Best All Is Vanity Poems
'Vanity of vanity, all is vanity... and chasing after wind'
evokes a mood of despair, precious few grins
Ecclesiastes is read in most synagogues on Sukkoth
though it might not win any congregants' votes
Yet after chasing rainbows and riches throughout his life
King Solomon, who after all, married hundreds of wifes
Came to the conclusion that most eventually do
Our fortune is there in our home, right in plain view...
Be kind, do good deeds for others
All men are your brothers
Fear God and fulfill His every command ~
The ultimate purpose of Man
______________________________________________
Notes: The first line above is quoted from Ecclesiastes 1:1.
The last two lines above are taken from 12:13.
The Festival of Sukkoth (rhymes with 'boat') begins 20
minutes before sundown, Sunday, Oct. 09, and (the first
part) ends 45 - 90 minutes after sunset on Tuesday, Oct. 11
(There is an 'intermediate portion' of the Festival from Tues-
day night through next Sunday afternoon, followed by a con-
cluding Festival, Shemini Atzereth, from Sunday evening
through Tuesday night next week. (And yes, it can get con-
fusing, esp. with a Sabbath during the intermediate days).
Cast thy stones, cast thy stones,
Come ye one and all.
For ne’er were truer words than these:
“Pride cometh before the fall.”
Come ye saints, come ye church,
Let this be our creed:
“Despite the beams within our eyes,
This worn world was born to bleed.”
Come ye thieves, come ye whores,
Cast them if you may.
A martyr was I called to be,
So do so both brisk and gay.
What is sloth? What is greed?
All is vanity.
Have mercy priest and holy bride,
For sanity is my plea.
Take great heed, fellow saints!
For this is my creed:
“Forsake all pride and vanity,
Lest my cast stones make you bleed.”
Bare me out
Why all these doubt
I dare you to
Respect my integrity
For they say i am mad
Because of poverty
But whither rich or poor
All is vanity
I will shew my self wise
Or else fools be my adversary
I will seek eternity
I will always fight
For my dignity
Why all these doubt
Bare me out
Humans bare me out
?what is this life,
if all we do is acquire it’s wealth and forsake the master above?
I do not seek that all should comprehend,
but heed the kings advice…
“vanity upon vanity, all is vanity”.
Everyday life brings to us numerous challenges,
press on brethren, they are only temporal.
they are here to make us and not break us.
Take the bull by its horn,
live each day with your eye focused on the goal;
that heavenly prize.
the time is now, it waits for no man.
make hay while the light still shines,
because at the darkest hour…
the flames may be gone.
We came, We saw, We conquered " Julius Caesar "
We conquered
then turned on ourselves without mercy
tens of thousands slaughtered
in the name of religion or boundaries
There have been many who wanted to rule
the world..but all is vanity
How does one rule what can't be ruled
with such a short lifespan?
The concept of a single ruler over the world
is incomprehensible in its doing
Many have tried, all have failed
Their lives are buried in the scrap heap of illusions
that is our history
Wishes and dreams is all that it is
and the cost from those who've tried
is death by the millions
their blood has soaked the ground of insanity
since we crawled out of the first cave
a small and frightened creature
Who am I..but a lone observer
to the passage of time
where life forms have come and gone
as new ones take their place
Only the seas and sky remain
mountains crumble, continents part
and man..he who wants to be King
is nothing more than a joker in Nature's court
She decides who lives and dies on the grandest scale
Man's wars are nothing in comparison,
they are mere battles
With a single plague we could all be gone tomorrow
Who would be King then?
2/20/17 contest Rule the World
“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36)
Which, Wisdom / Knowledge?
Man’s lures are his personal achievements, once gained.
His 'existential stance toward life', if maintained.
‘Vanity of vanities’ that depress.
This is where silence ('oblivion') and forgetfulness exist.
The ‘consensus of scholars’ supposition this as ‘weariness of the flesh’.
A ‘disquisition on life that tells us’ “vanity of vanities, all is vanity”.
Idolatry of the material world manifests abandonment in the belief in God.
What a world formed where norm becomes infused with “cruelty, ultimate injustice, frustration, no truth or meaning.”
Where life is without reasoning.
*******
Inspired by The Terror of Existence: From Ecclesiastes to Theatre of the Absurd Kindle Edition by Theodore Dalrymple (Author), Kenneth Francis (Author)
Christmas time haiku -
“tableaux d’une exposition”
post-it notes on walls
Long Tooth
May 25, 2016
The painting here is a beautiful portrait of Mussorgsky the composer of the famous classical work 'Pictures At An Exhibition.'
This haiku is a very dense multi-layered haiku perhaps unlike any you have ever seen
before. Let me explain what it means to me and then please share if you think I
accomplished my goals in writing it.
The Christmas appellation refers not only to a season of the year but also stretches
this seasonal reference in nature to include the gift giving season which, for a poet
like myself, is any day that my muse offers me an idea for a haiku or a poem.
Since haikus are usually images, like a painted picture, the haiku suggests that
the post-it notes on my wall are frames of each picture (or different individual
haiku) in my exhibition. Using the seven syllable French phrase for 'Pictures at an
Exhibition, ' a very famous piece of classical music by Mussorgsky, gives the
exhibition an erudite air as if my haiku were hung in the Louvre rather than my
office. Vanity, vanity, all is vanity!
My questions for more experienced haiku writers include:
1. Can a real haiku be intentionally dense. ie., carry emotional overtones?
2. Can a real haiku have only one real interpretation, ie., the poet's intention?
3. If a haiku has as many possible interpretations as it has readers, how can it possibly be art?
The height of science and the width of commerce
in my dwelling place they merge
with the ambassadors of understanding
giving me their pledge.
Capturing the seat of the wise
and sitting over it,
covering its edge
as I wear the garment of knowledge.
So what's next?
My hands are filled with gold
My pockets, heavy with silver
these make me the Diamond myths
and the greatest team player
to financial strength.
I've been owned and followed
and my shadow, replaced with good health
as I'm possessed and romanced
by wealth.
So what's next?
Occurrences and happenings, I'm the doer
Planting the seed of what's to happen next,
like a sower
with all authorities and rulership
placed lower
is the extent of my unbelievable power.
so what's next?
Acquiring all possible knowledge
accumulating unbelievable possessions
and becoming the greatest principality
the world has ever known
without positively touching a life
and making a soul smile
is going through a clothing store naked
and coming out naked
with everything in the world just strings.
So what's next?
DEATH!
Leaving behind all the attachments
as they drop in command of hades
vanity upon vanity;
all is vanity.
Here he lies lifeless
He whose hands had many healed
though unsung by some
Now, we cheer him home
Down his homestead, we set him
Our selfless hero!
Pain is the pleasure
of earthly patriotism...
Fame is for a time
Though the rose blossoms
on fields where good does not stay,
it withers at dusk
Kindness lives briefer
Twilight comes after sunset
All is vanity!
My mother was an aristocrat,
at least in her own mind,
she had a certain noble air,
a ramrod for a spine.
She knew her face was beautiful,
exceptional and rare,
and when she walked into a room,
one and all would stare.
She held her mouth a certain way,
with Mona Lisa's guile,
but stiff and somewhat mask-like:
a practised, partial smile.
She knew all eyes were on her,
every moment was a pose,
the world revolved around her
in her pricy designer clothes.
She was the leading lady,
her life was all an act,
the cameras rolled continuously,
so she could not relax.
She was always kind to others,
though we all sensed some unease,
somehow we felt belittled
by her poised nobless oblige.
And at her dressing table,
I'd stand beside her knee,
She'd brag about her beauty
and I dared not disagree.
And, damn it, she made sure this child
would never be a threat,
and all those facial injuries
looked like mere accidents.
I wonder what she planned to do,
when age would take its toll
and gone would be that flawlessness
and she'd finally be old.
When everything you are in life
rests soley on your looks,
and the image in the mirror
shows the toll that time has took...
She could have grown old gracefully,
with age become divine.
her beauty would've transcended
the ravages of time.
Instead, defeat and bitterness,
her pride no longer fed,
she couldn't cope with knowing
that she wasn't turning heads.
So, one last time, she made up her face,
lost in dark insanity,
and blew her brains out with a gun
and all for vanity.
—vanity of vanity, vanity of vanities all is vanity—
Solomon
the mortal leads a life in limited idleness
though, in the antinomy of a noble contradiction,
yet, said, for life’s sake, can be devoted to his own life
as a drop in the ocean, and trying to pay off the debt
which the ancestry tried to pay off throughout hundreds of
thousands of years, yet, not paid off, writhing, with the admirable state
though, there is a cry and breath in the thickened veiled falseness,
yet, he could not deny the falseness to regard as falseness,
he has no courage to hang the affirmation to suffocate,
and for the weakened mortal’s sake, the wind
passes through and carries away a body heat
from the exhausted soul, that preciously holds a dream
that will never become true as is it were cracked harden air
—hold a shovel, dig a hole!
It’s your burial ground—
nevertheless, to the end, no way to clear the debt,
the body is crumbling for the lost breath’s sake, and the cry
that of man closes its eyes in the vanity with the vanities of vanity
THIS BODY OF MINE
Woe upon woes offing
To my creator I owe a debt
After this voyage of mine on earth
And I, to this burden of death endureth.
Woe upon this body of mine
‘Tis a stinking sand
This dust return; my soul demand
The thorns of life chokes, my spirit rebrand.
What fate has this body, but dust...?
For all this attention to beauty is vanity
But beauty of eternity neither fades nor bust
Below this earth the frame of man will suffer rust.
Oh man prepare your bed with fear
To your crown of joy be bold to hold
Lean on your master; his precept adhere
Then your tomb of fear will he turn to care.
What then shall we say is life?
With all man's ego and pride
We often ask, “do you know who I am?"
Why boast when your breath you cannot boost?
On earth we gather all the perishable fortunes,
They transcend not but here it ends.
To this end, man reflect and learn
That this body, an impending meal
To maggot a perfect feast
Be not proud with title too,
For all is vanity without excuse.
The Planet Of Hate
creatures with zombie type features in are underground
long hanging viscious fangs dripping blood off side of mouth
there flesh is of overt vexation of pivotal excess seeking self to please
they can't help you cause they can't even help themselves
evil mind that plunge into sore vexation dauntless & spineless
heartless minds darkened stench of manure as there carcasses rot
vulture plunge with maggot infested feces in the extremities
darkened spots having holes with narrow minded thinking
blind leaders of the blinded who will soon fall into a ditch
can't help you cause they can't help even themselves
come to kill, steal & destroy as there chief dead end aim & ploy
the smell of menure in piles of sewage through there deranged portals
vanity of vanities all is vanity for this is the one you worshipped.
the false god of sin, self & Satan
ready for the eternal over of affliction
spots with eyes having holes bridge the gap in Hell
falling creatures in a desire for blood masked in superficial pain
the mentally insane filled with ellusive torment of money whore mongers wasted
blood stained ceiling with an audience of deep habitation of darkened caverns with dungeons...
alone you will be silence with the forever memory of vain oblations
the cavity of neglect frozen in your feeble minded mutant brain
lest I refrain another door then the one the leads to hate...
*****, pout & complain
idol fantasy of chosen damaged convenience that leads to your death
the gloom of frozen embodiment of pulsating screams throughout duration
come up for air only to be silenced once more lest I implore
running to & fro in circles marked on a blotted page yet not clearly intact
working to hard can give you a heart attack
onto the climax of 666 with a twist of haunted vile memories of helter skelter
yet this is the path you have chosen welcome to Hell's door !
It's always intangibles that draw me, sleepily
into another trackless landscape
reaching from my mind, out to a dry horizon
that obscures each fleeing fragment
of that sense of home that I have cherished.
Its silence is the magnet. Yet is the return
that will not let me go. There it is,
and madness only may respond.
I have sought it, but only from necessity,
for all is vanity; this we know.
And all, and all...
This, too the God proclaimers know,
seek him after centuries of seeking...
and find him not.
It is the seeking, after all, that is
sine qua non, the prize.
From it alone the hallelujahs burst the sky;
the butterfly conducts its newest symphony,
the essence of a purity distilled from love.
All this, the fountainhead of joy.
There is the path. There is where the eagles fly.
There the night of sparkling stars,
the curvature of space, the stone-dry furrow
where the creek once ran...
the empty road ahead.
And then
your longing at an end,
Rejoice.
~
It's insanity, for all is vanity;
It's like spinning your wheels, going nowhere fast.
Getting caught up in things that will not last.
Building your hopes upon the sand;
Wasting your time on an already foiled plan.
One that is ruined before it gets off the ground.
Build your hopes on something sound.
In Jesus Christ there is righteousness;
And upon His bosom you can rest.
The thing that has been is that it shall be,
And an ear never wearies of hearing and an eye of all is shall see and see.
A sea is not full of the rivers that flow,
And a man full of knowledge will still need to know.
More about Jesus and His mission on earth,
And what to the man the mission is worth.
Life everlasting...it's simple and plain,
So let not your living be in vain.
Ecclesiastes - Chapter 1