"vanities" poems
(1674.)
I have desired, and I have been desired;
But now the days are over of desire,
Now dust and dying embers mock my fire;
Where is the hire for which my life was hired?
Oh vanity of vanities, desire!
Longing and love, pangs of a perished pleasure,
Longing and love, a disenkindled fire,
And memory a bottomless gulf of mire,
And love a fount of tears outrunning measure;
Oh vanity of vanities, desire!
Now from my heart, love's deathbed, trickles, trickles,
Drop by drop slowly, drop by drop of fire,
The dross of life, of love, of spent desire;
Alas, my rose of life gone all to prickles,--
Oh vanity of vanities, desire!
Oh vanity of vanities, desire;
Stunting my hope which might have strained up higher,
Turning my garden plot to barren mire;
Oh death-struck love, oh disenkindled fire,
Oh vanity of vanities, desire!
14.3k
Those that are complacently designed
By the simpering vanities
of a domesticated world
rarely find the peace of mind
of which we all strive
because their materialistic
beliefs constrain them
in pools of normality
Drowning them in the pressures of society
and hanging them out to dry
in downloaded photos
that never fade
our lives are all dictated
by the subconscious influence
of one another
thus our souls
are irrefutably intertwined
locked together in endless struggle
mind against mind.
Apr 3, 2015
Apr 3, 2015 at 12:08 PM UTC
"And in a funny way, the shaving of my, uh, head has been a liberation from, uh, a lot of, uh, stupid vanities really. Uh, it has simplified everything for me, it has opened a lot of doors maybe." - Stephen Malkmus, Jo Jo's Jacket
the first layer of skin i shed
was the bra
rid of the foreign metal sculptor producing a deep rift between skin
my third eye, swallowing gazes
rid of my **** , my ***** , my rack
replaced with sacks of fat and nerve and milk ducts
hanging, existing, for no one else
not even myself
the second layer of skin was the painting of the face
the concealing and erasing of imperfections, the lines of laughter of sorrow of life
redirecting attention and importance to the bow and symmetry of the lip
no longer did i have to put myself on in the morning
i woke up as i was, as i needed to be,
bare and uninhibited
my skin now breathed, and for no one else
not even myself
and then i grew another layer of skin,
made of dank tangles to protect my age,
i stopped shaving the years i'd walked this earth, shedding my womanhood
the skin grew to my armpits, little tufts of sweaty, odorous mother nature dozing in a fleshy convex nest
and to my legs, were the tangles wrapped around my ankles
preventing the spreading of the legs for every life
for not every life wanted what was not tame
and what was not tame no longer wanted to be.
my body did not conform,
for it was not brought into this world to be consumed for the pleasure of others
it exists for no one else,
not even myself
and as i was engulfed in this hairy wonder of my own body
i shed the last layer,
the shaving of the head
my brain, my being breathed
porous and exposed
vulnerable to weather and whispers
but i was all at once naked and calm,
having finally peeled away the layers of ***** over-sexualization and constrained femininity that had molded this meat sack that serves me,
a bundle of circuitry and solution balancing and bobbing on the neck
for i exist for no one else,
only myself
Aug 17, 2018
Aug 17, 2018 at 10:48 AM UTC
It's oh in Paradise that I fain would be,
Away from earth and weariness and all beside;
Earth is too full of loss with its dividing sea,
But Paradise upbuilds the bower for the bride.
Where flowers are yet in bud while the boughs are green,
I would get quit of earth and get robed for heaven;
Putting on my raiment white within the screen,
Putting on my crown of gold whose gems are seven
Fair is the fourfold river that maketh no moan,
Fair are the trees fruit-bearing of the wood,
Fair are the gold and bdellium and the onyx stone,
And I know the gold of that land is good.
O my love, my dove, lift up your eyes
Toward the eastern gate like an opening rose;
You and I who parted will meet in Paradise,
Pass within and sing when the gates unclose.
This life is but the passage of a day,
This life is but a pang and all is over;
But in the life to come which fades not away
Every love shall abide and every lover.
He who wore out pleasure and mastered all lore,
Solomon, wrote "Vanity of vanities:"
Down to death, of all that went before
In his mighty long life, the record is this.
With loves by the hundred, wealth beyond measure,
Is this he who wrote "Vanity of vanities"?
Yea, "Vanity of vanities" he saith of pleasure,
And of all he learned set his seal to this.
Yet we love and faint not, for our love is one,
And we hope and flag not, for our hope is sure,
Although there be nothing new beneath the sun
And no help for life and for death no cure.
The road to death is life, the gate of life is death,
We who wake shall sleep, we shall wax who wane;
Let us not vex our souls for stoppage of a breath,
The fall of a river that turneth not again.
Be the road short, and be the gate near,--
Shall a short road tire, a strait gate appall?
The loves that meet in Paradise shall cast out fear,
And Paradise hath room for you and me and all.
3.5k
Oh what is that country
And where can it be,
Not mine own country,
But dearer far to me?
Yet mine own country,
If I one day may see
Its spices and cedars,
Its gold and ivory.
As I lie dreaming
It rises, that land;
There rises before me
Its green golden strand,
With the bowing cedars
And the shining sand;
It sparkles and flashes
Like a shaken brand.
Do angels lean nearer
While I lie and long?
I see their soft plumage
And catch their windy song,
Like the rise of a high tide
Sweeping full and strong;
I mark the outskirts
Of their reverend throng.
Oh what is a king here,
Or what is a boor?
Here all starve together,
All dwarfed and poor;
Here Death's hand knocketh
At door after door,
He thins the dancers
From the festal floor.
Oh what is a handmaid,
Or what is a queen?
All must lie down together
Where the turf is green,
The foulest face hidden,
The fairest not seen;
Gone as if never
They had breathed or been.
Gone from sweet sunshine
Underneath the sod,
Turned from warm flesh and blood
To senseless clod;
Gone as if never
They had toiled or trod,
Gone out of sight of all
Except our God.
Shut into silence
From the accustomed song
Shut into solitude
From all earth's throng,
Run down though swift of foot,
Thrust down though strong;
Life made an end of,
Seemed it short or long.
Life made an end of,
Life but just begun;
Life finished yesterday,
Its last sand run;
Life new-born with the morrow
Fresh as the sun:
While done is done for ever;
Undone, undone.
And if that life is life,
This is but a breath,
The passage of a dream
And the shadow of death;
But a vain shadow
If one considereth;
Vanity of vanities,
As the Preacher saith.
3.2k
To say! To know how to say! To know how to exist via the written voice and the intellectual image! This is all that matters in life; the rest is men and women, imagined loves and factitious vanities, the wiles of our digestion and forgetfulness, people squirming — like worms when a rock is lifted — under the huge abstract boulder of the meaningless blue sky.
Oct 20, 2013
Oct 20, 2013 at 10:02 PM UTC
Ah, woe is me for pleasure that is vain,
Ah, woe is me for glory that is past:
Pleasure that bringeth sorrow at the last,
Glory that at the last bringeth no gain!
So saith the sinking heart; and so again
It shall say till the mighty angel-blast
Is blown, making the sun and moon aghast,
And showering down the stars like sudden rain.
And evermore men shall go fearfully,
Bending beneath their weight of heaviness;
And ancient men shall lie down wearily,
And strong men shall rise up in weariness;
Yea, even the young shall answer sighingly,
Saying one to another: How vain it is!
2.7k
A firework
Of brightest colours
Dances slow
Beneath the stars
Torches and candles
Iron braziers' light
Glowing warm
In blue midnight
Gowns of silk
Fineries of all kind
Whirling in solemnity
"A dance, do you mind?"
A thousand miles from sorrow
High society indeed
La crème de la crème
The very best of breed
Extravagance never is
Too extra for those ladies fair
Gossiping girls, all of them
"Oh, look, this lady's hair!..."
Gentlemen bowing
Talking with hushed voices
Trading, socializing
Polite merchants' noises
"This daughter of mine,
She might well catch your eye..."
This just a market of brides n' grooms
An exchange, !!one truth for a hundred lies!!
Gossip girls and merchants noble
Less n' less real knights and dames
Nobility used to mean heroes, and protection
But long extinct, those once bright flames
The only light there, now,
Comes from a stake pile in the debris
Burning bright, but in truth all hollow
This great bonfire of vanities
Jul 14, 2021
Jul 14, 2021 at 8:35 AM UTC
***Our souls are enfettered
By an Inexorable Penance,
Sorrows & Lamentations:***
In pining for
The Light of Transmutation
The Adamantine Wings
Of Stalwart Bahamut
Unburdened our etherealized hearts.
(Speaking for the future)
Spira has lost its
Yoke of Communion
To this Cimmerian Millennium.
Redemption’s Revelation:
Aeonic sin hath reigned
Under the Cathedral of Deception
Forged by the taught tongues
**Of Yevon;
Despotic Lunae
Eclipsed the light
Of a forlorn sky,
Divine Pantheon
For
Numen of Sol.**
Cast a
Stygian Shadow of Sanctimonious Suffering for Souls.
Seems eternal; truly, ephemeral.
**For,
the Hearts of nations
Are
Sacrosanct Luminaries.**
Our tears
Have been shed,
Our vanities
Indemnified.
**Skies shall bleed Empyrean Bliss
And
The Opus of Life
Shall cleanse
This wearied Spira of Pernicious Sin.**
(Amen.)***
Sep 25, 2017
Sep 25, 2017 at 5:47 AM UTC
I am truer than my lies,
Louder than my doubts,
Surer than my insecurities;
I am fairer than my flaws,
Heavier than my airs,
Quieter than my anxieties;
I am stronger than my failures,
Calmer than my rages,
Happier than my tears;
I am humbler than my vanities,
Wiser than my mistakes,
Bigger than my fears.
(c) emeraldine087
Mar 14, 2015
Mar 14, 2015 at 6:14 AM UTC
Sound the deep waters:--
Who shall sound that deep?--
Too short the plummet,
And the watchmen sleep.
Some dream of effort
Up a toilsome steep;
Some dream of pasture grounds
For harmless sheep.
White shapes flit to and fro
From mast to mast;
They feel the distant tempest
That nears them fast:
Great rocks are straight ahead,
Great shoals not past;
They shout to one another
Upon the blast.
O, soft the streams drop music
Between the hills,
And musical the birds' nests
Beside those rills:
The nests are types of home
Love-hidden from ills,
The nests are types of spirits
Love-music fills.
So dream the sleepers,
Each man in his place;
The lightning shows the smile
Upon each face:
The ship is driving, driving,
It drives apace:
And sleepers smile, and spirits
Bewail their case.
The lightning glares and reddens
Across the skies;
It seems but sunset
To those sleeping eyes.
When did the sun go down
On such a wise?
From such a sunset
When shall day arise?
"Wake," call the spirits:
But to heedless ears;
They have forgotten sorrows
And hopes and fears;
They have forgotten perils
And smiles and tears;
Their dream has held them long,
Long years and years.
"Wake," call the spirits again:
But it would take
A louder summons
To bid them awake.
Some dream of pleasure
For another's sake;
Some dream, forgetful
Of a lifelong ache.
One by one slowly,
Ah, how sad and slow!
Wailing and praying
The spirits rise and go:
Clear stainless spirits,
White,--as white as snow;
Pale spirits, wailing
For an overthrow.
One by one flitting,
Like a mournful bird
Whose song is tired at last
For no mate heard.
The loving voice is silent,
The useless word;
One by one flitting,
Sick with hope deferred.
Driving and driving,
The ship drives amain:
While swift from mast to mast
Shapes flit again,
Flit silent as the silence
Where men lie slain;
Their shadow cast upon the sails
Is like a stain.
No voice to call the sleepers,
No hand to raise:
They sleep to death in dreaming
Of length of days.
Vanity of vanities,
The Preacher says:
Vanity is the end
Of all their ways.
2.3k
Fifty-percent illusion at any given time.
Your unintended muse will plead 'not guilty' to the crime
Of snatching back the quill and reshaping every line
into the role she wished to play
-- it seems the choice was never mine --
but the boy with the weighted wedding ring,
the self-appointed jury of the south;
him sheepish at the door with roses,
and the brute who owns this house.
Was it feminine mystique or was I crystal clear
while you blocked your ears and pretended not to hear?
A three-act structured tragedy.
All archetypes assigned.
"We've had this date since the beginning" --
if the part must be mine to play,
it is in my hands to manipulate.
Direct your blame to those who cast the roles.
Torn petticoat, blue piano;
flattered by the dimming glow --
oh, to be glossy pink and gold!
A trophy bride. A victor's prize.
(I snap awake and still see his eyes --
that ego swells him thrice my size --
with bruising force, he parts my thighs.)
Was it hysteria - madness? - or was I crystal clear
while you blocked your ears and pretended not to hear?
My fate was written for me,
in the frontal lobes of those who came before me:
down that narrative route, all bumps and troughs -- desire!
Fragments of an old Rossetti poem... o, vanity of vanities... the streetcar rattles and groans.
Sep 27, 2018
Sep 27, 2018 at 4:19 PM UTC
my hidden shames
are an excellent source of moral fibre,
nurturing, but not nutritious.
we coexist in a quiet
mutual acknowledgment,
coexisting but un-categorizable,
nonetheless,
among my oldest cohorts,
their singular coordinated characteristic,
they are mine alone,
not meant to be shared.
But they will someday
make an excellent poem.
Mon jan 2 2023
6:47am
@here
———————————————————-
the askew
are my oldest companion,
dating back to my naissance,
faithful, eternal, but single-minded,
with a rueful sense of humor,
of course,
refer to my relatively plentiful hairs
inherited from my mother’ genetics.
a morning chore,
to return their antics
to an adult,
dignified pose,
plenty sufficient to be be brushed,
straight back,
the preferred orderly compose,
of older men
who cannot waste time
with foolishness,
the excessive vanities of
curls, parts and pompadours,
and yet,
every day they wake me with
ridicule, mockery, by presenting
themselves.to me,
as if electrocuted,
each
hair raising itself
pointing to the heaven,
whence
their true Creator resides.
no amount of product
persuasive,
they do what they must do,
akimbo, askew,
with inordinate amount of
malice aforethought and
a venomous sense of
hairy (and now hoary)
absurdity .
a splash of water,
a handful of rigorous brush strokes,
returns order
and the pretense of a serious mien,
an adult demeanor.
But their purpose accomplished,
they have reminded me of the
absurdity of human vanity,
to humble myself
before forces
more powerful
than human self-aggrandizement
by accentuating
our human foibles.
7:13am
same time & place
——————————————-
morning prayers are
always
a trilogy
the rounded evenness of three,
provides the necessary gravitas
of sufficiency,
three being
not too short,
not too long,
not too quick,
just three right,
to impart
the seriousness
of gratitude
for having gained
another day upon earth,
with it,
many multitudes of
chances to share
thankfulness,
kindness,
yes,
& love too,
and to write,
one more poem
encapsulating
all of the above.
7:35am
same day
same place,
same cup of coffee
Jan 3, 2023
Jan 3, 2023 at 9:17 AM UTC
I am a knock on your door
You open up and I sneak in
Ill put your life on the market
Snarky teenagers to target a holiday demographic before fully developed concepts begin
Your backpack and notepads house your sins
A man that's tall and gets caught in the calls of women to distract from the purpose of ink pens
You're too ***** to be great
A ****** is a dead end
And a vortex for survivals' fate
Explorations of vanities' intellectual alternative gate
Jun 11, 2013
Jun 11, 2013 at 12:38 AM UTC
Was it a chance that made her pause
One moment at the opened door,
Pale where she stood so flushed before
As one a spirit overawes:--
Or might it rather be because
She felt the grave was at our feet,
And felt that we should no more meet
Upon its hither side no more?
Was it a chance that made her turn
Once toward the window passing by,
One moment with a shrinking eye
Wherein her spirit seemed to yearn:--
Or did her soul then first discern
How long and rough the pathway is
That leads us home from vanities,
And how it will be good to die?
There was a hill she had to pass;
And while I watched her up the hill
She stooped one moment hurrying still,
But left a rose upon the grass:
Was it mere idleness:--or was
Herself with her own self at strife
Till while she chose the better life
She felt this life has power to ****
Perhaps she did it carelessly,
Perhaps it was an idle thought;
Or else it was the grace unbought,
A pledge to all eternity:
I know not yet how this may be;
But I shall know when face to face
In Paradise we find a place
And love with love that endeth not.
2k
Truly, we are wonderful creatures,
drawn to light's undulating swells,
Sailors enthralled by the pushing sea's great shuddering
We honor these bright particles by our presence
Yet we burrow away, mole men and women for
Our most primal act, instinctual to the muscle
But still insulted by vanities.
(The consequence of consciousness,
I suppose) you instructed, "Turn off the last light"
Do you not wish to admire me?
The tender swell of brain and breast sloping to meet
Crags of hipbone jutting promiscuously below
the natural waist, natural beauty
Wasted by electricity's end
I want to take delight in your body, your ****** tongue
Quell the minor indiscretions of the day and
Give willingly to honesty
My ******* two moon over campus, your hand the sky.
If the peering leaves won't judge,
The least you can do is look me in the eye.
Dec 1, 2012
Dec 1, 2012 at 2:53 PM UTC
Poems, the consciousness of minutes
Plucked like corn from the ear
Of language,
Between the here and now
Of echoes reflection,
A door to everywhere and nowhere
At the desk,
An escape from the peoples,
From the abyss that fills,
From the sulfuric melancholy
Where unconquerable ruins
Lay at the foot of memory
Armed with an assault of words.
The beneficent metaphorical
Divinities of the moments we
Connect like spinning webs,
You, me, him, her,
They, poets and every one else.
We compact time ripping off
The facelessness of vanities,
Provokers of thought,
Erupting the sensitivity and
Stirring the pit of emotion.
Every poet must know a lover
To cut the cord from the ink
And commit to the experience
Of the realised, words become
What we have done.
Nouns, pronouns, adjectives, these things
Are tools to the inner soul,
We become prophetic and speak
The Fallen,
We know the children of dust
And ignite the realised poem
In each of them,
This is how poetry exists,
How philosophy exists,
And love,
And even hate.
And if these things don't exist,
Then I do not exist,
Neither do you.
Somewhere in the darkness
A prisoner of words begins
Writing the light brighter
than any under the sun.
The first of first, her hair in the
Motion as she flicks slender finger
With her eyes gushing in a half
Smile, the music on the radio,
The memory of Mother, everything,
Everywhere, poetry is life,
It writes itself!
And here in this decalogue,
Every love survives,
Every pain manifest,
Streaking in the heart the
Blood races to the fingers and
Bleeds words to paper.
Every poem is a sacrifice,
Time, energy, pieces
Of you, pieces of I
Scattered in the penumbra,
We become as crystalline structures,
Transparent translation of the
Spirit that burns.
Every man and woman
Writes the experience,
Life and its unique constellation
Of emotions, enormously
We must write the world,
The poem is real,
The images speaks itself.
Poetry is life,
Deserve your poem.
Apr 6, 2016
Apr 6, 2016 at 5:24 PM UTC
What man would buy me a ticket,
and into a cocoon where moss bites?
I would sting like bees on buds,
or ***** rushing to fertilize, create
an angel no other gentlemen touches
with white hair, eyes like sesame seeds:
she seems more attractive than the
woman he made love with, for certain.
Looks unnatural to swim in a pool
when a waterfall can pour ice onto his
head: just as viney-things drape me.
I am but a fair girl, have no color.
He could not love me beneath green,
there is no comparison, me and trees,
but he does, and I feel April will return
sooner and ruddier than anticipated.
May will bark like a dog: on my knees,
cradling children who hold vanities up to
my forehead, I boast a bellyful of bugs,
brick-hued and even with red stripes;
I think they must wear sweaters to bed.
How noble in our thirty-six months!
We cuddle baby slugs, not counting sap,
then burp their brothers, spout-mouths.
He is, in fact, the man that would do
the unthinkable grey-lipped love,
authors gather inspiration from and
snakes slip, spiders webbing shapes of:
cocoon with our metamorphosis in mind.
Oct 28, 2012
Oct 28, 2012 at 5:24 PM UTC
Just how important do we
imagine ourselves to be?
Maybe not so much
as we would like to think.
Perhaps we are merely quirks
of sexuality and history.
Does that bruise our egos?
Who would we be if our
parents had never met.
The Moirae spin our fates
which hang on feeble threads;
the fragilest of continuities
bind us to this world
of brutality and beauty.
Yet we count our money
as if it were steel cable,
proof against rust forever;
we fight our wars as though
something noble and eternal
depends upon their outcomes;
we pretend we are playwrites
instead of actors reading lines.
Vanity of vanities.
In error, we drive ourselves
to beat hard against the wind,
headlong against time and death
as if we are actually steering.
Until the Day we must look
the Tiger in the eye and know,
too late, in that certain fatal second,
that we are small and weak
and mortal and always have been.
And the earth closes over us.
Apr 30, 2015
Apr 30, 2015 at 3:04 PM UTC
A Song
Fill the goblet again! for I never before
Felt the glow which now gladdens my heart to its core;
Let us drink!—who would not?—since, through life’s varied round,
In the goblet alone no deception is found.
I have tried in its turn all that life can supply;
I have bask’d in the beam of a dark rolling eye;
I have lov’d!—who has not?—but what heart can declare
That Pleasure existed while Passion was there?
In the days of my youth, when the heart’s in its spring,
And dreams that Affection can never take wing,
I had friends!—who has not?—but what tongue will avow,
That friends, rosy wine! are so faithful as thou?
The heart of a mistress some boy may estrange,
Friendship shifts with the sunbeam—thou never canst change;
Thou grow’st old—who does not?—but on earth what appears,
Whose virtues, like thine, still increase with its years?
Yet if blest to the utmost that Love can bestow,
Should a rival bow down to our idol below,
We are jealous!—who’s not?—thou hast no such alloy;
For the more that enjoy thee, the more we enjoy.
Then the season of youth and its vanities past,
For refuge we fly to the goblet at last;
There we find—do we not?—in the flow of the soul,
That truth, as of yore, is confined to the bowl.
When the box of Pandora was open’d on earth,
And Misery’s triumph commenc’d over Mirth,
Hope was left,—was she not?—but the goblet we kiss,
And care not for Hope, who are certain of bliss.
Long life to the grape! for when summer is flown,
The age of our nectar shall gladden our own:
We must die—who shall not?—May our sins be forgiven,
And **** shall never be idle in Heaven.
1.7k
"Sweet, thou art pale."
"More pale to see,
Christ hung upon the cruel tree
And bore His Father's wrath for me."
"Sweet, thou art sad."
"Beneath a rod
More heavy, Christ for my sake trod
The winepress of the wrath of God."
"Sweet, thou art weary."
"Not so Christ:
Whose mighty love of me suffic'd
For Strength, Salvation, Eucharist."
"Sweet, thou art footsore."
"If I bleed,
His feet have bled; yea in my need
His Heart once bled for mine indeed."
"Sweet, thou art young."
"So He was young
Who for my sake in silence hung
Upon the Cross with Passion wrung."
"Look, thou art fair."
"He was more fair
Than men, Who deign'd for me to wear
A visage marr'd beyond compare."
"And thou hast riches."
"Daily bread:
All else is His: Who, living, dead,
For me lack'd where to lay His Head."
"And life is sweet."
"It was not so
To Him, Whose Cup did overflow
With mine unutterable woe."
"Thou drinkest deep."
"When Christ would sup.
He drain'd the dregs from out my cup:
So how should I be lifted up?"
"Thou shalt win Glory."
"In the skies,
Lord Jesus, cover up mine eyes
Lest they should look on vanities."
"Thou shalt have Knowledge."
"Helpless dust!
In . Thee, O Lord, I put my trust:
Answer Thou for me, Wise and Just."
"And Might."--
"Get thee behind me. Lord,
Who hast redeem'd and not abhorr'd
My soul, oh keep it by Thy Word."
1.6k
The big teetotum twirls,
And epochs wax and wane
As chance subsides or swirls;
But of the loss and gain
The sum is always plain.
Read on the mighty pall,
The **** of funeral
That covers praise and blame,
The -isms and the -anities,
Magnificence and shame:--
"O Vanity of Vanities!"
The Fates are subtle girls!
They give us chaff for grain.
And Time, the Thunderer, hurls,
Like bolted death, disdain
At all that heart and brain
Conceive, or great or small,
Upon this earthly ball.
Would you be knight and dame?
Or woo the sweet humanities?
Or illustrate a name?
O Vanity of Vanities!
We sound the sea for pearls,
Or drown them in a drain;
We flute it with the merles,
Or tug and sweat and strain;
We grovel, or we reign;
We saunter, or we brawl;
We search the stars for Fame,
Or sink her subterranities;
The legend's still the same:--
"O Vanity of Vanities!"
Here at the wine one birls,
There some one clanks a chain.
The flag that this man furls
That man to float is fain.
Pleasure gives place to pain:
These in the kennel crawl,
While others take the wall.
She has a glorious aim,
He lives for the inanities.
What come of every claim?
O Vanity of Vanities!
Alike are clods and earls.
For sot, and seer, and swain,
For emperors and for churls,
For antidote and bane,
There is but one refrain:
But one for king and thrall,
For David and for Saul,
For fleet of foot and lame,
For pieties and profanities,
The picture and the frame:--
"O Vanity of Vanities!"
Life is a smoke that curls--
Curls in a flickering skein,
That winds and whisks and whirls,
A figment thin and vain,
Into the vast Inane.
One end for hut and hall!
One end for cell and stall!
Burned in one common flame
Are wisdoms and insanities.
For this alone we came:--
"O Vanity of Vanities!"
Envoy
Prince, pride must have a fall.
What is the worth of all
Your state's supreme urbanities?
Bad at the best's the game.
Well might the Sage exclaim:--
"O Vanity of Vanities!"
1.6k
When life becomes meaningless
no matter what you do seems useless
and all opportunities you grab wasted
broken dreams lurking with self busted
everything you hold on now starts to fall
drags your feeling pushed against the wall
realization of your life is at the cutting edge.
When life becomes the darkest
no hope of light made you weakest
things you touched soon are dead
failure always cling to you instead
you try to survive from uncertainties
yet your ego succumbs to all the vanities
Doubt overcomes self falling to the cutting edge.
Though life becomes vague
Do not give up to fight the plague
For quitters do not win any endeavor
Hang-on lit the ember to light you with fervor
For as long as you have the courage to go forward
Then no amount of deterrents can make you a coward
And in the end you will be able to override the cutting edge.
Aug 22, 2018
Aug 22, 2018 at 12:27 AM UTC
The big teetotum twirls,
And epochs wax and wane
As chance subsides or swirls;
But of the loss and gain
The sum is always plain.
Read on the mighty pall,
The **** of funeral
That covers praise and blame,
The--isms and the--anities,
Magnificence and shame:--
'O Vanity of Vanities!'
The Fates are subtile girls!
They give us chaff for grain.
And Time, the Thunderer, hurls,
Like bolted death, disdain
At all that heart and brain
Conceive, or great or small,
Upon this earthly ball.
Would you be knight and dame?
Or woo the sweet humanities?
Or illustrate a name?
O Vanity of Vanities!
We sound the sea for pearls,
Or drown them in a drain;
We flute it with the merles,
Or tug and sweat and strain;
We grovel, or we reign;
We saunter, or we brawl;
We answer, or we call;
We search the stars for Fame,
Or sink her subterranities;
The legend's still the same:--
'O Vanity of Vanities!'
Here at the wine one birls,
There some one clanks a chain.
The flag that this man furls
That man to float is fain.
Pleasure gives place to pain:
These in the kennel crawl,
While others take the wall.
She has a glorious aim,
He lives for the inanities.
What comes of every claim?
O Vanity of Vanities!
Alike are clods and earls.
For sot, and seer, and swain,
For emperors and for churls,
For antidote and bane,
There is but one refrain:
But one for king and thrall,
For David and for Saul,
For fleet of foot and lame,
For pieties and profanities,
The picture and the frame:--
'O Vanity of Vanities!'
Life is a smoke that curls--
Curls in a flickering skein,
That winds and whisks and whirls
A figment thin and vain,
Into the vast Inane.
One end for hut and hall!
One end for cell and stall!
Burned in one common flame
Are wisdoms and insanities.
For this alone we came:--
'O Vanity of Vanities!'
Envoy
Prince, pride must have a fall.
What is the worth of all
Your state's supreme urbanities?
Bad at the best's the game.
Well might the Sage exclaim:--
'O Vanity of Vanities!'
1.6k
Borne abreast a Valkerie
Astride the crested steed,
Ascending high to maelstrom
Where fear transcends the greed.
Where the very fire of being
Elevates the spirit's quest
And the steel of high endeavour
Puts all good men to test.
Where the visceral is torture
To the threshold of the strain
In engaging guts and tolerance
To intercept the pain.
So vanquish all the vanities,
Banish all the loud
For the wonder of endeavour
Is what makes we people... Proud!
Marshalg
Victoria Park Tunnel
24 September 2010
A poem for my
Darling daughter,
Robin
..Who turns
Sweet forty two
Today!!
Sep 23, 2010
Sep 23, 2010 at 11:46 PM UTC