"substitutions" poems
Substitutions are short term solutions
To problems that we cannot resolve
Even though I am human, I need to evolve
My hand is not my companion
It doesn't ask me how happy I am
The twitch happens and its time to go again
Is this how sobriety is supposed to play out?
Kicking ***** to the curb, only to receive
In return an obsession, over my depression
To try and write down life's lessons?
Yet with all these journals half empty
What exactly am I saving for me?
Disappointment, because I missed the
Appointment to my own creativity?
I do have a proclivity to playing out
My own self-fulfilling prophecies
Oh well, that's just me
Jul 10, 2022
Jul 10, 2022 at 1:23 PM UTC
of what is a love poem
for me, to me was
always cyclical
first noun
then pronoun
then nothing
noun loves me,
pronoun loves me not
noun loved me last week
prounoun loves me not this week
noun will love me evermore,
pronoun, poe-no, nevermore
a name is a noun
a pronoun is a substitute
***for matters of love I announce forevermore
only call me by name
no substitutions***
even cycles must end,
only call me by noun-name,
forevermore
Dec 1, 2018
Dec 1, 2018 at 10:22 AM UTC
My timing is off
The bricks are laid
A fallen trail
Of pretty little
Puzzle pieces
Substitutions
That print and press
All the sickness left
I'm tired
Of making it less
Euphemism
Never did the trick
It sugar coats
It tastes too thick
Rain will hit
And quick tossed
Trail crossed
Will melt away
That imaginary
Bull ****
That you
Always create
Apr 24, 2013
Apr 24, 2013 at 1:22 AM UTC
We've reached an age where we talk at people. There's no 'to' or 'with'. We carelessly throw words around to each other hoping not to catch any unsatisfying sentences in return. Most of these substitutions for conversations are shoveled bit by bit through radio waves to small circuits in our pockets. Verbal language has become distant and alien to us. We're too content removing ourselves from the intimacy of communication that we've created societal norms that only further entrench this behavior while encouraging a facade of emotionless abandonment.
An answer other than 'good' to the masquerade of an endearing question - "how are you?" - will raise eyebrows and prompt suspicion. How far removed are we as humans from one another that a question on another's well-being is genuinely regarded as a greeting and meant to be mostly ignored and never answered honestly?
Put down your device and pick up your tongue.
Jul 16, 2014
Jul 16, 2014 at 7:25 PM UTC
Stake claim, enslave
Falling behind
A wake so odd
Cosmic, wretched truth
Will all compose
With repetition
Til all devolves
Equally wrong choices, with dire stakes
Options weighed, time again
Derived presets, and presupposition
Derivative motion, placed on this clean slate
And left for a lifetime
Of horrid substitutions
Jun 30, 2018
Jun 30, 2018 at 5:37 AM UTC
I filled my bullet holes from the inside out
Concrete substitutions for flesh laid by a man of stone
So cold to the touch in the moonlight hours
I almost forget I was ever warm
Perforated to the core of my being
My initial rebuttal to the pain i felt was to harden myself
Teach myself to live with the cold
And look towards the solid shadows I then casted for inspiration to carry on
Fool myself into believing in the wholeness of a broken man
I lived as a creation of my own twisted and transformed imagination day in and day out
Dragging along the heavy weight a shield of hate brought with it
The problem being
Behind that shield I was protected fully from any outside source of grief
But I was trapped as well
A layer of thick rage and apathy deflecting any and all other emotion
A poison that constantly ate at what was left of me
Soon I became too weak to stand
The price you pay for being invincible against all other forces is that you can never stop yourself from dying on the inside
I had built a fortress to no avail
Because I had trapped the evil within myself
On my knees, my body rotting away
What was left of my flesh began to shrink back
The concrete was losing its grip the walls of skin that held them in retreating
The evil had won
Chunks of cement fell to the ground and crumbled
The agony indescribable
I was losing the last ounce of security I had left in this world
I was weak and the heaviness of the shield left when I could no longer hold it
I was defeated
I sat awaiting a death that in my mind was the only thing left assured to me
But it never came
Instead, I saw the sun rise over the horizon
I felt its warm rays on my disfigured flesh
And all around me was illuminated
In the light I saw how horrible what I had done to myself really was
At the price of living I had bought myself immortality
Nothing more than a cruel joke
Night never came again
And eventually I stood up
The light shone through my bullet holes as I did and the last of my disgust for the world was gone
I buried the shield and the crumbled stone deep in the darkness and never went back
Because no matter what may have been in my past, no matter how much blood I had shed, I knew that now I could live,
Truly
Jul 29, 2014
Jul 29, 2014 at 3:05 PM UTC
There was morality in why women want,
but emotional voids are consumed by consumerism
and it’s redundant, but you can’t feed the starving
food. These days you can’t find one not
entranced by the idea of a “better ****** diet,”
and it sounds like they need to eat out more, but
the Glamour in magazines is under empty stomachs
and proof-labeled wine. So you find yourself at a cross,
cross-eyed and in a skeletal body running in the rain.
But if she wrote Drinking: A love story, and broke my heart,
then she can fill voids with Hegel substitutions. She filled
one with God and one with Zoloft. A baby escapes,
escape that Burroughs found only in ******** and *****
until he met a golden pig and finally blacked-in)
And in the child’s first suckling moment
“Let her be filled.”
Jan 26, 2011
Jan 26, 2011 at 10:08 PM UTC
Such artificial nonsense rhyme,
That can turn art into slime,
And make your thoughts not worth a dime,
And words a total waste of time.
Throw away the limiting forms,
Burn all the idiotic norms,
Old-fashioned rules apply to fools,
No one but me plays with my tools!
The new trinity is Me, Myself and I!
I set the rules for every game,
And follow none, just the same,
Anarchy rules all, and that's no lie!
Iambic pentameter? Pyrrhic substitutions?
Who the hell cares about those illusions!
Counting syllables and each line?
Grand, old, pompous idiocy most sublime!
Write a sonnet? I'd rather wear a pink bonnet!
But if I do 15 lines it will be
Why, 'cause I say so, doggone it!
And no idiot ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
I am GOD and rule it blasphemy,
To follow both hard and easy rules,
That can make heads hurt, you'll agree,
Or burn in eternal hell as reactionary fools.
There is more art in a cow's mighty ****
Than in Milton, Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Pope,
If you can't beat them, marginalize them from the start,
Drag them through the mire to raise me up, that is my hope.
From now on all couplets shall triplets be, thus do I decree,
Come to me on bended knee and I will set you free,
Everyone's a poet, welcome to the new reality.
Feb 14, 2019
Feb 14, 2019 at 1:51 PM UTC
love is more than just a language between two people.
it's several phrases, actions, and words
foreign endeavors and behaviors,
thoughts,
all together as one.
as those speaking acts of love,
we expect those we speak to
to understand.
but we all speak different forms of love;
compatibility of such revelations are misunderstood.
love is an adventure
a search for whose language of love,
though different from one's own,
can be interpreted and understood;
and wished to be learned.
though to learn a love is easy,
to comprehend anothers love cannot be forced.
love is tragic
an algebraic expression with several substitutions
and a million different answers;
but only one is correct in the mind of the beholder.
love can be the worst or the greatest thing;
unrequited can ****
but when it works out;
it can live forever.
N.R 2017
Aug 19, 2017
Aug 19, 2017 at 12:15 AM UTC
when time summons you
and tells you it is your time
you must go.
reluctantly given no warning
and given no space
reluctantly understanding
thoughts you should never
have to understand.
taking precious and valuable
heart space
and shattered soul
you must go.
listen to time
as it knows best
when our minds fail to cease
our darkened thoughts
and we become violent
listen to time.
listen to its boundaries
and when it tells you to leave.
your heart, nor your head
are substitutions for time.
and if it is not your time
you will know.
forcefully or gently
time will grab you
and remove you from
the place you thought
you should be.
but don't act against it.
you will only come to a place of regret.
Mar 11, 2014
Mar 11, 2014 at 1:19 PM UTC
Where is my language
and why can't I speak it?
It's being replaced
with a haze of Spanish eyes
and olive skin
casting shadows across itself
in the mid-morning sun.
I would be one
to remember the days
of what I could say,
words integrate,
binding my tongue to the roof of my mouth.
Colder, colder, migrating south,
hold my hand and tell me
it will be alright.
I wanted to know how the bird in flight
felt to have its feathers washed from its body,
how the decaying leaf
felt to be buried in snow.
And now all I want to know
is how it would feel
to be the world's smallest organism.
How it would feel to divide, divide,
roots so shallow I can't find my feet,
swept away by the smallest rush
of pins pushing against my body.
How it would feel to be torn apart
in the name of science -
would I still be beautiful
if my ribs were inside out?
Would I still be beautiful
if my heart bloomed like the winter flower?
Would you love me if I could be anything,
a wasteland with a clear surface,
water being poured down the drain?
If I was a sequence,
the number of steps before the next system over,
would my DNA align just enough
to make me reflect you?
I'm hapless,
lethargic,
entirely theoretical,
and I'm counting the number
of substitutions I can make
before I no longer exist.
What will it take to wipe me away?
How many cells do you have to remove from my spine
before it is no longer my own?
I used to want to feel
the air breathing with me,
to know what it is
that makes the water love the earth so dearly.
Now all I want to feel
is soft skin on my hands,
the curve of my waist as I sleep,
the skin pale under the sheets,
beauty sighing from between my blue lips.
Jan 12, 2018
Jan 12, 2018 at 7:46 AM UTC
Love is something that
No one will be able to understand.
Because sometimes love hurts
So bad you feel like your
Dieing inside.
But love can also feel so good,
As if you can control all
Aspects of life.
But love is so hard to find
Because we don't know what
It truly feels like.
We try to make substitutions
For that feeling.
But in the end it leaves us
farther away from that feeling.
Love can only come once
In a life time.
But sometimes it's so well
Hidden that we can look at it in the face
And let it leave us forever.
May 9, 2017
May 9, 2017 at 7:45 AM UTC
Once upon a time
There was a boy
His life was full of
fun and joy
Waking up at six
in the morning
With a feeling everyday
is more adorning
Getting ready for the school
And waiting at the bus stop
Every day he felt
He was on the world's top
Entering into the class room
Saying hi to all
Gossiping with friends untill
Assembly call
Standing in the playground
Listening to principal's speech
All that was nonsense
Which she used to preach
Coming back to classroom
Attending all the classes
Just for staring a girl
wearing red-blue glasses
Four continuous lectures then
comes a break
So as to avoid
stress and headache
Sharing lunch boxes
Was like a business deal
what actually matters
Was getting all tasty meal
Last period used to
Pass very slowly
With the history teacher
Teaching them very lowly
When it reaches two
in the school clock
It was the time to fly
Like the bird hawk
Running Faster and faster
Down through the stairs
Coz no one likes
bus seat to share
Giggling and laughing
Screaming and shouting
All the way back to his home
Doing all nonsense with his friends
When he had time to roam
Pressing the doorbell
mom opens the door
Setting the fan speed
at three or more
Resting under the fan
And watching the television
Discovery science was
His first provision
After the lunch
Comes time for the tuitions
Coz studies do not hav
Any substitutions
From there he goes
to the football ground
To play cricket
Just for one or two rounds
Back to home asking for
a cup of horlicks
With few of almonds
In the milk to mix
Then studying in the bedroom
Doing all his homework
Finishes the everything on time
With all his hardwork
goes to the kitchen
For having some snacks
Jar of biscuits
kept on the rack
Sharing secrets
with his dad
long discussion
They used to had
Have his dinner
Then goes to bed
Thinking what to do
with the future ahead
Thinking and thinking
eyes stops blinking
Fall asleep
hoping for a better tomorrow
Apr 2, 2017
Apr 2, 2017 at 3:46 PM UTC
in a haze of morning hours, scrambling for paper, amidst regular intervals of tingling:
days splintered by loveliness, sharp aches,
clustering thoughts of blue snares. summer's
decline. your eyes. tumult.
but, what can or can't be done? seemingly
everything. i just hide. second nature.
paradise by weekend, far reaches
before long. isolation held in
firm grip. substitutions for the
lonely: mud, rock, leaf, water.
simplicity.
and then, as clear as sunlight,
another visage of your eyes,
grand blue snares;
a warm, glowing scar,
i am full of glimmer and
a recurrent dull ache. can't
help it. don't stop.
affections ran deep like
trenches, swift like gutters,
rained upon, forever.
nameless breath sent to or from
this greater scheme,
the mechanics of my inner chest,
sorrow poured out over the stars.
all seemingly as distant.
i miss you always.
but, you, wild& capable,
carrying everything with a grin,
give no reason for lament.
you, out there, behind doors
or in thickets, thatching all
skies with rivets of joy.
and, i, under slow-beating sun,
ain't seen to smile so much in
forever. but all flying creatures fly.
as misery did migrate, so too
do fear and consistency, heartache
and certainty. such is the path the
world will always spin over.
so, i write out new and old songs
on rust-laden heartstrings. lay
lips on nothing, typically. keep on
breathing, singing, laughing and
spinning, as the world does, knowing
all the while that in the recesses of
my chest you'll be somewhere, spinning
all the same, and i'll just be here,
poring over paper, trying to
figure the right pattern, to
speak words language won't.
i'll miss you, always.
Feb 26, 2015
Feb 26, 2015 at 4:08 PM UTC
By Arcassin Burnham
Hi I'm Arcassin And I was wondering how a black male
in america made it this far,
Dear Zeus Please tell me what I've done wrong,
And there ain't mountain high enough for journey's to start,
there's not enough room in this soul to smile.
I know what I've done and I'm not proud.
New mission.
with honorable mentions.
keeping one love.
no substitutions.
I know my role man.
to be a citizen.
but I'm so woke man.
the truth will hide in sin , sin.
we can't pretend like nothing's going on,
you wanna waste away , you wanna live your life,
I swear material things mean more to you than the
people that have your back in this life,
so calm down man.
you fought long enough.
I hope you understand.
It's just as simple as trust.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Hi I'm Arcassin And I was wondering how a black male
in america made it this far,
Dear Zeus Please tell me what I've done wrong,
And there ain't mountain high enough for journey's to start,
there's not enough room in this soul to smile.
I know what I've done and I'm not proud.
Don't need luck.
changes is a must.
***** your issues.
Not in the mood to fuss.
we all have weaknesses.
and we're all not so strong.
we all gotta fight.
to capsulize the wrong, wrong.
we can't pretend like nothing's going on,
you wanna waste away , you wanna live your life,
I swear material things mean more to you than the
people that have your back in this life,
I can't control.
whatever it is you do.
the guilt we try to hold.
will only bury you.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
Jul 6, 2017
Jul 6, 2017 at 10:43 AM UTC
Fleshy protuberances,
To fill the void of virtues,
Of the unvirtuous,
And bloody-minded contentious.
Voluptuous caverns,
As substitutions for,
A wealth of strength,
Of personally refined law.
Praying on others temptations;
Using their weaknesses,
Since ones’ own strengths,
Leave only deficits.
Passive aggression,
Requires a little thought,
Without any passion,
On a plate, her demands are brought.
May 8, 2016
May 8, 2016 at 2:44 PM UTC
It's not learning to do without flour,
Or to like new substitutions.
It's steps on a road to be happier,
To be healthier,
To be you.
Apr 2, 2025
Apr 2, 2025 at 10:05 AM UTC
Unsung heroes whom bare our scars
Substitutions to fight our wars
With strength and dignity that isn’t learned
To provide the freedom we didn’t earn
Like wounded victims upon their shoulder
Our weight they carry feels like a boulder
Yet in strength they stand to serve us all
So that we are not the ones to fall
Nov 6, 2019
Nov 6, 2019 at 8:48 AM UTC
Halfway through the year time crept
Days seemed to flash like thunder
each vanishing by to its paradise
Sometimes I wonder about the days
If they will reappear above the mirage
far beyond the ever breathing skies
above the unreachable starry skies
above what is unfathomable and unattainable
and if these days sat on a mountain?
would it ever sink or be weighed down?
submerging below the strata and volcanic tension
aren’t we all stuck in a driven world
where souls are trying, prying, crying
each trying to find a place, some freedom
a resolution above all the substitutions
Yet as she sat at the fountains of love
all she could find was second class crowns
rusted copper coins sunk at the bottom
and all their wishes echoed eons ago
articulated with tainted rosy promises
pardoned within a series of mysteries
as if happenstance as delicacy was outpoured
and as she sailed, willowing voices unfolded
and all she could visualise was the future ahead
Apr 6, 2019
Apr 6, 2019 at 7:10 AM UTC
Wealthy people have a knack
Of making contributions
They don’t let trials get them down
But focus on solutions
So don’t let anger conquer you
Or seek out retribution
But seek to take the higher road
And offer a solution
Of several ways to undertake
A problem’s diminution
The best by far is simply choose
A mindset of solution
So cultivate this daily choice
There are no substitutions
To making it your daily goal
To seek out good solutions
Feb 28, 2020
Feb 28, 2020 at 8:54 AM UTC
I catch whifs of you in between
the lines of my DNA, tangled
in everything I keep in the dark, tangled
in the knots in my stomach,
in all the white lies I tell.
I slide my fingers against the edges of
sharp things, give myself lovely
collections of papercuts and splinters
for the fun of it, see if I bleed the same
as before the alcohol weighed
down my arteries and sunk
into my brain;
I am resting my arms at my sides now because they're too heavy
to hold up, carrying all this lead around in
my blood, my blood tells me go keep going, keep sinking all the way
all the way down till I can't feel it
anymore, keep colors plastered
on my walls today because the gray keeps seeping and seeping and seeping,
crawling back in around my fractured walls, back in around
everything I try to preserve, clinging to everything
soft and poisoned and poisoned and
black
I always knew this house was
filled with too many secrets to hold, but I never thought my time
would be tallied up here the same way as everything else
falling victim to the same plague that carries
one old disease into the next,
I think I'm treading on
dangerous ground here, skin crawling
in cheap substitutions for the chemicals my brain
leaves convenient vacancies for,
take me out of my skin once
in a while,
breathe me into your sandpaper-scraped palms and rough me up
like the rest of you, rough me up till
my tongue bleeds
and my serotonin runs dry,
I tell myself the quiet is a good place to be but honestly I ******* die without
constant reminders that I'm okay
I'm slowly cutting paper chains out of the leftover tissue clinging
to my bones, maybe once I hang them up in here things won't look so sparse
maybe we'll learn to breathe
maybe your bones are too weak or mine are
laced with the concrete of all these decisions, because the numbness dilutes
the aching,
catch me outside doing
cartwheels,
catch me outside in my bare feet, leaving
trails for you to pick up on because maybe at the end of them I let it all go
maybe my body wasn't built for breathing in this dust,
my lungs aren't
vacuum cleaners & my fingernails don't scrape away paint like
they used to
Jun 27, 2018
Jun 27, 2018 at 11:17 PM UTC
The day strangely culminates in
German potato salad
and trays of sliced meat
on my Aunt MaryAnn’s dining table.
A celebratory end to a hectic week,
filled with what seem interminable
discussions, plans, decisions.
My father takes deliberate care
to involve me in its events,
in part for companionship and in part
not knowing what else to do.
So, there we sit
in the overheated director’s office,
weigh the pros and cons
of viewing times.
Meet with clergy,
choirs and relation.
Design order,
odes and speeches.
Evaluate various technical
and stylistic advantages of
wood versus metal.
Apply for certificates
and approvals from this office
and that.
Fill out forms and releases.
Select a hairstyle
and a dress.
A shade of lipstick.
Glasses or none.
None.
It’s a freezing February day.
The wind bites;
the snow is a dry powder
blowing over rock hard ground.
I sit on the stoop outside
MaryAnn’s back door,
a plate of uneaten food,
trying to size up what we had done.
All at once, it seems brutal.
The series of banal choices
that moments after they were made,
mean less than the potatoes
and onions in my lap.
A purposeful, unavoidable,
flurry of activity followed by
nothing.
Time passes and other lives intervene.
All those boxes to tick
and formalities to fulfill,
their substitutions for
thought and reason.
A system well worn and little changed,
with its own unbearable demand.
But there was assurance,
and if I am honest
a little hope
within it.
May 23, 2016
May 23, 2016 at 6:45 AM UTC