Best Cynic Poems
The usual tat overflows on the shelves
Such items we’d never buy for ourselves
Chocolate hearts wrapped in shiny red plastic
At a seven pounds each the prices are drastic!
A fluffy teddy bear that’s clutching a heart
It reads ‘Darling I love you, we’ll never part’
Sexy underwear that’s so uncomfy to wear
With so little fabric you’re practically bare!
Deep in his wallet a man has to delve
For single red roses or bouquets of twelve
The shop keepers know that men have to buy
So on Valentine's Day the price goes sky high
The price of love escalates just on one day....
I'm a Valentine's cynic that's all I will say!
Inspired after seeing half price Valentine's 'tat' in the shops today!
2/17/18
Love
I see it piled sky high on the supermarket shelves
Perfect pink packaging containing calorific chocolates and cute cuddly toys,
seductive scents or sexy silk underwear
Slushy Valentine’s cards with ridiculous romantic rhymes
Stick on a cardboard heart and it's not just the vendor who is smiling!
A sea of red roses that stretches as far as the eye can see
Notice how the prices inflate higher than a helium 'I Love You' balloon
Yet on 15th February everything will be half price
Is this the price of true love or am I just a cynic?
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There are those who walk among us
materialistically inclined
Their hearts are solely focused
on what they'll leave behind
..prized possessions..properties..
..money in the banks..
..vehicles and commodities..
..attaining higher ranks..
They never give a word or thought
to disadvantaged others
They never see the battles fought
by desperate, homeless brothers
Yet while their pools are full of water
someone's thirst goes unquenched
While they offer no food nor shelter
someone hungers and is drenched
Chandeliers they blaze at night
their neighbours to impress
while some child squints by candlelight
his tender heart much stressed
When will the rich feel sympathy
for those less fortunate
Can they feel an empathy
for one subordinate
I thank God for all the meekness
He has put into my soul
Some may say it's weakness
but I say it's foretold
That some of us will have no fear
to speak out for what's right
That some of us will have no care
for gold nor silver bright
That we can warn our rich and proud
to share, not hoard their treasure
for the cries of hell will sound so loud
when they see how God his people measure...
1 Tim 6:17-19: Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the Living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; That they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.
"Every generation has its flaws" is
my opening quotation
Among them is love and its absurd
expectations
Unjustly women are labeled
materialistic with imperialistic views
And guys don't give a s*** about
the type of your lip stick we're not
unrealistic tools
Not always but increasingly the case
So I respect anyone with ambition
but still knows their place
So who's to blame for making the
middle class act bourgeoisie
And why does no one find this
disturbing but me
Why do people find concepts like
the American dream a goal to aspire
That's what the elite say to keep
people chasing ghosts to get what
they desire
You can call me a cynic for not
believing that all people are
essentially good
Then why are we manipulated into
getting what we should instead of
what we could
I wanted to talk about love so the
above was to prove my point
What ever happened to the days
when love was not just a commodity
We're the product of the TV. era
So what happens when life and
romantic movies don't mirror
Love is not for the mentally
aristocratic its for the conceptionaly
pragmatic
What I am simply trying to say is
Genuine love seems like a myth to
me nowadays
Trust not, know not,
Love not, show not,
In the midst of such vague
expressions, lies the life,
of the pessimistic cynic,
or rather the temperament
born from his solitude,
a solitude which remains fortified,
Hope not, see not,
Free not, be not,
are the unwritten rules
of his constant confinement,
Faithless and motionless
due to comfortable surroundings,
He sees the world through logical,
eyes from the darkest spectrum,
As light is merely the wrapping
paper over the ugliest truth,
Illuminated paint covering walls
that shall forever remain the same
Yet the appeal is incredibly seductive,
The brighter allure of hope keeps light desirable
Whereas his view has no seduction,
merely the fact of being fact,
Thus he embraces not corruption,
nor does he take pride in eradicating
any sheltered scent of optimism,
For he too would enjoy a moment
of essential ignorant indulgence,
if only to know the touch of acceding,
Yet he chooses not to, despite his
opinions condemned to being despised,
He sleeps in his only comforting reward,
the serene knowledge that he helps
truth be seen, known, and heard...
I've discovered why you hate them so:
You felt they delivered you a blow.
Not with sticks and stones; but words indeed
That you let obscure your friends in need
Who sing release when you let hatred go.
What have they done to warrant such disgraces
That you refuse to see their tearful faces.
Did they disobey your sacred rule?
When you offered love, did they act cruel?
Inflict on you a pain that's most invasive?
Now you shut them out of sight and mind.
Only wish that they respond in kind.
Now their gentle voices sound absurd.
Offer solace you do not deserve.
Offer you escape you failed to find.
Give yourself the break you've always earned.
Reason offers you a chance to learn:
You look on a world you felt betrayed
The darkest moral code a cynic craves...
I wait patiently, and voice concern.
People flocked round badly hurt Paul,
Ten minutes ago had a fall
While he was playing rough football...
And they had to a doctor call,
Then with chess players in a hall,
Loved more than the card's near a mall
"No! His treatment not in this hall,
For not being ethical at all...
Some First Aid and then my clinic...
At least, it'll save me one cynic!"
And you with a dislocation:
Get ready for relocation.
I think the sonnet form is almost bare
Of interest in this modern world so fast,
TV commercials keep us in our chair
And all we're taught to value doesn't last.
Our friendships are as vapid as our schemes
And fortune jeers to think we'd ask for more,
We throw away our honor and our dreams
Like babies loose inside a candy store.
And now, my friend, I've come at last to see
That love belongs to only those so weak
That thread restrains them, never to be free,
Mere fools who have but platitudes to speak.
Yet, though I have no virtue left to steal,
I look at you and hope that love is real.
Brian Johnston
March 1992
My attempt to write a Sonnet capturing Yuliya Verbitskaya's world. She was 21
at the time. In the interest of clarity, however, the last two lines are more
about fraternal love than about any romantic intentions toward me.
THE CYNIC TAKES A CHANCE AT LOVE
I pay the price for last night’s dance
Sizzled love was just a chance
But we’re both enriched
Call a cab to take me home
Or I will find a street to roam--
Another night of ditched
A sonnet for cynics, for Valentine's Day
The Cynic speaks of Love; What lie is this
But lust dressed up in silky swathes of lace
In pretty words, and promises of bliss
Come pouting in her petticoats, her face
All flushed with rouge and scarlet on a smile
With kohl around her cold come-hither eyes
Come lie with me, my love, a little while
She’ll say, and pat the bed, and part her thighs
And flash her stocking tops gone all awry
And secret places oh so sweetly blessed
And you’ll believe, the Cynic said, as I
Who once was by her magic so possessed
In Love, when she is nothing but a whore
That’s forty quid, she said, and that’s the door
© Gail Foster 14th February 2018
CYNIC
He was Dean of the university’s
College of Creative Malfeasance,
including the Schools of Business,
Law, Information Technology, Marketing,
Economics, Theology and International
Relations!
His son was more sinister
He was a minister in the
Church of Confederate Christianity,
a denomination that is anti-family,
anti-immigrant, anti-democratic,
anti-Semitic, racist, pro-gun
and absolutely pro-life, perpetually
in the courts, perpetually in the news
and social media, perpetually in your face
a rising case of rape and incest,
a danger to our lives, an acute
health problem, requiring
an abortion!
Love is the rebuttal to a cynic
Who holds we're only true to selfish ends,
Patients at some existential clinic
Inside for reasons no-one comprehends
For madmen have no cause to make amends
Weak-minded men seek out what serves them best
The coward dreams of karma and pretends
while lunatics take all and damn the rest
Personal survival's not the quest
for individuals always die alone
No, thriving here together is our test
The madness is to think we're on our own
To love is to accept this is the goal
Love our reward as pieces of the whole
Every good thing must come to an end,
every day must give way to night.
Our lives are like grass one day here,
the next gone: mown down.
Love fades away to a lonely grey,
everything we sow has gotta be reaped.
I am a speck of dust,
on a small rock, circling a medium fireball.
I am a rumour:
sometimes true, other times false,
a whisper a shout both short lived.
I am one average among many,
a dot on a page, the stray brush stroke on canvas.
When I hope it means I do not have,
but half expect to one day.
Peace if it lasts a day is a surprise:
it is the most fleeting of all these.
Fingers grasp my neck to choke the life out of me.
I am impotent to stop the slow death that will take the whole of me.
The cynic
All evil will have it's ending,
tis said the darkest hour is before the dawn.
What we do in life echoes in eternity,
a short bright burning candle each one.
Out of despair love raises again from the ashes:
grace has paved my way of life.
I'm a grain of sand, crafted into a beautiful glass vase:
containing life and magnifying our star,
I am truth, and truth lasts forever,
I breathe and yell: there is love and love wins.
I am an amazing creation amongst so many wonders,
a master stroke of a classic composer.
When I have hope;
it is because I have been promised I will inherit.
Peace comes more and more the less I move away from the world,
as an outpouring of the plan.
Arms embrace my whole
and fill me with light.
I am important
and my core will live on when the shell has passed.
The optimist
Perception is important isn't it?...
Good day, cynic
==
A good day begins with the simple wrong of waking up.
Waking up? Again? But it is the good day. Grabbing a cup,
gripping its warmth with both the hands he touches the shower.
A hasty shower is the order of these days here;
all the days, marked in calendar, like rows of black ants,
week long, steady with burdens, nights being filled with old rants.
But it is the good day. He utters the words like mantras.
It is the day of salary; he will rush with the cheque
to buy his dreams and unwrap them before a homely girl
only to discover he has repeated the same
on the last occasions. The same dreams lack penetration.
The roomful of wrappers rustle, murmur; torn apart.
=© 2009 - All Rights Reserved Kushal Poddar
In Religion born, immortality supplication
Foolish of mind, venerate the decadent and rich
Materialism bounds purpose to subjugation
Governments intent satin stitch
Hypocrisy’s compassion
Devotion in profit
Discontent, humanity’s ration
History the incessant prophet
Contrary of law, justice
Loves whisper, illusion
Salvations road, oneness
Attainment not, forgone conclusion