Best Ineffectual Poems
POTD 4th Nov 2019
Vanquishing all reservation
twilight's prelude heralds
shadowy anticipation
of a secret amorous thirst
He surrenders once more
to his darkest desires
amplifies the sultry ambiance
with star spangled bursts
A slave in her entity
tremulous in her splendour
Captivating and illuminating
this shadowy tryst
yet her heart beats not in rhythm
to the songs he composes
she dismisses him once more
Saying… ‘it is what it is’
However, through chinks of his ardour
ebbing resplendence
Predominant primacy
hard to resist will persist
refusing to believe …’it is what it is’
refusing to believe …’it is what it is’
The intricacies of love
too difficult to fathom
Her preference mismatched
he cannot define
her daily mantra
heightens sensations
reserved for the one
who appears to outshine?
Nothing but ineffectual
is her discordant course
the unyielding reality
of it drives him insane
and through the ebbing darkness
she hears him screaming ….’it is NOT what it is
It is Not what it is’
No satin ropes will tether
her cosmic line of duty
No romantic soft liaison
would induce her to stay
Tremulous and tender
her love cruelly wanders
from his romantic serenade
she turns her light away
Succumbs to his enemy…Day
whispering softly…. ‘it is what it is
It is what it is’
POTD 4th Nov 2019
Beautiful, you are, from whichever way my eyes see
Swift is your style, with something I can never compete
Reserved, you are, don't let yourself sway by ineffectual things
Special in your own humble way, an angel without wings
Tender, you are, with an elusive, passionate touch
Your love's like the breeze, yet you don't pamper much
Sexy, you are, for the radiant beauty that lies inside
Lucky, I am, to have you as my beloved bride
Caring, you always do, like a silent whisper never heard
Independent you want to be, like a little carefree bird
Ruthless, you sometimes are, still there lies a cause
Strong, you want me to be, by eliminating all flaws
Honest, baby, you are, doesn't matter what the context might be
Never backing down even in the face of immense adversities
Silent, you are, a shy, reticent girl needing a gentle kiss
Unaware of the joy you bring to me, so a little 'thank you miss'
Do you at times wonder if my words are true?
Yes, my dear, I don't need a reason to say 'I love you'.
Her chapped palms smell of
-ungrateful jasmine-
roughened by shrewd plays of world.
And in the creases of
- youthful forehead-
sleeps an orphaned childhood, old.
Among distasteful leering,
ineffectual rags of
-modesty cries-
unfortunate beauty trapped among
-lechers-
pawn broker and hawker alike.
-Nobody’s Child -
gazes high UP , at the
S
K
Y
S
C
R
A
P
E
R
S ,
elegant unreachable stairs
winding beyond clouds yonder.
S L O W L Y sighing,
At the dreams hidden, on the dark side of
half bitten moon.
Self reliancy stimulates political independence,
pragmatic critical thinking spurs revocation of spurious Partisan information,
vigilanteism guards against the Juntas,
systematic interdiction of peoples' ability to to procure food, self educate,
self medicate, and to self defense is a vital instrument in disabling citizens' morale,
it is true that several Companies provide 'civil rights' that are subject to repeal,
but these liberties must conform to security & production for the State,
the more detached we become from the land the more immense our collective ignorance,
Will to struggle recedes like red from the dying rose, spirit is sterile,
sciences are employed to subvert the passion of men, to mire the maternity of women,
to emasculate the youth, to assault the temperance of ladies,
as the bison were decimated so to fascilitate the conquest of the feral Indian,
the Anglo-Saxon farmer & tradesman were displaced by manipulated Markets,
corporations rabid with greed, fawning to increase world trade
and to blowt stock exchanges, enlarging theaters of war & dictating foriegn policies,
an arsenal & circus of judges, lawyers, politicians, academics, entertainers,
elastic options such as Inflation, minting money, loans, and criminal dockets,
Abraham Lincolon & John Kennedy desired to reestablish democratic banking
and were both slain as dangerous heros,
cartel suzerainity always wins,
an agrian ethos is too intractable an opponent for oligarchial commerce,
as laws are ineffectual to dissuade a starving man, leaves don't stop the rains,
there is no need for insatiable government when one can grow crops, build homes & and micro manufacturies, where trade is honest& equitable, no swindles,
division of labor for maximum productivity at the expense of individual health,
eradication of heritage to ease trade, passivity in exchange for integrity,
can libertarianism be retrieved from the vice of the mold maker,
will we deliver this odious model into the depths of the galaxy,
will there always be captivity,
regulated life is controlled life, and that is enslaved living,
words ' make the world go round ',
we are subjects of international law codes,
Freedom dwindles -
J.A.B. Copyright 2012
This Composition Is Entered For Skat's " Democrat Vs. Republican " Contest -
"The Stain Crusaders"
Plath left the pages long ago
and Bacharach’s Blue-on-Blue
is an ineffectual softer numb-shade-of-Blue
dear green green Anthropocene
this much is true
with all the I love you’s
the wandering crusaders
are far far removed
sitting atop their soap boxes
sudsing up all the rooms
the silent stains in the poetic
are hard to remove
Ajax came coding unseen
like anticeptic borax
scrubbing out the irrelevance
dear green green Anthropocene
Shakespeare was never here
just a codex with a recipe
we seldom heed
most never read
the page book marked
dog-eared
maybe tomorrow
for the forget:
“My words fly up,
my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts
never to heaven go.”
Candide Diderot. ‘24
“We know what we are, but know not what we may be.”
“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
"The body, like the oak, is bent and gnarled,
The shallow-rooted mind is overthrown,
When we are near the evening of the world."
---From, 'Runes for an Old Believer", by Rolfe Humphries
Facebook post: "Respect your elders!"
My mind may not be now
as nimble as once it was,
and although I might see all
with jaundiced sight, not fresh,
not new, my mood is mostly
cool and quite calm.
--- Until, that is,
some brash provocateur
begins to essay an attack,
thinking to erase the marks
my words have made and to
overwrite them with his own.
I care not very much that he
with logic may displace my niche,
nor cleverly might mock me.
But to disparage Age in dotage,
with vile invectives, is doltish,
brutish and dumbfounding.
My sweetest comfort is
to have no doubt that he
(nor others of his ilk) will
never see how ineffectual
must be this mild complaint.
All the teachers were basically horrible,
each could be placed on sliding scale of
horribleness….thus;
1. (the worst) Complete ****
2. Largely a ****.. with a degree of reserve
3. ****
4. Headmaster’s toady prone to outbursts
5. Pathetic but lacking conscience
6. Searching for a personality
7. Lost…smiles occasionally
8. Dominated by all other teachers (easy to mimic)
9. A mess
10. Ineffectual (but sharp dresser, and most likely to become future Headmaster).
Only we, the pupils were perfect and yet to enter the land of shopping, mortgages, menstruation and Mondays.
Man, I remember the thrumming of that last bell of the school year.....
Like a prisoner being furloughed into the warm sun, buzzing of grasshoppers.
Field stickers burrowing into your ankles, joyfully, while you take the wrong way/long way
back.
The sound of whispering gold as your armplane wings dislodge future assaulters of ankles.
I always liked sighs in the summer.....those sweet drones were the tones of freedom.
In the distance you hear Shirley scream as Brad tells EVERYBODY she likes Ralph...
You knew you should be gettin' home, but, confound it, this one brief moment was yours.
Eternal.
There was a sound, like a shell to the ear, of all you had learned, escaping as if under
pressure.
To thwart it was to stop a tsunami with an umbrella.....ineffectual....unnoticed.
But, also vacant, was common sense; probably why I went Jake's way that day....
Oh, he was there, lurking...lying in wait for my almost clock-work arrival.
Many a day I had screamed a million insults at him as he chased me like Satan,
Hoping "today" wasn't the day he caught up with me.
His exhalations never sounded labored, as if he was letting me get ahead.....
But not today!!!!!.....I JUMP......He LUNGES......and his teeth gain purchase on my seat!!!!
However, I escape....My bottom, that much cooler than it was before and will probably be
later!
........................
.........
.....
...
Home.......... you see mom in the kitchen, drinking sun tea and waiting for you to arrive....
"So, How was school?"..."Uh, fine, I guess." "What did you learn today?"......."Uh, to never
underestimate the value of Gym Class!!"......"Well," she says, "if you took home economics,
you'd be able to fix up your pants before Dad gets home and sees your underwear!!"......
Parents NEVER respect an Adventurer's near-fatal exploits!!!
A slight pause is taken between a thought
and the words that I speak from my heart
for words often rendered in too much haste
are frowned upon with wary looks of distaste
I have to admit that it's a voluntary action
Once my words are out, there's no retraction
Much too easily thoughts flow from my mouth
Things go downhill from there, heading south
Sometimes I don't stop myself right away
then find I'm caught in the middle of a fray
Being brutally honest doesn't always work
when it causes people to think I'm a jerk.
Enlightenment on the issue, I should seek
before I extemporize an ineffectual critique
Tempering my tongue is a work in progress
It still gets me into trouble, I will confess.
I really shouldn't say what comes to my mind
without considering someone may be maligned.
I need to consider how others will be affected,
and that their feelings should be respected.
Poorly worded phrases can destroy one's esteem
and tear apart someone's long awaited dream
Never would I intentionally say something unkind
so, to pause before I speak, I have become resigned.
My thoughts are whispers, merely a breath away
from what I should or perhaps should never say
before my tongue takes wing like a bird in flight
releasing words that could cause grief and smite.
Reflecting before I speak my thoughts out loud
is what I must do. To this I've solemnly avowed.
I will try not to make another emotional outburst
of what I can't take back. I will think about it first.
November 23, 2022
Just before release Contest
Sponsored by Unseeking Seeker
A blot they want to wash, detergents do not work
Ineffectual, institutional and cover ups a stir
Excuses abound, squirming hierarchy found
"Its just a darkie, why so narky"
The corridors would sound
It still goes on, gone several years
Distrustful patronising leaders
A scurge we hope that does not surge
To Nazi ways and olden days
Where races they would purge
I hear the lovely dirge called Autumn Leaves.
It echoes back and forth in my obfuscated mind,
Part full of grief, part an ineffectual endeavour
To understand why, why bliss must follow heartache.
The trees around are so colourful, but I know,
Their leaves will fall to be trampled underfoot.
As much as you trampled underfoot our summer love.
Thus our winter of discontent is full of sad melodies.
But Spring is around the corner and flowers
Will cover everywhere like a colourful carpet.
Birds will sing full throttle their love songs
And a new love will be found in some perfumed lane.
Then my song will change, and I’ll embrace it with glee.
Maybe I’ll go for Roberta Flack - "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face",
Or better still “Just falling in Love”.
So, my heart will sing, and I’ll be happy as one can be,
Cowards die many times before their deaths…
Julius Caesar, Act II, Scene 2 ~William Shakespeare
spouse
a souse
classic grouse
a big girl's blouse
portent ominous
assertions blasphemous
obscure and anonymous
his skulking is nefarious
utterances acrimonious
and implicature often dubious
uxorious but still pusillanimous
**********************************
An example of a rhopalic verse.
Rhopalism: A rhopalic sentence is one in which each successive word is one letter longer than the previous one. In poetry: where each word is one syllable more, or it might increase each line in a stanza by one syllable (per my example), or a metric foot.
IN THE SAME CATEGORY OF CONSTRAINED WRITING
The Rhopalic Couplet, also called Wedge Verse, was first used by Homer in the Iliad (3.182). It is a poetic unit of 2 rhopalic lines where each word progresses adding one more syllable than the preceding word in the line, for example, 1, 2, 3, 4 … syllables. The sequence of the syllable count can be identical in the second line, or it may be reversed. The couplet does not need not rhyme.
_____________________________________________________________
In The Coward, stanzas are broken up along the syllables of the end rhymes: spouse, souse, grouse, blouse; om-i-nous, blas-phe-mous, a-non-y-mous; ne-far-i-ous, ac-ri-mo-ni-ous, du-bi-ous & pu-sil-lan-i-mous.
LEXICON
acrimonious: (adj) (typically of speech or discussion) angry and bitter.
a big girl’s blouse: British idiom, meaning someone is ineffectual or weak; someone failing to show masculine strength of determination
disposition: (n.) inherent characteristics.
grouse: (n.) one who complains constantly.
implicature: (n.)* the action of implying a meaning beyond the literal sense of what is explicitly stated, for example, saying the picture frame is nice and implying I don’t like the picture.
innate: (n.) inborn, natural
nefarious: (adj) (typically of an action or activity) wicked or criminal.
portent: (n.)
1. a sign or warning that a momentous or calamitous event is likely to happen, an omen.
2. (literary) an exceptional or wonderful person or thing. [‘What portent can be greater than a pious notary.’]
pusillanimous: (adj) showing a lack of courage or determination; timid.
souse: (n.) a drunkard.
Hark! These four stone walls of Mamertine quell
My caged heart's protest; its sullen lament,
That one should take another's life in hand;
Raise their one dream before their very eyes
And crush it in an ironclad, clenched fist.
And for what cause? Unmerited Justice?
Gratuitous equity from envy?
Hark! Though I have not dealt you those blows
You assert; I make wounds, to you obscure.
For I could write a thousand times, bitter;
One's ineffectual stance on knowledge;
One's impotence in the skill of the tongue
To lash one's mind those thirty-nine lashes.
With each tap of that gavel I spite you;
Insolent, Dishonest, and treacherous.
I stand you before the world, unbeknownst,
Guilty of vile sins; a friendship defiled.
I strike your ego and your character;
Assault your visage with an honest word;
Cause scars you cannot see but cannot hide.
And when that day of judgement dawns for you;
The world will laugh at your deficient stride.
EITHER
a searing indictment of
contemporary American society
OR
just a bit of fun!
**********
They seem to have forgotten common courtesy,
'Have A Nice Day!' rings so hollow, such a shame;
they're so mired in mediocrity
and no one ever, ever takes the blame.
Overweight and under-nourished,
over-sexed and under-intellectual,
they preen and pose their way
to self-importance, perpetually ineffectual.
They clutch desperately on to their perceptions,
their DVD's and plasma TV screens;
they're rushing blindly to the brink of self-destruction,
never caring for a moment what life means,
so I'll have a cup of tea and read Jane Austen,
self-righteous, showing smug English reserve,
and laugh at all their cheesy indiscretions
while I cheer their unimaginable nerve!
Cycles
by Michael R. Burch
I see his eyes caress my daughter's breasts
through her thin cotton dress,
and how an indiscreet strap of her white bra
holds his bald fingers
in fumbling mammalian awe...
And I remember long cycles into the bruised dusk
of a distant park,
hot blushes,
wild, disembodied rushes of blood,
portentous intrusions of lips, tongues and fingers...
and now in him the memory of me lingers
like something thought rancid,
proved rotten.
I see Another again?hard, staring, and silent?
though long-ago forgotten...
And I remember conjectures of panty lines,
brief flashes of white down bleacher stairs,
coarse patches of hair glimpsed in bathroom mirrors,
all the odd, questioning stares...
Yes, I remember it all now,
and I shoo them away,
willing them not to play too long or too hard
in the back yard?
with a long, ineffectual stare
that years from now, he may suddenly remember.
Photographs
by Michael R. Burch
Here are the effects of a life
and they might tell us a tale
(if only we had time to listen)
of how each imperiled tear would glisten,
remembered as brightness in her eyes,
and how each dawn’s dramatic skies
could never match such pale azure.
Like dreams of her, these ghosts endure
and they tell us a tale of impatient glory . . .
till a line appears—a trace of worry?—
or the wayward track of a wandering smile
which even now can charm, beguile?
We might find good cause to wonder
as we see her pause (to frown?, to ponder?):
what vexed her in her loveliness . . .
what weight, what crushing heaviness
turned her auburn hair a frazzled gray,
and stole her youth before her day?
We might ask ourselves: did Time devour
the passion with the ravaged flower?
But here and there a smile will bloom
to light the leaden, shadowed gloom
that always seems to linger near . . .
And here we find a single tear:
it shimmers like translucent dew
and tells us Anguish touched her too,
and did not spare her for her hair's
burnt copper, or her eyes' soft hue.
Published in Tucumcari Literary Review (the first poem in its issue)
Keywords/Tags: youth, puberty, teen, teenage, teenagers, teen love, sex, sexy, lust, desire, date, father, daughter, chastity, virginity, abstinence, hormones, photograph, photographs, effects, ghosts, phantoms, time