Best Modern Times Poems
In this new world, the reality of insanity
Elicits frail morality, losing deep values
To cuthroat urbanity. We thirst for quick fixes
And dismiss gentle formality although life
Grants humanity its spirit’s wholeness—
How can greed and power allow us to ignore
Kindness, simple vitality borne from Hope,
Our birthright amid mundanity? Is man’s dream
Caged in temporal inanity where success
Is appraised by materialism or arrogant fame?
Such brutality! We forget the path of compassion
As time forges on in despotic volcanity, while
Children grow imbibing a mentality that existence
Lies in crude profanity based on self-interest…
Where is love in this equation?A doomed fatality
Of modern times , perhaps. I wonder.
Contest: Word Challenge for Silent One
1/27/2017
Kein Klagen hilft mehr
Kultur erleidet Schiffbruch
Moderne Zeiten
Leer die einst vollen Kinos
Und Stille im Theater
No laments will help
Culture suffers depression
In these modern times
Empty once fully occupied cinemas
And only silence in the theater
No clamor ayudará
La cultura sufre la depresión
En tiempos modernos
Vacío una vez llenos cines
Y sólo silencio en el teatro
A generation seeks to build and create metal machinery electricity krytrons to make this globe go round expanding like a virus that knows no cure stupid boxes couch potatoes
Clickers information out of context
Drama at a pretext style to mock
What's cool and what is not
What use to simmer is now a crock pot
MARTY KING
a clumsy ox in modern times
i have dropped the ball only to recover what i did not know about myself
all i did in order to impress you, i simply laugh at now when the pictures of the memories resurface in my mind
i had to go through so many doors of embarrassment to discover that you loved me simply for me
as i scramble your eggs and put cheese in your grits, i remember to lightly butter the toast
the heartbeat of your passion send me to heights unbeknownst to even the most well-travelled astronaut
this clumsy ox has gone low key....and is finally settling down
SHENIKA SIMS
a clumsy ox in modern times
i cannot even count how many times i broke out due to makeup overabundance
i used to dance so nasty and lick my lips seductively
i used to touch myself and mimic things that would perhaps inspire a wet dream or three
i would wear dresses and jeans so tight that i became immune to the lack of needed blood circulation
shoot, i risked my damn life just to get your attention
now look at you....all scramblin' my eggs and putting blended cheeses in my grits
YOU EVEN REMEMBERES TO LIGHTLY BUTTER MY TOAST.....RAINDROPS....SNOWFALL....OH (BLEEP)!
the soft honesty of your love for me got my whole body all into the full realm of emotional
this clumsy ox is officially off the grid....eternally unavailable and taken....HAPPILY!
By the soul, and That which shaped it and inspired it
[with the capacity to distinguish between] lewdness and God-fearing,
prosperous is he who purifies it, and failed has he who seduces it.
(The Holy Quran 91:7-10)
Brothers love their sisters and remember
As the leaves of a tree called life are falling,
At one time apart and at another together,
There will sooner or later come a voice calling:
Injuries will heal and hence be forgotten
Lies will stumble, be found out and go down
Dreams will dovetail with good deeds and come true
Weapons invented and used against life will end
Birds and flowers will be set free of cages and fences
Innocence and Beauty will spring back and prosper
Tears in our sacred soil will be wiped out forever
Every scoffing built upon our falling is nothing
This tree of life is fruitful and has wonder and wonder.
Chokri Omri
Living a life so utterly blind
In deep recesses of the mind
Male or female who's to say
So fluid in this day and age
One's assimilation is what they claim
No identity is one to shame
So many choices in modern time
Like a new born kitten don't be blind
LGBTQI exists today
Now non-binary comes into play
Birth assigned gender, matters not
Echoes in eternity the given lot
("Before And After Science", 2023, original encaustic)
The Corruption of Modern Times aka Colonization of the Sacred
There are traditions
Passed down in ear-whisper lineages
And Dead Sea scrolls
Dream journeys and alien visitations
These are the timeless traditions of the soul
And as such have remained safely outside of time
In little pockets and distant hermitages
Where souls can breathe and thrive.
But the modern is not one to recognize souls
Let alone show kindness to secret and mysterious ways
Nor to the distant and isolated among us
The modern likes to discover the rare
And consume it as for lunch with an apéritif
To preserve and venerate
But in the process adulterate with its own values
Enslaved as a means to its own selfish end.
In some ways this is how all civilizations grow
But also how Tradition dies
Even the finest ways of the past
Ways of the esoteric and sublime
Have been made to serve the masses
In the name of the false gods of democracy;
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Gods that acknowledge no real excellence
No ground that is sacred
Let alone open to only the most select and few.
In this way the modern has made common
And dumbed down
What is inherently elite
And beyond accessible
In this way we have become less
In the process of becoming more
Because though our true nature is one
And the same for us all
We are each as individuals as unique
As the proverbial snowflake.
And each though the center of our own universe
Still only able to see
What we have eyes to see
And minds to know
Each hung up on whatever rung of the ladder
We find ourselves on
What level of the pyramid we toil
In fulfilling our own need.
So on we toil
Bound to our own wheel
Grinding away all that we dream
Till what is left is beyond
Anything that can be held
Let alone known
And so slips through the fingers of Ego
Grasping with habitual, clueless routine
Blind to all it is missing
Of what is real all around
What is only whispered
In the wind
Or felt with the soft caress
Of distant Sun.
(12/1/23)
When my working week is full yet my bank balance stays barren.
Being bigger, better, faster, stronger
These modern times, a far cry from
Being saner, kinder, gentler, wiser,
Are a cancerous race to satisfy the insatiable.
With our advance into abundance
We have lost touch
With the old world
Of tradition, balance, moderation, restraint.
Instead we now have all that we dream,
Each of us a Midas
Able to grasp
If not ever hold.
Able to spoil and pervert
All that we touch, taste, and feel
The everyday and mundane
With the rare and exceptional.
Now we each deserve it all
To have our cake and eat it too
With all the lust and greed, envy and resentment
That comes with limitless expectation.
No longer tempered in desire
By limits
Self or other imposed
We grasp for the highest fruit.
Confident as in a dream
We will fly
When we lose our grip
And fall.
(11/23/23)
arrows of summer breezes
midnight streams galore
bubbling brooks
in me you got your hooks
i thank God for you daily
in peace with you astounds me
the excitement within the warmth of you surrounds me
hearing the water flow
i spring into rejuvenation
i thank God for you daily
the ocean breeze is meant to blow through your hair
the sun that follows is meant to accentuate your natural beauty
the coolness of the water is meant to inspire your smile of upliftment
if a happy day was a blue sky, then you would be the puffy cloud nucleus
i thank God for you daily
There was a Jewish man from Andorra
Who singed his rear end on a menorah
Sparks flew to his feet
Providing this treat
He sure danced one mean Chanukah hora
__________________________________________________
Notes:
A menorah is the special Chanukah lamp lit for eight nights
The hora is a traditional Jewish/Israeli celebratory circle dance
Modern Times
Universal truths or Universal Studios?
Can one distinguish any longer now
That the Universe has shrunk to a
Binary system of code,
Arcane enough to keep most believing
In a higher power, that is
until
Brown-out causes
Questioning
albeit fleeting like light, like
fliker of a dying cathode ray
the modern equivalent of firefly,
A sad beacon warning of troubled seas, yet
We sail forth steadfast in ignorance
gaining
no truths just
making sure the water stays murky enough
for the ensuing generation of questions.
We never listen.
I love the motion pictures and
We need some Chaplin now.
His modern times guttered out
Like a heavy candle in a Trappist's window
too as
Charlot became Godot and yes,
I stay rooted in that century
Where pilgrimage did not lead to Progress
but morass which
----we should all fear---
congeals like treacle every year
Cloying and suffocating in its sweet enough promise
To tempt the waiting generation yet, to suckle,
Purchase into the myth
Enjoy overpaying for the cheap seats
While the projectionist is
asleep at the wheel
reel to real to reel...
Adieu my century
Welcome to the next phase of blind.
I’ve got a secret
I’ll tell you that it’s true
It’s not something I regret
But it will be a surprise too
The papers will want to hear
A raise of your TV ratings it will bring
It will be something they will fear
I will say the nasty thing
The more likes I get on Facebook
Will make me smile even more
I’ll make them look a bunch of sooks
This will be my best score.
© Paul Warren Poetry
Past and Modern Times
Once over Capital Confederate Flag was flown,
And over the years my curiosity has grown;
Center of attention was war fought long ago;
What about all of this by us should we know.
Questions went over and over in my mind;
Answers to them always hope I can find;
What if with Poet Laureate were to consult,
In an effort of mine to find the final result.
An answer in my mind did last and last
We can longer have to live in the past;
When I heard bell with all their chimes;
Said we should start living in modern times.
James Serious Mysterious Horn
Retired Veteran and Poet
I ride to the store on horseback and saddle,
I Leave him outside its distasteful to ride indoors,
My horse stays there it waits it needs no shackle,
I wonder inside my eyes beholden,
This world I have found,
It shines bright it glows with electricity,
I wander I’m lost this place a city,
I don’t know where to exist in this modern World,
I leave the store now with this plastic holding,
My horse I return to,
He looks at me with a sight of scolding,
I shudder sadly knowing our time has nearly past,
We wonder back to the prairie,
The horizon crept upon by cities leaving us teary.