"uselessness" poems
"Why does he drink so much?" They asked
He answered: "To drive away the pain of uselessness. To numb the feeling my world could come crashing any minute with the next wrong decision I make"
And after that ,he drinks another one and does the exact same thing he just said he shouldn't do:make another bad decision
Jan 12, 2015
Jan 12, 2015 at 5:48 PM UTC
Compliments are thrown around like the statement "that's so gay"
Said far to often for reasons of which know one really understands
Most are meaningless
Most mindless
Most common
Most fillers
Ex "hey, you look cute today"
"Thank you" she said with a smile
Everyone is searching for compliments
Like receiving them means something
Like receiving them makes you a greater human
Reality check compliments really mean nothing anymore
So i'm so very sorry cutie, looks like your not so cute today
Oct 9, 2014
Oct 9, 2014 at 6:46 PM UTC
I had a dream I smoked some ***** with a Rasta Man
while we jammed in the name of the lord to some tunes
the children of Africa roaming free like wild beast
once the cradle of civilization turned into tombs
by the ungrateful, heathen souls that ran amok
in the name of annihilation and war.
But we are fearful pious men, as we inhaled the herb
the grass is the shepherd that nourish us like Giraffes
the sky is the ceiling that we reach with our blessed hands
the rivers gives us skins like Crocs to be able to survive
harsh whether, the blood-stained desert left behind by men
witnessed by the pale eyes of the torture souls of this land.
And so we inhaled and puffed like chimneys in a North Pole night
we talked about the smiles of our seeds stretching far and wide
how beautiful is a voice when it’s brought to life by a loved one
how the scent of a pure woman can bring the dead back to life
deadlocked, we are dreadlocked like grapevines until Jah lets us
the mental slavery that keeps us chained to the ships of our ancestors.
We never once conversed about the frail indignity of the mortals
the uselessness of hate, the ways material possessions can’t help you
we reached Nirvana without taking our feet off the common ground
we shared a spirit, bonded between long hits made of peace and love
in the freedom of those free thinkers tinkering with words without rest
in the children of Jah, daydreaming at night in a warm bed made of bread.
Jan 14, 2014
Jan 14, 2014 at 12:40 PM UTC
Even plastic collects dust
Bright fibres of pink become dull magentas
From the countless years and endless days of Still life Sharp lines and smooth contours of artistically machined plastic toys become fuzzy as hazy dust
Piles
Heaps
And overflows
From one
Single
Fact
Inactivity?
Unappreciated worth?
Discontent?
Laziness?
No
None of these
The dust collects
Piles
Heaps
Even overflows
From USELESSNESS
The things that the dust is attracted to
That the dust clings to
Are the things that in comparison to the things that are imparitive to our existance and our health
Are useless
Are plastic
Nov 23, 2014
Nov 23, 2014 at 5:34 PM UTC
Pollution of the mind is real.
Our minds are cluttered with uselessness.
Stories on the street repeated mindlessly.
Words describe men and women as animals.
We insult the person and demean the animal.
We are no longer part of nature, unnatural we are.
People are dumb as a donkey, wise as an owl.
If a woman disagrees she is a ***** fights, a cat, she is.
To be a good mother you have to be a hen.
A man is built like a horse he is part of a stable.
In times of slavery Black people were animal, soulless.
Confusion between humans and animals caused by disconnection.
Religions and Politics in ****** use rats to justify: hatred.
Jews are told they are pigs, and drink blood.
Blood and Pigs are forbidden in Judaism.
Culturally socially we repeat mindlessly: slander.
Our connection to the earth and animal is lost so is our humanity.
Pollution of the earth causes pollution of the mind.
The earth cleanses itself by fire and ice.
The mind can also: freeze out these concepts these fallacies.
Burn the words that are defamation and abomination.
Do; yes do this to avoid the fires of hell.
Soon, hell will freeze over and become heaven.
Apr 15, 2013
Apr 15, 2013 at 2:31 PM UTC
Only friendship.
You made yourself clear - clear as glass - that it could never be more.
But as I too am glass, a small shard of me broke off and shattered.
And why did it ignite my spirit to be in your presence, to be enfolded in your warmth
Why, why did it set my heart aflame, burn me with such flammable, incendiary envy
To see you lust after another, to want far beyond friendship with them
Why did that melt me
I was already committed to another, no matter if it was a dry, barren whisper of once-existing love or a forest of endless rain
It was commitment
Yet in spite of this, I continued to melt
Melting, right down to my core
Where I am just sand
Vulnerable, exposed, walked-on sand that could, at any second, be picked up by the wind and taken to another pit of uncertainty
But you
You dropped the empty attempts
And you began giving me your time
You showed me the naïveté that I am, and you took my hand and led me through a dark room
It was cold, and I was afraid
And you could not tell me that "everything would be okay"
Because this was real, unfiltered life you were motioning to before me
And though it was not a fully comfortable realisation,
The cold slowly thawed, from the outsides into my core, my sand
And as I thawed, as you too made yourself more vulnerable,
I at last began to take shape
Perhaps I have a calling
Beyond this fragile shell I consistently run back to for shelter, return to when it yearns back for my unearthed body to be protected again
But I knew better,
That when you molt from your armour,
Its purpose has been used up, and it is now just an empty shell, and it is time for that shell to be discarded.
And now, in my infantile flesh,
I trust that you can be my protector until my new shell can learn to harden
I am still unsure today if it has solidified,
Because I am focused elsewhere
Focused on you
My heart's every beat feels light at the remembrance of you
My mind's every thought a whirlwind
From the dissonance of reaching for you and being tempted to go back under the comfort of my old shell, from the knowledge that these two cannot coexist
But my soul, my soul is nearing soundness at last
Because with you here, I feel that my honest identity is at last coming to life
With you here,
Your breezes blow, but I do not fear that I will be carried away
Your shore arrives, but I do not fear that I am going to wash away
Though it was you who dared grind me down to my initial state of innocent sand,
You have sculpted me, even with the uselessness that I've felt I am
Shown me my potential
And made me a flourishing seashore.
Oct 17, 2014
Oct 17, 2014 at 10:39 AM UTC
When I saw my bones
Protrude
From the knots of my back
Like the ridges of a dinosaur
Sapped of food, singed with
Stress
A childish distress
Fear darkness
Blankness
Terrifying emptiness
When I saw my back protrude like the
Ridges of a dinosaur
I saw my body dressed as the
Skeleton I will one day become
I saw a vessel controlling a brain
I felt like a bottle of tequila drained
Such fun until it's empty
Used to the tip of uselessness
When I saw my back protrude like dinosaur ridges, a skeleton
****
The most terrifying thing I felt when I saw my back protrude, like the dinosaurs I coveted when I was small,
The rudest thing I felt was
Satisfaction
With it all
I felt more beautiful than I ever had
Maybe
Ever will
Felt satisfied at the neatened carelessness I
Had almost used to **** myself
Satisfaction
That my body curved in
Only bones, no fat or muscle to
Hide the struts within
Revelled in the hunger in the pit of
Stomach because no one
Could control that but
Me
You can't fail at starvation
I loved it
For once I couldn't fail
When I saw my back protrude like a dinosaur
I knew I could never go there again
Because the living dead feel only
Hunger
Chest pains
And fatigue
And dinosaurs ate whenever the **** they wanted to
Mar 8, 2015
Mar 8, 2015 at 8:16 AM UTC
i detoxed myself under this pale sun
(you stood by and watched the
unfolding saga all the while
questioning the meaning of zen)
the original concept was lost
somewhere along the way
when i dropped the ball
on the forty yard line
(can you recover your own fumbles?)
every time i stand by,
the waiting is eternal
and i become engrossed
in the uselessness of my position,
pondering
(my love for this is a game of solitaire)
i am the ultimate in
irrational action,
a demagogue of dark
pathways and religious
zealotry, trapped beneath
glass floors watching,
trying desperately to
cannibalize my fingers.
i have smoked your toenails
and wandered away listless
at comments unbecoming
and salivated on the fires
set to displace my vessels
(i have seen you ignoring me)
in the coming months i will
rend my eyes and pierce
my skull artificially
so you will be able
to see into my soul and
destroy me more efficiently
(you will know me by the number of the dead)
i will search deep and
long inside this shadow's
shell, extracting this cancer
so i can cook up my
shortcomings and inject
them into a Ken doll
because then at least
i will be pretty.
i will feed my
chilled oatmeal to a
Cantonese family
that will honor me
as the ***** poo-flinger
i am for you.
i will cease to exist
on a plane with your
type, sinking lower
on scale like a rock in
the Mississippi River.
Mom, when i stop
growing up, i will
be the ****** loser
everyone always
thought i would
(aren't you proud?)
(isn't he cute?)
i cannot imagine
surviving your intern camp
after the tattooing of arms,
we will eat the testicles of the
fallen gods and dispense
great suffering on the weak
because of our enlightened
prospects and redemptions
(what do you know about pain?)
i will place my severed head
in a place of prominence, likely
in your bed, right before
i cease to breathe
my eyelids weaken....
flicker, flutter....
i grow tired with the
advent of your indecision,
the totality of abandonment
the lenses fog, fade...
flicker, flutter...
i have run out of things to sacrifice
Sep 30, 2013
Sep 30, 2013 at 7:57 PM UTC
It caught me off guard, this sudden feeling of loss, this sense that something beautiful was gone forever. I didn't know what to do with it, this overwhelming idea that now, out of neglect or shame or starvation, a work of art had withered away into nothing.
I suppose that I'm beginning to understand that the world isn't a narrative, it's not a story by an author with a plot and a hero.
This is the essential fallacy taught to children with a streak of the hopeless romantic in them:
the desperate belief that somewhere out there is a place for people who live their lives waiting for King Arthur instead of Jesus.
And even now, with every word comes the terrifying truth that my babbling is going to change absolutely nothing, not a single atom is going to **** an electron on the completion.
I won't feel better, the situation won't change, you the reader aren't going to say EUREKA!!!! at the end of it, so what's the point?
Expression, that is the point of it, and to be be completely blunt about it all, I hope some one I love and admire will read this and say the typical things that are said when people are honest on public forums. Do I have a point? No, not really.
So what do I do with this loss, this empty fireplace in my soul?
I drink and smoke and **** it away, stay so busy that I don't have time to consider it, this knowledge that the fire has gone out. How typical of me, how unoriginal and bourgeoise to write another ode to the trials of the individual.
Who am I to feel loss and pain when my stomach is full and my needs are met?
Aren't I another servant of economic output?
Should I not donate time and money to a cause more worthy of respect than a withering example of excessive individualism such as myself?
No, and what's more, **** you society, **** you for taking away the only haven I ever had: my head. **** you for marketing my imagination,
for inventing a bunch of ******** about responsibility for the greater good,
for poisoning the little freedom I do have with feelings of uselessness.
And most especially **** you for your greatest crime of all;
implanting this feeling of guilt whenever I do anything with my own well-being in mind.
You have created a system that perpetuates itself on shame and output,
you have killed the desire to create for it's own sake.
**** you, and I'm going to unplug from you if it's the last ****** thing I ever do.
Jul 16, 2013
Jul 16, 2013 at 10:06 PM UTC
I could be your lover or nimble fingered arithmetician,
serve the rice cold and the soup too hot,
make the trope I’ve made my life into a
means to ruin others.
I could be his other. All similar shouldered
as we are, pressing up against each other,
because soft bodies and soft hearts alike
call to one another.
I’m a gardener and you don’t see me
pressing my thumb to walls, convincing
ivy to climb to me over toward the other
side. I am stone and soil.
I’m smiling too much at the cashier when
she makes a joke and it never occurs to me
that my heart should be something to
apologize for.
You can’t make me, take from me,
or chip away at whatever it is
you think I am: lameness and uselessness,
inability to click back onto the track.
I could be deserted. I could be
dessert, the strays can lap up my body
and I’ll lay here where you tossed me
until I disappear.
I could have been something other
than this settlement of lies and circles,
leech demanding its nectar, mottled
voice waiting waiting waiting.
I am joy and indecipherable name,
sticky on your tongue. I’m kept.
One day you will search for me
to no avail.
Sep 5, 2013
Sep 5, 2013 at 10:24 PM UTC
How is it three years, and I still have the same dreams?
Can you explain that to me, lovely sparrow?
Clutching olive branch and yew bark
Grabbing in the dark for cold water, sweating down the glass
Bitter chlorine and calcium built up on the face
Mineral finger-paints, broken down with linseed oil and worn palms
Your eyes behind those old glasses, working clay on the wheel
Such pride in glazed pots collecting rain on the patio
Paving stones laid in sand, the last few crooked on account of the cervesa
Dry in the mouth like panting dogs, deadweight collapsed on threadbare carpet
How do we convince ourselves that it is desirable to be alone?
I hold you in my arms in a dream, whoever you are
Pulling all the strands out of a wicker basket, creating uselessness
Chattering keys on a laptop like shivering teeth
Coughing, faceless, men, the embodiment of misery in this night
The most beautiful pair of eyes I've ever seen, what other secrets lie beneath
that hijab?
Just a passing glance, most of the people we see, we will never see again
How is it some make such a profound impression with nothing more than a
smile?
Lying under the Joshua tree, surrounded by dirt roads leading nowhere in particular
Warm water mingles with the sweat on your lip
A sigh that send chills through me
The restless wind, nothing more
Jun 22, 2012
Jun 22, 2012 at 9:45 PM UTC
Take the strings off the viola because
That's where the music is.
Take the nails from the floor boards because
That is where the pain is.
Remove the support beams because
That is where the strength is.
The uselessness
Of these objects
Is determined
By where they are placed.
The fire.
The warmth.
The burning reflected from
Your face
Is incomparable to the destruction that has taken place.
Sep 21, 2013
Sep 21, 2013 at 10:42 PM UTC
The moon dangled hard through the city
and the moth-lamps hummed discord with the wetness.
The dripping stars like accidents in spilt milk,
waited for a mop.
Walking home I hallucinated men
coiled up with the smoke-stacks.
They pressed through the brickwork and
as shadows flickered in the street-light.
Though my torch cut them down like saplings
and the moon ripped off their heads like scarecrows,
each man was a sermon,
a vastness straining the borders of sight.
A tailored uselessness hung there arms,
waspish currents tore from their mouths.
Starlings turned on their cross-wind,
as messengers of some sleeveless silence.
The moonlight fell on them like whorls,
like hurricane petals, hostile
were the shopsigns, they moved backhandedly.
The gulls raged. The crows filled silence they left.
The shadows all danced to the back of my head.
And when I turned they were gone.
I'm plucking for life and a body.
That shrinks the world to their size.
Jan 3, 2017
Jan 3, 2017 at 10:56 AM UTC
Bottle after bottle
Pulling me in
I'm drowning in the buzz
My life jacket in this misery
The only thing keeping me afloat
Under the crushing weight
Of my uselessness
Aug 16, 2016
Aug 16, 2016 at 3:59 AM UTC
day,
sun warms my body
laughter fills my mouth
to paint the picture of
happiness
night,
shadows creep closer
music fills my ears
i try to drown my thoughts of
uselessness
which me is alive?
Apr 27, 2014
Apr 27, 2014 at 3:30 PM UTC
My friends all think I'm crazy because I stand in the middle of the street and talk to a God that doesn't exist while high-fiving the windshields of passing school buses. I stopped taking my medication again because guilt taste a lot better than artificial happiness, and I stopped wearing that cross you bought me for my eight birthday because it contradicted the sense of uselessness I received for my twelfth. Life seems a lot less precious when you're talking to your parents in the TV room of a psychiatric unit and look them in the eyes while they tell me not to cry and say that 'pain is only temporary'. All I do is write letters to a man on the moon about the time I realized how hard and easy it is to die. Send me to therapy and make me take pills. I'll smile, but I'll always remember how to tie a noose
Nov 22, 2014
Nov 22, 2014 at 4:09 PM UTC
All day I do nothing.
My waving arms and pulsing brain
keep me empty.
What uselessness, me.
Before dark, when cool air rushes
from the bay, I water my garden.
Monday I covered chard seeds
in a dark prayer blanket.
What can tiny stone-like
objects do in the sea
of black fertility, but hide
cold, invalid, and scornful.
Maybe they can dream and
forget this earthly destiny.
All night I toss covers,
as if African hills have twisted
and lifted the
valleys between them.
Is anything worth my awakening?
At dawn I see marvelous unfurlings
conquered darkness
while I slept!
Sep 9, 2015
Sep 9, 2015 at 8:10 PM UTC
its the night when your
life becomes sleepless
your day might be reckless
doing things after things
of uselessness
i am tired,
no, i don't need sleep
no, i don't need rest
i just want that feeling
i could hold and hug
to where i kiss and wish
be loved for me to love back
i sigh waiting for a sign
that i am still alive
after all.
Jun 27, 2019
Jun 27, 2019 at 8:15 AM UTC
If I drew myself
If I drew a self-portrait
I’d use watercolor pencils
They’re easier to work with
And it’s just as easy to blend
They give more defined lines
A great choice I would think
I’d begin with an outline
Drawn in a mistaken
Grey or oops blue
Working my way bottom to
Top and right to left to maximize the unwanted
Smudges that will later become the mistakes which weren’t my own
I would move onto my face. Switching to a false green color to start on
My eyes. Coloring the right iris, heavy handed the tip breaks. I sharpen it
Color in more as it goes from fake green to saddened black I stab through
The canvas bringing in some light from behind. Moving onto the left now
I go from green to useless brown. I’d dip the tip in water and just let the
Pencil sit, stuck to the canvas the color drips down the cheek pooling at
The jawline before stopping as if not wanting to let go. Snap goes the lead
Throwing away the pencil so it doesn’t bleed onto the other colors I move
Onto the lips this time. I’d go with pale promise to compliment the right eye
I would add hints of passive anger red and narcissism orange as highlights
For the skin I’d color it in disappointment, several shades, to show definition
I would then take a brush and dip it in water. I’d blend all the colors so it looks
Natural. Blending disappointment with anger, narcissism with uselessness
Fake with disappointment and the mistakes with everything that they touch
Once the painting dries I’d look onto the creation with the same look that a
Famous painter would give their child when they're told their painting *****
I would reluctantly sign my name, take a step back, and crumble the painting
Into a ball and throw it away saying to myself “I know you can do better”
Apr 20, 2015
Apr 20, 2015 at 3:12 PM UTC
Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya; [email protected])
So keen and careful on
An impending superlativity
Very willing and ready to counter it
In the mighty of their lonely evil machinations
African relatives as black in the hearty as they do in the skin
Fangled to matchless stature in their scramble for ignobling Africa
Refusing to listen to reason of voice by echoing uselessness in their sentimentality
From the past historicity so redolent in the glory of peasantry a sit of nugatory bigotry
Relatives, kindly is implore you to your accurate antonym, it is imperative
When are you bound to set free Africa from the curse of inheritance?
Give Africa a leeway for freedom of thought, investment
Entrepreneurship and corporate glory, pliz
By easily novating yourselves
Relatives with true
Customers
And fellow
Professionals
Africa.
Jan 1, 2014
Jan 1, 2014 at 6:30 AM UTC
XXVI
The crowd at the ball game
is moved uniformly
by a spirit of uselessness
which delights them—
all the exciting detail
of the chase
and the escape, the error
the flash of genius—
all to no end save beauty
the eternal—
So in detail they, the crowd,
are beautiful
for this
to be warned against
saluted and defied—
It is alive, venomous
it smiles grimly
its words cut—
The flashy female with her
mother, gets it—
The Jew gets it straight—it
is deadly, terrifying—
It is the Inquisition, the
Revolution
It is beauty itself
that lives
day by day in them
idly—
This is
the power of their faces
It is summer, it is the solstice
the crowd is
cheering, the crowd is laughing
in detail
permanently, seriously
without thought
1.6k
We grow in a ragged garden
whose caretaker no longer cares
for himself except to prune back
only the most strangling branches
of his mind's miseries.
Effectively, we are left to
our own wild ways.
In all directions,
time's vine sprawls unnoticeably
slow in its natural haste
to overtake every creature.
We are the berries
strewn along this vine.
Our thin skins stretched and aching
around poisonous pools of bitter juices,
desperate for a touch,
a cause to burst,
a moment in which our existence is fulfilled.
To die in defense of the vine
is why we are here.
Most of us will never do but rot;
stuck to a stem that roots us in
idle uselessness.
It is my brightest & deepest, berry blue hope
not to rot here with the lot of you.
So, with great want I watch the passing birds
fly in the sky and seethe in need for the
little hoppers who come so near
just to tilt their tiny heads
and maddeningly flutter off.
There must be one who makes the mistake
of choosing me.
One who plucks me right off with its beak
and bolts to dine in some high, safe place.
It will die for its hunger,
and so too will I for satisfying it.
But, for a moment between boredom's end
and attaining purpose,
I'll see the garden from a different view;
a bird's eye.
I'll see the entire vine for what it is,
and hopefully; finally, know why
it's worth protecting at all.
BURST
Jun 30, 2013
Jun 30, 2013 at 1:46 AM UTC
filled with shades of yesterday
the river road's thick air labors
in my chest
as the intangable wall of
blind rage
strikes again and again in thoughts
too powerful for wishfull thinking to deny
fists clenched slamming down
on the ungiving pavement gives only
voice to the uselessness of this rage
it has neither reason or goal
it simplly bleeds thru awake mind
it simply breeds like a disease
an infection of the moral soul
with shades of rationalizations
they printed a book
and built a church to their
god of lies
and the misguided truths others hold as
a path of reason
*scape goat to their inadequacy
lambs to the slaughter the fresh recruits
stare in wide eyed wonder at the drawn blades
dont it look like nirvana when what your leaving behind
didnt wear such a sweet smile
some things will never change
they learned that in the great war
they learned that in the feilds of cambodia
the monsters feed and their
lips red with blood
...smile...
death is never frightened
its allways has a smile*
the river road far behind
but its taint lingers
as all evil men will
long after their due date
rotting in plain sight
but nobody can afford to strike the tent
and bury the corpse
after all he was a celebrated smile
he was a devil to dish the news
and loved to lend a helping hand
but only if that hand held a blade
*if i had only closed my eyes
if i had only turned my back
i would not be here today
wither that be a good thing or nay
waits in the wings*
get me out of here
May 2, 2013
May 2, 2013 at 3:58 PM UTC
I want you to listen to my signs
My complaining about my uselessness
Tell me I'm worth a ****
Take my arms and scratch me
Up
And
Down
Give me feeling again
Give me anything you can
Buy me a wristwatch
Tell me I have some time
You need me to stick around
Cut my hair
Tell me to grow it out
Jun 30, 2014
Jun 30, 2014 at 5:02 PM UTC