Best Expediency Poems
Gold Fever
History will not record the bloated weight
Of this pious and bigoted race
Or count the fat and flaccid wealth
Of religions idolatry
Those pages have been scrubbed clean
By prosperous forgivingness
And the cruelty of established political dominion
Will not tally the bodies of the oppressed
To them, faith and belief are merely a weapon
A system of abusive control
And a means of power continuation
A dictatorial right to rule the population
History will not record the inheritance of opinion
But lay blind at the doors of massacre
The Aztec, The Aborigine, The North American Indian, The African *****,
Pray in silence to The Church
Centuries written in blood and torture
For a message of verbiage and usage
Extracted and leeched from the poor and uneducated
Created the western dream
The long night of the witch hunt is not over
The Inquisition has saved us
With fake blood and wooden crosses
This elite of moral perspective shall save us all
We have paid the price in conscience
Superiority managed by white skinned indifference
Holy mother church has welcomed all
All into its iron embrace of slack jawed wonder
And what more despicable rule can there be
Than to dictate ones own spiritual journey
Spouted by the rote of political expediency
And the promise of heaven
Ingrained now this so called Christian ethic
And so much of the truth left distorted
Forgotten now are the ancient mystical secrets
Which united mankind to understanding
Idol of gold and crucifixion
Of cathedral and stained glass objectification
Gilt and holy water of sumptuous ritual
Of silken pope and luxurious self righteous invention
An aberration of human faith and belief
An unrepentant destroyer of “ Loves ” dream
The curse of The Christ as you continue to translate
The Word
And where the paupers fist crunches the dirt
Where dried and parched lips pray for rain
Where the desperate cry for a reason echoes
Where blood flows in feted anger
Where children scream in fear
Where hunger and despair debase and demean
Where there is no light
And in the dark only pain
If you wish to care for the souls of mankind
Preacher
It is there with them
There
Is where you should be
Categories:
expediency, faithfaith, political, perspective, ,
Form:
Free verse
Clinging to sunny Bognors regal
skirts
At his Majesties most royal verges
The readied hand thrusts upon the
lever,
And, shuddering, She forward lurches.
Clanking ominously over diesel fueled
growls,
Expediency, they said, was driven
to ignore:
The raised up objections and anguished
frowns,
And track them under tracked-over
ground.
For by unanimous vote they did smugly
decide,
Albeit tales of backhanders hotly denied,
That poor clymping Parish could no longer
abide
The daily through fare of the popular ride.
So when you next travel upon the new
Bypass
Think of the local residents you no longer
harass;
Dwell on the advantages you formerly
decried,
Whilst ripping through the greenbelt
to the jolly seaside.
Think of their tearooms, and the little
stone bridge,
Think of the old fort just beyond the sharp
ridge;
Think of their gift shops decked out with
festoons,
With bright little trinkets, plates and silver
spoons.
For over and beyond the ancient on-looking
hills
Creeps an old warming wind that carefully
steals:
To gently gather up the wretched mechanical
sounds -
And bear them away above the pale, distant
Downs!
Categories:
expediency, change, community, corruption,
Form:
Rhyme
Micro-Feasting
by Odin Roark
To propagate the dung heap of ignorance,
Is to place on low simmer
A main course of illiteracy.
How festive the chefs of mental starvation
Make the tables of 140-character-feasting,
Luring the gullible
Along with the lazy,
The doltish
And the lost,
To gorge, then purge,
Then ignore the noxious vapor
Of sentience becoming residue waste.
So stirs this caldron of abbreviated ingredients,
Stifling taste buds for savoring delectable elocution,
Reducing vocabulary to bulimic shorthand
And expecting all to join this achromatic work-around.
Hopefully, the language of full syllabic enunciation
Will return with a vengeance,
Sending expression’s drive-by expediency
Into its all too deserving exile.
Consideration pauses in the distance.
One can hear the echoes of dismay,
“Does this mean we’re expected to read…
AGAIN?
Categories:
expediency, language,
Form:
Prose Poetry
I view it as unseemly to use high-sounding language to make an impression.
I perceive it to be ostentatious to marshal words vainglorious in succession.
It is a determinant of consternation, if not constipation, to be so assaulted.
Obsessive practitioners of linguistic pomposity presume they are self-exalted.
Whom [note proper objective case usage] do they fathom they are deceiving?
Do they inaugurate imaginations veined by vanity that I am them believing?
I desire a day when poets dispossess themselves of verbiage of pretension
And with exemplary expediency abandon exotic words they need not mention.
Poets aspiring to perfection should endorse this humble verse unreservedly,
Or have their word-overworked works consigned to anonymity deservedly.
Categories:
expediency, satire,
Form:
Rhyme
Torture’s Toxic Contagion
by Odin Roark
From where comes these perpetrators,
These conscienceless mortals
Whose senses are quashed by orders,
By fear of demotion,
By allegiance to evil?
Who demands the allegiance
To insulated Washington duplicity
Puppets adorned in suits and ties of importance
Astride fine leather chairs of authority?
What right does evil have over good?
Does assumed expediency have to trump integrity,
Stealthily burying principals beneath the quagmire of incompetence,
Adopting rules from coerced legal offices,
Where procedural override of accepted war conduct,
Creates U.S. atrocities into persecution’s bubbling vat waiting?
How acidic this brew of orifice aggression must be.
How explosive the brain’s chemistry must become.
How malodorous the waft of this barbaric wretchedness must seem.
Still…
How easy it is to ignore that such bad behavior
Is counter-international law,
Subject to accountability
To legal prosecution and punishment.
Are we so glib with our conscience
That we think “out of sight, out of mind” is an escape?
For…
Lest one forgets the pent up pay-back
Festering in the shadows of the victims’ “to do” lists,
One’s Machiavellian innocence may not even see it coming…
What ever their choice might be.
Torture’s toxic caldron continues to be stirred,
Too few daring to taste the fiery recipe before being served
What might be truly the last supper.
Categories:
expediency, evil, integrity,
Form:
Free verse
Villanelle: Nothing so upturns creative cauldrons as retching up art
Nothing so upturns creative cauldrons as retching up art
As the craft not art of constructing poetry for expediency
Does the poet’s art lie in not collocating words set apart
Isn’t each word a brick a stone a rock in the poet’s craft
That simple folk through the ages filed sans hypocrisy
Nothing so upturns creative cauldrons as retching up art
What representation of experience can by craft be wrought
To distill meanings imbricated in sensuous mosaic artistry
Does the poet’s art lie in not collocating words set apart
Do English words sound the same in a loud Indlish mart
Or evoke the connotations of a Shakespearean century
Nothing so upturns creative cauldrons as retching up art
A South Asian voice reading Pope must sound like fart*
To a Dryden stunned by a Malawian’s Jacobean poesy
Does the poet’s art lie in not collocating words set apart
The sense of sound divides Indlish poems from English craft
As galactic spaces loom in between Indlish pen and literacy
Nothing so upturns creative cauldrons as retching up art
Does the poet’s art lie in not collocating words set apart
* A reference to Eric Mottram’s comment on hearing Dom Moraes reading his poems on the BBC’s Third Programme
in the fifties, characterised as an imitation of an Oxford don farting…. Cf. Alive in Parts of this Century: Eric Mottram
at 70. Twickenham & Wakefield: North and South, 1994, p. 17.
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2014
Categories:
expediency, england, poetry, poets,
Form:
Villanelle
The gamblers and the mourners
Explore the vagaries of fate,
The expediency of life
Dangling in the capitol rotunda
Like a hanged man
His hair standing on end,
His boots in the air.
Write, sing, boo,
Do what you will
Never mind the outcome.
Words are cheap, they said,
But they knew better.
The price was dust--
Gold dust, that is--
By the ounce. Enough.
Enough.
Swinging from that bough,
Rope rubbing the bark raw:
It was a tree in that rotunda,
Where they hung them high.
Crows roost there at night.
Monkeys swing by day.
The crows fly away.
The monkeys take flight.
Women come and go,
Taking the sight.
Evening is still
Outside where the grass grows.
Obsidian crutches punch the ground.
Eagles fly where they please.
They do not fly near the tree.
Effervescent truly,
Shards unruly,
Dying away like rumblings,
Trains at the station
Puff and wait, puff and wait.
They pull like many horses.
Over in Scotland,
Inverness is halted.
The city is slow,
The soul of the yard.
Fruit ripens all golden
Everything rotten,
Lies on the ground.
Shuffle the deck and draw water
Encamped on the trail.
Categories:
expediency, allusion, metaphor, political,
Form:
Free verse
Apple brought culture,
delightful extravaganza.
Fab group
harvest idiomatic jive.
Knockers, louts
many neutrals,
organized parasites, quietly rebel,
submit to uncompromising venom
when expediency yielded zealousness!
© Harry J Horsman 1994
Categories:
expediency, music,
Form:
ABC
LEISURE FROM LISTFULNESS
A long & dreary time,exquisite
delight has passed.A perverse
unaccountable feeling.A moment’s
reflection,a store of recollections
a painful task to concentrate upon.
Questions come thronging my pen,
difficult to convey,a matter of doubtful
expediency,leisure from listfulness,
dreamy,beautiful,inconsistent,reflective.
Passion and affections a mute sense of
attachment,yet gratifying. The end of a struggle
From Letters of Charles Dickens
A Phrasis is a structured verse where the poet uses selected prose phrases of another writer’s(not a poet) to compile unique poetry therefrom as a tribute thereto,the word phrasis is Greek for phrase.
Listen to me read this phrasis on youtube under name of ichthyschiro
Categories:
expediency, poetry, writing,
Form:
Verse
Illegal Dying
On pursuit of greed
On pursuit of fame-
Gambling with precious life
Is no longer funny play.
We don’t guard ourselves
Marmon broke all bounds
Greed, flood gates opened
There’s a deluge
That inundates humanity.
We’re bait in water
Thrown by bungee jump
Into the deeper end
To bait wealth
With a piece meal
From our gullible hearts.
At breakneck speed
We travel, we pine
Barriers on the fiery way
Crumble under foot
That plods with might
Pulverising conscience
Under its deadly stride.
Expediency and experiment
Replace care and kindness
Egotism and hubris
Is a reflection on the mirror
To which we smile
Gloat and graciously spruce
With drab appetite.
We look to another
With an eye that talks
Questioning neighbour
How the hell he did it...
We don’t compliment
We enjoy commiserating
Dirges are our sweet songs
That titillates our hearts
Hymns are a discord
That is so insufferable.
Compassion out of windows
Is flung like a thief-
With a thud it lands
And held hostage
By angels of uncertainty.
JM
19th Nov’ 2013
Categories:
expediency,
Form:
Free verse
Ironed Shadows
Her hands lay smooth
the coveralls worn thin
now wrinkled
once charged with earth
Mended armor from
courageous prices paid
embossed with crosshatched mending
stands raised in triumph
A home plate remembered
by innocence long abandoned
players made humble from
a boy's first slide for life
Vapors rise
from sprinkled droplets of water
beneath handled hot steel
making ready once more
the crusted yet unknowing weave
for kneeling of a different kind
Facing forced submission to other games
a purple-robed relentless hand
feeds rewards from gilded plate
accompanied by quiet silver tongue
Such are the scoring points of yet another kind
Youth's pure white
once starched crisp
ever ready for combat
now labors thread bare
atop the shoulders and arms
riding the reach for caramel-lathered memories
chased down with silver chaliced promises of still further kinds
Where is the love-smooth ironing hand now?
Costumes of rumpled thread
made anew by ironed caresses
now like the ether of memory
drift up past the seeing eyes into untethered emptiness
Tread carefully
lest you become wrinkle-free expediency
sliding voraciously into digital home plates
forever kneeling faithfully before promised obsolescent rewards
delivered smilingly from tarnished silver platters
Categories:
expediency, philosophy, home, home, silver,
Form:
Free verse
Brother Gaus
Gaus is a Rainbow man
Only that he’s not curved.
He’s just a miscellany
That makes him striking.
Gaus has a funny knack
Of repairing any gadget
Can do so with anything
Except repairing himself.
He can service the lot
Except his own wife.
With identity so fluid
He lives by convenience;
He’s black to a black man
White to a white person.
He’s a fast talker, Gaus,
Using a funny diction....
Take it with a pinch of salt;
He lives by expediency
He’s curved as his colour!
A mixture of colours-
A chameleon in the bush,
He takes colour of bush
In which he deeply hides
And never the lash bush
The colour of his hide!
He’s always out of colour
Unless abound colour nearby
This makes him fluid,
Expeditious and impulsive.
Gaus believes in a god;
A god not too black
Nor a god who is white
But god who is coloured!
At least his is not racist
Though not coloured God
Or one of expedience
Or God who is fluid
Or one who repairs all
Except mending Himself,
Or who is a fast talker
Getting followers nowhere
Good to regard or take
With a pinch of salt...
But then Brother Gaus is!
Talks of the war time
Fighting on the wrong side...
It gave him sense of sate
Choosing who paid most.
Maybe his side was right.
He was on the cross roads;
Colour crisis that mislead
Both and was hated by both!
He was also ostracised
But hung onto the diction.
His wife is sable black
Memories of ancestors;
All are as white as snow.
He is left-handed and fast
When kindled a slugfest
He embodied barbarism
Of one side and tactic
From the other camp.
He demands white’s meal...
When he fails at school
“Native ancestors are ok!”
Lazy: Whites are thinkers,
“I need no manual work...”
Greed: “I need much meat,
“Ancestors were hunters!”
That’s why a tortoise
Has a shell that is cracked;
The tactic of retracting
After attracting hatred
Draws a lot of resentment.
Both cannot trust Gaus!
He’s like a mouse and bird
Both merged together
To create a power mule
Of a funny countenance.
Would he run with Hare
And hunt with Hound...?
Gaus will run with both
And be chased by both..
And, none will be pleased!
JM
03rd Nov’ 2013
Categories:
expediency,
Form:
Free verse
Elaborate the plan
Enticing by pretence
Exclusive in deceit
Extols hypocrisy.
Each step has been rehearsed
Except for masquerade
Excessively disguised.
--------------------------------
Author: Paul Callus ~ 27 April 2014
Contest: Let’s Pleiades
Sponsor: Nette Onclaud
Placing: 7th
Categories:
expediency, life,
Form:
Verse
who ask YSIC about who watches them watch countless MPEGs of people’s posted antics that pile up a profile of their tagged interests,
who believe convenience and expediency are more important than their right to privacy, conceived as an abstract concept of the elderly,
who are betrayed by the telecommunications industry they think serves them but ignores Constitutional rights to due process and even freedom of speech,
who post supercilious comments publicly, assuming they have the protection of anonymity because they hide behind a hash tag or screen name,
who, hands free, carry on conversations with the air, like schizophrenic lunatics, speaking to virtual colleagues, even incommodiously in the commode,
who require medications for ADHD and bi-polar disorders, never making the connection to their constant multi-tasking, dividing their attention,
who “can haz” perpetual amusement lolling at LOL sites, impersonally spamming inboxes worldwide with their latest animal pic find,
who post videos to social sites of the last vestiges of actual experience witnessed, and often disrupted, to make their disassociated lives downloadable,
who refuse to turn off their ringtones, assuming all potential calls more important than any movie, play or concert they might attend,
who think they’re the source of the Arab Spring and 99% strong because sometimes they can pull off a successful flash mob,
who are misled into believing they have influence and choice because there’s an app for that.
Categories:
expediency, computer-internet, parody,
Form:
Free verse
Ironed Shadows
by Odin Roark
Her hands lay smooth
the coveralls worn thin
now wrinkled
once charged with earth
Mended armor from
courageous prices paid
embossed with crosshatched mending
stands raised in triumph
A home plate remembered
by innocence long abandoned
players made humble from
a boy's first slide for life
Vapors rise
from sprinkled droplets of water
beneath handled hot steel
making ready once more
the crusted wafer-thin reason
for kneeling to a non-questioned answers
Facing coerced submission to other games
a purple-robed relentless hand
feeds rewards from gilded plate
accompanied by whispering silver tongue
Such are the scoring points of yet another kind
Youth's pure white
once starched crisp
ever ready for combat
now labors thread bare
atop shoulders and arms
riding the reach for caramel-lathered memories
chased down with silver chaliced promises from still wider mouths
Where goes the love-smooth ironing hand now?
Costumes of rumpled thread
made anew by hot-pressed caresses
now like the ether of memory
drift up past the seeing eyes into untethered emptiness
Tread carefully
lest you become wrinkle-free expediency
sliding voraciously into digital home plates
forever kneeling faithfully before promised obsolescent rewards
delivered smilingly from reflective platters
tarnishing quickly
Categories:
expediency, halloween,
Form:
Free verse