Best Jobless Poems
You are now an outsider
No longer part of the mechanism
Not needed, surplus to requirement, redundant
Your mind slowly blunting at the bottom of the bottom drawer of life
The eyes of others betray derision and contempt
Fearful of catching your disease
Keeping a distance, loathing your weakness and inability
A moment of pseudo sympathy and they’re gone, you’re of no further use to them
Every rejection is an undeniable confirmation of your failure
Affirmation is everywhere; you just never saw it before now
Self-confidence, ground down with every counter-opinion to yours
Your worth is worthless and your prospects worth less than that
Pride declines charity yet you wish they’d persist
Dismissal and a cynical laugh is your antidote to their wise advice
Don’t you think I have thought of that? Or tried this? You say
Embarrassment at your own ineptitude has become hostility
Your child's face is a gallery of unconscious naivety
You draw her in close, a surrogate for decent food and warmth
Inwardly you cry for her and, perhaps, more for you at your inability to provide
You’re not sure how or when it will end but certainly...it will end
Slowly, yet quite perceptibly, you have become the person you once scorned
You now comprehend the reason for their shabby appearance
You realise that hesitance isn’t stupidity but a fear of making a wrong impression
You can now walk a mile in another man’s shoes…until they wear out
We have graduated from many prestigious tertiary institutions,
With flying colors,
Competent and resourceful,
But we are roaming around the streets, homeless, penniless and jobless.
We have been trained,
Under the scorching sun and in the rain,
In skill acquisition
And entrepreneurship development (SAED),
But we are neglected, so we resort to crimes,
And daily marched toward the docks.
We have studied the Constitution and Civic Education,
Equipped ourselves daily
With the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
Found out that we are the leaders of tomorrow,
A lie as old as time itself.
Since we have tasted poverty and dormancy,
And can't even say when they will stop politicking with our future,
It's high time we make up our minds,
To changelessly be or not to be,
Perpetual hungry applicants or educated and hopeless scholars.
Unemployment line
Single file to soup kitchen...
Fear of homelessness
Unemployment line
Cries in emergency room...
Fear, no insurance
Unemployment line
Like a faith-healer's crusade...
Hope to help, heal, house
Jobless Jack, a real jerk, dances a jig,
He juggles, smuggles jewels in backpacks,
jawbreakers, jump ropes, jelly rolls and crack.
~~Jig be up, Jack'll jiggle in the brig.~~
Junk jingles and jangles, squeals like a pig
jerked and jacked from joints on his pickup routes.
Amid crates of jackets, jeans, and jump suits,
Jobless Jack, a real jerk, dances a jig,
Jack jimmied the Jaguar trunk of some prig;
now Judge Judy’s searching Jack's jalopy.
“Jumping Jehoshaphat, what’s this jersey?"
~~Jig be up, Jack'll jiggle in the brig.~~
Jobless Jack, a real jerk, dances a jig,
her missing jersey was what the judge found.
~~Jig be up, Jack'll jiggle in the brig.~
written 1/31/2018
a villonet
Sponsor Constance La France
Contest Name ''J'' Contest, New or Old
congressmen claim they’re
working for our happiness
while we crave for JOBS!
Hey poor boy from the far 80s
Was it 16 or 17 when you got stuck?
You dug a hole so deep and fell in it.
Agreed it was warm , protective
except that your whole adulthood was blocked .
You had your chances , you had your talents
you let them rot .
And now you ride on that red flying horse
among young bloods
too much smoke , too much old bones.
Some evil child once told me , he took you to the crazy house
and he felt your use of erotic images was overboard.
He laughed at you , but I didn’t
because only a monster would celebrate any pain coming from the guts of a friend .
Shame I said nothing ,
but again like you would say :
-it wasn’t my business but your mistake .
And now you walk on flimsy panels of concrete
and now you stalk and now you cuss.
And now you talk about little girls
that ate too much candy ,
you call them sad because you get it .
You see, I know you ate all that candy too,
but instead of reaching for the light
you dug that hole and paralyzed your soul .
And that is how , I find myself
relentlessly entangled in your monologue .
There is no shame in cutting heads
of bratty player boys .
What killed the cat was not curiosity
but hateful words .
And from those I gave them none .
So dear poor boy from the far 80s ,
become a man , untie your soul ,
Happiness , sadness, that is your choice.
My incantation: I wish you gone .
Never pick fights with a survivor,
in life , only one time the heart is broken
and after that , the flesh gets rough
and we start over .
there are no schemes
but only freedom to love again , to fail again , to celebrate the everlasting beauty of not giving a damn anymore.
My cute little princess,
Wants to play in excess,
Diffiult to be at par with her,
As her capacity is intense!
Her innocent smile rejuvenates,
looks heart throbbing in every dress,
Boosts my energy,
Taking away the stress!
I wish to express,
She's a bliss,
To cuddle and caress,
I madly miss!
With her along my 'mind and heart' are at peace,
When I am away from her,
For work and other business,
I am in distress!
I guess,
If time was to be bought,
At any cost I would purchase,
Or would be more than happy,
Remaining jobless!
A JOBLESS MAN
He strives daily
Wakes up early
To provide for his family
On the table there's no food
Even the health of the young ones is not good
One needs medication
Another needs operation
There is nowhere to find money
"I am failing honey,"
He says.
Tears just fall
Fall from them all
Mother and daughter
Father and son
Who said men don't cry?
Tell him or her that's a lie
Poor man
He never went to school
But he's the only family tool
They all rely on him
When days are dark, bright and dim
Poor man
His daily bread is stress
His daily make up on his face is sadness
He is Jobless
A JOBLESS MAN.
PoeticMonwa_
Once there was a pauper whose story was never told.
A man prey to conventions made so many years ago.
Now he was not ignorant and others would also agree…
He was just a jobless bugger with a respectable college degree.
He was an artist, a scientist and a dreamer.
A thinking man a relentless schemer
In social captivity he strived to be free,
A jobless bugger, with a respectable college degree.
They took away his pride and ideas even more
His morals his conviction and everything else they stole.
And still they advised him that it is unwise to be,
A jobless bugger with a respectable college degree…
It was pieces of paper that ruled their lives..
Gave them home, food, respect and wine.
All a part of a grand, redundant machine
Except the jobless bugger, with a respectable college degree.
But then one day the the machine finally broke.
Amidst great terrors and horrors then humanity spoke.
Will pieces of paper fix this tragedy?
They asked each other with fear and misery. "'
No one had looked at the machine from afar.
No one could as they were all its parts.
But then they realised there was one who had seen
The strengths and the flaws of the great machine.
Watching intently the pauper stood by.
The people begged and cried for their lives.
Only he could fix the machine
The jobless bugger, with a respectable college degree.
So listen to my words, the story i just told
There is a purpose that every life holds
You can either be like the men trapped in the machine
Or the jobless bugger with a respectable college degree!
Gormedigim yuzler
Hikayesini duymadigim cocuklar
Ayna olsam ruyalaina
Bir damlada yeseren hayat
Umudu heybesinde kusmus
Dertlenmis ofkesi kusdili
Sevdasi nefesinde alinterinde
Doludizagin hayata isyan
Umit ettik ki gun dogsun
Gelecege is olsun yarina
Cok aradim yirtim kendimi
Bulamadim bir is yetemedim kendime
Aynada yansimis aslanin agzinda
Gormedigim yuzler
Hikayesini duymadigim cocuklar
Utanmasim issizligimden
- In this poetty writen in Turkish
people loose their jobs
their ashamed themself because they mostly can't find a job to feed their family.
Is it sound familiar what we are facing here "it small world after all " means share our pain.
A Nigerian, studying for years,
In higher institution,
Burning candles.
Graduated with honors, got no job,
Searching daily,
Fed up.
Tears rolling down, he is pained,
Remember him,
This I plead.
You see him on the streets sometimes,
other times he's nowhere to be found,
but regardless of whether he's seen by a collect few or by none,
he's somewhere, deep in thought, deep in prophecy, receiving visions from on high, for a single ma'am - a lone wolf or for those that concern the multiples down to the miniscule.
Whether they receive these,
the rare occasions when he speaks and when he shares,
or if they choose to reject his perspectives of life and the future, he's there, in the invisible shadow of broad daylight and in the piercing, loud quiet of 4am.
He's most often communicating through the medium of copper wires and fibreglass, the great library of incorrect information,
you see he's quite shy by nature but he's a valiant stalwart werewolf when the meek are threatened by the cowardly strong, he's sending arrows by distance, to pierce the imposing darkness that the fiend brings.
From vision to shield, let his arrows cloak the downtrodden and let the fallen angels beware, the jobless prophet despises evil work.
She has no job
Professes to not care
Has taught school for six years
I do not care what job I get she says
Anything but teaching.
I never want to do this again.
She was our teacher of the year a year ago
I mentioned doing a t-chart, so she can think about her life
Put plus and minus at the top, I said.
List all the things you love to do and all the things you do not want to do
She came back over to my table six times
To tell me she has not "found" herself yet.
She can think of nothing to write in either column.
I cannot help but think she wants to stay jobless
After I lost my job
I sat
In my apartment
For days
With the windows closed
Staring at the walls
Pretending
I had someplace to go.
I was always told
You’re lucky
To have a job
But looking back
On yesterday
It was always
Just another day of
Showing more initiative
Being more ambitious
Trying harder.
It began
When a stranger sat at my desk
Wanted to know what my job was
Rumors flew around our village of cubicles
Layoffs were imminent
Older employees shook their heads in fear
And we began looking for jobs.
Called to a group meeting
A heavy set man
Stood in the middle of the space
Like a circus ringleader
Announcing
That it was our last day.
We were crushed
The improbable had happened
Our jobs had just vanished
Into thin air.
Leaving the office
Familiar people and places
Looked strange and cold
Crowds, hurrying to be somewhere, passed me by
And I never felt so alone.
The other day
I ran into someone
Who sat not far from me
We never spoke that much
She asked me how I was
And we talked
Both out of work
Connecting for the first time.
After we parted
I caught the reflection
Of a stranger
In the window of an empty store
It was not my face,
Drawn and haggard,
But the eyes
That caught my attention
Hesitant and grey
They still held hope.
Jobless failure life
Although not lazy
Active life spend I
Thirty two years young
In others favor
After Study
Institution
Certifies me
As graduate
But for job
Interview
Traps my life
Failure
Loves to
Fail!
-November 29, 2018 Chattogram