Best Civilized Poems
A Reliquary Musing
A child’s doll melded into a stone in a former Nazi Death Camp
as its chilling image haunts the collective mind of those who live
in the so-called civilized world of today and who profess a hollow
concern for a child who’s long dead and who’s been completely
forgotten to the rest of the modern world.
A sad image like this one should haunt the very soul of mankind that
oft professes a political correctness as it sweeps such unpleasant images
under a bone-ridden rug that reflects a sad happenstance and mutters only
a sigh at the horrific nature of such a truly evil occurrence.
And, only Almighty God knows this sad truth.
And, now you do too.
Amen.
Gary Bateman, Copyright © All Rights Reserved
June 14, 2022 (Narrative)
"The Mortal Wound of the Civilized World"
Shift upwards
speed fast
the choice, Is
Gears chosen by the
energetic heart
fuel the freedom
The point of attention
the “I Am”
an expression
of the same
consciousness
that you are "Is"
we are living
yet contained economies
numbed and played circadian
pinned and
framed
to our walls
day in
night out
repeat
by remote control
thinking we are free
true ignition evades us
until the game is over
We are caught up
in the mortal wound
of the civilized world
humanity
monopolized
bored we are
we are
the board game
(LadyLabyrinth / 2020)
I HEARD THEY THOUGHT THEMSELVES CIVILIZED
Each grain of gorged sand
civilized people —
themselves owned; owned land.
meanwhile the steeple
looked down at the band
of loquacious stock.
each thought themselves well
in front of the rock.
Ozymandias’ plaque —
bleak headstone of hell!
Cain’s ark had a crack —
offed sand of red sea.
Cornerstone cuts back
the billows — sets free.
7/28/2020
Ozymandias was written by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Here is a couple verses:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
The bible speaks of Jesus:
On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written:
King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Revelation 19:16 NIV
This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
Acts 4:11-12 ESV
In Exodus 14 verses 21-22
Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on the right and other left.
I am a civilized animal, just like you
My brain works a bit better than a computer
In terms of obeying human moral
My heart circulates blood transporting oxygen and nutrients
To every little cell that comprised of molecules and organelles
Made by materials
My life works strictly this way nothing special
Only the love to my kind seemed to be unusual
The last words if I have to summarize are that
I love you
Endlessly
(Unfinished)
Now doc assured Cindy that all would be fine
and finished the abortion at a quarter to nine.
The partial birth process was a total success
and as Cindy recovered, they disposed of the mess.
By one O’clock doc had a wood in his hands
and drove down the fairway in a civilized land.
Bill was a businessman of imported goods
that he sold to the junkies in his neighborhood.
All sales were final as Ben realized
when he shot up the load, flickered and died.
By this time Bill had a drink in his hand,
extremely uptown in a civilized land.
Brett talked finances and the future to Sue
she invested, retired then wanted her due.
But the money was gone and so was Brett
So with an overdose Sue canceled her debt.
And Brett was in Vegas, dice in his hand,
when Sue crapped out in a civilized land.
Now, the eyes of the world are all focused here
at the cities and streets filled with blood and with tears.
At all of the grief and at all of the pain
that somehow never seems to get explained.
But if you were to ask for a show of hands
millions would flee to this civilized land.
I
When the hands cease creating ...
pottery, paintings, portraits, machines
Or gathering seeds, nursing forests ...
II
When the head ceases pondering philosophy ...
How to ameliorate, annihilate sufferings
Or simply how to be kind, reduce crime ...
III
When the heart stops caring enough to endure ...
things that must be endured (Gandhi did, and Ramabai)
Or a Dr. King, simply to love, give, forgive ...
IV
We become obsessed with those holes
It is the most basic world
It has the coward and the bold
The big and small
The short and tall
Creatures of all sizes
None of us ever realizes
Valuable lessons we need
Our knowledge to feed
From them and what they know
And the respect we should show
But arrogance took over our mind
“Throw all abstract values you find”
It was his one and only order
But, we are all scared to cross that border
But we are wrong, it is obvious
To the truth, we are so oblivious
"Foolish human that order defy
What arrogance told you is a lie
These values will help you mature
Making your thoughts pure"
Let me tell you what waits
That will twist all your fates
See that wilderness out there
It is an honor we can’t bear
Those in it live by the “one for all” code
If they did speak to us, they would’ve told
How to live in matrimony
And everlasting harmony
It is quite simple actually
You can reach there factually
Everybody carries out their task
No one should ever slack
For life will always continue
You must work to get the revenue
Even the predator and prey
To the same lord they pray
Both know they need one another
Without one, there can be no other
They prey knows it has to die
To itself, it can’t lie
It is a present to the predator to live
Its conscience clear, it did forgive
The predator is also the same
To it, it is not a game
Always goes for the mercy kill
Cause the prey came of its own will
You may think it is animalistic bitterness
But it’s the beauty of civilized wilderness
i must be king, the sole lord,
whether baboons and monkeys
draw a long stream of blood
whether allies of men-beasts
parade an endless blood-bath
there! a sacrifice of infants
of pregnancies of still-births
of gray-hairs that forcefully
must fall before my leopard’s claws –
i must be king, the sole lord,
the dry tears of the monkeys
would not move the tiger’s jaws
ever-ready in the belligerent
defense of my palm-coin
in this civilized city of africa.
Now riding electric lifts to the sky,
Looking down on ones lower than them,
From once sparkling towers covered in greedy soot,
Practicing lies in mirrors reflecting evil,
Dying bodies on far away sidewalks appearing as bugs,
Lofty perched minds unaware of compassionate thoughts,
Forgetting dank dark mountain holes they descended from,
Egos equal only to their pocket books,
Uncivilized ancestors kinder and more human,
New age gorillas conducting financial warfare,
High above streets of the suffering,
Shocked at the fires of malcontent in distant ghettos,
Thinking future thoughts from inherited ancient brains,
These powerful beings within temples of clay,
Spirits trapped inside so desperate to leave,
Flying above everything yet so very lost,
Where they came from, hidden behind gray matter denial,
Death, the greatest prophet of their fate.
© Copyright 2014 Robert William Gruhn - All Rights Reserved
"A poem to me is the essence of any thought,
Being built from its foundation into tower scraping sky.
It can fly like no other bird to places never seen,
Even spaceships can only dream of taking its place."
Robert William Gruhn © 2014
There is a place where a diviner lives
It’s a place of shouting, invoking spirits
A diviner plays tricks on the young
Dealing in business of words and tricks
All are like witchcraft at work
It’s a place of witchcraft of the civilized
brain buttered, stomach given bread, ears edited
feet groomed, the soul cooked ready
reshapes the mouth, tongue trimmed
All are like witchcraft at work
Yes. Shrine gives new umbilical string
it is a labor ward for the heart
as it gives birth to new chambers to love
not human beings but things unseen
All are like witchcraft at work
Shrine is a granary of mixed ideas
What we breathe in and out are stored
It teaches how to quarrel together happily
And how to laugh together angrily
With how to use pen magically to tell lies
Take a child innocent with ignorance to shrine
He comes out righteous or wasted or spoiled
Head is hungry, stomach greedy, culture cross-bred
Tongue twisted, engraved with mysteries
And you are proud your child went to school
She used to blame herself.
Perhaps it was her fault anyway.
She swims in the lies his lips tell
Forced by obligations, to hide her pain.
She spends her nights missing him
Knowing he is far from lonely.
Wrapped in these bitter emotions
That are snuffing out her dignity.
Before now, she never would have strayed.
She was once loyal and happy to serve
But now he refused to love, honor and obey
and she finally struck up the nerve.
She smiled back at the lonely stranger
She recognized her own grief in his eyes.
He came in on them but she felt no danger
She scoffed “Are you really surprised?”
“Countless nights you left me here
While you received yours from her
I gave you the best of my years
Yet you never cared if I got hurt.”
“I’ve known about you and her for months
I had blamed myself until I knew for sure
You made your feelings for me quite blunt
So I found him for me and you may have her.”
His heart shattered into pieces inside him
As he realized that this woman was everything.
He panicked at a future that looked lonesome and grim
He fell to his knees and swore “Never again!”
But she turned eyes on him with no pity
And through them he could plainly see
The pain he had caused by his selfish greed.
Turned her compassion unforgiving.
He blinked as she locked him out of a home
He had spent so much time sneaking away from
And through their open window, he heard her moan
“How far the civilized man has come.”
I'm American and I'm civilized!
-Really?
I'm European and I'm civilized!
-Really?
I'm Oceanian and I'm civilized!
-Really?
I'm African and I'm civilized!
-Really?
I'm Asian and I'm civilized!
-Really?
I'm Antarctican and I'm civilized!
-Really?
I'm only civilized and I'm white!
-Really?
I'm only civilized cause I'm from oppressed black!
-Really?
I'm Hindu and I'm civilized!
I'm Buddhist and I'm civilized!
I'm a Jew and I'm civilized!
I'm Christian and I'm civilized!
I'm Muslim and I'm civilized!
I'm Sikh and I'm civilized!
I'm Jain and I'm civilized!
-Really?
-Really?
-Really?
One drop of blood is laughing behind my (venomous) teeth!
I'm civilized! And I only stand on (lame) peaceful feet!
And I greet you all to learn from my civilized myth!
I'm civilized!
I'm civilized!
I'm civilized!
-Really!
Oh! all you're funny trader
crawling as hidden viper!
©Mahtab Bangalee, Chattogram
July 12, 2018
side-effects of “civilized” idiocy
chronic western perpetual stress---
side-effect of the neon lit metropolis
side-effect of the wonderful illusion of “democracy”
side-effect of the dog-devour-dog reality of
capitalism,
always growing stronger, always eliminating other forms
of life, always eliminating other ways of life,
always demanding to the population of the world that
this is the way of the present &
this is the way of the future---
keeping us alert 24/7, keeping the eyes open
staring at screens, keeping the ears peeled with
mass quantities of decibels thumping wildly into our
eardrums, keeping the body a’twitch, keeping the insides
paranoid, keeping the body wallowing
(overweight & difficult to shed it, underweight & difficult to
gain it), keeping the heart pounding, keeping the muscles
tense, keeping sleep & rest a long distance away,
keeping us in a constant moment of
response to whatever echoes around us,
regardless of whether this stimulating destructor is
in fact
something to be terrified of at all
&
this is how we count the coffee spoons
this is how we grow old & die
this place that we have manufactured is no long for our living
so we push ourselves to develop the coming machines that will
replace us &
they live amongst us now,
doing things 5 times faster than we ever hoped &
never tiring,
without the need to worry about the deterioration of an organic body
without the need to suffer from
what will inevitably do all of us in
who still have blood flowing in our veins.
The last page of the rain's travelogue reads:
The earth's stained with your "human rights" and deeds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSA9wm5lbeg
No comments, please!
“Civilized” March 9, 2022 -
Mundane nowadays, are the old ways of night and day
Somehow convinced we are not the same
Once a place where beasts could roam and play
Cages are built as homes in a twisted game
Civilized we say, to hide our shame.
If one could live with our ancestors, they too, would see;
Life is more than phones, celebrities, and everything in between
Values lost in wind, earth, fire, and sea,
Hidden in darkness by beings unseen,
Our world becomes black and cold from nude and evergreen.
To catch, kill, and clean shows compassion
So tell me, do our actions of massive blind slaughter?
A balance of chance and skill through natures passion
Left behind for convenience we go from man to squatter,
Without resistance, poison has entered our water.
Out of sight out of mind is the definition of our time
We simply say civilized to protect our shallow mind
Distracting our psyche with pleasantries of salt and lime,
You and I are still peasants of the truth we strive to find
Mistake not the barbaric ways of our “civilized” kind.
Quintain (English) Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Emile Pinet