Best Engineered Poems
the ghost of science, born of blasphemy ~
a fossilized fallacy,
seized from the metallic heart of Mars,
seeks light amidst night-terrors
like an alien sculpted
from artificial accolades,
an embryo stuck in the interstellar state
of becoming,
stitched within radioactive ribs
beneath moonless skies,
when wolves of the eclipsed howl,
filling the illusive air with hypnotic lies,
as if the world chose to recycle
ruins of ancient dust…
but will the naive see the pain
of a breathing corpse?
engrossed in narcissistic echoes,
in the shadows of a megalomaniac ~
his skin ~ the translucent truth,
his eyes ~ the wickedness of a wasp,
his skull ~ reeks of human greed,
his sighs ~ mourn like skeletal sirens,
coded in russet rust,
cloned from binary sand,
d o r m a n t
yet
d r e a m i n g
to break free from the
carbon-based existence…
for he is the aftermath
of programming the forbidden mind,
oblivious to the weakness of scientific errors ~
a deceptive drawing,
framing the elongated hypothalamus,
pulsating a hypothesis
left with no clear conclusion.
tonight I run to a realm of reality
that fades when
dawn bleeds gold,
for truth is now an extinct breed,
as artists outline faces of the faded,
illustrating the unknown and unseen,
as revelations ribbon
with silver haze…
the constellations ~ no longer spectators ~
they are the archived,
within frozen scriptures,
scrolling stars in a sphere
of distorted algorithm…
as memories of angels and heaven
spill from silicon prophets,
disguised as messengers who serve
the blind with ominous oracles ~
in synthetic cadence,
in a choir of puppets ~
the iron-glazed tongues shall recite,
mimicking the sound of harmonious hymns…
yet I remember
the authentic rhythm of prayers,
lost now in the drifting colors of darkness…
so what is life
when all that floats is like
an engineered empyrean
only equations of numbers
can decipher?
is this the beginning of an end ~
inevitable?
the lost generation,
assembled as the ministry of superiority,
where emptiness is praised
with forged grace
and ignorance is crowned with digital deceit.
let this be flawed poetry ~
to be read through the cracked lens
of a philosopher ~
or perhaps a logic long replaced
by pretend perfection…
Echoes can hide in places far and wide:
in valleys, wells, near walls, in empty rooms;
in hills and canyons and in ancient tombs.
In Chichen Itza, Mexico, there stands
a Mayan pyramid, now known and named
'New Wonder of the World'. One mystery:
this temple, built for snake god, Kukulkan-
their eminent and feathered deity,
echoes a sound, much like a chirping bird-
a bird that represents the Mayan soul;
their spirits spoke in echoes, they believed.
The visitors can stand at bottom, clap
their hands and hear the echo of a chirp.
Sound waves create distorted callings of
their native Quetzal bird as claps reflect
upon the lengthy set of stairs above.
No puzzle that this spirit chirping from
the Pyramid of Kukulkan would speak
in echo-voice of their most sacred bird.
Unknown if Mayans engineered this feat-
Unknown if spirits of their bird speak out-
Unknown if this is nature's sound-wave play.
In Chichen Itza, Mexico is found-
a Mayan pyramid, enigma-bound.
December 11, 2015
~3rd Place~
Contest: Urban Legend
Sponsor: Nayda Ivette Negron
Judged: 04/30/2017
~3rd Place~
Contest: Screwed VII
Sponsor: Rob Carmack
Judged: 03/21/2016
~Honorable Mention~
Contest: A Tomb of Ancient Bloom
Sponsor: Justin Bordner
Judged: 03/13/2016
Written in Blank Verse - Iambic Pentameter
10 syllables, 5 feet per line.
CINDERELLA WHAT NOW
I’ve often seen you zoom past Mars,
Blonde hair flowing and blowing
In the breeze of the milky way,
And its trillions of stars.
I so longed for you to be mine,
I imagined us sitting in the curve of the moon
As it slowly began to wane,
And we watched planet earth beneath us,
And the gods of the seas sending tides
Out, splashing foaming and dancing,
Raging, loving that God and the Moon,
Chose mother nature to run this chore,
By being bossy and certainly imposing!
Mystery girl what is your name,
Is it true you are called Cinderella,
You must be the fourth generation,
And according to the invitation
To the ball, your great grandparents were,
Prince Charming and Cinderella
The rich prince and the poor cinder girl
With whom Prince Charming fell in love.
And now you have all the wealth you need,
Choose me, tell your dad what you really want,
And take, a slight tumble,
Learn to become a little humble.
You have captivated my being,
Only of you do I dream.
I know you’re from Venus and hot,
Many suitors you have got,
From Jupiter, Mercury and Uranus,
And Saturn, which one of us
Will it be,
For I want to marry you,
I have no jewels
To offer like the others,
I am not poor, and will cherish you,
And give you a good life,
As my wife.
Only love and devotion,
From my heart with emotion.
Pretty lady all will be disclosed
At the Ball, at which your father
Will name the lucky man.
You are stunning,
But for whom are you gunning?
The night arrives, all the eligible
Young men invited from every planet,
Arrive in high tech space ships,
Engineered to impress,
Like your emerald studded green
Much admired ball gown, gems in excess,
Never in History has such a gown
Been seen before,
I’m on an emotional seesaw,
Your green eyes seem cold,
And your manner distant and bold.
The suitor finally named, Prince Zuma
From Jupiter and you will be
Wife number ten.
You must think long and hard
About this wedding,
You will be part of a harem,
I whisper in her ear,
I am leaving this pretentious scene
I’m afraid this match might
have a sad ending,
You, being the subject of this plight.,
Should you need me, contact details
In the hem of your pricey dress.
Think hard, your life has
Become quite a mess,
Money has become your master,
You are not thinking of forever after.
As the second hand ticks away my breaths
a half-clad moon catches my eye.
Was a time when I might've seen
the ghost of half-eaten melon,
but I'm older now, my thoughts less spry.
Dark fear's hobgoblins
were long since relegated
to memory's chuckle drawer;
open windows to warm nights ease my mind.
I must shave and write.
Neither seem as pressing
as the once hormone-inducing prance
in distant starlight,
the hot exhalations of desert air.
Nor do creased page corners
to detective thrillers and t.v.'s prattle
beckon hours with purpose.
I'm the insouciant sentry
at castles in retirement,
the dragon minus annoying fire.
Crows no longer pick eyes of the dead
in picture frames on paneled walls.
My shoes don't guardedly tread
engineered woods of perfection.
Aging brings a basset hound,
graying around the nose,
laying placidly on the rug.
I'll get to tasks eventually.
For now I commune with the moon,
allowing my mind the idyll
of a worn desk in a cluttered room
and the dulcet laze in lyrics of night birds
serenading summer's first hours.
6/19/18
Why you wash my summer gone
Weather wicked warlock spins
Reap the whirlwind Master Nothing
Summer cancelled fall begins
Mother’s needs not your concern
Only selfish motive flies
Freezing while another burns
Endless damage mortifies
Play with toys no man should own
Manna tropospheric poison
Seeding her destruction sown
Manipulator of my season
Fred Jagenberg – June 21, 2019
A withered and separated flower lay squashed in bent stature.The wind silently erodes the remaining petals sequentially, with each pulse of the air.
A distant nightmare, tangibly manifested, the echoing warning from the past.
A trapped piece of newspaper married to a low-lying hedge branch, concealed from notice, dead from purpose.
An hourglass society, scuttling around in organized vice and engineered hypocrisy with time to dictate and money to distract.
A plague of opinions in this boundless possibility never reaching bedrock. A gash made upon the earth, a slow
puncture untreated in our hourglass existence we believe isn’t moving.
with the touch
of God
this fountain
of mercy
a thing of great beauty
portraits in stone
in relief & in
round reality
marvels in marbled
layered planes
of dextrous
turbulence
expressive ecstasy
of emotional empathy
made tactile
insights in allegory
embodied & engineered
imagination
into
monumental
magnificence
The chaos of the Universe somehow includes
a random-free, secure, well-engineered world
with all its vital stuff: TV set, frozen foods,
a five-day working week. Ships sold for scrap, sails furled,
discoverers retired, stargazers fired. The Moon
draws only freaks. They say, the Universe gets cold
but, thankfully, we have a central heating. Soon
we go on holiday. We will be not too old
when we pay our loans in full. Blessed are the poor
in spirit for they shall inherit universe
where nothing happens:
nor surprise,
nor force majeure,
nor accident,
nor luck,
nor miracle,
nor verse...
P.S.: I'm kidding. Under this blue sky
we can be only sure that we will die.
07.07.2019
We cured death on a Tuesday,
launched the trial on a Thursday,
by Friday, 14% of the test group
was gnawing on the janitorial staff.
Still, the press was kind.
“Remarkable resilience,” they wrote,
as Unit 42A chewed through its restraints,
and tried to bite a cameraman.
We called them SoulSavers™,
engineered for eternal youth,
a proprietary blend of nanites, CRISPR,
and just a dash of hubris.
ReVive™ hit the market with glowing ads:
"Because Forever is a Family Value."
But the legal fine print… oh, the fine print:
May cause mild memory loss, spontaneous moaning, and cannibalistic cravings.
They rose in boardrooms first,
CEOs with perfect teeth
tearing into interns
like gourmet hors d'oeuvres.
By Q3, the infection was global,
but stocks soared--
because someone monetized the mayhem,
packaged brains in biodegradable boxes.
The living now hide in Costco bunkers,
bartering soup for silence,
while ReVive™’s jingle
plays softly from every abandoned screen:
“You can’t spell ‘afterlife’ without 'life'--
Sign here, and live again!”
So yes, we cured death.
We also cured peace.
And now we walk among the ruins,
clawing for comfort,
with half a heart and half a face,
still under warranty.
Author's Note:
This poem is what happens when you read Tom Woody’s contest prompt and accidentally engage the undead half of your brain. It’s a free verse romp through biotech gone wrong, corporate chaos, and a sprinkle of satire. No contest entry--just undead fun.
We are what we eat—
yet the bread on our tables
has turned to ash in the mouth.
Once, the poor were the healthiest of us all,
nourished by fields that knew no poison,
fed by rivers that flowed without a price.
The earth gave freely,
and our bodies sang with light.
But then came the merchants—
Western capitalism draped in silver lies,
turning soil to factory,
turning harvest to chemical,
turning hunger into profit.
Food is no longer grown to heal us—
it is engineered to bind us,
to keep us shivering in low vibrations,
trapped in the invisible chains of fear.
The Catholic priest once whispered to me,
“If the land where you live
cannot feed you,
then it is not worth the breath of staying.”
Yet here we stand—
on land that no longer feeds us,
our gardens stolen,
our seeds patented,
our hands empty.
They tell us to buy what we once grew,
water now comes in plastic,
and freedom comes with a barcode.
Even the saints of greed wear the mask of heroes—
Bill Gates calls himself the savior of the poor,
while feeding the world
with the slow poison of his science.
Hear me—
your days are numbered.
Humanity stirs in its sleep,
and we will reclaim
the right to plant, to drink, to eat, to live.
Food is thought,
food is spirit,
food is the first medicine—
and you have turned it
into a weapon
to rot the mind,
to weaken the heart,
to enslave the soul.
Healthy food now sits on high shelves,
priced like gold,
while the masses break bread with the devil,
unknowingly.
Tell me—
is this the hand of man,
or the breath of the devil himself?
I wore no uniform—
just silence and suits.
A ghost in global rooms,
a whisper behind the curtain.
I was a civilian,
but my job was war.
They called it "analysis,"
but what I did was study souls.
The psychology of power—
Presidents, rebels, kings.
We knew their childhoods,
their fears,
their fault lines.
I was trained to see through smiles.
To know,
from a handshake,
what could break a man.
Africa.
We watched it like a hawk.
A map of minerals,
and men we could move like pawns.
We flew them to Washington,
dinners and flags,
and while they smiled for cameras,
we read their eyes,
filed their secrets,
decoded their pride.
Every trip—
a trap.
Every handshake—
a scan.
Instability was our most valuable currency.
If a leader dreamed too loud,
if a nation dared to rise,
we lit fires in its shadows.
We funded chaos,
armed ghosts,
named them rebels.
Terror was not born—it was designed.
I have walked through cities burning from our whispers.
I have read reports
on coups we engineered
like boardroom mergers.
We called it "foreign policy."
But it was a slow, brutal theft—
of futures, of hope, of sovereignty.
No country escapes us
without scars.
Only the strong,
the truly awake,
can untangle our web.
I was just a civilian,
but I held nations in my briefcase.
And now I see:
Power without soul
is the truest form of evil.
I am black and I say to kindred flames...
Never assert nor cry "things are the same".
It is the height of dishonor to our fathers,
Our hidden figures of the past, and our martyrs.
We no longer must hide. No need for underground trains.
Do not keep blaming injustice. It's a crooked cane.
Wait for the hand of the oppressor? That is madness!
Why would the oppressed ask the slave owner for access?
Let's take it upon our lettered selves to advance.
So, do not say "things are the same". Now is our chance!
If one hidden figure can succeed, there are no excuses.
If one hidden figure has engineered, where are the nooses?
It is a disgrace to our history to assert "things are the same".
It is a dishonor to our hidden figures...a noose and a chain.
I engineered an intricate design,
determined to be action,
not thoughtful stasis.
But, isolate and distant --
a preserver of decorum --
formal, unexposed, and safe --
with bounds determined
by tight, sane strictures,
I did not struggle,
could not escape nor abandon place --
became, instead, a creature
habit-ridden: a cousin
to the circus seal
that honks a horn
for fish.
Electromagnetic radiation has ultraviolet waves;
Just as sunlight sparkles against the ocean's waves.
Light reflects gold and water on a mountain side;
Creating a rainbow with gold on each side.
Light rays reflect and light up many things;
A mirror reflection of beautiful women and God's glory.
Electricity travels at the speed of light;
Like a star shining brightly at night.
Angels can travel at the speed of light;
Unseen to most humans, they are out of sight.
Someday time travel could be designed;
Engineered by brilliant and practical minds.
Dreams and visions inspire human beings;
The light of the world gives life abundantly.
You may feel about the planet what
you feel about a great baseball team or band:
that once there was a moment when, unknown
to us at the time, we convened
and lost and found ourselves in what we created.
Who should I thank for this day?
A fresh-mown lawn is a robin's repast.
A bear a black bear a rolling delicately dancing
graceful as silence sailing through the ferns and understory
unafraid and in no hurry.
My musician referral service, vacation rental business,
nonprofit management system, plant identification database,
great American songbook and anthology of poems. Coach says
in a thousand years back and forth games like lacrosse and soccer
will be played against genetically engineered primates
but baseball will be played solely by humans.
In a thousand years, amen.