"vainly" poems
What's wrong with you, with us,
what's happening to us?
Ah our love is a harsh cord
that binds us wounding us
and if we want
to leave our wound,
to separate,
it makes a new knot for us and condemns us
to drain our blood and burn together.
What's wrong with you? I look at you
and I find nothing in you but two eyes
like all eyes, a mouth
lost among a thousand mouths that I have kissed, more beautiful,
a body just like those that have slipped
beneath my body without leaving any memory.
And how empty you went through the world
like a wheat-colored jar
without air, without sound, without substance!
I vainly sought in you
depth for my arms
that dig, without cease, beneath the earth:
beneath your skin, beneath your eyes,
nothing,
beneath your double breast scarcely
raised
a current of crystalline order
that does not know why it flows singing.
Why, why, why,
my love, why?
29.7k
Blades of smoke pass through my hair,
Cutting; oxidising; as the smoke is slowly rising
through the tower of my power as I vainly gasp for air.
Cyanide, it seems, can comfort me a while,
as I'm breathing; screaming and repeating
smoky words into the floor's mute bathroom tile.
But my power is all gone; all wrong.
Oxidise: Cyanide.
Once more into my lungs.
Mar 28, 2015
Mar 28, 2015 at 8:41 AM UTC
This little bag I hope will prove
To be not vainly made —
For, if you should a needle want
It will afford you aid.
And as we are about to part
T'will serve another end,
For when you look upon the Bag
You'll recollect your friend.
10.8k
Lead us, Evolution, lead us
Up the future's endless stair;
Chop us, change us, **** us, **** us.
For stagnation is despair:
Groping, guessing, yet progressing,
Lead us nobody knows where.
Wrong or justice, joy or sorrow,
In the present what are they
while there's always jam-tomorrow,
While we tread the onward way?
Never knowing where we're going,
We can never go astray.
To whatever variation
Our posterity may turn
Hairy, squashy, or crustacean,
Bulbous-eyed or square of stern,
Tusked or toothless, mild or ruthless,
Towards that unknown god we yearn.
Ask not if it's god or devil,
Brethren, lest your words imply
Static norms of good and evil
(As in Plato) throned on high;
Such scholastic, inelastic,
Abstract yardsticks we deny.
Far too long have sages vainly
Glossed great Nature's simple text;
He who runs can read it plainly,
'Goodness = what comes next.'
By evolving, Life is solving
All the questions we perplexed.
Oh then! Value means survival-
Value. If our progeny
Spreads and spawns and licks each rival,
That will prove its deity
(Far from pleasant, by our present,
Standards, though it may well be).
10.2k
O me! O life!… of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
9.9k
Ay, this is freedom!--these pure skies
Were never stained with village smoke:
The fragrant wind, that through them flies,
Is breathed from wastes by plough unbroke.
Here, with my rifle and my steed,
And her who left the world for me,
I plant me, where the red deer feed
In the green desert--and am free.
For here the fair savannas know
No barriers in the bloomy grass;
Wherever breeze of heaven may blow,
Or beam of heaven may glance, I pass.
In pastures, measureless as air,
The bison is my noble game;
The bounding elk, whose antlers tear
The branches, falls before my aim.
Mine are the river-fowl that scream
From the long stripe of waving sedge;
The bear that marks my weapon's gleam,
Hides vainly in the forest's edge;
In vain the she-wolf stands at bay;
The brinded catamount, that lies
High in the boughs to watch his prey,
Even in the act of springing, dies.
With what free growth the elm and plane
Fling their huge arms across my way,
Gray, old, and cumbered with a train
Of vines, as huge, and old, and gray!
Free stray the lucid streams, and find
No taint in these fresh lawns and shades;
Free spring the flowers that scent the wind
Where never scythe has swept the glades.
Alone the Fire, when frost-winds sere
The heavy herbage of the ground,
Gathers his annual harvest here,
With roaring like the battle's sound,
And hurrying flames that sweep the plain,
And smoke-streams gushing up the sky:
I meet the flames with flames again,
And at my door they cower and die.
Here, from dim woods, the aged past
Speaks solemnly; and I behold
The boundless future in the vast
And lonely river, seaward rolled.
Who feeds its founts with rain and dew;
Who moves, I ask, its gliding mass,
And trains the bordering vines, whose blue
Bright clusters tempt me as I pass?
Broad are these streams--my steed obeys,
Plunges, and bears me through the tide.
Wide are these woods--I thread the maze
Of giant stems, nor ask a guide.
I hunt till day's last glimmer dies
O'er woody vale and grassy height;
And kind the voice and glad the eyes
That welcome my return at night.
4.9k
When my love swears that she is made of truth
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth,
Unlearnèd in the world’s false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue;
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed.
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O, love’s best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love, loves not to have years told.
Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flattered be.
4k
Tailored suit, Turkish smokes in a fancy silver case
Gold buttons, collar straight, black tie neatly pressed in place.
Who is he? Well, you must make a deal to learn.
Give me two cents for my trouble,
And a cigarette to burn.
A man made up of shadows and illusions black and gray;
He's a quaint manifestation of the muse you've thrown away.
All of your escaped emotions,
All your unmitigated strife,
Packaged up in flesh and bone and given dusky life.
He breaks apart unfinished thoughts without regard to you,
And uses them to flesh out patchwork dreams of rosy hue.
But happy dreams are wrought of love,
And though Wolf vainly tries,
Internal nightmares oft bleed through and mar his cheerful lies.
He takes your lost sincerities and shapes them up like clay,
Gives them form and simple purpose,
In a rhythmic, pleasing way.
The Wolf is but a poet, his goal you mustn't misconstrue
For he will tear apart your soul
And smiling, give it back to you.
Feb 20, 2013
Feb 20, 2013 at 9:13 PM UTC
My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
Th’ uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as mad men’s are,
At random from the truth vainly expressed.
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
3.8k
Daughter of Jove, relentless Power,
Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge and tort’ring hour
The Bad affright, afflict the Best!
Bound in thy adamantine chain
The Proud are taught to taste of pain,
And purple Tyrants vainly groan
With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.
When first thy Sire to send on earth
Virtue, his darling child, designed,
To thee he gave the heav’nly Birth,
And bade to form her infant mind.
Stern rugged Nurse! thy rigid lore
With patience many a year she bore:
What sorrow was, thou bad’st her know,
And from her own she learned to melt at others’ woe.
Scared at thy frown terrific, fly
Self-pleasing Folly’s idle brood,
Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy,
And leave us leisure to be good.
Light they disperse, and with them go
The summer Friend, the flatt’ring Foe;
By vain Prosperity received,
To her they vow their truth, and are again believed.
Wisdom in sable garb arrayed
Immersed in rapt’rous thought profound,
And Melancholy, silent maid
With leaden eye, that loves the ground,
Still on thy solemn steps attend:
Warm Charity, the gen’ral Friend,
With Justice, to herself severe,
And Pity dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear.
Oh, gently on thy Suppliant’s head,
Dread Goddess, lay thy chast’ning hand!
Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad,
Not circled with the vengeful Band
(As by the Impious thou art seen),
With thund’ring voice, and threat’ning mien,
With screaming Horror’s funeral cry,
Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty.
Thy form benign, O Goddess, wear,
Thy milder influence impart,
Thy philosophic Train be there
To soften, not to wound my heart.
The gen’rous spark extinct revive,
Teach me to love and to forgive,
Exact my own defects to scan,
What others are, to feel, and know myself a Man.
3.5k
I've watched too late; the morn is near;
One look at God's broad silent sky!
Oh, hopes and wishes vainly dear,
How in your very strength ye die!
Even while your glow is on the cheek,
And scarce the high pursuit begun,
The heart grows faint, the hand grows weak,
The task of life is left undone.
See where upon the horizon's brim,
Lies the still cloud in gloomy bars;
The waning moon, all pale and dim,
Goes up amid the eternal stars.
Late, in a flood of tender light,
She floated through the ethereal blue,
A softer sun, that shone all night
Upon the gathering beads of dew.
And still thou wanest, pallid moon!
The encroaching shadow grows apace;
Heaven's everlasting watchers soon
Shall see thee blotted from thy place.
Oh, Night's dethroned and crownless queen!
Well may thy sad, expiring ray
Be shed on those whose eyes have seen
Hope's glorious visions fade away.
Shine thou for forms that once were bright,
For sages in the mind's eclipse,
For those whose words were spells of might,
But falter now on stammering lips!
In thy decaying beam there lies
Full many a grave on hill and plain,
Of those who closed their dying eyes
In grief that they had lived in vain.
Another night, and thou among
The spheres of heaven shalt cease to shine,
All rayless in the glittering throng
Whose lustre late was quenched in thine.
Yet soon a new and tender light
From out thy darkened orb shall beam,
And broaden till it shines all night
On glistening dew and glimmering stream.
3.6k
'O Jesus Christ! I'm hit,' he said; and died.
Whether he vainly cursed, or prayed indeed,
The Bullets chirped - In vain! vain! vain!
Machine-guns chuckled, - Tut-tut! Tut-tut!
And the Big Gun guffawed.
Another sighed, - 'O Mother, mother! Dad!'
Then smiled, at nothing, childlike, being dead.
And the lofty Shrapnel-cloud
Leisurely gestured, - Fool!
And the falling splinters tittered.
'My Love!' one moaned. Love-languid seemed his mood,
Till, slowly lowered, his whole face kissed the mud.
And the Bayonets' long teeth grinned;
Rabbles of Shells hooted and groaned;
And the Gas hissed.
3.5k
THE morn of life is past,
And ev'ning comes at last;
It brings me a dream of a once happy day,
Of merry forms I've seen
Upon the village green,
Sporting with my old dog Tray.
Chorus: Old dog Tray's ever faithful; Grief cannot drive him away; He's gentle, he is kind, I'll never, never find A better friend than old dog Tray.
The forms I called my own
Have vanish'd one by one,
The lov'd ones, the dear ones have all pass'd away;
Their happy smiles have flown,
Their gentle voices gone,
I've nothing left but old dog Tray.
Chorus.
When thoughts recall the past,
His eyes are on me cast,
I know that he feels what my breaking heart would say;
Although he cannot speak,
I'll vainly, vainly seek
A better friend than old dog Tray.
Chorus.
3k
How Poets routinely tell lies or truth with great "sincerity"
and earnest projections of "poetic charisma" and lashings
of "who me tell lies?".
and yet they routinely avoid truthfulness, in case they forget the power of lies and truth, in their search for fame.
Mesmerised by its attendant celebrity groupmind and of course its wealth..
Indeed Poets don't want to know that truthfulness
has nothing to do with truth.
Indeed Poets don't want to know that truth
is a lie and a lie is truth,
two sides of a darkened mirror
and both are equally valueless
except for seeing false faces in..
Poets bleat on about how the shackleable object of their 'love' ,
she or he, are not theirs to own
or categorise or monopolise.
yet they keep on expecting full submission
and just getting an empty back,
and a disappearing set of footprints.
Like the sheep and goats that Poets are,
they bleat on endlessly
about their wants their wants their wants.
They want fame as Poets--disguised as distribution deals.
They want contracts to produce garbage for HallMark--as if..
They want **** licking critical acclaim--from **** licking critics.
They want international poetry prizes from aesthetic morons--
wearing Armani suits.
They want Groupies--but not *******
They want Media eulogies--but not truthfulness.
Always are they deliberately forgetting that
"you cant always get what you want".
The last thing that Poets want is what they need most of all.
They really need
An end to the narcissism of those
that want to be called "poet"--in your dreams.
An end to the juvenile arrogance that motivates them to put up strings
of meaningless associated words
and vainly call them poems.
An end to childish immaturity, and inchoate meandering
through other peoples words and experiences, stealing others lives
and characters.
Always incessantly pretending that because
they can read the words of others
that they have also shared their experiences--indeed their experience was deeper wider higher.
In another day and age of non-violent sensibility
these kind of Poets would
be called thieves and liars.
In this day and age they scribble emotional garbage
and pretend its "poetry"--encouraged by intellectual follies.
As poets they have become walking proto cash registers.
Sin Verguensa.
Sin Verguensa.
Sin is Spanish for without.
Poets are SIN integrity.
Poets are SIN Truthfulness.
Poets are SIN decency.
Poets are SIN.
Im so glad I could never be mistaken for a Poet.
Wouldnt want to be mistaken as a poet.
Jul 15, 2014
Jul 15, 2014 at 4:19 PM UTC
The vague temptation of your deliciousness
Is hanging over my head
And the sweet taste of your salty skin
Still makes me feel like I'm dead,
Killed by your mouth laid on my neck
Chilled by your hands sliding on my body
Thrilled by your fingers intertwined with mine
Quilled by your eyes, bright in obscurity.
I remember your barely visible smile,
And your shivering lips
I remember the tip of your breast
Getting harder every time I touched it,
With the fresh carress of night falling down.
I want to hear you panting again,
Watch your chest go up and down
As you were breathing heavily
Getting ready for the final knockdown.
I remember the burning light in your eyes
And your teeth softly biting your lips
As your hands hovered my naked body
Getting to know me, bits after bits.
I rcan still see your head slightly tilted back
And your open mouth, looking for fresh air
To cool down your own temperature,
And my hands tearing off what you had left to wear.
I can still feel your tense fingers
Vainly clinging the sheets of my bed,
Your hot, heavy breathing sliding on my skin,
The voices screaming inside my head.
Finally I remember your tongue slow dancing with mine
And the three words you said when I never asked you to,
Sweet, soft, quiet, light and almost inaudible
The magical, crazy "Baby, I want you."
Jun 30, 2013
Jun 30, 2013 at 4:13 PM UTC
The ice I wear is silence.
As for diamonds, I don't own them.
I save ruby for my lips.
I save swagger for my hips.
I save crystal for my gin.
And the only thing I age is grace.
As for me I grow divinity-
The sin in me,
is confidently rising as I walk into the room.
If I make you feel I'm naked
when your burden down with fur-
"What does he see in her?"
If I make you feel uneasy,
and hold him just so tighter
because my steps are lighter
although my thighs are trunks
like mighty oaks they hold me high
so I can match Tiffany eyes
to the Tiffany colored skies.
Wear your silver, wear your gold.
And I'll wear nothing loud and bold.
How dare I not adorn.
Not care about your scorn?
I am the bracelet that wraps the wrist,
I am the earrings lazy laying.
Designers drape me in goddess garb
while your childish glitter is fraying.
I wear years like men wear watches-
Proud and vainly count the notches.
Watch me slither, watch me wander.
Helpless but to become fonder.
Oct 8, 2020
Oct 8, 2020 at 12:06 PM UTC
I could write many words that you would never read
Empty rant words and deep flesh wounds
I could tell you stories to make you laugh or cry
But it doesn't matter cause its all a lie
I could make you feel sorry for the girl behind the screen
But it doesn't count cause there is something inbetween
I used a crow bar to pry the hearts I mended
And I counted stitches sewn by the witches
I vainly pursued more than one empty shell
But it wasn't worth it oh the stories I will tell
May 16, 2014
May 16, 2014 at 8:38 AM UTC
Christmas is around the corner
I can't stop myself from feeling blue
Vainly trying to channel holiday cheer
It's just not merry without you
Dec 7, 2022
Dec 7, 2022 at 10:18 PM UTC
Whither, midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?
Vainly the fowler's eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly seen against the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.
Seek'st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean-side?
There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast--
The desert and illimitable air--
Lone wandering, but not lost.
All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.
And soon that toil shall end;
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,
Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.
Thou 'rt gone, the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.
He who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.
2.3k
it seems, my words
have lost their allure,
this morning.
and i am too fixated,
on vainly scrawling.
to see
the crafts of others,
floating on the river poetry.
i am, hands to the oars, rowing against,
a beautiful tide.
endevouring,
to attain a mooring,
on the inside of a thought. what would happen,
if i.....
let go and read just
one or two poems
from other,
weary skullsmen
and made comment.
it mayhap...
nothing, but then it,
maybe...
instead of poetry,
decrying a dying state.
the poet in the other boat,
rowing silently,
for a moment, or a lifetime
is encouraged to,
greater acts
of creativity.
just maybe.....maybe.
Jun 18, 2014
Jun 18, 2014 at 5:26 PM UTC
What various hindrances we meet
In coming to a mercy seat!
Yet who that knows the worth of prayer,
But wishes to be often there?
Prayer makes the darken'd cloud withdraw,
Prayer climbs the ladder Jacob saw,
Gives exercise to faith and love,
Brings every blessing from above.
Restraining prayer, we cease to fight;
Prayer makes the Christian's armour bright;
And Satan trembles when he sees
The weakest saint upon his knees.
While Moses stood with arms spread wide,
Success was found on Israel's side;
But when through weariness they fail'd,
That moment Amalek prevail'd.
Have you no words? Ah, think again,
Words flow apace when you complain,
And fill your fellow-creature's ear
With the sad tale of all your care.
Were half the breath thus vainly spent
To heaven in supplication sent,
Your cheerful song would oftener be,
"Hear what the Lord has done for me."
2.2k
There's a darkness in me
I mean, probably only figuratively
We'll have to wait and see
Seven masks of sin but one entity
All splitting a single fractured personality
Head spins wildly
I've searched quietly
I've asked loudly
I've had to cry and scream internally
Keeping it caged and locked inside has caused me to break down repeatedly
No outcome that I've found is a guarantee
So, I guess it's a guaranteed mystery
Of course it is, fuuck me...
Something that quite possibly will only make sense to me in a different plane of reality
...uh...that doesn't help at all actually
Hopeless is often a stand-in for the elusive positivity
It comes along so rarely one could hardly be blamed for questioning the authenticity
Then there's this two way brutality
It devours not because it's hungry but because it's so god daamn greedy
I'm not suppose to let it out of me
I'm told this as I feel it under my skin ripping up the already dilapidated basic human anatomy
This is a one man operation so it breaks out occasionally
But the goal though, if it were to ever be left up to me, my preferred destiny
The socially dreaded monotony
I embrace it knowing it will never be enough to right such a severe mental instability
Didn't think it was destined to be a doomed mission but maybe it was done vainly
It's not easily put into words but it feels like thievery
It's stolen chunks of life from me and didn't have the decency to even leave me a silver hair sliver of a memory
Turned me into a mockery of Jeremy
Right back to the old me
My own worst enemy
A part I've played so absolute I almost destroyed me
I've explained it to me slowly
Barley made it this far and the next 40,
They're looking to be just as iffy
Half devils reject, half whatever you see
Sprinkle in a little lie here and there as a preserve for longevity
Worry about it later, only if it bites me
100% broken but realistically only maybe half evil so, you know, 333
©2024
Feb 6, 2024
Feb 6, 2024 at 7:07 PM UTC
The Race
An injury in sophomore year
caused me to miss the springtime meets.
I was sitting in a cast
while my teammates won their heats.
I am no brain, I can’t sit still
No chance I’ll ace the S.A.T.
But medal wins in track and field
could mean a scholarship for me.
Near Lewis is a cinder track-
an oval of a quarter mile.
So I come here to do my laps
And dream of victory for a while.
A short fat man goes jogging by
In sweat drenched shirt and navy shorts
Gasping, like a fish in air,
fleeing from his mortal thoughts.
I doff my sweats and start to stretch
I take no chances with this knee.
Soon I’m feeling good and loose,
it pays to warm up properly.
A tall thin runner, strangely pale,
About half of the track ahead
I‘ll pass him like he’s standing still
Then he’ll be chasing me instead.
I pass the jogger right away
The pale runner, though, moves speedily
I pick up my pace a notch
Just as quickly so does he..
I stretch my stride, he does the same
And gains upon me steadily
I thought that I was chasing him
It seems instead he’s chasing me.
I never raced this guy before
At any of the local meets
He appears to be as old as me
But his gear is “thrift shop” quality.
Sure enough, he’s gaining fast.
I dig down for a last reserve
I didn’t think I’d lost a step
Bad news, if it’s true, for me
I hear his foot falls close behind
And vainly try to stay ahead
I turn my head to see his face
It is the face of one long dead.
The ghostly winner makes a turn
and passes through the gate and chains
The cemetery lies beyond
That holds the urn with his cremains
“You saw him too” the fat man gasps-
“I thought that he had come for me”
I knew he only came to run
I recognized the ghost you see.
“Tommy Miller was his name
School Champion back in 63’
.He died crossing this finish line
an aneurysm in his brain.”
Unfinished business binds him here
A restless spirit, more than most,
The race is ever to the swift
The quick are beaten by a ghost
Dec 21, 2011
Dec 21, 2011 at 5:21 PM UTC
When my soul is free, set my body on a pyre alight,
free from mortality and from pain.
Send my form to join my soul in fire and flight,
and watch the blaze eat what's left away.
If tears fall as I hope they might,
down faces creased with love and age,
let them be freed as well, and blur their sight
with tears of acceptance; joyous and gay.
When my soul is free, let their souls be bright,
not tortured as I let them see me now.
Though my soul was broken through my life,
let my body burn bright; let the fire roar loud.
Let me turn my eyes skyward, head unbowed;
My form; My soul; My whole bathed in light,
not dark and cold as I feel it now.
Let the fire roar loud and banish night.
And when ashes fall from that heated height.
They will freeze the fingers that vainly grasp,
and my soul will glow in blue and white,
and whisper consolation to earthly Hells unasked,
and though cold like death and hot like pain,
though the pyre devours what yet remains,
let the fire burn fast and the night die low,
as my soul finds repose in a fire with ash like snow.
Feb 8, 2015
Feb 8, 2015 at 6:59 PM UTC
I had thought I knew what pain was
What heartbreak felt like
When I had only been scratched
You took everything I gave
My body, my heart, my soul,
You made me believe everything you ever said
You let me trust you
You let me love you
You changed me
You cheated on me
You left me
Now I know what pain really is-
it rips through your body worse than love
leaving ugly, bitter holes where worms of confusion writhe
while betrayal, outrage, anger, depression
wrap your soul in a gloomy blanket
I hold the shattered pieces of my glass heart in my hands
vainly trying to stitch it back together with threads of hope,
slitting my palms with my tears
Nov 6, 2012
Nov 6, 2012 at 12:46 AM UTC