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Frisk Oct 2015
no longer will i glaze my eyes over the world in
monotone colors since all the colors were drained
from this memory. no longer will i sit back, watching
someone like you play favorites and pity the scars on
my legs. no longer will these mountains be a prison for
me. no longer will i let a person imprison me who leaves
me uninhabitable in the end and reopens fresh wounds.
i will surpass you one thousand times over, and play god.
for now, i am broadcasting in god's place since i was
tricked into thinking someone like you was my savior.
i will become the omnipresent regret and the everlasting
guilt. i will leave you aching, hungry, wounded, lost, and
alone. no longer will i be the roadkill, i will be the weapon
but no longer will my body be used to hurt another.

- kra
Aa Harvey May 2018
Chernobyl.


A nuclear disaster, in a town called Chernobyl;
An odor-less killer, the invisible force.
As the radiation escapes, from the crumbling reactor,
We must cool it down, before it blows.


Evacuate Pripyat, the employee’s town,
The town of 35000; first on the list of infected people.
No warnings to the town folk, no evacuation,
The town’s men in the know, know the town is in trouble.  


People bathe in the sun’s rays, soaking up the sun,
Whilst the dizzy and sick, fall with blackened skin.
But the only burn you'll get, is a nuclear radiation,
That will **** you in the end, as it will lead to infection.


Send in the investigators,
To check the biggest nuclear explosion ever.
The rumble outside a final warning, the fire brigade are now here.
The firemen are next, to fall to radiation.
The workers wives at home, are still oblivious.
But now they see the smoke rising, over the town.
So they close all the windows, an in vein attempt to keep the radiation out.


The workers cry, as they learn how bad it is,
The horrifying sight, of a nuclear cloud.
All things infected, poisoned by the air,
DNA is mutated; the time to panic is now.


The bride and groom walk through the town,
Unknown to them, there is poison in the air.
3.6 on the scale, leaves no need to worry,
But the readout is wrong, as the gage goes no higher.


Do not wear masks, it will cause suspicion,
A press conference is called, 15 hours after the explosion.
The men in charge are scared of the truth, so do nothing,
The situation is now, worse than they think.


Faces burnt, comrade’s panic,
The nuclear core is burning, it's radio-active.
But panic is worse, than radiation,
So there will be no warning and no order for evacuation.


22 hours after explosion, think we'll leave it to burn,
But it will burn for 3 months and poison the air.
We must find a remedy, quickly and quietly,
Thousands of helicopter runs, to cool the burning hot core.
We must put sand on the reactor, to stop it burning,
Evacuating the town is nonsense;
Wait until we know what's happening.


First thing in the morning, we must evacuate only a day late,
The people must view pictures of their family
And kiss them goodbye.
The biggest nuclear explosion, the earth had ever known,
The town will become a wasteland, everyone will be gone


17000 kids, infected by the air,
Another 116000, people are evacuated.
The nuclear explosion in Russia, will radiate into Kiev
And Northern Ukraine will be uninhabitable,
For anything up to a century later.
And the towns people,
Could take the radiation with them into a new place,
So send them to Kiev with the poisoned nurses;
Infected by radiation, it burns their face.


Leave the pets behind, to become wild animals,
The army shoot the pets, because they can't live anymore.
All the people wear masks, to help themselves,
As they leave on the bus, their former lives are no more.


The skin folds down and falls from their bodies;
The men in the control room, at last begin to die.
The people are collapsing, all over the place,
The tears turn to burns, as the women begin to cry.


Drop sandbags into the reactor,
From helicopters whilst being infected,
We must cool it down and stop the fires burning.
We’re heading for meltdown, truly scared of the apocalypse,
'Count lives', means how many can we sacrifice.
Finding how many lives, it will cost to get the job done,
Unquestioned sacrifice and they were willing to go.


2 volunteers needed,
To swim under the reactor and open the valves by hand,
Swimming through poisoned water, this could **** you man.
If the water was cleared from inside,
There is no immediate threat of thermal explosion,
A million lives saved, said Gorbachev the president.


The A.Z. button was pressed, to lower the rods into the reactor,
But just the tips landed inside and shut it down.
A thermal explosion is on the way, to level 200 square kilometers
And wipe out Pripyat, Kyiv and 3 million citizens.


By day 3 they thought it must be a design fault,
By day 7 the radiations gone up and it’s getting hotter.
14 explosions in the past, were covered up,
This could take us years to clear up and make better.


60 days after the explosion, Moscow are told to shift the blame,
Chernobyl’s bosses had known, flaws in the design were classified.
Sat before the world in Vienna,
They blamed the men in the control room,
Even though they were ignorant, as to what would happen.
Not prepared enough, for a job so important,
A million lives in their hands; in the hands of the thoughtless.
Faulty design, in something so dangerous,
Will lead to our end, as were infected by rays, so radiant.


2 years after the accident, the inspector speaks out,
But his voice is covered up and his findings are not written down.
Valery Legasov, the inspector.  The man who made the reports.
The men in charge of the reactor, were sentenced to ten years.
The incidents of tumors rise to more than in Britain all together.
This will last for about a 100000 years,
The radiation will be there for almost forever.


(C)2013 Aa Harvey. All Rights Reserved.
August Jul 2015
I am not built for love
I can't keep you warm
The fireplace in my chest
Is soaking wet

From the water that drips
Through my moonlit
Jagged holes

Beautiful to you
In some long forgotten way
You won't stay
In a rain stained skeleton

A visitor in a museum
I'll make a pretty photo
For you to look back on

When you go
All that will remain will be
Trampled leaves and high ceilings
A shadow in the trees
Amara Pendergraft 2015
Homunculus Dec 2015
All my poems are
The same, aren't they?
"You're being lied to by a corrupt,
Imperialistic government,
Corporations own your soul,
We're destroying the planet's
Natural resources, making
It uninhabitable, to ourselves and
Driving other species to extinction,
Capitalism is unethical, and
It subverts the potential
For real democracy,
Yada yada yada yada
Blah blah blah"



Maybe I should write about
Something else, but what?

I like flowers,
Flowers are nice,
Especially orchids, but
Not those weird,
Smelly ones that grow
On Callery trees... no
Those things reek like
Stale **** and sour milk.
Ah, but who could deny
The pungent and delicate
Fragrance of a rose?
Someone with anosmia,
That's who.
What, you didn't
Stop to think about,
People with disabilities?
How incredibly
Inconsiderate!
What are you?
Some sort of
Overprivileged, straight,
White, cis male ableist?
*******, you ******,
You might as well
Be a fascist. I would
Tell you to go back
To **** Germany, but
HEY, NEWS FLASH,
It's 2015, buddy,
Grow up and join
Us adults here in
The real world.
Wait... where was
I going with this?
A healthy bit of self criticism can always be helpful.
Bob B Oct 2018
As life in Israel flourishes
For Israelis, it's not so fine--
As many conditions deteriorate--
For the poor people of Palestine.

Chances of a two-state solution
Dwindle, which is not a good sign
As settlement expansions increase,
Affecting the people of Palestine.

For Palestinians imprisoned in Gaza,
The infrastructure is in a decline.
Will Gaza be uninhabitable for
The poor people of Palestine?

Defining what is their land, Israeli
Lawmakers draw a hard line:
This land belongs to the Jews, they say,
Forgetting the people of Palestine.

Cuts in economic aid
And hospital care will undermine
The health and quality of life
Of the poor people of Palestine?

Will an Israeli apartheid regime
Be the ultimate design,
Or will there be hope for the poor
Struggling people of Palestine?

-by Bob B (10-22-18)
brandon nagley Aug 2015
i.

Off to Fuga island
Next to the pamalican;
Then to Bucas grande
In the turquoise shallow end's.

ii.

Next, the Mactan
Wherein the grain's art caramel tan;
Then to the land of Coran
And Cebu, where the shore meet's the dawn.

iii.

Hiding safely, on Bohol isle
There art tarsier, and thing's of wild;
Diogo islet next, an uninhabitable place
Me and mine Reyna shalt explore it, with tribal paint on face.

iv.

Off, to the great Santa Cruz
Ourn feet, in the pink corraline sand;
Zamboanga City, the southern region
Of this Filipino relic strand..

v.

Whilst next the Sangat
The western part of this expedition;
Whilst doing all this sight-seeing
It shalt be with mine Jane nagley, in earth's natural kitchen.



©Brandon nagley
©Lonesome poet's poetry
©Earl Jane nagley dedication
A tarsier is a small furry critter in Bohol island... Also these are all Filipino islands if you guessed right lol all beautiful
touka Jan 2018
cold,

I will my eyes to focus
reprimand my dark surroundings
and the many failing lights that sit
just a few yards away
blurry, blue dots
that jut out from the soil
of my neighbors yard
some decoration, I suppose

wet,

I hear the past, present and future collide with a crash
with a few strong voices
who bargain for nothing more than an insight
into each others inevitability

cold,

light flickers back on behind me
and I could kiss it hello
potent and poignant,
I'm so glad you are breathing
maybe that's a little forward, but it's more than power
I still struggle to focus my sight
maybe my ears, however
quiet still could not fall if it had untied shoes

wet, and so cold it's become dull

the ground is malleable, mud and muck sloshing around my pathway
my feet toss the puddles of winter water up and around my ankles
it soaks into my socks
sends a chill that stalks the length of my spine

wet and cold

I meander through the murk, biding it away
I jump onto the sleek black surface, staving off the frigid pains
and lay my head down to hide from sight

my vision is full of black holes

it's lovely, the rain
but not when its best accompaniment is the long silhouette of the house you'd escaped
who would I tell
a few foggy figures latch onto my regard

cells collapse in on their own

my face grows warm and I feel my features contort
a sad scowl appropriate for the situation at hand
tears roar past the dam I'd crafted
but it was dark, no one would see
I was hiding under nightfall
which might sound cool if I didn't mean I was laying on top of an old car crying at 5 in the morning

reborn starving and unconsoled

I still hear a few voices, then a few footsteps that quicken
a pace, a parse, a prying for more
and then a collective quiet
I stiffen, stifle my woes

the bite and the cry as it corrodes the hull

numb creeps in around my skin
especially my feet, the extent of the cold finally settling in
but I wasn't ready

the bigger the bang, the brighter the star

I have a conversation with myself in my head
and not to come off loony
but there are a few things that shouldn't have been said by either parties involved
if you catch my drift

theory tugs at the strings in my heart

a soft gust of January wind strokes the bare skin of my legs
I wonder
I wonder if I could stop if I were to start
and so I wonder and wonder
but it seems the answer isn't quite so mysterious

paradigms practice their weight in the void

I bet an imaginary amount of some imaginary currency
to myself, of course
that if I wasn't able to before, I definitely won't be able to sleep now

the dance of matter and its taunting toy

I hear my name called, footsteps shuffling, offering their warn
a somewhat concerned voice from beyond the beyond
the front door, I mean
out of sight, I freeze, my mouth stuffed full of cotton
half hoping they'll forget I exist for a few
so I can try to compose myself

with the space around it as it threatens tall

however well I could compose myself at this point, anyway
I know I'll be found
I don't want to speak, I'm not sure if I could
when these things happened, my mouth tended to malfunction as much as my spine
so I'd bite my tongue and stand shrinking
my muscles curling into a shaken stir

saturn sleeps, its uninhabitable crawl

a warm blanket, I don't remember the color
I'm brought inside and laid down
and I avoid the hot remnants of some loud, leering summer
the air is thick with it

its air stings my skin, and I hear a song
  ‍    ‍
so this is the weirdest, longest and most intimate poem I've ever done. It also kind of deviates from my usual style
(the italics are a bit glitched out BC of hellopoetry so sorry for that)
Sethnicity May 2015
I am the black sludge poured into morning mouths
The thickening blood like mucus oozing from the nose,
the failed vandal on the doorstep wringing
I felt this ick coming before, like bricks in the bell tower… Grimacing
I am the shifting surface of your beach front property
The wax of mudslide and sleep of glacier drift wiped away
You once tried to save me…,
But you should have saved yourselfrightchoseless… Sickening
I am the quite traveler giving ride to whomever
Provider of spectacles no testicales can compare
Hope you are ready for the next one cause my revolution’s in the air
Get the Mayans and the Call Lenders Cause I’m the blender you’re the pear!


Your thoughts fickled mine things
My water of youth your cesspool for fuel
The conduit of my poles peeled for golden rings
Have the nerve to say I’m not self-sustaining
Uninhabitable!   I’ve been more than hospitable!
What a virus that makes it self service unsuitable
To favor ill behavior for the sake of a savior
Your heads may bow to the east
But your *** still ***** none the least
Time after time provide I with a bountiful feast
So you Land on my Lover to satisfy your lust
Hover her then leave her collecting trophies, Moon Dust!?
Even the God of War has been fondled by your touch
They whisper, Oh how they want to flee me
They satellite and bend the light
And fore tell of my death
Well, Be Gone! And leave your clothes behind!
That flesh, My skin of desert and shore sand given.
The enchanted threads for your living experience
Be Gone! And don’t bother with packing up and cleaning
There will be no interrogation no exile from Eden

I’ll burn this wicked garden to the ground
Arrange my poles, and swish waters to cool it down
They are white clouds in my blackened blue atmosphere
Casting shadows on the crusted earth of my flesh
I frown a deep sound like bass clef
Their tall tale torn apart
The last vault too big to fail now broken Bonaparte
My molten core resurrecting to the surface
I smoke out for every hemp plant chopped and burned in vain
I offer fruit for Gods and you look pone it with distain  
These Human parasites stuck to my feet!
One whim of solar wind should cure me of their feverous heat


Ignore the Calendar your end will be what I vendor
NO refunds or replays back to binary Control Alt Delete’
You say the past will repeat yet look in a mirror, tongue and cheek
What is it that you seek? Have you forgotten My rule?
What you sew into me is what you reap
I’ve soaked in seeds of blood and tears now its harvest thyme to weep
Mandi Wolfe Nov 2019
There once was a tiny bundle of cells that grew in my womb
without the assistance of fertility medications or ovulation testing
a surprise spontaneous occurrence of the first sparks of Life
a product of the kind of ******* that happens on a honeymoon
between newlyweds full of bliss, lust, and hope

My womb once thought uninhabitable to such an occurrence
boarded a plane home five days later
cradling this new truth-
The Honeymoon Baby

Weeks would pass before my womb would begin to betray its secret
3 days late- nothing
5 days late- nothing
8 days late- the little blue plus sign and a whisper from deep in me-
“You aren’t broken?”

For several hours my womb and I jealously guarded this knowledge
My new husband not known for his enthusiasm wouldn’t share in my joy
So I sat alone feeding my hungry heart on now debunked beliefs
“You AREN’T broken!”

Having gorged myself to the point of bursting on a meal years in the making
I looked with wet eyes to my then partner of more than half a decade
“we made a honeymoon baby; I’m not broken.”
No, he wouldn’t share my joy.

His eyes turned to windows in the days that would follow
They screamed their disgust into the wide open parts of me
as pointedly and with as much passion as his mouth could ever muster
It was then that I began to silently pray the baby away

My silence only increased his vitriol until with a blast he climaxed in his rage
and I felt the cold of the recently adorned wedding band against my neck
as the hands which had held mine so softly so often pinned me to the door
Finally my silent prayers gave way to a singular scream
“I ******* hate you and I hate your child inside of me!”

My womb cried to hear the prayer spoken
She cried so long and so loud that she began to bleed
She heaved and sobbed her rage into rivers of blood that wouldn’t stop for weeks
and earthquakes of cramps that would rock me to my core
The unstoppable current of tears and blood carried the translucent sac
that housed the had been Honeymoon Baby into the ***** porcelain bowl
The baby I prayed away that would never speak whispered up
“You are broken.”

The honeymoon was over.
I hadn’t hated him before that.
Six years later to the day we signed divorce papers.
Into the back of any thoughts it simply had gone
those penetrating words Nuclear War!
Also spoken a nuclear winter that followed
not since nineteen ninety two.
Had they been uttered with such meaning
with it a real threat leaning!

Footage of Hiroshima seemed distant images
but many countries have the weapon!
A real peril is no longer mere speculation
each with their known instability!
Without morality to hold their actions back
they'd have no qualms but attack!

Tensions are running ever closer to danger levels
as the irresponsibility explodes!
Even a limited nuclear war could easily escalate
into billions of human deaths!
Obliterated from a once green fertile surface!
to an ash covered uninhabitable place!

Maybe the few could survive along with the cockroaches!

Is this man's inevitable fate?

The Foureyed Poet.
The threat of a nuclear wars looms ever closer! The Foureyed Poet
Reece Mccarren Apr 2012
A man stands. overlooking two different visions. Two different choices.

On the left he gazed over the glorious modernized utopia. Tall prominent skyscrapers, gleaming in the dazzling pure sunlight. Clinical white rows of spacious suburbia. Unnaturally green gardens of perfectly shaped, perfectly cut square grass accompanying the houses. Polished, scentless people strolled down the un-littered perfection of the linear streets. Enormous great smiles featured on the faces of all. The urban paradise. Biblical, eden in practise, sanctity.  Economical bliss. Unpolluted, crime free, social perfection. No inequality, racism, no hatred only love among broters. No depression. The endless rows stretched glorious miles, convenience, supermarkets, brand new glistening, hospitals, all necessity in perfect working order. No unemployment, no political unrest. Every man among equals. Utopia.

On the right hand side, wretched poverty as far as the eye can see. Cramped, overwhelmed shanty towns. Terrified people, dragging themselves through diseased streets. Crippling illness plaguing the antagonized masses. There is no employment here, no glistening new buildings. Only the decaying festering ruins of lifetimes of selfishness. Hatred, jealousy, paranoia, neurotic fluttering harpy’s, harlequins of the night. Plagued minds, plagued bodies. Gargantuan monsters of men rose from the rubble. Demented. Lava flows freely through the crumbling streets. There are no trees here, no vegetation, only blackened earth. Blackened with the ****** despair of man. Only anguish in this land. The black sun burns with hateful rage in the sooty, cloudy toxic sky, the only rain falls as corpses falling from sardine cans to the sky. Burnt out cancerous lungs, filled with sulphurous air from the giant volcano's of dead minds, spewing deadly chemicals into the already uninhabitable environment. The demons of despair stalk this land, endlessly wallowing in there own self-loathing, amongst other vile things.

The decision resting on his shoulders governs life for all men, all men to come. His left side, yearning for paradise, freedom, equality for all, peace, communal gain.
His right side leaning towards narcissistic self gain. Taking the world for himself, watching alone the setting of the poisoned blck sun, poisoned by his greed.

He walked forward, leaving the realms of choice behind him. The future was his to choose.
frankie Jun 2023
the cave-in started
with honesty,
a promise
an admiration of agency,
of power and pride.

it was felt for miles
yet went unnoticed
the surrounding area
laughing
"I don't understand,"
a birthday at the next table,
a crying child.

wine bled through the cracks in that cave
as the flow of native water
slowed to a trickle
and receded
to make way for
desperation
at least so it seemed.

weeds and smiles
withered and revealed
selfishness,
loathing,
pain and fear.

what appeared there
in the collapsing darkness
of the once rigid--
and now compromised--
shelter of those
warm catacombs
was,
in fact,

hatred

layers upon layers of sedimentary disgust
that rendered those systems
inhospitable
uninhabitable
anger
and wine
laughter

"I'm not coming back."
from the prompt "the moment you realized you were an adult". a deeply personal and emotional piece
Aniseed Nov 2016
Forsaken soul
Taking root in a land thought barren
Or hostile
Or uninhabitable

Where the water is poison

The air toxic

Will your vines slip through the cracks,
Dandelion?
Will you be the ****
That blossoms in the summer
And leaves yellow stains on
The palms of our hands?

Will we cut your roots down?

Will we shut out the sun?

Do we shake the earth with cloven hooves
And break the stone?

Maybe you'll **** the water supply dry

Or maybe you'll just **** the poison out
A turbulent family member is apparently expecting. The emotions are a mixed bag.
Valsa George Aug 2016
When sleep deserted me
I crawled out of my bed unseen
To delve into the crevices of the dark
With the curiosity of an explorer
And the near comatose of a somnambulist
I walked up and down the steep slopes of the night
Like a night watchman
Without a lantern in his hand

When my legs grew weary
I sat on a rock
Covered with moss and lichen
Staring at the dark night sky
With no constellation of fireflies
Flashing their torches anywhere

Sitting there, I listened to the song of night birds,
The rustle of leaves,
The howl of wolves,
And the night wind’s rave

Looking into the dark pockets of the night,
I thought of human mind, a deep gorge
With many an uninhabitable corner
Where serpent desires lie coiled
Scorpions crawl with toxic pincers
Predators roam to prey upon helpless victims

The mystery of the night absorbed me
Her muffled sounds, her dark beauty
Her elusive charm, like thick night fog,
Percolated deep into my consciousness
And I floundered in a fathomless sea,
Swirling in her eddies and currents.
      It whisked me away to lands far…far!
      But on being washed ashore,
      I was in a creative delirium


I am now in No Man’s Land
      Where everything is in a coma of stillness
      Where no light glimmers
No door ajar
And no one in sight!
Here the poet in me breaks open
The somnambulist's comatose
And down way flow my thoughts in indelible ink
Which only I can read

Like a night bird
Roosting among the branches of a tree  
I sing of my heart aches,
Of my yearnings and longings

In the barely audible whispers of the night,
My song reverberates in the eyeless abyss down,
And the dark desolate valleys below

People say, ghosts walk the earth at night.
Oh!  I am not scared!
I am not eager for the dawn to break,
Nor want to put my pen down!
Crow Mar 2022
what is the measure of sorrow
is there a standard unit
against which we may rule
an overladen mind
and a heart demolished

graphing with infinite precision
each shattered hope
and marking the dimensions
of dreams ground to dust

are tears numbered
or more properly
and accurately accounted
by volume
or weight

shall we assign a value
on a sliding scale
to the mutilation
of a human soul

can we make comparison
among various torments
or attempt to visualize
in a chart of bright colors
splashed on a screen
the lifelessness of one person
to that of another

is despair loss
or hope denied
might it be joy withheld

does suffering
have weight and volume
that we might
determine its mass

is it instead a void
where something which
was present
has been removed

is it possible to create
an image of wretchedness

a ruined and rotting
playground of lost innocence

a charred and crumbled husk
of a home shattered

an arid uninhabitable waste
of aspirations unbirthed

with what pigment
shall we produce such art
which color wheel
will be used

in what earthly perdition
are the gauges found
reading the depth of misery
or the height of anguish

what is the magnitude
of the grief
the touchstone of devastation
against which all other grief
must be measured
Metrology - The study of measurement

Slava Ukraini
Anonymouse Jane Dec 2013
Day in.
Night out.
Inhabit the uninhabitable.
Burn,
and smolder.
Who left you behind?
**** to ****.
Lip to lip.
Restless lovers on a summers night.
No frill and lace for you.
Decrepit corpses of once treasured breaks.
Repulsive and lovely.
Persuasively fickle.
Sinews haphazardly soldered together.
Lithesome substance,
leave your remains.
Salacious.
Canine.
Obsessive.
Cancer.
kaitlyn-marie Dec 2014
there's nothing worse
than being deemed uninhabitable
by the people with the power
to light fires in your soul.
Lucy Tonic Oct 2012
We live a clockwork life
And Saturn thinks clocks are wise
We spin on clockwork time
But she is counter to it
Second from the sun
Uninhabitable
Yeah she is the son
Rising in the west

I long for those long days
Here is only tall tales
She twirls retrograde
And no one posts her bail

Top of the pyramid
Are the tiny shiny kids
They take all our bids
Yeah they’re friends of Lucifer
Seconds from the bomb
They invented time and talk
Thinks she is the bomb
Rising in the west

I long for those long days
Here the horses are pale
She spins retrograde
She’s my nightingale

We live a clockwork life
And we think clocks are wise
We spin on clockwork time
But she is counter to it
Second from the sun
She flipped upside down
Waiting for another son
To rise in the east

I long for those long days
Here is only blood and nails
She twirls retrograde
She’s my blackest veil
Rachel Jordan Apr 2014
The Fire Cycle
BY ZACHARY SCHOMBURG
There are trees and they are on fire. There are hummingbirds and they are on fire. There are graves and they are on fire and the things coming out of the graves are on fire. The house you grew up in is on fire. There is a gigantic trebuchet on fire on the edge of a crater and the crater is on fire. There is a complex system of tunnels deep underneath the surface with only one entrance and one exit and the entire system is filled with fire. There is a wooden cage we’re trapped in, too large to see, and it is on fire. There are jaguars on fire. Wolves. Spiders. Wolf-spiders on fire. If there were people. If our fathers were alive. If we had a daughter. Fire to the edges. Fire in the river beds. Fire between the mattresses of the bed you were born in. Fire in your mother’s belly. There is a little boy wearing a fire shirt holding a baby lamb. There is a little girl in a fire skirt asking if she can ride the baby lamb like a horse. There is you on top of me with thighs of fire while a hot red fog hovers in your hair. There is me on top of you wearing a fire shirt and then pulling the fire shirt over my head and tossing it like a fireball through the fog at a new kind of dinosaur. There are meteorites disintegrating in the atmosphere just a few thousand feet above us and tiny fireballs are falling down around us, pooling around us, forming a kind of fire lake which then forms a kind of fire cloud. There is this feeling I get when I am with you. There is our future house burning like a star on the hill. There is our dark flickering shadow. There is my hand on fire in your hand on fire, my body on fire above your body on fire, our tongues made of ash. We are rocks on a distant and uninhabitable planet. We have our whole life ahead of us.
I am a refugee from the City upon a Hill.

My homeland once a resounding light to the nations; has become a convulsing black hole, threatening to devour any semblance of civility.

My City, once a radiant promontory of enlightenment, its illumination of liberty’s searing torch revered, it’s practical striving for democratic wisdom shaping the long arc of the moral universe emulated by people of good will across the globe; now lies in state as a mordant corpse, serenaded by a funereal chorus of laughing griffins, a dead patriarch surrounded by the ruins of a once opulent now sacked city, a bygone home to the scattered disassemblage of a once noble people.

I recoil from the rancor of extreme partisanship, the gerrymandered apportionment of citizenship rights, the buoyant vindictiveness celebrated by small minded ignorance.

The blind allegiance to jingoistic nationalism, the adulation of Blueline authoritarianism, the fealty to imperial militarism and the dangerous trajectory of it’s awful consequence yet to come, enthralls me with dread.

Compelled patriotism enforced by threats of faux patriots, amoral ammosexuals, their small hands stroking quick triggers of long guns, genuflecting in mastabutory glee to the preeminence of 2nd Amendment atrocities, angling crosshairs of resentments to firmly fix a promise of ghoulish body counts, a rationalized apocalypse a captive people must suffer to underwrite profiteering gunrunners who blindly defile the constitutional tenets of life, liberty and happiness, the blood splattered keystones of our true exceptionalism.

Xenophobia and racialism, are stoked and celebrated by the City’s chief executive, his impish smile mouths Blood and Soil sloganeering, he solemnly salutes the Confederate flag while cheering torchlight processions of enraged White Nationalists marching to the drum of the Grand Republic’s midnight dirge along the once hallowed trail of Jeffersonian Democracy and a sacred place of secular enlightenment and higher learning. His gleeful decrees tweet the destruction of families and his police agents mouth holy scriptures to justify the imprisonment of children.  These vandals rhapsodically paint images of phantasmagoric nightmares trampling and mocking democratic ideals, resurrecting long settled conflicts, terrible tests a once great City rose to extinguish, now swelling numbers of craven citizens ardently embrace Klansmen, insurrectionists and ****’s as righteous brethren.

The madness of chauvinism and racial supremacy has fully metastasized within the body politic, polluting the mind, infecting the bloodline with a virulent strain of a white blood cell disease coursing through the veins of republican citizenship.

A City stolen from the Native inhabitants, ethnically cleansed and its former inhabitants remanded to the prisons of reservations, a City constructed on the backs of chattel slaves, erected on the graves of exploited wage laborers, provisioned by the ruthless denigration of the earth’s bounty, law and order mandated by criminalizing the marginalized, repressing the civil liberties of outliers and subjecting women to a perpetual status as the second *** underclass; has failed to repent and steadfastly refuses to make reparations for its sinful past has made the City uninhabitable.

The embrace of tolerance and diversity is the balm, the curate that can salve the oozing sores crippling the City. Nativist prejudice is a long protracted path that City citizen’s find impossible to exit. The malevolence that consumes the mind and moves the soul of a desperately spiteful people, who take delight and find it necessary to dehumanize and imprison alien races and creeds to maintain vapid notions of superiority, profane the ideals of a republican calling. They ruefully ignore the beacon of light warning of the dangerous shoals that lay ahead. The ideals of the great democratic experiment on course to be dashed on the jagged rocks of ignorance, fear, and anger. The doomed City has set a course that endangers its embargoed citizens. Travelling in steerage, a captive body, believing they are on a course for the rebirth of the City’s greatness are emboldened and chained by the delusions of their self destructive steadfast resentments.

My home City has become unknown to me.  I have become a stranger in this strange land. What was once beloved has become insufferable. What was once treasured has become burdensome. The familiar has become fully alien. A terrible avenging apparition haunts and mocks people of good will. My heart is disheveled. My spirit bruised. My body literally aches from the wounds exacted from the deconstruction of my beloved metropolis.

I stand stranded at the border of incivility. Bewildered I peer through a protective wall of concertina wire, eyeing the imprisoned haughty souls of fully enfranchised citizens, bellowing self righteous psalms, singing interminable lamentations of terminal ignorance.

Condemned by their belief in the salvation of violence and recrimination, secure in their faith that their moat of self righteousness shelters them from the gulags of perdition they eagerly proclaim for others, feeling recused from the bane of sinfulness by meager tithes, tumidity and scriptural specificity and the sweet delusional conviction they are the chosen tribe of God’s favor; their aspirations viscerally dashed in blizzards of metaphysical illusion strewn like meaningless confetti onto a passing parade of barbarians who have taken the City as its grandest prize.

Sadly I must withdraw from my beloved City. I retreat to a refuge where the barbarians dare not enter. Their ignorance and stasis weds them to a place far from my sanctuary of choice. May my sanctuary restoreth my soul!

I find refuge in the temples of jazz. I sing arias of lucent improvisation. The freedom of unbridled expression reinvigorates the mind, alighting the emanation of our better angels. The music calibrates my soul with the syncopated beat of an irrepressible life force, the humanity of my welling heart swells on the sonorous oxygen of a lyrical free spirit.

I take refuge in our vanishing mountain wilderness. The natural world offers a solace of solitude, a unrequited impression of scale and a transcendent communion immune from the trampling cacophony of gleeful vandals running rampant through the streets of the City. In winter the summits are capped in crowns of viginal snow, spring awakens a dormant flora, autumn leaves shout the chorus of a seasons glory and summer flowers bloom in multitudes of brilliant colors marking a startling contrast to the fifty shades of gray tattooed onto the City’s restive souls by the purveyors of power.

I find respite on the friendly banks of rivers and breeze swept ocean shores. The perfume wafting along a rivers streaming eddies or a briney snort gulped from the foam of a cresting wave invigorates the lungs, strengthens the heart and clears the mind. The flow of living water heals lifes wounded spirit. It quenches a thirst for justice and nourishes the hope of freedom for all incarcerated souls. The ceaseless roll of the ocean waves prove the enduring power and inevitability of liberty.

I find a good refuge in books. Here I discover a fleeting glimpse of our forgotten love of knowledge and pursuit of truth and rational thought. Enlightenment is the plot of every storyline.

I take refuge in art. I escape into the multiple dimensions of aesthetic beauty trouncing the twittering banality of fad, pornographic affectations and consumer fethishism. Glimpsing beauty while beauty is there to behold and the diligent practice of its creation is an answer to a higher calling.

I take refuge in my dog. Unconditional love and trusted friendship are values at peril in a transactional world; virtues nobily demonstrated and freely given by our canine and feline friends.

I take refuge in late night comedy. Working the midnight shift, whistling past the graveyard with a hearty laugh helps to while away the desperate hours. The rancid fruits of our labor leave a bitter taste in our mouths, humor is the bread of life that clears the palate and makes the terrible sufferable.

My lasting sanctuary is the stronghold of faith, forbearance and tolerance. I trust the long arc of justice will bend toward the righteous and offer a pathway of redemption for all desecrated souls.

I take refuge in the Blues. Let my lamentations turn to songs of joy and deliverance.

I take refuge in prayer. May my places of exile restore and heal my denigration. May God deliver us to a good destination. May our generational wanderings in the desert of desolation end in the discovery of a good place of habitation.

In the solitude of prayer may I experience catharsis, may my petitions find an open ear, may I achieve clarification, may my pious supplication be genuine , my conviction firm, a direction found, a decision made, a call to action clear.  May I become a healer of the breach.

May Your grace be sufficient for me.

I declare my exile over. I will return to my City. I will attempt to rekindle the extinguished flame of liberty to dispel the darkness enveloping my City.

Selah.

Mark Almond: The City

Puyallup
6/30/18
jbm
Jocelyn Robinson Mar 2014
You can have Tennessee,
I want Rhode Island,
You can have Michigan,
But I want Arizona.
You can have Manhattan,
Austin,
Las Angeles,
But please pay no mind to West Virginia.

I deserve Hatteras,
Considering my childhood
Phoenix? Please keep it, I don’t belong there

I want the subways,
The taxis,
And Vegas,
I’ll promise to steer clear from your home state,
New Hampshire.

Make sure to take the country roads,
railways,
and buses,
As long has as you never step foot in Seattle.

You can have our old apartment,
I get the dog though,
He likes me better,
Burn down the bar where we met long ago.

I want Wisconsin,
Maryland,
Ohio,
Say hello to your mother for me in California.

A mutual declaration,
We divide our favorite places.
If we’re lucky,
We’ll never contact again.

We’ll map out the borders,
Part ways,
Shake hands,
Declaring the love we had,
uninhabitable.
And yes, we’ll split the difference.

If we should step on each other’s path,
in passing,
Despite my avoidance,
I will be very humble,
Very stern,
Aloof,
But forgiving.

I don’t ever want to see you again, my friend.
It was humanity that was the mixed bag of jelly beans at summer camp that spilled out into the scorching sun restless for *** and sun-tans.
All before they melted away into Kandinsky paintings pretending that happiness was something of a virtue.
And while the paintings ignited into a righteous firestorm of white men in white robes with hope and faith, flying out the church doors and taking to the sky, morphing into airplanes to destroy the great peace in the form of two obelisks pointing to Allah.
To the american hypocrisy that we drink like cough syrup to cure nothing.
While pretending everything was alright.
While  dead men are worshiped more than a word of the past that is the future.
Let us forget about innovation.
Let us look back onto the great circles of cycles that we overturn on the great history
of the 4th of July flagpoles that I grasp, feeling the pulse of the blood-filled stripes.
Let us look to the cold-blooded blue square that we plant ourselves on as stars, making our marks in this smooth and creamy void.
Let us walk into the white absences were color is uninhabitable to the Negroes or the Latinos who used all of their angry fixes in activism and cigarettes that burn holes through eternity.
To the Chinese who were thrown out of our stars like mutts in order for our stars to shine the plastic glow that stays illuminated in the lights of Chick-fil-A that sells homosexuals with a side of Leviticus.
Taking, taking, taking to the past and somehow justifying death to natives, then scalping the land as some sort of victory of great imperialism that still hangs to our hearts like a collective tumor.
But I have been kind, I have been free.
To the breath of foreigners breaking the normality that is conformity.
Let me scare you with your greatest fear which is locked away in gravestones and darkness.
Locked away in Kerouac, Whitman and Ginsberg
For that which is change.
I speak directly to the inner gashes that are your soul.
Change before the fireworks turn into mutually assured destruction.
And you won’t.
Change before the feminists shoot me with their trigger warnings.
And you won’t.
Change before the immigrants last breath murmurs “**** dreams”.
And you won’t.

I am America and my flag is paper, white paper.
I wish I could at least ******* indent **** on here.
Elizabeth Thorn Jan 2014
This, this emotion
Some form of disillusion
And they question why
Questioning me
As they question themselves
I embrace the fog
The same one that holds it all
My past
My present
And the end
The one that is my future
I have little time left
That little I hold dear
Each word with precision
I have learned to hate
This time
The time I have left
Spent only with those
Too familiar with my end
Or to unknowing
To have some semblance of a care  
They came to drive me toward this
This wanting
This longing for death
Suicide is no longer there
That option I had
It would only be pity now
In the eyes of the strangers
I draw back my words now
Regress into silence
Take my tears
Take my breath
Take my soul
This longing
Consuming
Ensuing
The sooner it grows near
The less my voice rings
The less I am heard
I am transparent
Fading
Save me from this
This digressing host
This uninhabitable being
Free me from myself
John Hawkins Nov 2016
The light of the sun creeps across the duvet
under which you and I are entwined.
Our limbs entangled like a pair of neglected earphones,
stowed away in a now unused jacket pocket;
both of us pleasantly unable to ascertain where our body starts
and the others begins.

The room smells like stale cigarettes and wine,
which is only intensified by both the heat of the sun
and the warmth of our own biology.
The aroma transforms from stale to fresh as I crack a new bottle,
pouring us both a healthy glass,
whilst you light our last cigarette;
Taking a few draws then passing it to me,
along with the over-flowing ashtray.

Our unwashed skin is sticky with dry sweat,
accumulated during sleep and *******;
Our mouths rancid from the wine
and the lack of toothpaste applied.
To the naked eye there is a thick and smokey cloud of filth
occupying the space above our heads;
creating an atmosphere uninhabitable to anyone but us.

This mass of pollution combines with the salt-filled air,
streaming in from the open window;
making for an interesting cocktail of unpleasantness.
To all this we are blissfully unaware,
and we just lie there,
basting in it;
caring not a jot.
Our thoughts only for each other
and the tingling in our nerve endings
when we catch the others eye.

For eternity we lie there,
until one of us has to ****.
I haven't posted in so long, I thought it was time.
SBohl Oct 2011
My fingertips graze over that
which I have yet to grasp.
Like a book, I see
the cover. I know
the summary.

Its hype is nearly unbearable.
I feel that without it,
I have yet to feel.
I feel that without it,
I have yet to feel.

A perk and a pain
A bliss and an absence.

Searches are futile. Empty
discoveries abound. Failure
is nearly inevitable. Authenticity
is scarce.

It possesses some power with
which it virtually rules over all.

My curiosity contends my logic and
my overwhelming antipathy conflicts my yearning.

I lack the longing that
follows a loss which
gives me pause.

As my ****** heart stares
at the void, a quivering light
emits from the candle of fear,
brushing the untouched walls, illuminating
the potentiality of destruction.

There is no day in which logic
does not step between my heart
and the void and start to board
up the place.

It is too risky, logic declares,
this place is uninhabitable.
But the naive, ignorant heart implores,

Just wait.
From the depths of the sea, they came. Homeless.
Creatures of hapless form, and formless bodies.
Animals carved in the nature of blindness,
without godly supervision; deities.

Convicts they were; that which is wrong,
Leaving behind a world lost to them. Alas,
Their crime is that they did not belong.
But even in exile, they hold debt to their past.

They flopped, they crawled and oozed,
Out of old skin, they became something new.
So the years passed and frequently bruised,
They became gargantuan and further still; grew.

Inhabiting a land, once uninhabitable; now tamed.
Creating dominion over raw nature, they climbed.
Hills, valleys, mountains, volcanoes! They claimed.
Even in the face of annihilation, they climbed.

Above it all they choose to rest, touching the sky.
The creatures learned time, then they chased it.
Always pursuing it, always getting one step ahead. Fly,
They soon did, faster, faster, faster, they chased 'it'.

Until they broke out of the awesome surface.
Like once before they made prints on lands once untouchable.
The creatures are creatures no more. At least not all.
But, soon. All the creatures will float away 'pon solar winds.

I look back on the first of them all. The scared,
Unsheltered and curious creature of the old world.
It looks upon me, with questioning, unaware of destiny. Unprepared,
In its dark eyes, I see light. Light that I am closer to taming. Knowledge unfurled.
This is a poem that I wrote on this day, 6 years ago.
This is actually one that I'm not excited to post here, entirely.
However, poetry is poetry, hahah.

Enjoy!

DEW
L Dec 2016
my brother, my home
we were born from the same sunken star
a pair of old weary souls

still far apart, falling apart
I miss your nearness to me
but we are a bit closer among the universe

if you ever feel like
your world is uninhabitable
you can join mine

because I cannot remember if you're
a dream or a memory
I swear we've touched before

although I had always been wishing
you weren't a fragment of
my own imagination
NitaAnn Dec 2014
My safety advisory system been elevated to RED

Please be aware of your surroundings at all times and do NOT leave your body unattended....but! I should capitalize that...BUT it is not always a choice. And lately, awareness and attendance to my body have not been a choice. I cannot stay in this body at night. It is uninhabitable. And I tell DT there is so much I can’t talk about. So many things that happened that I’m so ashamed of ~ things I cannot believe I did. And I don’t trust myself. I don’t like the huge blackness that surrounds me that continues to threaten me every night.

I don’t want to remember. I want to forget it all. All of it. Because at night, when the anguish and pain torment me to the point I consider taking a bottle of Vicodin, and slitting my wrists in the bathtub, it scares me. So many things that remind me of back then terrorize me now, in my present moment. And I know I need help with it ~ but at the rate I’m able to communicate about this stuff, I will surely be dead before the torment stops. DT tells me to be patient, be patient…but it just keeps getting worse and one night my patience is going to run out and I will do something irreversible.  But still he says, be patient, he says he has respect and patience and he will be here when I'm ready to talk.  But I'm afraid to speak because the truth is too scary.  I offered to draw him a picture instead.  His patience feels infinite and yet I still feel as though I am drowning and he is taking too much time blowing up the life raft.  

I feel sick. And I feel worried. The pain is torturing me and the pain meds barely touch it. It’s that bad right now.  I want to cut...it’s been a struggle.

And I feel worried. And not just for me. I have two good friends whom are also struggling and I don’t know how to help them because I feel so lost too right now. I want to help them but I don’t know what to do. Just be right here, I guess. I wish I could tell them that it’s going to be okay ~ and I could say that, but I don’t know how long it will be before we make it to okay ~ and I don’t know if I have the energy make it that far.

My Security threat level has now been raised to RED. I am safe right this minute, but I don’t know how long I can stay that way…there is no way to tell.
Bob B Oct 2016
Fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes--
Nature can be quite…demanding.
We're just a speck in the grand scheme;
At least that's my understanding.

Our relationship with nature
Should be one of respect and awe.
But in the guise of progress we've found
That mankind has a fatal flaw:

Our love affair with material things.
You wonder: That can't hurt, can it?
Ah, but just think about
Unlimited growth on a finite planet.

From caves to computers, we've come a long way.
But some resources are irreplaceable.
When they're depleted, their loss will leave
A mark behind that's unerasable.

Population times consumption--
It's really just a simple equation--
Equals environmental impact
And NOT merely on occasion.

Constant growth of both the economy
And population smacks of futility
And gives our world a recipe for
A bleak unsustainability.

As we add to our atmosphere
Carbon dioxide and methane gas
And destroy what it takes to sustain us,
Who knows what will come to pass?

Our world is such an incredible place!
I hate being the prophet of doom,
But let's not ignore reality:
There's only so much for us to consume.

Reasonable consumption now:
Is there such a thing as that?
If so, let's investigate
Our options. Jumping Jehoshaphat!

Avoiding economic collapse
While putting less stress on things
And controlling population growth
Perhaps could soften the future's zings.

Think about our children’s future.
Think what we’re doing? Think what we’ve done?
Why would we turn this beautiful planet
Into an uninhabitable one?

- by Bob B
Natasha Feb 2018
an empty shell
left uninhabitable
along the shore
of a barren beach.
where happiness
used to flow
and people used
to go, to be with
those they
cherish deep.

all that is left
is the cool
grey sand,
the icy ocean
waves, lapping
at my hardened
exterior. No,
I will never let
you in, I will
never let anyone
in again.
Sometimes I just want to close myself off and die.
Sarah Adams Jun 2019
I see your mind as a house
A mansion in fact
With so many rooms
And all closed doors
Capable of sustaining so much
Yet uninhabitable
Your mind can no longer hold me
C F Nov 2019
Allow me to bend
At the knees.

Allow me to weep.
Uncannily.

Over a basin,

A nearby water source.
Outside of my own.

I could be compared to

Those giving birth
Naturally.
Maybe.

I quite honestly Don't
Particularly,
Give a flying ****.
It's not about you.

But understand this
I am not over
I am not ended

Unceremoniously.

I am whole,
Though I am missing
Parts and pieces.

Lungs.
Bones.
Brains.

A newborn heart.

Hungry mewling
Whines.
Cries.
Tinkling laugher.
Unending diapers.

I lack those.
But still I am whole,
Even though I am only one.

I am whole.
And I need not
Nor want
Anything more.

I am whole.
As I am.

I have not ended.
I am not an uninhabitable
Husk.

I am me.
I am whole.
Just as I am.

Just allow me
To Weep
For a moment.
Just one.
Starla Kissinger Mar 2014
To ask for love would not be true.

Love is given freely, a soul seeking not its own.

A passionate pursuit that's never-ending.

The in-born desire to bask in the presence of another.

The thirst of more until you heart feels it might burst.

To delight in every little mystery unveiled.

To give without expectations.

To forgive the imperfections.
To question your self-seeking intentions.
To right the wrongs of your own inventions.

Love is to wait with enduring patience.

Love sees the potential and brings forth the superlative.

It is shelter from the cruelties of life.

It takes pleasure in honoring those it protects.

Love is time and it warms with affection.

It yearns only to be returned.

Its light exposes the truth of your very existence.

It conceives.
It breathes.
It believes.

Love rejoices in the little things, like a smile.

It empathizes with your painful circumstances.

It carries you when you've lost your strength.

It brings forth courage when there would otherwise be none.

It extends into far reaching places.

It changes even the hardest of situations.

Love fights for what is righteous.

True Love is not overrated.
Should not be underestimated.
Makes simple what is complicated.

Inspired by the triumphs of others.

Treasures its beloved far beyond earthly possessions.

It's grateful for opportunities it is given.

Its nature is pure and good.

It is a gift that was meant to be shared.

The world would be uninhabitable without it.

Immeasurable is its essence.
Inspired by 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. I don't claim to be Christian but there is beauty in the Bible as well as most all religions of the world. Written 04/17/07
Bob B Apr 2019
Who cares if the earth becomes
Uninhabitable in so many years?
Who cares if the Antarctic
And Arctic ice disappears?

Who cares if worldwide
The ocean's coral reefs are dying?
Who cares if extreme weather
Around the world's intensifying?

Who cares if coastal areas
Become flooded as sea levels rise?
Who cares if we must see
The rain forests' tragic demise?

Who cares if methane's released
From melting Arctic permafrost?
Who cares if global chaos
Causes countless lives to be lost?

Who cares if instability
Causes huge worldwide migrations?
Who cares what we leave
Behind for future generations?

Who cares if temperature
Extremes "cook" parts of the earth?
Who cares if crops fail
Because the land's of little worth?

Who cares if our warming planet
Allows for a greater spread of disease?
Who cares if the temperature
On earth rises a few degrees?

Who cares who suffers from
Particle and plastic pollution?
Who cares if leaders fail
To seek a climate change solution?

I care! We all should.
This is the only home we possess.
Complacency is dangerous.
Heed the call of the SOS!

-by Bob B (4-16-19)

— The End —