Best Inveterate Poems
July 29, 1890
Colored daubs and swatches
crave artist’s practiced hand.
Justice, nearly blind, yet watches—
unwrought art upon a stand.
Regard the brushes in a row—
the palettes and the sponges.
Genius maimed by status quo,
vain a hope that fate expunges.
Guttered myriad lifelong dreams—
in desperate ruination.
Fading now the piteous screams
of self-inflicted termination.
Time Passes
Abruptly then adoring praise—
contrived their sudden expertise.
Rude cabal who would appraise—
byzantine their guileful sleaze.
Each masterpiece a servant
of craven yearn and greed.
Bang the gavel, swift and fervent;
sate purveyors’ inveterate need.
Justice now is truly blind;
vanished those She would impute.
His final piece is left unsigned;
and undisclosed, for now She’s mute.
4th Place: I Love Rock and Roll
Inspired by Don McLean's song, Starry Starry Night
Categories:
inveterate, betrayal, corruption, evil, vanity,
Form:
Quatrain
Had a room been open in that passageway
as a foreign night-ship, you’d have sailed by
Love would’ve been what? I couldn’t say
Life: an inveterate humid ply____________
Perhaps has passed with its pernicious waves
Acceptance rising like ocean’s eustacy
Sometimes, perfunctory was a skin-cut shave
So much more, was propitious ecstasy~~~~~
Parts of us shall never be contrite
As connoisseurs of our own fate, we played
Rage now mostly contrived in dying spite
though candid caustic thoughts can still prey…
Passion!
Our ultimate perfidy
Passion!
We should've kept astute custody.
6/29/2021
Categories:
inveterate, love,
Form:
Sonnet
There is no denying the power of love.
It is a splendid teacher
Quite adept at instructing us
In ways that completely alter our character,
And telling us how to be what we never were,
Or never even imagined we could ever be.
In certain individuals
Its transformations are frequently nothing short of miraculous.
It breaks down all our natural barriers,
And in the blink of an eye
Can turn a niggardly pinchpenny into a philanthropist,
An obsequious milquetoast into a courageous and gallant knight,
And make a paragon of "politesse" out of an absolute boor.
The inveterate sluggard becomes a captain of industry,
And the most innocent of dullards
Becomes a wellspring of sagacity and worldliness.
What a marvelous whetstone for sharpening wits
And honing the senses is love.
Even its most hardened critics…
Those victims and casualties who proved to be intractable and unteachable…
Find it difficult, if not impossible,
To deny the power of love's ability to inspire
The most truly amazing things in a human heart.
Categories:
inveterate, love, philosophy,
Form:
Free verse
The most abominable aspect of war is its necessity.
To where are you marching, soldier,
Is it to some dreadful foreign war?
Why must you leave your home again,
As you’ve done so many times before?
Where this morn does the turbulence crest
That sends you marching into the night?
Who this day shall become your enemy
That tomorrow you must fight?
Soldier, why is the world in conflict,
How does your integrity stand?
Is the world so tarnished by its disparities
That war is of demand?
Why do you sacrifice your hopes and dreams?
Why for others must you bleed?
Why do you cast your lot into the wind
For that which others need?
O’ to where are you marching, soldier,
With your youthful pace?
Why do you transcend the words of God
To maintain his touch of grace?
O’ where does your legion take you?
Upon whom will your convictions tread?
Why does the world keep with death and ruin
For any peace that lies ahead?
O’ what will become of tomorrow, soldier,
Will it become no more than today?
Will tomorrow bring once more the dusky hues
That takes you faraway?
O’ to where are you marching, soldier,
Is it truly to a needful war,
Or are you just marching to the inveterate dirge
That has been heard so many times before?
Categories:
inveterate, courage, dedication, gothic, imagery,
Form:
Rhyme
Unquotable quotes - III
When in Rome, do as the Roman Nero.
The rain in Spain falls mainly on the vain and the
insane.
A grenade a day keeps the refugee away.
Cut your coat according to your girth.
The kettle calling the pot back.
Like father, like son; like mother, like neither.
Singing in the rain can get you pain in Spain.
Singing in the rain in Paris can get you chicks who do
the twist with fairies.
A sound heart in a sick body is like a tart groggy with
toddy.
The sun also rises best in the West.
Who said beggars are not choosers: they can choose the
place and moment they beg.
A white tiger abhors orange.
A policeman’s girl always wears handcuffs behind her
back.
A lawyer who licks the back of hands always gets paid
first.
A judge who yells at you tends to reduce the sentence to
a phrase.
Building castles in the air with sand is cheaper by far.
A marathon runner remembers the thighs but not the
laps.
At the end of the day is when you make your greatest
mistake – you go to sleep.
Churn milk to make curd: churn speech to make turd.
Pounding rice as a marriage rite brings no surprise on
the wedding night.
One swallow doesn’t make a drunkard out of a
teetotaller, but it sure signals a dry summer.
Cricketing jargon
The late-cut is the shave you missed out.
The off-cut is the cover drive turned phut.
The leg-pull is the batsman’s bras de fer to the leg
spinner.
The long-stop is the twelth man on the field.
The straight drive pierces the umpire’s reverie.
The full-toss is the fast bowler’s slipped disc.
The ton-up comes after the spin bowlers give up.
The innings defeat is the army beating the retreat.
Test matches end up in ditches for pitches.
A bumper is an un-coded message from the bowler to the
batsman.
A bumper is an overt warning to the inveterate blocker.
Tail-enders get to face the best batsmen all-rounders.
Umpires inspect pitches at the start of a match for coins
dropped by lawn-mowers.
An over-throw is a fielded ball flung by an outfielder at
the umpires and which misses the wickets by miles.
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2016
Categories:
inveterate, games, humor, humorous, imagery,
Form:
Epigram
Excuses
…..And spewing them forth
The inveterate loafer
Enjoys himself, while
The decent one feels squeamish
Even when he’s justified.
9th Jan 13
S.Jagathsimhan Nair
For Susan’s ‘Excuses’
Categories:
inveterate, life,
Form:
Tanka
He the superb of all time
The man he used to be
A noun I read in dictionary
The writer's word choice
The level of his formality
Humble and edifying
Erodite like Apollo's dream
From Juno to Hera to fervor breeze
I know, He swings gently like spring
Inveterate and brave
Not to discussed how superb is He
God knows what he really wants to be
Now he unravel his cape and sore
Not to fly like he wish as a real superhero
His a malleable person and has laconic ideals
The gateway through
Be the change and stand firm
And soar high like Icarus and feel the wonders of the sun.
Categories:
inveterate, character, cheer up, hero,
Form:
Bio
Once again unrelenting sadness knocks at my door,
Like the inveterate seeker of my generous charity
Calls on others like me and always demanding more.
Could it be that I am a lone favored mark to score?
And I am deigned to entertain gloom incessantly
Once again, unrelenting sadness knocks at my door.
Would that I could be like others who in autumn soar
And, seeing in falling leaves, they hope abundantly,
Calls on others like me and always demanding more.
I find at autumn’s advent a bitter chilling to the core
Rising to the level of self-uncontrolled ascendancy,
Once again, unrelenting sadness knocks at my door
Every year I have vowed I’ll not suffer again, I swore,
But this annual sadness I cannot explain from infancy
Calls on others like me and always demanding more.
Worse still, I have become a nauseous, weary boor,
Complaining and whining that this SAD has primacy.
Once again, unrelenting sadness knocks at my door
Calls on others like me and always demanding more.
written October 30, 2021
Categories:
inveterate, angst, autumn, conflict, depression,
Form:
Villanelle
LONDON JOURNEY FASCINATION
First time on a mainline LNER train *
When you’re five’s a signal whistle
For six hours Kings Cross to Newcastle **
Sightseeing. Walk along platform to attain
The exit past the loco at the buffers:
In a forest of knees and suitcases,
The oiled steel engine’s grace is
Close enough to touch: my mother suffers
My adoration of its black livery
And emblazoned gold name “Woodcock”.
The time on the gigantic station clock
Shows our speedy, safe and prompt delivery.
Huge driving wheels and pistons are higher
Than my five-year-old frame.
Somebody cares well for that engine of fame
That steel rail non-stop flier.
Oh the trip is an exciting drama
I have comics to read and sandwiches and tea
But what never ceases to fascinate me
Is the moving view and panorama -
Oncoming trains go flashing by
Wheels a-roar and whistles blare
Nothing quite like this to compare
Too fast even for the adoring eye;
Birds sitting on the telephone wires,
Like musical notes in an unsung air,
Unending composition, unfinished movement fair,
From one end of the country to the others;
The journey long stayed in my memory
Made me a traveller inveterate.
Impact on me impossible to over-rate -
Imbued with the notion of discovery.
…………………………………………………
Note:
* LNER = London and North Eastern Railway
** Kings Cross = London mainline terminal station
Categories:
inveterate, traveljourney, london, me, time,
Form:
Enclosed Rhyme
Alone in his cell, an inmate said,
"Truly, I have escaped the baseness of humans-
that inveterate vice which condones condemnation.”
No longer will he mistake loathing for love, enmity for
amenity or abhorrence for adoration.
Here, who you are, whether you be Gandhi or Nazi, is
Worn proudly, unambiguously, not shrouded in incongruity.
No longer will he be forced to live a lie and deny who he
Is. “Here, we are all the same”
No longer will he need to weave elaborate stories to cover
up your crimes. “Here we can count on your face
the lives you took”
Looking through the prison bars he saw our dilemma:
The masks we wear and the people we pretend to be; the people
We befriend to betray in the end. He saw the disingenuous,
the hypocrisy, the ruse and the tricks,
the chaos and the lies; and he felt sorrow because
he could not free those of us still trapped by prison walls.
Categories:
inveterate, philosophy,
Form:
"what is your wishing?
my little child, my little idiot
didn't you listen to cross-eyed man?"
"as you may know",
whispered the deranged father,
"inveterate dreamers
have the most fragile belief in life
they're chain-smokers by nature
and with grim rise of urbanization
in the end they only follow
the cold wave to Norilsk"
so I ask again:
"dear mademoiselle
dear chatelaine
dear mistress of nonchalance
aren't your exploits a little bit foolish?
aren't you going a little bit mad?"
and through the amused laugh
the sinister answer follows:
"aren't we all mad here, my dear?"
Categories:
inveterate, imagery, mental illness, surreal,
Form:
Narrative
There was a man from Asia, it was me,
I could not fit in with the norm, I was beastly;
And so, I was living in the desolate woods,
Far away from the consumer goods.
As time passed hormones played havoc
Tinkering around my brain and twitting my ravenous cock,
The luck did not favor me with a hen,
In utter desperation I took up the pen.
I wrote a thousand lines for my inveterate luck,
That brat was not pleased, I was a lame duck;
I was a beast and so I picked up a prick,
And dug in the bush, a hole, for my furtive dick.
The haul thing was stupendous, a bit obscene,
But I did carry the atavism in my gene;
In the dark it came out, you know what I mean.
As night kicked in the crack I gave it a break,
Nick Tim, my dear, only for your sake.
Amuse Me with Your Rhyme, Let A Man from Asia be your guide Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Nick Trim
26th June, 2018
Categories:
inveterate, fun, funny,
Form:
Rhyme
Pome du jour
Rudderless and leaderless we will traverse
The seas and the trails
Of meter, rhyme schemes and tropes
(If we please)
And land on Moot Point - somewhere north of San Francisco.
The medium is, after all, the message (per Marshall McLuhan)
And a poem must need not 'mean' but 'be' (per Archibald McLeish)
Hence, loose the bonds of that inveterate evil thing - mind
And think tangentially, not crossing, not intersecting
(think in terms of a curve approaching its asymptote),
For therein lies the truly spiritual beings we are.
A god is immaterial here. But: Vaya con dios,mi amigo.
Categories:
inveterate, poetry,
Form:
Blank verse
Diogenes holds a lantern
Hypnotized- the faint light
Eyes search all nooks and turn
Desire in them makes them bright
Drank no voda only lie and deception
Hegemonized- lost- sick of hunger
Pathologized- TRUTH the only medication
Unconscious he is with thirst growing stronger
But, egregious- incorrigible or glib
It’s all he finds- the chronic liars
The consummate and congenital lie lay down deep
Inveterate they are unconscionable buyers
He’s finished his search in Athens
Hope’s alive! The hill thus flattens
Categories:
inveterate, courage, faith, trust, truth,
Form:
Sonnet
Who am I, really? I want to explore my taproot
I am h-o-m-o sapiens, by gender, one of those males
A protestant of the Christian faith, entirely moot,
A writer of many sermons, stories, poems, and tales
A pastor, a teacher, a writer/author by trade
I am a father, friend, a neighbor, and confidante
Once I was young, handsome, and ruggedly made
Now, aging fast, infirmed--I have nothing to flaunt.
I have, in my lifetime, engaged in many professions
Studied hard and earned several difficult degrees
From many lands, I have collected many possessions
I am a naturalist, a conservationist, a hugger of trees
An adventurer, a traveler, a vagabond of sorts
Now an accomplished poet I spend most of my days
Relaxing at home, nursing my ills, dressed in shorts
Need no permissions, I suppose, I am set in my ways.
Long ago, I served my country; I am a patriotic man
I am a freethinker, a liberal, hard for some to figure
For nearly eighty years I have done the best I can
Fighting bullying and bigotry—ignites a protest vigor.
I think of myself as an inveterate lover, seldom a fighter;
On the other hand, I do not “suffer stupid fools gladly”
It is my desire to make the day of everyone I meet lighter
Rather than engage in mindless debate, I walk away sadly.
So, if you have read these verses, you know where I am at
And I know myself better for having written all of that!
written May 25, 2021
Categories:
inveterate, father, friend, identity, philosophy,
Form:
Rhyme