Best Hubristic Poems
"Strawberry Kisses"
temptation
covert operatives
brush contact 99
coquettish Smart near misses
flirtatious crispness
in the velvet time sliding
softly persuasive
dead dropping
hungry ghosting gumshoes hubristic
dangling dripping words delicious
on tongue twisters
birdwatching the blowback
poiesis ripe
for swallows and ravens
chasing bell ringing
black buried au courant bluebirds out
better than late
Merry Christmas
lips for speaking
freshly plucked
smiles
succulent kisses
cool spooning
for the slightly touched
(LadyLabyrinth / 2021)
Is this world made only for males?
Even History talks about 'His' Story only,
But I am the creator,
The creator should rule her creations,
I am the Master of this magnificent world,
Not a slave or serf to the feudal men,
Power never goes with gender,
Your prowess lies only in your cognizance,
Facing Dictators for years and years,
I have learnt to write my own fate,
This domination and suppression for ages,
Has sculptured my thoughts sharp,
Though manist needles stitched my mouth,
And tied my tongue with despotic credo,
Nothing can stop my hubristic thoughts,
Never the dry winds can swallow the mighty ocean,
Denial of self respect is denial of life,
Why confine me to a scullery?
When you can eat why not cook?
When you can wear why not wash?
When you can force why not follow?
This celestial sphere is boundless,
Immense and unfathomable,
My dreams are same,
Measureless and undefined
Your arbitrary chains can never pull my aspirations,
When you curtail, an inch grows more,
Discrimination for generations,
Pricked by Rape, Dowry and Adultery,
Wounds and sores all over burn,
But never the heads of male chauvinists turn
From time immemorial I was ruined,
Female foeticide and infanticide always rule,
Tradition and custom hinders my way,
Antiquated and rusted walls erected all around,
My cry for freedom hardly touches the blind ears,
But the gravel hearted men always begrudges,
Disparages and denigrates me,
Am I so inferior in your eyes?
With my muliebrity I brought you to this world,
With my muscularity I can bring this world under me,
Who are you to reserve my rights?
Now I Emancipate myself from your clutches
My wings are wide and extensive,
They are not to flap and fan your royal slumber,
I wanna fly high,
Across the boundaries,
Reach those alluring skies,
And shout “ I am the most powerful creation of all”
I am The Women.
(A) brown skin girl from Kosciusko
now from the world of Harpo (is)
hubristic in determination.
Vitality is her achievement in Black America.
Patois she explores as she shares her vision that is
Apparent to listening to her OWN intuition.
Futuristic characteristic she deploys.
A mason jar of lighting bugs to bring forth
to revolutionize via innovation.
Ultramodern in her political activism.
Argots as she speaks.
She’s a trailblazer of ideas.
_______________________________________________|
Written February 20, 2016!
It's about time we talk of ruins.
So, let us talk, for you never know,
How long ears of hope will remain receptive.
Your lips are missing, and your kisses fall,
Like ripe plums and tint my confession,
Like coffee stains with smell of rust.
Looking back, dreams had stories,
About laughters blooming in dews on trembling grass,
With roots growing into layers of blue skies.
That dark sweater you began knitting,
Lies lifeless by a woollen ball,
Like buried half of a rainbow.
My greys are silvery now, and my smile
Looks like a scar, but my heart
Keeps shredding dead skins.
Footprints covered by caddish shadows
Of hubristic tongues,
Never to be retraced, and
The wish to carry your whispers beyond life,
Scavenged by beaks of time,
Is nothing but a piece of
History's torn chorion.
Entangled in my pensive repentance,
Memory of a girl (assuming),
Whose playful steps ruefully erased
Even before she was assisted into the world,
Stares back from an obsolete painting.
I sense blood seething in my veins,
But with no ill-will.
If only i could stop this hour from passing away,
And touch life one more time,
Gently and wisely, perhaps sweet palpitations
Would be heard knocking from within.
Lying in the heap of fallen bricks
Of dilapidated castle of Eros,
Where, once upon a time,
Our romance was folktale for angels and fairies,
I'm supposed to be bleeding the high-noon sun
To feed yesterday's vampiric fleas.
My body no longer lives on bread and grains,
But on tears and prayers, and
Keeps on living, surprising the undertaker and
my foes,
Who begin to think
I am here to stay indefinitely.
So, I labour to hasten my swan song
To gladden those who want to witness my exit.
The yarn with which
I began weaving a flag,
Has been sold to brothels of politics,
Where patriotism is only a slang
In perorations of capricious pimps.
My nights are haunted by ghosts
Of betrayed slogans
I once coined on fisting graffiti.
Standing amidst graves of words
Spoken inconspicuously,
I see soldiers placing putrid shocks and
Ugly boots
On books strewn across the floor
Of my old school's library
Which is now a fortified barrack.
But when I see tombs sleeping like babies,
In quietness of a cemetery,
I beg you -
Don't let me die without a wound, and
Even if it is in pretensive nostalgia,
Bury me with bloodstained kiss.
Comin’ Through
They stand there
monuments to stupidity
blocking progress,
denying access
or egress
to the doorways
corridors
checkout lines
coffee pots
of life
JUST STANDING THERE
totally enamored of themselves -
the urgency of their idle chit-chat.
Suffering from auricular atrophy
unable to hear anything but their own voices,
immune to common courtesy
looking at me as if “I HAVE A NERVE”
disrupting their insensitivity by requesting
“PERMISSION TO PASS THROUGH”
this huddle of hubristic pomposity.
They are masters of the “HARRUMPHHH” face
a look designed to make the dog pee,
the cat bristle and slink away,
me know that I have offended
the sensitivities of the insensitive
ruffled the feathers of the featherless
dared to insert a comma into their run on existence.
John G. Lawless
8/1/2015
You're bracing for
the hubristic lecture
it's not here
The crux:
unvarnished understanding
of how blacks see
their outlook for life
Only narrow options:
they can give in, go through
or go around - a predicate path
Try to feel what it's like
to be born black today
soul-deadening suppression
systemically smothers patience
Crime, drugs, gangs,
rebellious pride seem
viable options for those
who may not see thirty
four thousand lynchings in
Jim Crow South till now
do lives matter
Blacks feel the constant fight
Blacks feel identity loss
Blacks feel crime gives cover
Blacks feel numbing is okay
Blacks feel tribal is safe
Blacks feel whites are asleep
Anthropologists say humanity
has Nubian origins
from the beginning we are one
Gandhi, Mandela, King
were proponents of
compassion, forgiveness, love
some whites reciprocate with
ignoring, masking, denial
too few understand
Blacks feel trapped
What need have we of arches?
What need have we of domes?
What need have we of Churches?
What need have we of Romes?
Let's look beyond our crippling cultures
To perceive all that is truly real.
Haughty temples,homes to cold sculptures,
Grind and crush what the spirit does feel.
Look upon one flower to see nature's beauty rare,
There is nought of human making with it can compare.
Our frozen works of art,beautiful as they seem,
Are more hubristic nightmare than any pleasant dream.
As we cower in our caves of shadows dim,
Above us ,arches our bright blue all embracing dome.
We skulk in our world ,so shrunken and so grim,
Eyes too weak to gaze upon the light of our true home.
Look at all the beauty the revolving seasons bring,
No pride infects their humble ,yet glorious display.
'Tis of life's joy and sorrow that they serenely sing
While they present their passing show on their brief day.
No need have we of arches,
No need have we of domes,
No need have we of Churches,
No need have we of Romes!
Sisyphus
He rolled the boulder with his burdened shoulder up that treacherous summit
Tricked in hubristic self-righteousness again and again he thought he had done it
We engage in similar madness regardless of whether Gods punished us somehow
or we simply can’t fathom another journey on the path to inner enlightenment
miss the signs and the signposts when or ways fail when stones refuse to relent
but can be split into fragments when we grant us permission for change and allow
release alternative solutions of metaphorical splinters from arrogant highbrow
where peaks of peace result from shattered acceptance and humble atonement
Once we’re forgiven
and forgive our delusion
that we know and are certain
hold truth when we don’t
stones can roll all by themselves
and moss rests at the cliff face
At night, I often roam around
the so-called shady side of town.
As I blend in, the people flow
in places decent folk don't go.
I've come to know a face or two
and sure some recognize me, too.
I fantasize about their lives,
detecting some hubristic vibes.
I ponder how they came to dwell
in such a place, akin to Hell.
I wonder if they're here to stay.
For surely they weren't born this way.
Perhaps some came intentionally,
escaping lives of misery.
Too grim was their reality,
so here they found serenity.
They'd rather deal with snotty glares
from folks who don't know why they're there,
than parch in various degrees
of social thoughts and tendencies
to view a dog better than thee,
simply because they're
black,
like me.
Embellish My Day
Embellish my day into a full life worthy to be lived in your presence.
Erase my nonchalance and hubristic thoughts before the fiery declivity
consumes this life and body. The bird's song is gibberish in my thoughts;
matching my heart and life. Seeing a happy family reminds me of my sadness.
Dry tears sting my eyes and laughter is removed far from my being.
Renew and enhance my spirit. Mold me for your purposes.
thus,
like snow,
cold ashes fall
charred history’s
hubristic gales
truth’s torment
tucked into howling
acquiescent innocence.
Empty men
line the banks
fishless rivers
sit idle
barbless hooks
impugn the air
ivy strangled
rowboats sigh
With age color fades
into the weariness
wonder wanders
among the weeds
joy darts through
day lit darkness
hides hope’s
vacant sunshine
time taints
tomorrow’s tomorrow
the calendar’s lie
tri-colored ink charade
mocking the idleness
of one so busy
last call
nightcap dosage
John G. Lawless
©6/8/2019
Around me loom awesome skyscrapers
that slice the skyline into smoggy
strips of vertical horizons.
Closing in on me, they gleam as colossal,
hubristic trophies blotting out the last
piece of the afternoon sky.
Benumbed by the din of this throbbing
city, I sway to the commotion
of motion in a sea of strangers.
In this hurrying horde of humanity, it seems
to me each one seems so alone
among so many, so like me.
But I joyfully get by, thanks to memories
of the hushed swishing at the shoal
back home by the shore,
The grassy edge of the lush foliage,
the scent of the earth's warm breath
after a drenching downpour,
The tranquility borne by the sunlit
mist that is warmly waking up
the still dreaming morn,
All these cool and coo and caress
my savaged, sagging soul, and
though alone, I'm not really lonely!
SWANSONG
England expects Britannia to rule the waves,
From the white cliffs of Dover
To where the Sun never sets.
We’ll keep the Union Jack flying
Over this sceptred isle,
Set in a silver sea,
As a beacon of light
To ward off continental types
And other undesirables,
Especially if they come across in leaky dinghies,
Or claim they’re celts of ancient stock.
Let the illustrious vessels of our Royal Armada,
Let loose with cannon at such easy targets, sink them
Without trace as if they’d never been.
God bless our Senior Service of jolly tars -
They who go down to the ocean
To hold, defend our hallowed shores
in the spirit
Of John Bull and the utter Contemptibles.
The iceberg of reality approaches Titanic -
Our unsinkable leviathan without need
For a full complement of lifeboats,
The loose decision made
In a smoke-filled boardroom
According to the hubristic arrogance
Of distinguished gentlemen.
Their collective psyche hides the vain
Inadequacy of patchwork-repairs
To the brittle hull of a false-named ship.
A sea's vengeance rushes in
Through cracks, the force of the waters,
Exposing fault lines in a cards'
Prime pack, hurled with the splintered
Chaos of a broken cabinet.
England can expect nothing
But a wet-kipper slap on the face
As a reaction to blinkered flights to nowhere;
Britannia’s just a grim old hag,
Leaning for immortal support on
A knobbly, noble shield of state, bent by
A rusty clattering of crumpled old age,
The white cliffs of Dover,
Succumbing to time's ravage,
Have become a jagged parapet of yellowing
Teeth, gaping in a crooked grimace!
Not even an accoutred uniform to put up
The guilt-stained sheet for a flag of surrender!
No honourable honour guard for
Vanished detachment, gone to good
Ol' Blighty or the Land of Nod!
Inscrutable torrents of history shall crush
him who ignores the lessons in his greedy rush,
his rabid obsession to subjugate others
tears this despot's humanity into tatters
for it feeds, bloats his overweening vanity,
corrodes the last trace of his tarnished dignity,
deludes his ego with invincibility,
convinced no less of his own immortality;
there is hardly a cure, healing or deliverance
from such madness and malady, such pestilence;
his crime neither torture nor death can recompense,
his is an onerous sin, a heinous offense.
But this creature, stripped of his mask, shall fall apart,
for pomp and vainglory hide a sham, hollow heart;
indeed, it is neither an overwhelming army
nor a pillaging horde that is his worst enemy,
but himself, a cowering canine that creeps to crawl
in the labyrinthine recesses of his soul;
his nightmares terrorize him, he is stunned and blind,
and so slowly the germs of fear feast on his mind;
and he shall crack and crumble to his inglorious end
as all his lapdogs scamper scared round the bend;
but slaying him will be an act of rewarding,
vengeful Justice cries for his endless agonizing
until life and dying and death finally die,
day of reckoning, swirling, flaming clouds float by.
How Absurd it Seemed
Ah, those memories, so well refined, reworked, revised to meet the failings of memory – or the shame of remembrance. Tinged now with humor’s hubristic insolence, fleece covered shards of broken lives reassembled in a grotesque collection of stained glass pleading with the moment for forgiveness. Time, imprisoned for aiding and abetting the fugitives, providing refuge for the tattered transgressors, disguising the thoughts, denying the actions, suffering the consequences of eternities amnesia.
how absurd it seemed….
…in a family of black sheep
…to be the black sheep
John G. Lawless
©7/16/2019