Topical Poetry

[bogusagain]

Sometimes the universal 'I' can get too personal, almost narsissitic and navel gazing so I thought maybe a thread with poems slanted more towards what's happening in the world rather too much dwelling on an ever decreasing universal 'I', might find some locomotion.

Needless to say at this point I conveniently have a poem to post in line with this theme.

devalorisation

in Madrid they’re rioting
in Berlin they’re asking questions
in London they merely shrug
Mammon has earned his dues

we dig for digging’s sake
turning the barren earth
if these were biblical times
this is how we would describe the process

our shackles like Marley’s chain
each new day forges another link
a reminder of how we sold the future
to the men who bought our souls

in Hampstead Cemetery Karl Marx growls
no need to say ‘I told you so.’
in Waterstones and Barnes & Noble
Das Kapital sells like porn

if you could gather anger as energy
there’d be enough to bust a Geiger counter
laying waste to the mirrored temples
bringing on a nuclear winter

this year’s winter coat has no pockets
an austere design which is purely utilitarian
a garment that is light and insubstantial
poverty grows like cancer

Ulrik declared as we drank in a Berlin dive
everyone who loves life, leaves Braunschweig
and there was me thinking it was Rotherham
remembering the wastelands of South Yorkshire

yet even there, the hoary earth
once gave up a living to those who toiled
but you end up digging for digging’s sake
they’ll always find someone at a more basic rate

Hildegaard Knef sings ‘Ich hab noch eine koffer in Berlin’
I consider the geographical roulette
the air of revolution in the cafes of Madrid
the hypocrisy of dishonest empathy

 

[Desejo]

It's a small world - Reprise

Day eleven with no electricty
Is the Facebook status of a friend
Not one in Liberia or Nepal - that would not be news
This person lives in Long Island

If the South doesn’t like it - Let them leave!
Is the Facebook post of a friend
Not one in Sudan or Bosnia - it’s already done there
This person lives in Chicago

Be prepared: do you have an emergency plan?
Is the Public Service message on TV
Not in Dhaka or Tel Aviv - they have batteries and gas masks
This one airs in Washington DC

The world is getting smaller, after all.

 

[bflagsst]

Poetry and anthropology would be useless if they weren't the art and science of the navel gazer. Essayists and journalists cover this week's topics. I'm just saying...

 

[Desejo]

Anthropology is kind of by definition the art of gazing at someone else's navel. And the politicos would do well to spend a bit more time studying it before making policies that affect people they know nothing about.

Poetry has been threatening enough in the past to be banned.

Just sayin'

 

[bogusagain]

Poetry and anthropology would be useless if they weren't the art and science of the navel gazer. Essayists and journalists cover this week's topics. I'm just saying...

Excessive introspection and self-absorption have little to do with art or knowledge and more to do with the art of the narcissist, concentration on a single issue on the other, is quite another matter. Naval gazing is the antithesis of acquiring knowledge or skill.

Just aying...

 

[bogusagain]

should you point a finger
do it with purpose like a gun
square between your victims eyes
not cowardly between
his shoulder blades

deny him public sympathy
emphasise the grotesque
he is after all rich and fat
with a complexion of ruddy gravel
smeared in a sweat of Vaseline

his only friends are discredited
having dug up the foundations
their folly rains down
there is a need for retribution
someone to be sacrificed

truth is a virus
gestating in the public's mind
mutating from group to group
a god, justifying the unjustifiable
the bullet in your finger

 

[bronzeage]

Yeah, I look good in suit
and you don't own one.
What else does everybody know?
It's early and I have too much to do
before I have to sit on the survivor's bench
and watch a parade of daughters,
still shocked and too young to know,
and nothing I can tell them,
even though I know it all
and know how long it will be
before it is real again
and how real it will be.

It's too many times
and every time is harder,
and holds less reason.
Is it anger or denial that comes first?
What's third and tomorrow is pitching today.
It doesn't have to make sense
and I don't have to explain.
I don't have to do anything
but pay taxes and die
and I've seen how to die
so get out of my way
and let me get this done.
I've got some grief to process
and I don't need your fucking help.

 

[Desejo]

Yeah, I look good in suit
and you don't own one.
What else does everybody know?
It's early and I have too much to do
before I have to sit on the survivor's bench
and watch a parade of daughters,
still shocked and too young to know,
and nothing I can tell them,
even though I know it all
and know how long it will be
before it is real again
and how real it will be.

It's too many times
and every time is harder,
and holds less reason.
Is it anger or denial that comes first?
What's third and tomorrow is pitching today.
It doesn't have to make sense
and I don't have to explain.
I don't have to do anything
but pay taxes and die
and I've seen how to die
so get out of my way
and let me get this done.
I've got some grief to process
and I don't need your fucking help.

This one hit me. I don't know about the taxes and die bit though, I might have left that out. But I really like this one.

 

[bronzeage]

This one hit me. I don't know about the taxes and die bit though, I might have left that out. But I really like this one.

Thank you. It's been rough day.

 

[bogusagain]

he invested badly in life, it returned the favour
in a more heroic age, he would be a hero
but in ours, of death by proxy, he’s nothing
a doppelganger’s brazen attitude of mirrors
grinding his bitterness and digging ever deeper
returning to the scene of the crime, scene of the crime
convinced he had convinced himself this final time

his words having fallen to the floor were scorned
the ventriloquist having abandoned him to the baying crowd
he closed his eyes and searched for his tongue
as though searching in itself would find an answer
it hadn’t really mattered who was making him work
it was him, him, him, they had come to see
amazed at the rapier response of wood

this inevitable consequence of conceit
that he really did believe what they saw in him
now he perceives what his eyes didn’t see
the audience is as ugly as the world he made them see
the shadow world beyond had solidified and become real
the victim creates victims in the wake of games
consequences brewed up from moral subtractions

a pattern in the ether, an invention of pointless abstractions
he shocked himself to find, how large hell could be
there is no poetry, just useless words
pointless platitudes and unheard wisdoms
nothing is nothing but an illusion of course
an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind
he had poked his own fucking eyes out

 

[Desejo]

he invested badly in life, it returned the favour
in a more heroic age, he would be a hero
but in ours, of death by proxy, he’s nothing
a doppelganger’s brazen attitude of mirrors
grinding his bitterness and digging ever deeper
returning to the scene of the crime, scene of the crime
convinced he had convinced himself this final time

his words having fallen to the floor were scorned
the ventriloquist having abandoned him to the baying crowd
he closed his eyes and searched for his tongue
as though searching in itself would find an answer
it hadn’t really mattered who was making him work
it was him, him, him, they had come to see
amazed at the rapier response of wood

this inevitable consequence of conceit
that he really did believe what they saw in him
now he perceives what his eyes didn’t see
the audience is as ugly as the world he made them see
the shadow world beyond had solidified and become real
the victim creates victims in the wake of games
consequences brewed up from moral subtractions

a pattern in the ether, an invention of pointless abstractions
he shocked himself to find, how large hell could be
there is no poetry, just useless words
pointless platitudes and unheard wisdoms
nothing is nothing but an illusion of course
an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind
he had poked his own fucking eyes out

Wow. This is powerful..and I get the sense that I should know what it's about. But I don't. Am I being vacuous?

 

[bogusagain]

Wow. This is powerful..and I get the sense that I should know what it's about. But I don't. Am I being vacuous?

There is really no clues in the poem. I tried to put in a few clues and make it specific but it was too political and didn't work. It is really a political metaphor, an expression of contempt for sanctimonious and ruinous leaders, who are usually puppets of greater forces..

 

[KathrynMartin]

Syria

Flat screen information delight
underneath illusions
and the grandeur of outrage
they die serious
underneath
being watched