Best Degenerative Poems
“Le lacrime del Cuore”
As the tears faithfully fall on cedar wood
A chaotic still thru sacerdotal sky where it stood
And blood rapidly runs down on cypress veins
Where the palpitating pine sadly shows its pains
The birds of prey perched perfectly passive
As the heart hinders to their words impassive
Nazarene nails reveal their tenacious teeth
And the sands of sorrow bellow underneath
A bludgeoned body from east to west
As the wounded wood is gently blessed
The heavens hibernate with clouds of grey
To meaningfully mourn this degenerative day
The cryptical cross now stands surreal
For a King is crowned with thorns that seal.
(March.24.2016)...June.6.2016
Jesus Contest
By Anthony Slausen
On that fateful day in August arriving late, so unusual for me
For I am always early; did I know deep down what the verdict would be
As soon as I walked through that door, the neurologist told me my fate
I had Parkinson’s she said; a degenerative disease; but then I heard no more
How I wanted to scream are you sure, are you sure
Then I started to cry; then I started to shake
How on earth would I cope; how on earth would I live
I am now all alone since my darling had died
But the kindly sweet nurse made a cup of sweet tea
She gave me a hug sending me on my way
with armfuls of booklets, to read one by one
and not all at once, there’s so much to take in
I spoke to my family, I cried, they cried
I spoke to my friends, I cried, they cried
Then slowly I realised it could be much worse
I began to get angry; I began to curse
Till finally I vowed to live life to the full
Making each second count, till the day my time comes
I vowed that Parkinson’s will never define me
I will never let it rule me; I will fight it to the nth degree
Written 21st December 2018
Competition: You are not defined by
Sponsor: John Hamilton
2nd place
Standard contest 180
Sponsor Brian Strand
1st place
We did not notice at first—
the small rebellions of memory:
a forgotten kettle on the stove,
the absurd claim that Tuesday had vanished,
names reshuffled as if in a deck too often played.
The mind does not fall—it recedes,
a shoreline eroded not by storms
but by silent, persistent tides.
Each day an abrasive grain,
each night a hush over once-luminous thought.
She remained seated by the window,
watching nothing
as the garden bloomed out of season,
declaring spring to be a tired lie.
Doctors spoke in dulcet certainties:
"progressive,"
"degenerative,"
"inevitable,"
their syllables clothed in clinical precision.
And so began the vigil—
of sons who now became strangers,
of a husband revisiting courtship rituals
to jog the stubborn past loose,
of caregivers who measured each hour
by the frequency of wandering and repetition.
Her body persisted beyond her
as if mocking the soul’s departure;
and we, too faithful to abandon,
held up dignity like a paper shield
in the long war with forgetting.
The disease was punctual—
as if following an invisible itinerary—
it reached the final station
where even pain seemed exhausted,
and death,
when it arrived,
was not unwelcome—
but late.
My long-winding EcoTherapist began:
Dialectic Behavioral Therapy sees Stimulus/Response
both forward and backward in time,
to look for thoughts and feeling tipping points
toward more harmonic confluence,
resonant and requisite proportional behaviors
and imaginings
of what may be justly and non-violently discerned
for future reference.
Meanwhile,
Compassion Therapy looks within these same S/R behavioral events,
reconnecting "SuperEgo" role as eco-logical teacher,
to evolve and mentor our mutual invite cause,
to respond with equivalently effective compassion,
react with mindfulness of each Ego's holonic
cooperative
and ubiquitously coincidental Prime Relationship
with EcoTao-centered Reason, Intent, Wisdom,
word choice,
feeling,
optimally receiving LeftBrain's Natural Logic deductive principles
of Right-At-Home compassionate ecotherapeutic empathic/inductive
co-arising/co-gravitational orthopraxis.
Between collective manically competitive hysteria
and suicidal absorption toward depressive self-intent
Lies Tao's Wisdom Midway,
bicamerally balancing between
schizophrenic bipolar reiterative-compulsive self-absorption
with "Other"
into the godhead of Universal Intelligence,
and paranoid messages from Evil
that "Ego" is at grave risk
of both short- and long-term economic
and bi-0-logical bionic extinction,
in one paranoid mythic form or another.
Between these way-too-polypathic extremes
lies polyculturing compassion
for human natural systems
both within--YangEgo,
and without--YinEco.
Fair trade cost for ecotherapeutic outcomes
is the ecojustice we redemptively invest
give-forward, fore-give
within ourselves,
each Other,
and Solar Systemic Earth's regenerate destiny,
as teacher,
mutual listener,
and Beloved EcoPresence,
iconized in sacred DNA/RNA regenerative-Tao
4D revolving RealTime rich resonant
full-octave as double-gravitational wu-wei
MidWay balanced Tipping Point
bio-geo-ecosystemetric regenerative therapy
v. degenerative pathology
health and safety permacultural language,
or at least syntaxed ecological restraints
on the dipolar dynamic function of bicameral appositional
Win-LeftEgo = NotNot Lose-RightEco.
Yes, indeed,
I'm not quite up to speed,
These days, anyway...
Let me tell you, if I may...
The 20 odd meds I must take,
Each and every day...
Hope you got the space in your hard drive,
To see what it takes, to keep me alive...
First, the conditions...Ventricular Fibrillation (Life threatening heart condition,
which brought me tons of seizures...and emergency heart surgery within an
hour...they implanted in my heart a computerized "Defibrillator" miniture version
of those big electric pads you see on TV medical scenes, where they
go: "Charge! Now!!" and the electric shock makes the body jump. I was told it
was that, or be dead in a month. And when the battery dies, it starts beeping
inside my chest...no doubt I'll be in a movie theatre at the movie's climax, and be
tossed by the usher (do they still have those?)....Second is COPD, today's term
for emphyzema...a degenerative lung disease...where suddenly you cannot
breath, you literally drown in a sea of air....This is a peachy one, has me in the
hospital 10 times a year, plus far more suseptible to goodies like pneumonia...
which I have gotten several times, and from which I just recently recovered.
The prognosis is poor, it is incurable, progressive (contantly getting worse),
terminal...I will eventually suffocate...and I'm always with a variety of inhalers and
nebulizers...a plug in version I got from a ex-co-worker's wife, with the same
disease, but much better specialists than me, although she died from it 2 years
ago, oddly, on my birthday (2-28) hmmmmm.....I already have a plot for me and
my Rosie...lovely place....I've survived bladder cancer twice...another benefit from
my long ago days of smoking -quit in 1994- when this first showed up- I'd go to
urinate, and pure blood would flow...naturally it soon clogged, and I swelled up
with blood....came real, real close to dead several times...and I'm not a
recreational drug user...so the pain was aweful, and the later Dr. check-ups a
fearful affair...a fiber optic camera inserted up the *****....any male's worse
nightmare...with good reason, the pain is unreal...It's my third favorite past time to
being beheaded, being castrated (near the same thing), and being burned at the
stake. Continued...
So, I guess a 12 year old
American brown male playing by himself
with a toy gun
is outside your boundary
for normal early-adolescent activity.
Well, I can see why you would need
to draw your boundary
for healthy rationality
outside his grassy field of fire-armed play.
I can see why we need to draw this line
of "only predictably SWM domesticated life matters"
the way we do
to look our friends and children in the eyes
while saying,
"I can accept this loss
as one caused by an unfortunately timed
dual act of accidental wildness;"
But is it not significantly wilder
to fire ballistics at youth
than for youth to fire only ballistic imagination?
I can see that we need to doubt
reasonable risks of public recreation
for some lives
differently than other lives
and times
to gaze into our social-cultural mirror
with both eyes
fully comprehending compassionate integrity:
"We accept that Black Adolescent Lives Splatter
loss across our leaking shared loves and livelihoods,
thereby wilting our collective mental health,
starving our social wealth for future regeneration,
and yet hope we still dream
of somehow re-transposing,
All Lives Matter
in current US ReligiousRight culture.
Now that is egocentric mendacity;
not even Anthro-centric integrity.
We each and all must hunt our way
toward facing our fear of ourselves
our lack of empathy
and mind positive passions
and body healing pleasures
surpassing our neglectful lack of fully activating
Win/Win panentheistic wisdom.
Some hunting ways bring further AnthroSupremacist
Business As Usual
cognitive-affective dissonance;
further failure of Earth's polycultural integrity,
further degenerative ego-traumatizing stasis.
Some hunting ways promise more co-operative co-arising ballast
for culturally active hope.
It is this ballast we seek
between our self/other-reflecting eyes,
hoping to discover peace within as justice without,
and not more enslaving reductive addiction
to ballistics of overly-automated violence
Silent souls
full-will impassioned pleasures
without sufficient time to assess full-intent,
responding to fear of fear ourselves,
right between our blindered eyes
So it becomes challenging to see
a brown male playing by himself
with a toy gun
as well within our mental health care boundary
for normal early-adolescent activity.
The sweetest pup ~ a darling dog
A lovely friend brought home
So cuddly
So sweet
So pleased was I to meet
Since childhood and for all my life
I had a dog most of the time
Then when my last sweet boy passed on
Our tears we shed for he had gone
And now that I am all alone
Just me left here inside our home
When Parkinson’s moved in with me
no longer could I contemplate
another dog to share my home
as this degenerative disease
doth not allow for me to live
my life just as I please
Reluctantly I face the fact
resigned in the knowledge
I cannot look back
Sadly I will never again
share my home
with another sweet dog
I feel very sad about that
For me a dog is the perfect companion
with a welcome unsurpassed
A wagging tail
as you walk through the door
You could really ask for nothing more
Their love is so strong
‘tis unconditional
bonded together
by a cord ~ umbilical
And knowing that no longer
I'll never have another dog
to cuddle
to stroke
to hug
to love
as he gently snores
on my fireside rug
So now instead you’ll often find me walking on the prom
Talking to and stroking each and every dog that comes along…
Written 7th June 2021
after visiting a friend's new puppy...
CONTEST ALL YOURS (JUN8)
SPONSOR Brian Strand
FIRST PLACE
Contest A STRAND (1048)
Sponsor Brian Strand
FIRST PLACE
Like fish
for whom water might have the transparent invisibility
of ubiquitous healthy atmosphere,
our primal natural-spiritual nondual first love
and last hope
is for ever-more regenerative health trends,
and not degenerative pathology trends.
That being so,
if indeed I have this Left-Right balanced accurately,
conserve-progress polypathically,
economically and politically,
ecologically,
then health optimization for both LeftBrain ego conservatism
and RightBrain ecoconscious nondual freedom of integrity,
can never settle for WinLose choices,
instead, using these emerging competing choices
toward discerning WinWin multicultural regenerativity.
This could be true within a humane-divining individual,
within secular-sacred families and households,
within natural dynamic-enspirited,
cooperatively-owned and managed economies,
and between politically incorporated governments,
as it is true within any regeneratively trending healthy ecosystem,
whether explicitly,
or merely implicitly,
bi-lateral balancing our nondualist co-arising journey
toward WinWin healthy ego/eco-consciousness,
like fish in ecotherapeutic waters.
[ edit poem ]
Life Is What Happens
What a long, strange life it’s been.
Childhood and adolescence were close to normal,
I never felt quite right,
Never fit my image of a normal kid.
Dealing with internal demons for so many years.
Adolescence was hell,
The frigging dybbuks took control
Internally screaming, “your not good enough”, “your dirt”,
Externally, manifesting as cystic acne, ugly, festering sores.
Then long hair, drugs and rock n roll.
Feelings of compassion, and forgiveness.
For awhile the voices got quieter,
Infrequent periods of contentment,
First love, and then the Voices were back.
Alcohol, anger, self-hatred,
Move away! Leave L.A.!
Transplant to Sonoma County
Twenty-three years old, alone, frightened.
A period of relief, enjoyment, discovery.
The search had begun!
A time of growth, feelings of great love,
for life, for spirit, for myself.
Politics grabs hold,
Open to new friends,
Seeing myself as worthy to be loved.
Christine, daughter of the Motor City,
Nancy Marie, the wild one,
And then she picked me up hitchhiking.
How do you measure a life?
Marriage, children, many good years.
But the demons reappear,
This time as a progressive, degenerative disease
I watch the life I thought I knew, disintegrate little by little,
until I’m stripped close to the bone,
And I watch!
Three decades spent creating a structure,
A way of being, a persona, a box,
In which to place all our preconceptions
About love, family, commitment, hopes and dreams.
Like Schopenhauer’s “Will to Live”, life moves on,
Refusing to address the petty personal dreams, wishes, and prayers
Focusing instead on the perpetuation of a far less then perfect species
--Updated 1/25/2013
Night time rest
I lie there counting the stars
as they glint in the Heavens
Desperate to sleep
exhausted tears streak streams
from cheek to pillow
Not that I feel sorry for myself
just simply worn out
in need of short respite
Scared to try to move
as nightly rigamortis sets in
but need is there to move
to free the stiffness
work through extreme pain
to break the grip
of thise imprisoned bones
to free the body
and bring short relief
that I might make routine bathroom trip
before it is too late
and further humiliation takes hold
Once I can bend and straighten legs freely
I can shuffle around suffice to sit
then reassure myself
just enough to feel able to cope
To push and put one foot in front of the other
Force this swollen crumbling body beyond the pain
required to move from sitting to standing
to start to brave the world once more
So I can live life to its fullest
The calm tends to come after the storm
but the peace that follows can be short lived
never knowing when the winds direction will turn on its heal
bringing tornados and lightening strikes
to rack tortures torment through my spine and legs
where this disabling degenerative disease desires domination
Red lipstick disguise fools those around me
They don't see me during these difficult times
the occasions I let only those closest to me near
Times I become almost totally reliant
Like so many mornings when I've no choice
but grapple between the raise bar
and my husbands strong arm
to standing stooped position
Flattened hands search the fronts of wardrobe doors
sliding upwards as I straighten up
taking crutches one in each hand
I prop myself strongly
then carefully I step slowly
and with each movement new release
begins to fall fresh upon me
for but short time
until the hours play same record over
or the devils bow plays fiddle
with the nerves in my body for encore
As I conclude each day
and year
and life,
conclude that life with death
refers only to LeftBrain ego's Past toward Future
ionic-ironic languaged consciousness,
too often angry about life
and therefore fear-filled about an untimely
and clearly inappropriate
not to mention unfair,
death.
Earth's Time memory
is stored in natural-systemic DNA/RNA regenerative folding
and unfolding egoclocks,
sequence,
rhythmic function,
a recycling journey of time traveling identities,
memory strings transcending generations
by transposing across the eisegetical communications
of any one ego-identified entity
Learning to harmonize in
on
with
within
a too strident humanizing nature
trying to invite more resilient
humane kindness and justice
To gift EcoTribal nature with humane nature
as a blessing for Earth,
from Earth,
with Earth,
for Earth's Advent,
inclusive of all species
and all natural economies,
and all RNA/DNA cellular cultures
of universal co-arising intelligence.
When divine love
and win/win neurosystemic kindness say
"I have nothing but time with you"
fear and anger are also saying
"I regret not having enough time
for my own anthrocentric agenda
right now,
between past's neglected anger
and future-fear depression
anticipating further repression
of this integral body
authentic mind
moment."
EcoLove and Ego's Kindness
only speak with present-tense consciousness,
which is all remaining communication
when neither future nor past tensions
tyrannies
terrors
win/lose dominate preverbal anxiety
Post-traumatic tension
and trauma-informed intension
of ego's fear and anger experience
Anger about past leads toward further fear
about repeating
and repeating
ego's degenerative abuse
and neglect
in Earth healthy life future.
To dissipate fear,
we have evolved curious Adventure
to co-empathically embrace Anger's
non-violent communication
About not repeating a negative judgy,
too Left-brain dominant,
toxic nontrauma-informed past
mono-culturation
Perpetuating anthro-privilege
playing a Win-Lose political game
toward ego-centric political economies
disabling RightBrain ecological pilgrimage
to AdventTransition Ego Away
Toward further
LoseMind/LoseBody
cosmological
devolutionary
deadly conclusions
And not not cobinary
positive health
Win/Win revolutions.
Charity begins at home
A proverb often heard
Helping out our family and friends
Though surely not where charity ends
Belonging as I do to Parkinson’s UK
'tis a degenerative disease ~ will ne’er go away
We sing each week in our Parkinson’s choir
raising funds ~ giving hope
as we pray for a long awaited cure
A world without Parkinson’s what more can I say
Well may be ~ hip hip hooray!
As Parkinson’s Awareness Week now nears
Should be happy ~ but are very close to tears
When enquiring at our local Mall
where we can place our stall
to encourage kindly folk who pass
with donations to P from one and all
So imagine our shock and dismay
to hear that we now have to pay
Though previously free for Parkinson’s charity
Now six hundred and fifty pounds for the week
plus the dreaded VAT…
Just a stall in a corner of our local shopping Mall
We speak to kindly folk as they pass by
Encouraging donations
that may help to find a cure one day
Though sadly no donations here for Parkinson’s UK
Charity begins at home ~ but here you have to pay…
Written by Ann Gilmour 6 April 2022
Copyright © Ann Gilmour | Year Posted 2022
Contest A BRIAN STRAND STANDARD
Sponsor Brian Strand
FIRST PLACE
I was reading Lakoff's story
of what he learned at Berkeley
about international relations,
when I found my RightBrain offering further nuance;
not to deny what is here,
but to add what is also here,
but not explicitly stated,
about regenerative ecopolitical health and safety.
"The 'rational' approach to foreign policy was governed by a set of conceptual metaphors,
taken as simple common sense,
as metaphors [of and for regenerative v degenerative systemic processes] often are.
As a special case of An Institution
is a[n Organic-Holistic-Interdependent] Person,
there was A Nation is a[n Organic-Multiculturing] Person."
"In addition,
a common metaphor for rationality is used,
namely,
Rationality is the Maximization of Self [as organic subsystemic part of MultiReGenerative Other]-Interest (or 'utility' [as health-wealth fertility]),
which entails that it is 'irrational' [and unhealthy] to act against one's self-[intergenerational WinWin multicultural]interest[s].
These two metaphors are then combined to yield:
A [Healthy, Happy, Secure] Nation is a Rational [Organic TransReGenerational Polypathic] Actor[ess]."
"...we get as an entailment
the central thesis of the [organic] rational [trans-regenerational evolutionary] actor model
in international [interfamilial, intertribal, interspecies] relations:
Every [healthy] nation
acts [bicameral] rationally
to maximize its [health-wealth] military [Yang] strength [prosperity],
economic[-ecological hybrid] health [and happiness, with long-term defense of safety],
and political [cooperative polypathic] influence."
"Rationality,
on this conception,
is taken as
[discontinuous, deductive-only, reified, either-or] universal
and occurring at the [technology, tool, framing, modeling] level
of the
[organic, living,
matriarch nurturing,
ego/eco-loving,
bicamerally mature-evolving] state."
I feel so eviscerated.
Get over it.
Both-and;
not either-or.
You still got all your parts,
just more integratively co-aligned.
Yes, ma'am!
Who got out of bed on the wrong side today?
Don't even try it.
I'm going back to my "Political Mind" without you.
Doubtful.
And, if possible, dangerous.
You really aren't going to let me have the last word today are you?
I thought I was your last word,
your everything.
The most surprising word was degenerative.
My, how the years and decades have flown,
and now the speculation on how long to live
has hit with tornado force fully blown.
We ponder if heaven lets us reap what we’ve sewn.
September 1, 2011
*For Francine’s Quintain contest
by Carolyn Devonshire
I watched something on the television in a program about Euthanasia
And since my father died from cancer what palliative care would be a saviour
I can understand I think how sick people would want a choice in their death
And some dignity with it from degenerative diseases that are horrible in their breath
Countries are legislating this choice for their people in their death decision's depth
The Netherlands made it legal with the help of a doctor to have an assisted death
Then the program showed Antoinette a Dutch older citizen
Whose ailment was a psychological illness in her lament in her end
With her doctor she presented an argument about ending it all
Because her depression was so bad she wanted it to count as her fall
On the day of her death she had her friends, son and daughter there
For a death ceremony in her bedroom after saying goodbye for all to care
If these end of life options were to be legislated for each one of us
With a lowering of the bar would other reasons for suicide be without a fuss
When these reasons are factored in would we shrug and say it's want they want
And assisted deaths become the norm in examining their reasons in their font
Old age, infirmity, disability or person's finite choice would be the reason
With a doctor's note agreeing to the reasons pinned to the latest victim in the end
But I find these psychological reasons to be without a lot of sense for assisted suicide
Smacking of the Nazis and getting rid of people that society would not abide
Finally would it be that the person to die may not have a choice for themselves?
© Paul Warren Poetry