Best Perversely Poems
Skin Deep Beauty
This man covered in tattoos in reds and greens and blues
Wanted everyone to see his art
So he put it in his will that he hopes they will fulfill
That in his death his skin will do its part
He wants it tanned and stretched, hung where it can be sketched
By anyone who happens to come by
He says I’ll be the donor, just the former tattoo owner
The Gallery can hang it when I die
Some say it is perversely, he says the controversy
Is just because most people are too squeamish
They say beauty is skin deep; he just wants his skin to keep
But maybe that’s a little too extreamish
Mdailey 6/2/12
Geoff Ostling has willed his skin to the National Gallery in Canberra, Australia
But the National Gallery has not yet agreed to his bequest.
I am sure if you Google his name you will be able to see for yourself just what he is offering the gallery.
Categories:
perversely, art, social,
Form:
Rhyme
Quite a few of them tried rather fervently
To reach the light that hangs in bows
Sent sideways perversely
Through shadows of mist-like moonbows.
Or like a sundream cascading down memories
They’d trap in their heart’s chest-like the irony of the lion
Loving the lecherous acts of temporary reveries,
While believing and denying the truth of their carrion.
Like the lambs of our lives, the ancients walked with their lips
From the caves to the clouds they sung their pain
Turning self to others and rocks to ships
They gave us a sweet emptiness that had no name.
They shot beams of shades of truth and fire cries
And sung the leaves at night their stars and knelt grass
With bugs that served us plain through bark and breeze
Tries hard to not see the discrepancy between the moment one passes
And the moment one has to pass.
Categories:
perversely, son, song-lyrictruth,
Form:
Rhyme
We walk the rocky shore and you lean heavily on me,
Mother, bruising my balky arm -- muttering "Ay, Hijo!".
A few steps and, breathless, we are both exhausted.
Your once-brown eyes, gone gray, are like
concentric rings rippling from a random stone
thrown into this polluted pond in winter.
Cataracts cloud your lenses; they have a ruptured look --
purple, jellied -- like the eyes of a dead fish which I poke,
perversely fascinated. It is puffed and rotten.
Your eyes are puffed, too, red-rimmed,
moist with tears that brim over
though you try to blink them back.
That you love me and I you,
and that we wish to extend
our time together, is clear.
As clear as the fetid water in the pond,
as clear as my conscience when I drop you
at the Home, having invented a meeting,
to which I must hastily fly.
Categories:
perversely, angst, caregiving, depression, family,
Form:
Narrative
the Medicare, an undeserved fund the patients spend,
which seems extremely excrescent,
must be crushed immediately without any mend.
No coverage serves them right! Be they gravely ill or convalescent.
In his favor, all the rules the Capitol shall bend,
prosecution immunity, business chance----each prerogative coming on end.
His flagrance in abuse of power, plus republicans' acquiescence, plunges to a state perversely putrescent,
in consequence, honest individuals wizened while tower of liar and mar-a-lago mire tumescent.
High as the staff's passions hit, perfectly as their patiences fit, more than half at last have to quit.
What has ground away every panjandrum's wit and grit?
His inopportune blah-blah and twitter tantrum bit after bit,
the latter a globe-mocked target and also, often a globe-shocking tool kit.
Atmosphere of allies only too calm and bland,
against them, with his single hand,
he stirs up trade wars amid the entire world's guffaws.
Prostrate shall be the security of homeland,
prostrate shall be the competence of diplomatic corps,
bolt upright frontier walls shall stand----
but stand only in his brain, which constantly bolts out lunatic lore.
Pants on fire, collars on fire, hard and fast is this refractory liar.
Really a refractory and prolific liar, really a refractory and lifetime liar,
boasting his lying score higher than the steepest steeple's spire,
never plans to retire, until one day he has to expire.
Nonsense the globalization trend, nonsense what the majority attend,
abandoning all oversea interests and renouncing all international duties are the cause he shall defend.
And the itinerary of isolationism, his pilgrimage route.
Endorsed by none, would he be alone? A point nothing moot.
Epiphanic from Roman catacombs, arms open, ecstatic and naked----an epiphany non-faked----
Nero comes up to embrace him grinnily, like a kindred spirit in long pursuit eventually slaked
acting as his soul mate cum his sole friend
and escorting him all along to his final end.
His final end, Nero's end, that's who could brazen out the mass hoot.
His final end, Hell's end, that's where he takes root.
Categories:
perversely, corruption, political, satire,
Form:
Rhyme
So your great gran
was a suffragette
She fought for the right for women to vote
She thought that would make a woman equal,
put them on the same footing as a man
Looking back, that was misguided thinking
by woman like your great gran
Your great gran
and her suffragette sisters
didn't count on their own gender betraying them
To use their hard fought freedoms perversely
Frivolously,
and in the end, irresponsibly
Now you're using your right to vote
to remove the stigma of using dope
Using your freedoms to enhance your breasts,
to mutilate yourself
To smoke cigarettes,
sadly giving yourself cancerous flat chests
Surrogate suffragette,
carrying another woman's baby
The same woman who fought for the right
to have you as her breeding pet
You got your great gran
rolling in her grave I bet
Surrogate suffragette,
my how you're fighting so hard to suppress
all those good freedoms women worked too hard to get
Free to get equal pay,
free to keep your job
should a pregnancy comes your way
Free to smash the glass ceiling,
free to abolish gender hire double dealing
Surrogate suffragette,
you say you're a thoroughly modern woman
But your great gran wouldn't recognize you,
if you were walking down the street
and she saw you coming
Categories:
perversely, culture, granddaughter, grandmother, women,
Form:
Dramatic Verse
Imagine the weight of the air in that house
which in the summer months would strangle you,
wearing heated gloves. Tough luck.
A gulf of emotion that is always a week ahead;
trying to claw back
a sense of permanence
as it lingers in a cold sweat. Windows
crack with discomfort; the place is dead.
All of those whispering memories
that remind me of my crippled crown
an accolade
of atrocities;
dripping with blood that is warm, not red.
Dried it looks a heavy brown, stiff as lead.
Imagine the ricochet of a drunken fist
that snuggles nicely between the nose and lips.
Impact dribbling
down
the spine and slapping the hips. The barrels
of my skull, those holes that whistle in the wind
a sort of lubricated lisp that rests on tears.
A sense of brutal butchery that batters
the borders of belief,
a false economy
to pray that some how, some day and in some
small way this tale will turn. Dismay,
this is not pain. This is not the teething
clamp of a hungry blade, the creasing
curve
through flesh and vein.
This is my reality, or at least it was,
why? because. The luck of the draw, the imploding
exploding, digesting, regurgitating ying and yang
of this universe - the gaunt keeper of humanity.
Sanctimonious,
a symbol of sellotape
that binds me perversely to my past. Manipulative
memories that need to be restrained, filed
with all the crap. A thrill, a subversive
all too serious sensational sense
of seniority,
capped with stark stupidity.
An intoxicated journey that reached an end. Your
choices scarred me; let's not pretend.
Categories:
perversely, angst, introspection, life, me,
Form:
Free verse
A squirrel died on my front lawn.
I saw it fall,
As warm and round as an overripe peach.
I heard it land, like an olive dropped on hard wood,
splayed in a spot where passers-by
looked away on purpose.
Flies congregated,
brushed their legs against each other.
I canceled a dinner party because of the smell:
a low noisome hum
thick as sulphur on the head of a match just burnt,
sour as eggs.
My stomach curled low into my hips
when I searched the air outside my window,
perversely sniffing.
Swollen flies met in congress,
they rubbed their legs together,
trying to start a fire.
Categories:
perversely, animals, death,
Form:
Free verse
Some people think I'm crazy
But I'm not an empty suit,
Though sometimes I sound hazy
When I take that extra toot.
I don't mind if people find
My long lost indiscretions.
Errors past are cast from mind
Along with all confessions.
Priest and pastor vanities
Indecently abundant
Do reflect debaucheries
Perversely now redundant.
My politics are changing
As the years are rolling on
But I am not arranging
To become a Limbaugh pawn.
Ditto-heads are overfed
Dumb people who must flatter
Oxycontin Limbaugh led
Mysogynistic chatter.
Blubber-belly Huckabee
Is just a perfect gomer
Add to that hypocrisy
You have a fat misnomer.
Sara Palin made some hay
While daughter made a baby
Sara says "No sex, no way"
But daughter said "Well, maybe."
The daughter did cohabit
Under mother's halo glow
But randy as a rabbit
Her young lust just had to grow.
Categories:
perversely, politicaldaughter, people, daughter, people,
Form:
Quatrain
I wonder...
Wherever this nebulous varmint is
Here, there, everywhere
Does he ever look to himself in shame
He who leaves his iniquitous stains
For all the hatred he lays claim?
He gives tongue to the anemic, weakened mettle
Wheezing his nidorous, putrid breath into its chambers,
Leaving behind his dark black, deadly whispers
Of desolated emptiness- this demonic mister
He entombs them alive, those he perversely abducts
In his Cimmerian, shadowy hell
Slither back to your bottomless pit
You tenebrous angel from purgatory
You don't deserve a capital 'A'
In your God forsaken name
Demon of greed and endless shame
Conjuring up ways to wickedly ensnare
Those who've weakly stumbled to their knees
You were cast down from the Great One's Home
You don't deserve this world to roam
This is 'Lights Out'...
The demise of you and me
And everything I used to be!
Don't hurl me your meager crumbs of wretched love
As you wickedly tally my teardrops in The Mighty's rain
You menacing angel- I'm aware of your despicable fame
I'm through dancing to your stygian, sooty song
Go back to Hades where you chose to belong
You cheat, you lie with your unlit callous facade
You cerberus hound from hell- you are not from my loving God
I see behind your lurid, false masquerade
You, malevolent angel cast from Heaven above
I pray...
You incubus, you succubus
Recoil back to your wicked, burning inferno
Go crawling back to your lake of fire
Ye who chose crepuscular, selfish desire
And... Pathetically became you
Categories:
perversely, allegory, fear, god, angel,
Form:
Dramatic Verse
Alien Messiah
A recital of miserly contastrophists
led by a figure of churlish meanness
speaking rhetoric of the pacifist
maniacal god complex of fierceness
chorus
pledge allegiance to the alien messiah
like Caligula, a self proclaimed living god
power hungry deviant like Allah
with grandiose gestures mollifies the crowd
no iniquity into his spoken words
His hellish plans he now boldly avowed
the mad man in the house has sole control
chorus
Total disregard for black letter law
driven double speak of the deceitful
Iron fist tyrant We should of foresaw
Orwellian society now pitiful
Chorus
Perversely satisfied with global order
mask comes off in this toxic atmosphere
like black death from an exploding mortar
a menstrual rainbow society is here
chorus(2)
Categories:
perversely, political,
Form:
Lyric
America the beautiful, where are your friends?
They have left you to find some other ends;
You who once stood for all that was right,
Are now only seen as a fading light.
You once were the head but now are the tail,
For greatness you had has now grown pale;
Once on top now great is your fall,
The taste has turned as bitter as gall.
Your birth was filled with blessings received,
You never gave thanks and now are deceived;
By every measure your prestige was great,
But a new day has come and the hour is late.
Whence comes the money to fight every war,
In faraway lands you couldn't ignore;
But you had an interest to protect what was yours,
In spite of the fact your bedfellows were whores.
Now that they see your purse running dry,
They leave you, deceive you and you wonder why;
For fields are far greener in other places,
And smiles more friendly on foreign faces.
You never listened or heeded the call,
Now it is dreadful to watch as you fall;
You now stand naked who once were so fair,
Your sins exposed; your travesty bare.
Your pristine waters have turned to mud,
Your endless wars brought only shed blood;
Your boundless fields of golden grain,
Now withered away from lack of rain.
Internal rot and external blight,
Driven by pride to take your might;
The debts you owe that you now can't pay,
As you went perversely your stubborn way.
The storms and floods have washed away
Blessings and love you had yesterday;
What is left but greed and crime,
That follow your footsteps till the end of time.
You live in denial and can’t face the cost,
And now you reap the emptiness of loss;
The rest of your neighbours, who follow your quest,
Will find that they too will lose their rest.
Categories:
perversely, angst
Form:
Epitaph
You wore your neuroses
Like badges of Honor:
A Non-Apology creature,
- Like certain Candidates I know -
Never a trip to the Vet's;
I valued the flesh of my arms too much -
Never outside;
Except to eat grass
Throw up inside,
Despite it all,
A life stubbornly lived
Into profound old age;
Most spent asleep.
- This is your legacy; of which I'm sure you were perversely proud.
Thus, one day
After 17 years of pure existence
You passed on while climbing the stairs.
Maybe one day I'll follow,
Slipping away between
My lower and upper worlds;
Halted midway between Past and Present.
Maybe we'll meet one day in the middle,
Old friend;
Never think no one grieves for Thee.
Categories:
perversely, animal, appreciation, cat, death,
Form:
Free verse
[The primary cause of the 1986 space shuttle disaster was an O-ring of a design that hadn’t been tested below fifty degrees. But hey... it’s Florida, right?
That fateful night before the launch, the temperature went through the floor. That O-ring became brittle, leading to its subsequent failure. Perversely, when the O-ring first failed the solid fuel blocked the now open Joint. Alas a strong side wind caused the fuel to shift allowing the leak which led to the disaster that followed.
NASA managers had been advised in 1977 about the possibility of calamitous flaws developing in the O-rings at low temperature, but little was done.
On the morning of the launch NASA managers were advised of extremely low temperatures in the night preceding the launch. Launch was delayed by two hours to allow ice to melt but, even at launch, temperatures were below the
O-ring’s tested range. The launch was allowed to progress in spite of these warnings.]
[This poem borrows some content from my poem ‘No God Of Mine’.]
_______________
Set for its tenth foray up into space
Challenger writ upon stark carapace
For every contingency, no expense thrifty
And sometimes the mercury drops below fifty
Brittle components barely discussed
But what dragged the mercury into the dust
Seven the number of highly trained crew
Count seventy two, then the whole thing blew
A Florida chill and an Atlantic gust
Precipitation; ash, fire and dust
Devilish snowflakes that flutter and dance
Through somebody’s devil-may-care negligence
Seek it and tag it and bag it all up
The stuff that came down from what had gone up
Forensic inspections shall raise questions that
Forensic Inspectors call smelling a rat
Too cold the night for an untested o-ring
Not really news when people are knowing
A spacecraft that’s barely defrosted of ice
Just send her up, Lads, that’ll be nice
_______________
Categories:
perversely, history, space,
Form:
Couplet
One of my sisters believes I chose to be *****.
Did you remind her
you had no more choice about chasing guys
than she did?
Yes.
But her favorite televangelist
says I must be mistaken,
or just lying,
because who wouldn't choose to be hated
by all the hetero homophobes
like televangelists,
right?
That makes no sense.
She can't really believe
you would choose to belong
to any repressed and humiliated minority,
especially during early onset of puberty,
when every girl and boy in any culture
is terrified of becoming different,
or special,
or weeded out of the clickety-clak pack.
Well, as she sees it,
she is in a LoseLose double-bind.
Either I chose to be *****, and am thereby demented,
or God graces all forms of WinWin sexual expression,
which would be contrary to her homophobic enculturation,
so it is easier to believe I am nuts
to choose perversely
than to consider herself nuts
not to choose more graciously,
especially with regard to God's creative capacity for love,
rather than simplistic judgments
which look and smell and sound like patriarchal sexism
more than radical fertility of God's healthy wealth
of incarnating love for all children,
red and yellow,
black and white,
gay and straight
and shades of grey transgenderal,
each is precious in our multiculturing
nurturing
MotherEarth's sight.
What about your other sister?
Oh, she agrees.
With what, or whom?
She agrees we're all nuts.
Categories:
perversely, fear, gender, hate, health,
Form:
Prose Poetry
Diversity explores
both resonant and opposing positions
with nearly predative anticipation
And such perversely curious
reverse revisioning diversity deplores
with monoculturing anxiety
quietly crossed
and boldly violated boundaries
of personal
and familial
and municipal
and EarthTribal
indigenous integrity
Sacred space expands
mindfully perceived
this Business As Traumatically Usual place
too lose/lose dark
and too win/win blind
to keep faith with dimming starlight
Celestial Glitter Rivered Ways
majestic
yet ominously silent
shunned Spirits
of ancient silvered sentient bright
Yet momentary mortal time
feels reflective light received
sufficiently reassuring
mythically alluring
for transient transportive pleasure
tenderly insufficient
for full-ripened organic measure
depleting dissonant self-disenfranchising
failure to complete
integrity's potential Paradise.
Categories:
perversely, appreciation, culture, health, integrity,
Form:
Parallelismus Membrorum