are my justifications, ma raison d'être,
(reason for being) which is an amuse, for I discover
in French, ‘reason for being,’
is a feminine word,
(qui en Français,
c'est un mot féminin…)
and that makes me smile,
for I’m a woman-centric man
(I have no gender confusion,
this is not one of the holes
to which I refer)
perhaps it is, or, perhaps it is a rambunctious rambling of no worth, for no answers are obtained, given, deduced, and holes, skyward and inward are deep, none delimited by neither bottom or a top, just widening gaps and gapes in my existence…and answers are not
forthcoming…
<>
5:50am
Thursday July 18
Year Two Thousand and Twenty Four
Jul 18, 2024
Jul 18, 2024 at 6:51 AM UTC
an impurity
inherent or invasive,
identity, purpose, all unresolved,
substantive, long-lived, minute sized,
flexible, formed, yet more,
clearly shapelessly, so well visible
we'll disguise it
to survive it
without passport, an émigré
illegally legal border invasive,
but somehow more knowledgable
of the unmapped byways within,
more than me - how can that be?
never motionless, indeed,
always hurried, even when energy gathering,
despite it's detailed timetable,
detailing plentiful stops and
interminable unexplained
screeching wailings,
it has no smooth gliding,
nor rumbling grumbling halting,
to a final destination imprinted
this impurity,
a beheaded brainy horseman
searching for what,
I'm not permissioned,
unquenchable questioning,
all I am allowed is
sensory
surceasingly, unseasonably seeking
the undresser,
the verisign
of veritas
eyes mirrored reversal internal,
you can't understand why finishing
this poem is so hard
because you don't want to
confess this
impious impurity,
no étranger, it is but
copious insecurity,
of the all of you,
the ecstasy of
the rushing,
the upsetting,
universal unique to us, you,
unholy, ecclesiastical, catholic,
that impurity is just
the heart pumping the
mottled blood of
life coursing through your words
and out your fingertips,
onto those
stained drumsticks
used
to play the keyboard alphabet
about an
out-of-tempo
impure ecstasy
Mar 29, 2015
Mar 29, 2015 at 11:33 AM UTC
Like a chain
each ending word
of every inscribed phrase
ties up the innate sentiments
like waving a spectacular poetry
which brings out thrilling suspense
with candid inscription of an expression
A poet has all options
to use instinctive creativity
enthuse with an intuitive inkling
to demonstrate in clear composition
every substantive thought of wisdom
employing artistic serial rendition
words written in beauty as loop poem
Oct 23, 2018
Oct 23, 2018 at 12:16 AM UTC
The game played no longer how it once was
No votes on new posts
don't check the trends
or check your own for views and comments
The substantive roaming data of broken WiFi connections
Mangle your jangling words, hide your swollen faces behind forced smiles, Rembrandt bastardisations or smeared oil paintings of the black soul(less) beasts that lurk in satiate tree shadows fawned over the lawnmower blue cycle rinse washed acid soaked daydream ***** slap nation
So you revere the works once read on poetical facsimile sites
only to smear words of younger wordsmith wrangled teen angst
and now in your age and ardor it seems advantageous to judge
But then that will leave you hollow inside
or in fact, you could jump from a tall building only to bounce off the concrete into a children's pool and drown there in three inches of **** coloured rain water
But so instead the workload decreases as your dementia bedpost nightmares
all come aflutter
The laced lily white throng of petal pinched patterns masks
the marked men on their dusty knees
There, watch how heads explode
or listen to foley artists rendering the lacquered finish of the watermelon headjuice
Make up words
or make up lies
Wear make-up daily, earn some prize
or don't
I don't care
idc
idk
Resemble rhyme or reason
Disassemble the times and season
Return to pejorative pretensions, rants in verse verse verse verse prose format and **** the rest
Or simply return to the old ways of playing the game
Upvote this, and maybe they'll take interest
Comment here
return one there
Use tags, hashtags, wash rags, fat slags, arm chair fat cats
But always separated by spaces, prettyblankspaces
No, I don't do slam poetry, I'm too white and not nearly rich enough to not care
Reassemble the times and season, maybe make sense of it
Maybe not
Just don't let them become a passing trend, please
Jan 26, 2015
Jan 26, 2015 at 12:23 PM UTC
I've come back now
from the periphery -
where the multitude of
things with names
Occupies all thinking,
all emotive reaction.
This must be what is termed
primal wisdom
- this constant compulsion toward
the substantive.
Your arms and your mouth
The warm breath on my skin
The caressing movements of your body
Through one transient night...
Restores all
to simplistic clarity -
Leaves me grounded
in the real.
- fr
May 28, 2014
May 28, 2014 at 6:20 AM UTC
suspected of being
problematic, one is a
common
but
questionable
model, and an
adjustment
may
be
required
to address all
the nonsignificant
differences—
how
they
nonetheless constitute
important arbitrary
criterions
for
equivalence
the significance test
based on
observational
data
is
susceptible to (errors
of) interpretation
over the
question
at issue
namely, do
case differences
arise
because of
exposure
to a comparatively
small sample
or
because
of
another variable?
Exposure can be
only mediated
by
crude
estimates
and so may be
misleading
during
the
forming
of the hypothesized
model of one
that describes
the
association
between exposure,
bias, and
the variables,
and
reconciles
difference
with equivalence
significantly.
The model provides
little information
that is
incontrovertible
but
the results suggest if
adjustment for the variable
makes no
substantive
difference
ignore it
but if your knowledge
indicates the
adjusted
variable to
be preferable
then prefer it
Mar 27, 2012
Mar 27, 2012 at 7:25 PM UTC
a thousand years ago, wrote a poem called
“why I always carry tissues” -
a labor of love to
mine own toddlers misadventures,
requiring love covered in tissues so soft,
yet an ironclad coating
of natural substantive parenting
useful for tearing eyes, running noses,
and the cuts of living outdoors joyously
children grow older and oft that means,
they seek not your counsel,
and if offered, politely ignored,
for so it goes tween fathers and sons
then one summer days you receive an
observation, a datapoint that irradiates,
a quiet confirmation that not everything
you’ve said and done has gone astray
a young’un of “almost ten,” informs her father,
around the luncheon table of three generations,
that her foot is hurting; the son, now the father,
diagnosis renders, a blister, which will require
a protective custody that will protect the child’s
feet from the ravages of furious Shell Beach fun,
or the rough of a Manhattan sidewalk
I watch with a joy so quiet and so overwhelming,
as the son-father reaches into a cargo pocket,
producing not one but two bandaids, for life
requires backups for there are other babes about,
who at moments notice, produce scrapes and cuts
of ever greater consequence for each year they age
his wife renders me overjoyed, when she dryly
observe how certain children are lucky that
their father always carries bandaids, a new factoid,
for me, an unknown that glistens like a wet shell
now my eyes tearing, for a message in a bandaid,
or a tissue no matter which, is a certified proof,
somehow a message got through the clutter,
marked “well received,” that loving well requires
an oh so very hard attention to details, and that deep pockets
are repositories of good notions, handed down generations
June 24, 2021
Shell Beach
Jul 15, 2021
Jul 15, 2021 at 5:07 AM UTC
Persons who, not agreeing with you,
Will tell you, your perspective is wrong.
That lived experience,
Has clouded your lense of reality.
But they offer no real difference
Nothing so substantive
As to say,
Mine is fixed
And based in a place
Of true, unbiased rationality.
Jul 10, 2023
Jul 10, 2023 at 11:31 AM UTC
I am living in a house
Made of fleshy blocks
Costlier than golds
Not because it is cost
But this man in the building
refuses to be bought
His choice of substantive intake
Rotten tomatoes or fresh tomatoes
it is the shelter of slaves
It is the guile of the law
Jun 18, 2018
Jun 18, 2018 at 3:27 AM UTC
I paid for the two coffees and brought
them back to the table, swear they
chinkled in my hands like the music
in my teeth jouncing around when I
see you. You wrote letters in your
bright notebook and as I sipped you
asked me to discover them. High task.
Could barely read your cursive boughs
and sinewy slippery esses, slip slip
sliding off the page as you smiled
with a pixieish shrug—see, can’t do it.
But I sipped a little more deliberately,
slitted my eyes back to you, wrote
you some mischief on a napkin and
you laughed. It was buoyant and I
floated for a second above the wooden
bench, sustained by other voices like
cushions of marzipan I could dip in
your coffee and you would love it.
And back then you were really in
front of me, I should have limned your
lines and ridges onto your notebook,
just to show you. Should have taken
out my camera in a way you wouldn’t
have seen and taken a picture of those
eyes, the way you looked right there,
right then. Maybe you’d have seen
mine being created then—suddenly
rushing, flushing blood to a created
thing, made out of thin air, substantive.
Seen how you gave me my flesh, how
you made me an unknown drinker of
all life’s subtle blessings, peacefully,
even while within the mist of its
peaceless ecstasy and fury.
Mar 27, 2012
Mar 27, 2012 at 7:14 PM UTC
in their formative years
these stars burnt bright
movie theatres took them
on a stratospheric flight
they became famous
for being kids of talented nerve
the rolling camera's
showing their dynamic verve
yet the tinsel clad images
weren't portraying the true self
child actors were a studio's
road to greedy pelf
when reaching the teenage
period of their existence
drugs and alcohol plagued them
with much persistence
something was absent
as they grew to adulthood
little or no care given by
pushy parents in their childhood
tiny stars that once twinkled
did fall hard on the ground
their careers in dream flicks
bought them all unbound
Hollywood's picture factory
wasn't substantive in its part
which left many juveniles
to feel so aggrieved of heart
Oct 23, 2016
Oct 23, 2016 at 12:59 AM UTC
We were parodies of our parents,
Twisted mirror images,
Emulating something we can’t understand,
Trying to mimic something we haven’t seen.
Unsure of what we are, or were, or will become.
Control is the new black, painted on the walls in our love shack
That hasn’t had a visitor since this time last spring
Light filters through muggy dust, floating through the air like plankton in the sea,
And we were the whales, filtering through our mouths,
Unable to consume anything more substantive.
Our teeth fell out with old age,
But my face is still smooth.
We are green shoots, erupting with violence from the malnourished soils,
Desperate for a drop of sunlight,
Sweet relief.
Sweetest silence in another’s company,
Words were made to lie with,
Bodies are made to lie with,
As they huddle together to try to warm up,
But my hair is needles, and my arms are razor blades;
Steely coldness, severing all that tries to warm it up,
Stabbing what gets too close,
Feeling like you're quarantined.
The phoenix is reborn to be given the chance,
to be the man he thought he could never be,
But scrub and scald, the slate won't come clean,
The only escape is constant escape,
Never stop moving.
Venom leaks from my skin,
Bright colours warn predators,
While sweet sounds attract mates,
Aural honey sticks in the holes we put in my brain,
And for about three minutes and forty-seven seconds
Everything is about the vibrations.
Dec 20, 2013
Dec 20, 2013 at 8:40 AM UTC
mountain ranges cast
mountainous shadows
men, just,
even just,
one odd
man
can cast ranges of
mountainous shadows
these shadows,
both
in and visible,
out and invisible
there is a looming large,
late in the day shadow
of substantive length
in and on me,
though shadows amorphous,
it's weight is crushing me
You cannot escape, Helen
a shadow
both
in and visible,
out and invisible
Feb 5, 2014
Feb 5, 2014 at 11:53 PM UTC
5 X 5
sitting in that chair, once more,
that chair that is my picture of me...
One:
The bay laps quiet rhythmic hellos
knows better than to ask,
just graciously accepts,
one of us says Hallelujah,
and the other, Selah!
a torrid summer of morose and illness,
lingers still, and here I am, cosseted,
comforted by familiar comfort foods,
baby waves, the gentlest of precision-crafted currents
of air, all together a baklava so sweet,
one could forgo forever eating,
but never, writing of them, to you
Two:
Crumpled tissues,
absorbers of ****** fluids,
crumpled poems,
absorbers of mental fluids,
evidence of a body and soul's
dismal anguish, creativity extinguished,
weeks of weak, months of morbid,
were the pretense that a lovely physical shelter exterior,
could ever successful well-mask the human upheaval within,
as if a summer tan could disguise the illness exposed in his eyes
Three:
Sun of moderated fall heat enters via the nostrils,
crimping the bacteria of depression,
that come from an overrun immune system,
a summer of discontent for the summer man,
who has been encapsulated by the suicide
of a man he knew only from his humorous artistry
am I better? some. healed? of course not...
but here I begin a summation of my silences,
that came with no explanation substantive,
for which I formally apologize
Four:
Four is for me, a self-addressed postcard,
way past the point of clean slates,
I am a blackboard with years of dust cumulated
from scrawls, equations, mistakes,
and here n' there a teachers favorite,
a large exclamation point!
decide that it is perhaps time
to relearn how to write poetry for pleasure,
wipe that chalk dust off some,
not for pain disclosures hall marked,
though the pain must be played through,
today, a new season starts and my record,
unblemished a perfect 0-0
Five:
Why 5 X 5? No idea!
this is how it starts for me,
a title, a notional emotion,
a horse rider with a head,
but no body attached,
no direction home,
and the words, disassociated,
pulled together and now there are
five babies tendered for your
care and consideration,
perhaps even,
for your pleasure...
Sep 7, 2014
Sep 7, 2014 at 12:31 PM UTC
It wasn't so much childhood trauma as it was a soap melodrama. But I wasn't the protagonist and I soon realised that I had become redundant to their narrative.
Part way into the 8th series I left to star in my own spin off at a boarding school set in the Chilterns where I had greater success. Oh, yes - there was the occasional well-choreographed cross-over, but nothing substantive; and I successfully developed my own independent brand.
Years have passed and we don't do cross-overs anymore, but they may turn up for the occasional, one-scene guest appearance.
I prefer it this way. It's not Made In Chelsea, but it's my own reality drama.
Jun 27, 2019
Jun 27, 2019 at 3:19 PM UTC
Like a chain
each ending word
of every inscribe phrase
ties up the innate sentiments
like waving a spectacular poetry
which brings out thrilling suspense
with candid inscription of an expression
A poet has all options
to use instinctive creativity
enthuse with an intuitive inkling
to demonstrate in clear composition
every substantive thought of wisdom
employing artistic serial rendition
words written in beauty as loop poem
Jun 16, 2015
Jun 16, 2015 at 2:59 AM UTC
Creativity is a gift
of poets quite inborn
have special abilities
to inscribe composition
into substantive poems
Intuition excites imagination
as something that stimulates
the innate talent from within
that awaken the bards instinct
lit creativity as innate hallmark
Jul 7, 2015
Jul 7, 2015 at 4:43 AM UTC
The different factions spreading, interacting, substantive stories vs news stories, elements of truth. That go behind the lines, turning through the streets, jerking around the wifi signals, you're in deep, the picture and the humor, sarcasm seeping into the minds, sexting the pope, letting him know, Jesus walks the earth again, documentaries replacing the text, it's combustion in a little tube, an extension, Realism somewhere distant in our heads, a dream of universalism we all woke up from, wanting to buy into the sensuality of modernity, all encompassing, petty glances from older strangers as we peer into our windows, flying miles away, the creative force of the nihilists who find God in escape
Regeneration-
In a perpetual state of educations, flaring neuron, confused and neglected, the Chemical reactions, the think tank, silence in the face of music, the life game with a set number of rules, the odd numbers muliply, divide, in my case the ones with the rancid breath who club to the other and make the third stay in debt
Feb 19, 2015
Feb 19, 2015 at 1:38 AM UTC
so, we all, grand and great nieces and nephews,
aunts and baby, fathers and mothers, nanas & poppys;
pick your preferred identifier; gather round to worship
him, but end of day, color us tired, and early to book & to bed
long drive, long day, to get to our
tiny slice of heaven on earth, a
no-points-required destination,
and the baby, with his roly~poly effervescent
charms and delights; oh boy! he's going to be
trouble for the ladies later in life;
he's a sound sleeper; twice-a-day napper;
great eater, and I inquire to the sky, can I?
order half a dozen more on Amazon,
exactly the same? is there any limit at all?
but its 3:56 am, the new master is fast asleep, the
funny smelling old man, tiptoes to the sunroom
sanctuary, bursting with three, count-'em three,
poem hooks in his convection invention mind
and now that the artisanal dishwasher, that's him~too,
is done, his two loads, yet he awakes to put the urgencies.
to bed, write his thank you note poems to his fellow poets
for gifting him insights and of fig tarts pies, that are
invading his head,
yet to to be,
written, including this child's future,
who he, will write by himself
and this little ditty, though pretty, is just an appetizer,
to a beautiful life ahead, and substantive poems yet
to be written and hopefully read....
the baby cries out. a geschrei,^ but back to his
dreams of strange houses, funny cribs, and
senses going crazy with new sights and smells,
and instantly back to sleep, my god that's some
perfect baby!
and the old writer, the would-be-poet, knows when
not to belabor the point, and there's work to be done,
good weather requested, ferries to ride, perhaps, even,
brioche french toast for breakfast and of course,
miles to go…
nml
4:18am
9/12/25
Shelter Island Keep
Sep 12, 2025
Sep 12, 2025 at 4:33 AM UTC
Raddled, addled
oh my goodness
some dimes in the
jukebox baby
A substantive
No gargantuan
Evening awaits us
Only question
Do we grab it
Race like wildfire
Down our road
Never look back
If the wherewithal
lies within us
God’ll forgive us
Might even smile at us
Copyright © 2019 by Zane Safrit. All rights reserved.
Jan 31, 2019
Jan 31, 2019 at 10:38 AM UTC
A bard always inscribes...
A verse or two of innate sentiments,
that convey substantive expressions.
Like an ode that tells a story of love,
or a melancholic sonnet about solitude.
Quite an elegy of suspense depicting courage,
better yet a limerick of an adventurous quest.
And best couplet enthusing excitements
of an epic account of human endeavors
narrate explicit poetic phrases.
Oct 24, 2014
Oct 24, 2014 at 12:33 AM UTC
Love.
—a substantive
which may sustain
an entire life
Jun 30, 2015
Jun 30, 2015 at 9:44 AM UTC
The role of a savior
Is a comfortable one for me
Familiar
Safe
Tempting
Because we think
If you’re part of the
solution
Then you can’t be
part of the
problem
Of course
This is a false dichotomy
Many of us are part of the problem
While simultaneously trying
to be part of the solution
There may be a place for a solitary savior
In certain moments
For specific circumstances
Fleetingly
But lasting solutions
Substantive change
Come from a multitude of voices
Saving themselves
And each other
I strive to find my place in that group
Use my voice to add strength to the collective
Without drowning out those around me
Jul 28, 2022
Jul 28, 2022 at 9:12 PM UTC
First Official s u m m e r Saturday,
weather personas correctly (!) advertise two hours of
sunny morning before the clouded
vanilla parchy brow of the sky
occludes any May
summertime fantastical notions
Sun low in the eastern sky crests at
acute angles,
and spills rays thru the tree'd
frothy cappuccino branches, which
under the influence of drunken
substantive gusts, shakes the rays
on the bright green lawn stage, casting a huge patchwork of shadows, and it's easy to conceive
many tall giant ballerinas dancing in a chaotic disharmonious modern choreography
Perhaps it's a Parson's choreo,
more likely the akimbo nature
of the motion motif,
a Body Traffic concoction
But the sun is gone by 9:30am,
the green stage is now just a
plain old green screen,
the shadowy ballerinas banished,
and my hand held porcelain mug,
frames the denuded scene,
only the invisible wind remains
to say:
*oh it's you human,
back in para-dise,
did you expect perfection
of hot sun & hot coffee
awaiting your return?*
*East come, Easy West go,
this version of my true unheated coloration disappoints,
but I wait in on/no human,
said the triumvirate,
that rule the sky,*
*on this island of perpetual sunsets,
we do not guarantee a seating
of matched sets,
but visit with us tomorrow,
with poem praiseworthy,*
and then,
again,
who ever knows?
May 25, 2025
May 25, 2025 at 11:50 AM UTC