"uncontested" poems
New Zealand culture,
a fragility,
tainted by violence.
Colonisation.
Writers have examined,
the loss of Maori land.
Less common however,
is writing concerned with
the benefits,
accruing to white people
as a result of the acquisition
of this land.
Colonisation has provided,
Economic and social advantages,
to white people,
in contemporary New Zealand.
A hierarchy,
white Western culture,
sitting uncontested,
at its pinnacle.
The cultural capital that whiteness provides.
Unearned advantages at our disposal.
Live our lives with greater ease:
Homeownership.
Health.
Education.
The ‘Justice’ System.
Institutional privilege.
A political separation.
The white New Zealand system,
designed for whites.
To get through school,
have good health,
get jobs,
get a little justice.
If the system was designed,
for Maori people
it would not be the way it is now.
Overrepresentation of Maori,
in every
negative
New Zealand
social statistic.
The persistence of white power.
Society provides greater opportunities,
to white people,
by disadvantaging those who are not.
Unacknowledged,
debilitating, racism.
Being oblivious,
sustains a belief,
in white superiority.
While factors:
socioeconomic status, gender,
sexuality, disability,
may impact the degree to which,
individual white people,
can access privilege.
On some level,
every white person,
in New Zealand
benefits from their skin.
Jul 27, 2016
Jul 27, 2016 at 6:03 AM UTC
I hadn’t spoken for so long
a tiny spider had moved in
at the corner of my mouth
eating my words
my tongue laying limp like a
slain dragon at the bottom of the cave
like a king who passed away right there
on his throne having given the last order
my arms almost as still as uncontested borders
only palms carry out maneuvers
and fingers patrol the manifestation of expressions
commanded by thought fibers
like puppet soldiers
and the lines in the sand are words
born of themselves
telltale heartstrings stalking now the realm
just outside the eye orbit
May 6, 2018
May 6, 2018 at 7:09 AM UTC
#31 | 31 Poems for August
(Written with Naledi Tshikota)
Write me a sonnet, point dozens of Cupid’s arrows to my heart if you dare to awaken it.
Tune into your inner Shakespeare, fantasize us as Bonnie and Clyde if you care to spend time in it.
Recreate the Titanic, recreate it with the ending of The Notebook if you can bear to believe in it.
And if that doesn’t work, cast me to sleep like the Romeo you are and let me awake next to your lifeless flesh and dagger as I pierce my soul with it.
Write me a sonnet, let every single one of those fourteen lines bleed with emotion.
Leave The Notebook next to my notebook and become the protagonist of my dreams.
Think like the wind and attain the kind of power that’ll allow you to blow me away on any given day.
Your presence keeps transforming our thoughts into beautiful poetic paintings, Basquiat and Picasso would’ve been proud.
Write me a sonnet, silence every impurity that does awaken my love.
Summon the essence of my soul for the taking of your unforsaken hands and make Mona Lisa cry sacred tears of joy.
Create simplistic glimpses that only our superior beings can understand, only then can I unleash my undying emotion towards your uncontested universe.
Write me a sonnet, the kind that will make me realise that your heart isn’t filled with any doubt.
The day I realised that words could touch you, I wanted to become a poem.
The kind of poem that Maya Angelou’s ink always dreamt about.
The taste of your smile still lingers on the edges of my lips.
I see galaxies in your eyes, it must be in the way I love you like I do.
I could’ve settled for less but I don’t want anyone else but you.
Write me a sonnet that speaks to the heart of my mind.
Because I always hear your heartbeat when I think about you.
Write me a sonnet that intertwines our inner intuitions.
A sonnet that makes you believe in shooting stars if you’re into wishing.
And finally that captures the very essence of the unknown soul that’s unspoken of.
Because it’s within your golden silence that I hear the loudest cry.
Aug 31, 2015
Aug 31, 2015 at 12:36 PM UTC
It's made in me
The way of me
So loving & savory,
What do I speak of?
My dear instinctive bravery
Insatiably
A heart of gold engraved
in thee,
Solemnly a gift from God
given gracefully.
Questioned by many about
my dashing courage
Noble-minded behavior,
Intrepidity
Superman-like favor,
Saving a life with intent
& untapped wit
Comforting to the mind
So very major.
Put my life on the line
for someone in need
Even for animals, treated,
As loved ones indeed
Deference
Urbanity
It sits well as my creed,
So many think of me
as crazy, somewhat insane
For having such a desire
of valiance within my brain,
Why salt my game?
Because I'm so in tact
with life?
The beauty it holds?
Mettle with heartfelt
kindness to my delight?
I can't help it
I must protect & serve,
MINUS THE BADGE
Pains me to see a
damsel in distress
No tender heart deserves.
I know that every situation
is not my problem
Shouldn't concern me some
would say,
Like a man beating his wife
while the kids cry & stray
In daylight even
Never could I look away,
I'm sorry
I feel I must jump in to
save my quarry,
Who knows I may be
in over my head,
But I can care less at times
Must save the prey from the
predator, can't consume of spoiled
bread.
Whether its a car speeding
about to run over a baby
Or a relentless fire in a
building coursing to burn a lady,
With my mind attentive, laced
with uncontested audacity,
Boldness
Courtesy
Reverence
All out strong Tenacity,
I'm here, Im here...
Good guys are yet to be
seen
Daredevils that are truly
serene,
But no matter what
I'm here,
With my mind & Valor
Have no fear
A young soldier
is near,
At your service I'll be
around to help
Take a stand with me
Let me lend a hand for thee
With my beautiful, yet
Ravishing Gallantry....
©Michael P. Smith
Jul 4, 2012
Jul 4, 2012 at 9:36 AM UTC
there is paint
it peels from my eyes
in long gaseous ribbons
it is punctuated by
a bright blindness
where methodologies
reach no conclusions
paint peels from my ears
in uncontested echoes
projecting a self
generated audible universe
paint peels from my mouth
in black storms
of expanded consciousness
leaving behind a particulated
paralized partition
that leaves me disconnected
in a correspondence of color
A field of snow
turning blue under moonlight
in accord with the peeling of paint
like a light emitted by relative thought
paint peels, paint peels, paint peels
Apr 17, 2013
Apr 17, 2013 at 1:58 PM UTC
It snowed that morning,
scarring the end of something
forgotten,
pitied lost repression,
buried with each shy snowflake.
Uncontested petals from the
formerly statuesque tress, fell,
sundered,
dancing their merry little
way to the vacant ground.
And a feather dropped from
an outcast swan, alone it
forlornly
surrendered to the frigid
incapability of the terra firma.
On that Saturday morning,
nothing could have fallen,
plummeted
as sporadically as I did,
for each of your rays.
Jan 1, 2015
Jan 1, 2015 at 12:46 PM UTC
In a broken bond,
Uncontested disarray
Retrieves this love,
For which, neither convey.
In an unholy testimony,
Vows they bleed
Upon half-heart promises,
And lies we believed.
Contradictions and misconceptions
Are the sum of our demise.
He wallows in self-pity,
This comes as some surprise.
All of these truths
Hadn't long been subdued;
Yet he weeps incessantly,
As if he had no clue.
As if he had no chance,
No reason or rhyme.
As if I never told him,
As if he hadn't had the time.
Whites now blend
To blacks and blues.
Increasing injustice
Distinguished the two.
In this tainted love,
Sedation suggests-
Temporary comfort
While we fail this test.
Retrieving this love,
For which neither of us convey,
Our bond is broken-
Uncontested disarray.
Jun 27, 2010
Jun 27, 2010 at 6:15 PM UTC
no one dies in a dead heat. they just arrive uncontested.
a slapped cheek, if no one comes first
a slack thirst for comets and bedlam
and new germs.
you send radar to your wigwam and burn churches
you lose some.
trouble is
you love it when
the wyrm
turns.
Oct 29, 2012
Oct 29, 2012 at 1:22 PM UTC
Tulsa, OK named and claimed it
then prophetically proclaimed it:
Ken and Gloria invested
slick, convincing, uncontested
Pretty-boy preachers wowed the flock
making Christ the laughing stock
their best lives yielding heresies
out-phariseeing Pharisees
as if their western cowboy drawls
could bless impulsive bank withdrawals.
Unique to the US of A
where truth is prophesied away
and churches spring like tares and breed
while tele-preachers intercede
for breakthroughs, blessings, Mammon’s gold
their folly long ago foretold
in frenzied tones, the healing tongue
counts dollars where Paul counted dung.
I’m sure they all believe it’s true…
they know it justifies fleecing you.
Apr 25, 2016
Apr 25, 2016 at 7:57 PM UTC
A still frame hangs in my mind.
A moment...
A precious timepiece...
That parted uncontested.
When my pen laid still.
My hands followed my feet.
I surrendered my name.
and rambled towards destiny
Years flew by,
My mind relaxed.
My thoughts were tired;
So I set them free.
And In my steadfast
My fleshy skin was replaced by Iron and Lead.
New found strength
prospected future glory
wayward
I rambled
carrying the ashes
of my artistic self.
In these times
I had no face.
Yet passion and sweat
gave me a name.
As I yelled it out
my passion began ablaze
Thus rose the phoenix
My mind to breath once more
to reflect
to broaden
to keep
From this I now know
that behind the mask of ordinary
The things I treasure most
Are within the fields of my control
I am the same
Yet different.
Conflict is my Nature
Cunning is my Strength
Passion is my Art.
Now I am strong enough
To bear both pen and sword
I'm back
Feb 6, 2015
Feb 6, 2015 at 4:54 AM UTC
A small furry tummy grows with pride and recognition. The day is new like fresh air and baby lungs. The trappings of usual experience have gone unnoticed with each wayward smile and shared glimpse.
Is this a dream?
What is real?
Silence guards haunting stories with latent thoughts streaming uncontested by a busy mind. If there is truth, then what is humanity? Who am I?
Do you feel ashamed too?
I'm not the leader I once believed to be back then.
I'm more machine now then ever before - lacking substance, strange entangled, my very best worst friend.
Jul 11, 2013
Jul 11, 2013 at 10:13 AM UTC
Stagnant throughout the years,
Leaving nothing to chance.
Trudging through life unsurprised,
Life keep's us a hostage.
A prisoner of the saddest sort,
Unknowing even of the chains that bind.
Until one day something changes,
A biological switch clicks.
Scales fall from previously blinded eyes,
Truth finally freeing the ignorant prisoner.
An unforseen blooming that colours the world,
Opening the mind to possibilities that could be.
The Joshua tree in particular,
Dreary, regular and uninteresting.
Stuck in an unfaltering life,
Doomed to a lonely death.
But one day something happens,
Mundane, it will never be called again.
Flowers, bright red and plentiful,
Standing out against a backdrop of barrenness.
A routine of numbing indifference,
Suddenly disturbed by a blessing.
Life no longer doomed to an empty existence,
God's larger plan finally within sight and grasp.
Trudging on with unfeeling lack of will,
Barely registering the sudden gifts.
Till they mature and give way to beauty,
Uncontested and pure.
Life can never be the same,
Once circumstance whispers, 'Run with me.'
Jan 15, 2014
Jan 15, 2014 at 8:34 AM UTC
East River: The Many Calories in Water and Words
this weighty obsession, counting the energy
consumed and disbursed,
to be lean but not mean,
traverses into its third year
a late start does not forgive
over Forty years of transgressions, that damage,
sustained and in part irreversible,
yet I awake this Sunday morn,
all quiet on the East Side front, observing the East River flows
on the surface, contented and uncontested,
strongly bound for faraway Oceans unknown, and it tickles my
imagination that the rain from the nearby Adirondack and Catskills mountains might soon be quenching thy flora, fauna and your parched throats, confirming and conforming our connection and threading our interwoven tapestries, our unified aqueduct, carrying
with more than poetic words, but poetic water!
this notion sustains in multiple manners, and I deep drink the calm and the power as if it were,
for it is,
a daily vitamin,
calorie free,
God delivers
Delivering
us with
its contained and contentented potency,
to all
in equal dosage
and now the script finished,
the water imbibed,
this baptized, scripture loving
mind and body
as/is
wholly holy
refreshed,
as are we,
my friend
8:38AM
April 14, 2024
by the East River
Apr 14, 2024
Apr 14, 2024 at 9:26 AM UTC
Had the world enough;
counting daises and peas in the pod,
and the idea that lovers never stop believing
or shady nights refrained,
in pristiness abound
theres nothing to lose
in the power until now uncontested
Oct 29, 2013
Oct 29, 2013 at 6:35 PM UTC
for Sia and Gia
~
actionable,
seeking perfection,
yet this morning,
an unnecessary.
lying in bed, window gazing,
Barber's Adagio for Strings
fills the inner ear's atmosphere
in tandem, in cahoots
with
a new day's pastel palette,
whose new hues
hew away
half-remembered distasteful recollections
of rapid eye'd drowsed darker dreams.
bereft of cares,
'to do' lists
do not exist,
t'is only merest minorest inconvenience called
gravity,
preventing,
my physic shell from
being jet seat ejected
to ascend heavenly sky'd
even love's labor lost,
a pained yet pleasurable strife,
the best of the best
of a worn and torn cycled life,
all shed, all put to one side
like incidental music.
seeing light earthed birthed,
perfection granted to the early risers,
Massenet's Meditation turn violins
from soothing turns to sudden orchestral tumult,
causing a misstep of doubtful questioning,
a momentarily soul stumbling
crashing cymbalic disintermediation
Copland's Appalachian Spring replaces,
retracting, sealng wax away
all concerning distractions
of my concerting pastoral.
and tho a season too late,
for this is my time,
summer time,
the time of my music,
my seasoned, annualized
concerto with the Earth,
his music is most
well come
these,
the Summer Man's
days of awe,
days of tranquility,
days of simplest tones,
no atonal atonement requests necessary,
for mellifluous harmonious in everything,
perfection is given, not taken,
well received
in calming serenity,
Bernstein's West Side Story then presents,
so out of place
to where I current am,
a natural sensational day beginning
on the very near-to-the-end
of a long isand
(tho the West Side, en veritas, was
my teeming small town community, my noisy, honking
rooting birthplace story)
Lenny composes a dance of reminder that
*somewhere,
there is a remainder,
somewhere,
there is a place for us,
even me.*
and it is
here, now,
in the uncontested sky
over my blue-green grass,
that leads to my Peconic shoreline,
where I hear a new world symphony
of cawing birds and silent bunnies,
dancing deer and zzzzing insects,
completing my
natural composition,
the playlist perfection of
me
Jun 12, 2015
Jun 12, 2015 at 6:29 PM UTC
Circa Holy Roman Empire
between ninth
and thirteenth century
after common era
(approximately 800 AD and 1200 AD)
benchmark year 780 bracketed
Benedictine monks
of Corbie Abbey
devised cheeky guttural lingual rapartee
vis a vis European
calligraphic standard script inked lined
writ via extant Irish and English monastic
members nsync
strong influence of Irish literati
eased communication
popular Latin cognoscenti
common lingua franca
spawned Carolingian Renaissance
Codices, pagan and Christian text
plus educational material
written viz Carolingian minuscule
Emperor Charlemagne issued prescription
(hence named Carolingian)
boosted unified modus operandi
he advocated learning,
though somewhat illiterate
recognized value of education
predicated on singular
codified regional alphabet,
the then webbed wide world
linkedin, sans uniform symbolic shapes
uncontested salient advantage
offered up ease to master
clear distinct explicit letter formation
simple logic boosted
rapidly transmitted standardization,
especially with exceptional legible
readable characteristic
adequate spaces between words
Merovingian "chancery hand"
still reserved to draft traditional charters
Gothic and Anglo Saxon
favored traditional local script
as opposed to Latin
learning latter involved less tricked out
embellished flourishes
or interconnected strokes
drawn by a scribe
allowing, enabling, and providing
greater popularity to teach masses,
latent etymological nuances apparent
centuries following implementation
quasi initial Carolingian letters
steadfast, where Carolingian
influence moats strong
adopted local stylistic signature flavor
divergence woke since proliferation
stoking diffuse prospects
decreeing entrenched footing,
where auspices boded prescient
until groundswell didst surcease
sub limb mated into modern patois.
May 14, 2018
May 14, 2018 at 7:39 PM UTC
Sometimes I play a game
when I walk down the sidewalk or
I cross the street or
I descend the stairs or
I exit the elevator or
I squeeze onto the crowded train or
I choose a seat on the bus;
I refuse to alter my route,
to change my footing,
to look down or away;
I am unabashed and fearless;
and not one time,
not one single time in the hundreds of times
I have played,
have I ever lost;
my path is always clear,
my victory always uncontested,
because I make it so.
Mar 23, 2016
Mar 23, 2016 at 6:50 PM UTC
Hail, King Arbor, vice-regent of the paradisal garden!
Springing, a wooden fountain clawing up and seizing handfuls of sky,
Towering, dancing in winds that cannot bow him,
With every breeze rattling branches scratch out a shout.
Padded with armor layered in sheaves and shingles,
Constant cloak accented of moss and vine and bubbles of fungus,
Weathered of snows and rains and smokes and fires,
Fitted snug o’er the ageless trunk, ever-young beneath time’s rings.
Steward of life, he cradles birdlings in nested branches,
In chewed divots and caves hiding the squirrel and his kin,
His skin alive with deep burrowing beetles and grubs and thousands of worms,
Beneath his leafy mantle are sheltered the fox and the deer.
While branches sway and leaves fly in stormy havoc,
And beasts and creeping things are shaken and tossed,
His stoic roots, unimpressed, anchor the forest to the world,
Laboring buried and ever unmoved, in dark earthen dignity.
Here he stands, shoulder to shoulder with his brethren,
A sylvan army assembled to keep watch as the centuries drift by,
Council of elders evergreen presiding over the passage of epochs,
Terra’s first tribe bonded inseparable under countless dusks and dawns.
And there he stands, all solitary, vertical spire against a flat horizon,
No less regal for the absence of peers, but still defiant and noble,
Standing in judgement uncontested over an undiscerning globe,
Convicting all, dismissing them as airy flights ephemeral.
Nov 10, 2017
Nov 10, 2017 at 8:47 AM UTC
Do not steal my moon
and leave me out to sea
with tears of passion....
Where is my moon?
the one that I pledge to
of my undying love,
how has it covered the sun
and still be hidden from sight?
how has darkness
with its heavy footsteps
Come to knock at my door,
yet leave the light
craving for more
of an empty musical score
In a night without the rays
of its breath,
making it a cynical stage
in a meaningless world...
I have come to ask you
In this moonless night of pain
Not to forget me,
when you close your eyes
to kiss another lips...
Do not forget me,
when you cradle another
one in a fervent embrace...
such spectacular feelings
of which I have never
come to know....
nor my eyes have come
to see....
nor my touch has come
to taste...
remember my name
and its sound of life,
remember my song
and its words of woe...
oblivion is death
in the hands of
a twisted dagger
piercing my heart
with a magnitude of sorrow
unmatched...uncontested...
with blood in
the wine of regret...
I ask thee only
to forget me not
For I will always
thee remember
Remember thy face,
they voice...
and all that in thee
I have come to love..
For if my moon were there
then I could swear
with all my might
and turn this lonely day
into a moonlit night
of chance,
and romance
Where is my moon?
Apr 9, 2015
Apr 9, 2015 at 7:39 AM UTC
(Reader Beware)
I just happen to be
Evil
Ever since I could remember
I favored
Torture
Over
******
It brings a sense of overkill
And overtime
It becomes much worse
Than death
Trust I
Studied ****** pages
Out the Book of Death
So you know which craft
I've practiced
For ages
Graduately
Mastered Massacre
Professed uncontested chaos
Havoc bestowed upon
My victims
Shrieks pierce ears
Like nails against
Chalk boards
My knife scraps along
Your metal chains
Why worry I won't stab
I just want your eyes
You don't
Need to see
The method to my madness
For if you ever escape
You can't tell a thing
You'll only see
The last image
Me
My methods mimmick Hell
As I cause pain
Forever
I wont let you die
Blood drips like tears
As you cry
Now,
Settle down,
You'll get use to it
Sep 30, 2010
Sep 30, 2010 at 1:05 PM UTC
My beloved commanded clouds
With his wings spread wide
Beneath the sun
In his silent rapture he ran
Rings around the moon
With speed unheard of
In altitudes untested
He was the uncontested
Prince of the blue skies
My beloved’s eyes
Reflect the yellow horizon
At the end of the ocean wall
He was fearless in his quest
He was a cut above the rest
His daring knew no boundaries
He had no fear of the unknown
Way out yonder ,there he flew
Where no other ‘s ever been before
My beloved’s ways up in the
Air was never wayward
There among the white formations
He was unsurpassed
A venerable hero of his generation
He had set his mark so steady
In the echoes of history
And though his life upon the ground
Was less than perfect
Up there, he was without equal
And this is how
He’d like to be remembered
For he carved his name
on the soft cotton clouds
And though his magic chariot
Now lies majestically still,
he is truly,
ever truly
the beloved son of
the great big blue skies
Dec 17, 2015
Dec 17, 2015 at 8:07 PM UTC
Aimless,
She sits sequestered horizontally
Against currents of mindless winds-
Her apathy uncontested
By neither man nor wicked thing.
Flightless,
She flutters hopelessly
On glass wings,
Helplessly
Frail
Are the fragile little things
That hold her head up
Above the towering sea chains-
Her lungs' heavy breaths
Dull her spirit's grin
And all her numbered days
Tick away without a sound-
Engulfed by the ocean's deep breath-
Beneath insanity's serenity-
She drowns.
Jan 11, 2018
Jan 11, 2018 at 9:53 PM UTC
Broken and defeated I kneel at your feet uncontested ruler of man.
Your favour is bliss embodied,your wrath no less than sorrow invoked.
Blood and armour in hand this war has no victors.
Armed with misery,doubt and pain your sword pierces deeper than my flesh.
A landscape of confounding beauty for as far as the eye could see is a distant memory in this shattered mind.
Your beauty and awe replaced by unyielding dark wastelands of tragedy.
I was your loyal subject,the architect of your majestic temple.
Your promise of eternity and happiness unsurpassed enticed my hunger and at the table I feasted.
Time after time you posses me and rule over my body and heart.
Beautiful demon of lies you exorcise yourself and rip a piece of me with your departure.
An ever faithful servant my heart feeds you loyalty,commitment and trust.
You weave 2 souls together making one unrecognisable from the other, then burn the beautiful garment in the flames of mistrust, lust and discontentment.
Master of transformation morphing from love to resentment.
Sustainer of the heart and it's only destroyer.
May 13, 2015
May 13, 2015 at 5:39 AM UTC