Best Complacently Poems
If food for finer thoughts we did not crave,
If sense of purpose we did not apply,
If we did not critique how we behave,
If dormant laid Alert Judgmental Eye…
If float and breed were our exclusive wish,
If instincts solely spurred us to survive,
We might as well be just a school of fish -
Not learning about deep currents of Life.
If we ran loose, not playing by the rules,
If years weren’t measured by the days we seize,
We might as well be just a pack of wolves -
With hungry jaws and reflex to appease.
If loyalty and trust weren’t our guide,
If fam’ly failed to withstand the Time,
We might as well be lions, without pride -
Where govern male rivalry and crime.
If we ignored the term - Personal Growth,
Meandering complacently in awe,
We might as well be just a slack of sloth -
With sluggish status quo, seeking no more.
If benefits of thought we didn’t reap,
If mindful property we didn’t hold dear,
We might as well be just a herd of sheep -
That sacrificed their free will out of fear.
Brushing aside the Kingdom of the Wild,
Place on a pedestal a Human Mind.
With love and progress equally aligned
Let’s be the best we can, one of a Kind.
As to Judgmental Eye, its primal goal -
To keep our planet safe and civil,
By virtue of Grey Matter, above all -
To distinguish between good and evil.
January 20, 2021
I wade the waterside enticing death.
The sea extols the brash to th’ outermost
Abyss. A ‘know it all’, I challenged this
Watery host.
I capsized in the tumultuous seas;
I’m in the heart of the abyssal deep.
The billowing waters; they crest and fall,
Enmesh and sweep.
Disjointed and astray from sight, I strive
Complacently for that redemptive shoal.
This mortuary that’s surrounding me
Entombs my soul.
I look toward the surface as I scan
The depth of darkness for some tethered hope.
I clutch my hands into the obvious
End of my rope.
The moorings are beyond my grasp. I gasp
And struggle for air as I hold my breath.
The hint is clear enough; I closed my eyes
And swallowed Death.
Wake me if I've become stationary,
satiated with the ordinary.
Nudge me if I am complacently numb,
ungrateful and obliviously glum.
Unfold my eyes if they're mindlessly closed.
Wake me from heedless sleep if I have dozed.
5-21-2021
When the opaque nights were starless,
and the depressing days desolately cloudy,
the journey through the tortuous valley of life
wasn’t easy as it was meant to be.
When the wilted flowers turned pallid,
and the defoliated trees tarnished tawny,
I lost the tantalizing trail of the garden path,
as in the unshed tears of toil hapless hopes sank.
The jagged pathway of listless life I traveled,
was sorely winding and the time finite.
At the end of the tormenting tunnel
I didn’t see the glitter of the guiding light.
When in stormy nights I was in the wasteland wilderness,
the surreptitious destiny designed for me,
the shards of my splintered sky fell asunder,
I forlornly envisaged strewn all around me.
I didn’t question the supreme designer’s motive,
and His ways of mundane manifestation,
but prayed for the sparkle of the sapphire nights,
and for the shower of the sunny days’ shine.
Without complaint I endured complacently
the transient time’s turbulence as His gracious gift,
waited for the spring to bloom the divine flowers,
and grow the emerald trees to enliven the blessed me.
When under the ruins of the fallen sky
my broken dreams were in the debris of despair,
I traveled within crossing the dark corridor,
and in the soul’s precinct I discovered the heavenly light.
In those precious moments I totally surrendered,
and remained subservient to His omnipresence.
I got the inner strength to hold up the falling sky,
and those enlightened instants kept me going.
"Chai Tea, Vanilla: Writing it All"
We are a cauldron
steeped, stewing bitter,
unlike sweet chai tea
boiling
and bubbling,
our reality,
is hard
to swallow.
how do we live
with ourselves,
knowing,
we live
complacently?
we observe,
we write,
we watch it all,
the killing of
innocence,
the black
and white
of it all;
the death
of a dream.
before the end,
the war
begins
it all.
the future of
our children:
we watch it all.
we watch it all.
we take notes,
we journal,
the poetry
of it all.
do we make
changes?
do we?
do we,
do
anything, at all?
writing it all.
We are a cauldron
steeped, stewing bitter,
unlike sweet chai tea.
we are so
Vanilla,
do we do
anything?
writing it all?
(LadyLabyrinth / 2023)
John 1 (NIV).
"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."
Lux Vitae.
Once upon a time when I was just but a little a boy
My grandmother of illustrious memory – told me many a story
A lot of them funny but some scary
But her favourite tale which I am about to retell
Its effect on me, i suppose should not tell
The one about the young man who refused to marry
Preferring to become an ascetic to the displeasure of his family
For they were inclined to believe – that all those who breathe in air
Surely must leave an heir!
His refusal to marry – pained them all
And many a plan were hatched to sway his mind – but to no avail
Confounded they approached the village sage to explain this mystery
Who cautioned the young man would soon have a case of dysentery
Serious enough to require hospitalization – but one that won’t send him to the cemetery
And as soon as the illness is past, he would surely marry
With this wisdom the family went home rejoicing and merry
Voices high and throaty marveling at this new found posterity
By and by the young man was struck down with dysentery
And no sooner had he recovered he married the village beauty
Much to the amusement of his family who knew all that had happened to the boy
This story my grandmother would recite
Countless times to us little boys long into the night
Toss and turn, turn and toss all night long but our little minds could not fathom
What the young man’s decision to marry had to do with dysentery!
And when I told my fellows at school this story
Don’t know am sure, whether it was under the mulberry or at the refectory
They all agreed that my grandmothers wisdom
Which she had tossed to me sitting at her mahogany was nothing but baloney
When I recounted this to her, she smiled complacently
Aware this curios case of beauty and dysentery I would cherish for eternity.
Inclinations Of Fan
Ceiling fan mesmerized the day’s hypnotic flashings
Sunlight fractured through rotating blades
Someone must have traduced it with black magic
Or a switch turned on when we weren't looking
False currants of air, created up there
Pretending to be wind inside the room
Are merely fabrications of the ceiling fan
Humming complacently about a motor at its core
Variable speeds at war with nature
Pretending to be wind is such a sin
Slow, medium, fast… won’t last forever
Ceiling fan will stop one day for many reasons
Electric cost is at the top
An condition unit will replace it for a time
When the grid goes out by bombs or hackers
Paper fans will do just fine
Diseased incubator of mutated humanity
A festering cesspool of rotten ideals,
And ancient plots of religious restraint
Or the liberation from.
Acidic with greed and selfishness.
Base and seductive, the nature of societal allure
Indulgence, self-satisfaction and gross misconduct
Or just inaction is even worse.
At least those atrocious individuals have a spine.
They have picked a side.
Bought into all we are suppose to.
Grow up believing and hoping to become a productive member of.
The death machine they are rivets on a gear.
They may not be hero's or martyrs but they know their place.
You on the other hand remain complacently paralyzed in fear.
Can not recognize bondage for what it is , what it makes you.
A spineless disgrace. A causeless activist with no identity.
A blank slate, a featureless face.
In quietly floating the stream,
not one to abandon the team,
you relinquish your row
just to go with the flow,
complacently drowning your dream.
Style
Compass points in more than one direction
Lays low its feelings before the landscapes gravity
Magnetism searched below the skin of Earth
Substances you can’t touch or feel or see between the seams
Reveal no secrets or mysteries down in the weight of things
But up above the surface, are aromas for the senses
Fragrances of good and evil roam around the world
Nose points in that > direction
Beyond that is the future
Around the corner are other corners
Future always waits complacently
Corners do not hesitate or move themselves
There are more of them than you can count
A compass is useless in the dark as a companion
But will help you navigate the bend of days
The future is unknowable and unknown
If you must go, go all the way
Take a device that indicates and points directions
One that can sing and dance and play
If you get lost at least you’ll go in style
A compass with a smile will know the way
Created on 1/02/15 for PD’s “First Poem of 2015” Poetry Contest
Scared
by Odin Roark
Fear saved the fly
The spider wept
Fear kept men alive
While Napalm paved the way
Fear keeps the 1% insulated
Handlers and mental bodyguards
At their beckon call
The mongrel on Manhattan’s frozen streets
Knows well the virtue of fear
Yet
Never will we see our species
Handle being scared like an animal
Where the lesser evolution will defend
We the sentient superiors will think only offense
How beautiful
How heart wrenching0
The defense elephants
Rhinos
Big cats
Exert to protect only that
Which is their province
Their instinctual responsibility
Wanting not to harm the perp
But only to ward off the aggression
Escape to safer surroundings.
Why does man feel he must instigate aggression
To justify his superiority?
Why do we continue our behavior
Moving science
Technology
Mind set
Ever closer to android resolve?
Might we be so complacently satisfied
We ignore the advances of AI?
Are we really so consumed with the media clap trap
We’re becoming more and more ignorant of information
Vet proof stats that tell us
Wake up
And yet
To sit in a quiet attic
Observe the simple
Yet perfectly designed survival
Instinct of the spider
Is to become aware
It’s all about living in harmony
Not acrimony
Wait patient spider
What you need for another day of survival
Is but waiting
Love nature
Or perish
Home
Cosmopolitan suburbs take shape
Form, not far from the metropolis
Streets bustle, enlist design, become cities
Drawn down the street, concrete solid
Buildings line up one by one
In the calm one structure at a time evolves
There on the outskirts of timid town
Rising from the dirt, from nothing
A flirt with creation on the street
Laid down on asphalt beds, no secrets
Familiar as a name not said, aligned
Not far from metropolitan streets
Enlisted are construction workers to create
Drawn down the road to concrete city
Blueprints sit pretty
There on the outskirts of town, worthy to build on
A home, a structure to call your own
Usual forms materialize with nature in layers
Seem to build themselves communities
Cropping up as large as life
Sometimes it is hard to find your way home
With so much going on
The road to success is always under construction
My house has a number above a wooden door
Such a detail can be useful to have to get inside
Steps lead the way on silent stones
When I go home, get in, my world slows down
Universe stops or shrinks in size, to be defined
There are many wooden skeletal chairs there
Fixated around a dining table when I arrive
Waiting for a holiday or family to come together
No prayers are said these days
It’s just a dining area, nothing else
A bed is hidden in another room
It keeps secrets but mostly it keeps sleep
Buried under pillows and quilts and sheets
Furniture remembers everything
The kitchen is the center of it all
It comes in reds and yellows with a sink and range
Fires from the stove ravage meats and vegetables
Such alterations make them manageable to eat
Ice cubes in the freezer trays stay there complacently
Waiting for someone’s drink, a friendly hand to warm them
Home has a shower down the hall
Cabinets full of towels and soap lie beneath the sink
Clean thoughts from wall to wall
TV turned up loud in the living room
To keep life serene and meek
An old phone in plastic black rings and rings out emptiness
Lies lazy on the antique table, stationary, waiting
Sits by the ancient sofa hugging floor
Listens for someone to answer the call
There is an echo running through the halls invisible
But no one picks up the receiver
No one is home
Only the ghost of a ringer
A Rant – The Quiet Hypocrisy
it seeps in through gradual osmosis
and soon is ingrained in pliant minds
it mutates and thrives in tunnels of vision
and then is fused into the fiber of unreason
the quiet hypocrisy that drips of the tongues
spouting broken words of unfathomable callousness
the mutilated reeking carcass of cynicism
obscured by the veneer of polished discourse
stinks of inaction and of insipid rationalization
the probing and prodding and splintering of each thought
curdles the shallow layer of feeling
interring the basic simple and only humanity
that is gleefully ripped into isolated fragments
the quiet hypocrisy of battles fought and of causes embraced
is plain to see in the faces of the earnest
as they cling onto their bitter loathsome prejudices
whilst buying redemption under a placard of well-meaning
the quiet hypocrisy of these selective battles waged under the flimsy pretense of caring
stinks to the highest heaven promised in mantras and duas and prayers and chants
as the spectacle of the apartheid within the mind is worn on each tailored sleeve
the choosing of these battles in the name of faith and clung onto simply because of a common creed
is a pathetic spectacle of segregated thought
buried under the folds of righteous bluster
so before you jump on that bandwagon of indignation because 'your' people are in pain
take a look at the hidden fascism that simmers just below your holier-than-thou sudden spurt of heartfelt rage
for the quiet hypocrisy that is unknowingly imbibed
is apparent for all to behold
for when the 'other' endure the injustice carried out in 'your' peoples' name
you stand mute and silently complicit for your indignation simply melts away
as the quiet hypocrisy that is firmly rooted in you
exults in pious pretences while 'your' own continue to hate, rape, pillage and slay
it saddens me that so much vitriol drips off my pen in such effervescent times
but I cringe as each moment another quiet hypocrite rants about the despotism of the 'other'
while smiling complacently and smugly and soaking in the quiet hypocrisy of remaining mute about 'my' peoples' own crimes
Inside the teardrop I see elephants roaming;
Voices echo across the waters as if moaning.
The elephants take the form of a child’s size,
They invade the teardrop under any guise,
Coloring the waters with feelings of deep blue,
Until they merge into a color of another hue.
Suns and moons rise in the drop and never set,
Entire oceans rebounded without offering regret.
The darkness of deep space suddenly awakens;
Universal light is born when darkness is taken.
Everything snugly contained within a single drop;
Emotions set on fire that no one can possibly stop.
Nothing discloses feeling as does a drop of tear;
We live complacently until our sorrows appear.
At once the body responds with its subtle fear;
The heart may shatter, while the eyes will smear.
The salty drop is pungent and salty to the taste;
We seek to wipe away our tears with undue haste.
In future, when sadness arrives, let your tears flow;
Universes will be born and they will begin to glow.
While in appearance tiny, in significance truly large,
Across the raging waters of a teardrop floats a barge.
It contains all of the emotions that we humans can bear;
We accept their message and still have emotion to spare.
Something happens in our lives causing us to question what we know.
We open our eyes and seek the truth learning more as we go.
The more we uncover the hungrier we get for more understanding,
but the world is so full of distractions and deception.
We have a burning desire to take action and do more.
We protest injustice, corruption, politics and war.
We are labeled as hippies, angry kids, anarchists,
conspiracy theorists and terrorists.
Family and friends often reject us.
Such is the life of the activist.
We are beat by police and mocked by the news,
yet we remain steadfast to spreading the truth,
and for many, much like me,
it becomes a very lonely, solitary journey.
Being an active activist isn't for they who live their lives complacently.