Best Primacy 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
Someday I'd like to wander free
like butterfly, like bumblebee,
perhaps to plant a willow tree
beside the silent solemn sea,
before these things exist no more,
from mountain top to shifting shore,
when, soon, bald eagles cease to soar
and build their aeries nevermore,
and fish forsake polluted streams
(where sulfur swims and typhoid teems
since no one really cares it seems)
to die inside our toxic dreams
while ice caps melt and winter steams,
and all the air surrounding reeks
as children choke, for no one speaks
of fracking wells or oily leaks
(Big Brother's silenced all critiques!),
and rancid rains acidify
so woods no longer multiply
(for God so wills, we can't deny,
which is, of course, our alibi).
And as the deepest ocean fills
with plastic bags, and garbage spills
upon the plains, across the hills
and turns to poison dust that kills
wild dingo dogs and daffodils
which sink in swamps’ forsaken swills,
the mocking bird makes light and trills
(midst waning wails of whippoorwills)
"Behold the surreal scene that chills
and greet the dread that death distills!
You've had your day with all the frills
that brought the flood and final ills
that can't be cured with bitter pills
nor yet undone with further thrills
of profit gained that grinds and fills
dead desert sands with dollar bills."
EPILOGUE
Though swaddled still in infancy,
we feel we’ve reached our primacy
(aloof, though preaching piously,
disdaining deeds of decency)
and have no need of augury.
But in the pit of prophecy
the crucial questions seem to be:
“Is doom Earth’s fate, our destiny
to twist in tides of agony
destroying nature’s progeny
with no return a certainty
assured by death’s finality?”
and
”Should we plant a willow tree
to someday weep for you and me?”
Reflecting within silence of my thoughts
I feel the ills of world in its stygian form--
Its music devoid of the melodic sound
Echoing in humanity’s tenebrous bawl.
On my way I see summer’s rose gardens
And autumnal look of auburn elegance,
But mostly I encounter parched look of life
Like a river dry, in the grip of drought--
A depleted look of empty wine bottle,
Nothing left to offer, devoid of its buzz.
A hidden voice prompts, raising its voice,
Asking what the world would be like
If it could wipe all tears in mothers’ eyes,
And on troubled faces put million smiles
And feed the hungry, gripped in strife.
Peering now into grieved, disquieting lives
It takes me there to war-torn towns—
Pointing to a child wandering empty streets
Orphaned by someone else’s misdeeds
Amid nothingness of abandoned dreams;
Asking me angrily how does one restore
The flame that blazed in desolate child’s eyes
Before they brazenly killed her family…
Can you look in her eyes and explain why?
Can you dare say she’ll have a normal life?
I look for epiphany in epistle of almighty
But stumble in hindrance of the ordinary--
Wicked, narrow views of blatant primacy
Attempting to justify, but failing miserably.
I hear them trumpeting the world as it is
Sounding foolish in the world that could be.
June 23, 2020
Placed 1st: Reflections in silence poetry contest
Sponsor: Silent One
“Writing [maketh] an exact Man,”
claims Francis Bacon.
Macaulay’s Minutes is our bible.
Derrida emphasizes
the Primacy of Writing.
Freedom to write is also guaranteed—
by our Indian Constitution!
So, our children at school do write a lot—
in the classroom,
as part of their homework,
as assignments;
write a lot of tests:
their test of spoken language, too,
is a written test!
Isn’t it hard work?
Yes, but that’s the price they must pay—
For the freedom NOT to think!
***
Composed on November 16, 2017.
Winner I, Photostory Contest, sponsored by Eve Roper, December 2, 2017.
Appointment to have organ removed by robot-assisted surgeon.
Air-conditioned, no mosquitoes in the OR. When you arrive
You'll remove all your clothes. Naked before the ladies, nurses
Who have seen it all before. Mainly remember you're not unique.
Think about the government while they're mixing up the medicine.
There's always governance even if there's little or no government.
Back to counting backwards. Inside out, if I die, will I know it?
At 70, Jack's running the gauntlet with some skill!
Benny Golson wonders aloud what might have been
Had Clifford Brown not been killed in that auto accident.
Jack's girlfriend once said he was the reincarnation of Clifford
But he doesn't believe in ghosts, karma or an afterlife.
Benny's old girlfriend Betty inspired the tune Along Came Betty
And that's the most afterlife Benny or Betty's gonna get.
The Trojan bench being not as deep as the Greek
Once Sarpedon and Hector go down even the lucky shot
To Achilles' feet is not enough to save the town.
Aeneas is no match for wily Odysseus
Although unbeknownst to all he has the last laugh when Rome
Conquers Athens, the Myrmidons, what's left of Ilion
And the whole known world from India to Britain.
It's not bad to acknowledge death's primacy
Although after a while you stop remembering
To fear. That's when everything becomes clear
Purpose v. purposelessness matters less,
Anomie v. rule of law, that's a preference
Love v. loneliness, worth about 25 cents
Or a million bucks in the light of the holocaust.
Nothing but light, love and the majesty of death in the room.
Machines stand ready like marines, their beauty is in the motion
That overcomes inertia. The food supply is deeply compromised
So eat whatever you want. Mourning the dead is part of the business
Of healing and staying alive. When you get to the afterlife, walk with eyes
open,
Ocotillo and cactus may be in flower. The robot does the work, imposes
Its own small order, like a girl on a bicycle with disorder in her hair.
The primacy of love is 'totalmente' undisputed,
An authority of orderliness in a tumultuous society,
A powerful dose to subdue war;
A conspicuous symptom of our world's malady.
Love 'originalism' is not 'paternalism' but an explicit form of 'maternalism',
It's not a brimborion expression nor a vacuous indoctrination,
It's not professions of some 'high-falutin' 'gran rabino',
But an absolute lifestyle of a dinkum person.
(c) 2011
Aspens reaching skeletal fingers skyward
Grow the ancient boreal midnight mountain
reaching rooted primacy given taken
glorious prayer
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
Freedom asserted, freedom elevated
At the price of abandoning trivia
Jettisoning frills in the context of flights coveted
When whites and nights turn cold and Sylvia
Despite her brown complexion tolerates ebony skin
Rating it high, far above the artificial allure
Derived from immersion in complexion creams locked up in a bin
Sylvia suggests promotes the lure
Freedom denies to plastic surgery
That disfigures natural beauty ensnaring it into a belief
That brown skin defeats dark skin although beauty forgery
Elevates creepy kingship of mischief
Meant to deny dark beauty its place under the sun
Where African men and women turn away from their nature
To adopt and coopt artificial beauty not just for fun
But also for keeps and the contemporary culture
That invades and pervades Africa from rejection of traditional meals
Traditional attire, primacy of the mother tongue
To the adoption of intrusive Western languages and frills
Which rob Africans of their identity and slang
Until Africans know not where they belong
Being neither fully westernized nor fully Africanized
Like when expectant mothers deem it wrong to don oblong
Maternity dresses in favour of balkanized
Fashion whose promotion and commotion don’t augur
Well for the short term, midterm and long term
Plunging Africans into a perennial quandary and conundrum which figure
High among inconsistencies that squirm in an African misculture worm.
There is no
Judgement in
Nature, no right
And wrong, no lies
Or hatred, only the
Legitimacy of survival,
The struggle of hunger
And the fight to continue ...
Singularly, and as a species.
We worry so about chaos and
The return to savagery, but which
Is more brutal, to kill for the sake
Of survival, or to kill for the purpose
Of acquisition and greed? We observe
The "cold indifference" of the life-and-
Death struggle of the less "enlightened"
Creatures with an air of superiority and
Dominance, yet is it more remarkable to
Dominate for the sake of survival, or for the
Sake of selfishness and exploitation? Perhaps
A return to our origins and the basics of survival
Is what we need. It could certainly be argued that
Our intelligence and technology and dominance has
Not been a good thing for our world OR it's creatures,
And it could be easily argued that it hasn't TRULY been
For the benefit of our OWN species, either ... just look at
The world we have created, and the scars we have left on
Ourselves, our beautiful planet, and everything and everyone
ON it.
taken away by the flight
by the primacy of our own life process
we are all flies craving for honey
or we are pebbles—
washed but never get cleansed!
let us not be distracted by
the disappointment of
common human behavior
we have to accept, how things are
or rebel against
and so doing, we make it easy on us
or make it hard
the choice is ours
but both take the same labor:
when the going gets tough
the tough gets going—
our ordinary madness is real
we are all feeble, crabs at times:
rushing to escape out of the bucket
we are kept in eternally
we step on each other
pull down one another
caught in a stampede
and reach nowhere—
since we walk crabwise!
we are such an orderly chaos—
a gross ENTROPY!
let us listen to the voices
to the crescendo
and climax of nature
that speak the gods’ voice
let us listen
to the moaning and meaning
of love and light
making every single day and night
the voice that transcend
time and space
the voice that comes through
our shared wall of darkness
let us decenter
the dissonance of bad times
the mournful solitary nights
of hunger and sadness
the melancholic fearful days
let us not be distracted
by the disappointment
of common human behaviors,
flaws, greed, unbearable lightness of Being
let us act, let us make peace
let us live and let live in harmony—
half cooked half raw, as we are
let us toss and sip to the top—
sifa! sifa!
to the THANKSGIVING
in love and light…
Internal inhibition is a virtue of the day,
A conscientious calling to be true in every way,
A vision of decision in the things you say and do,
Internal inhibition is a moral issue too,
In spite of what you think of it you have to face the fact,
Internal inhibition is the fiction you subtract,
The urgency emergency of agency remains,
The subtle way that surgency is summoning your brains,
You may have thought your feelings were the first to be explored,
The primacy of dealings with a stranger you ignored,
The notion of emotion is a cautionary state,
A stage of locomotion with a customary wait,
The modesty of wisdom is a wonder to behold,
A coat of many colors with a condom in the fold,
No matter what the wonder in your functionality,
Internal inhibition is your cloak of honesty.
May 17, 2022
Pick-A-Title, Vol 30 poetry contest
Sponsored by Edward Ibeh
Rhyme
is not
the be-all
and the end-all –
the cadence supersedes, mellifluous.
Counting syllables, as superfluous
as the vowels
contained in
the word
queue.
Sounds
in chants
we danced to
before writing –
morae have primacy over meaning.
Rhythm takes precedence, despite your leaning.
And forced rhymes jar:
him and dim
do not
rhyme!
Rules
are made
to askew
and be broken:
double dactyl*:- flib-ber-ti-gib-bet-ing
Defending contests fiercely --- gibbeting.
Breaking your head
to conform
to design,
rhyme.
Puns,
blasé
efforts, but
double entendres,
sexual innuendo in your face.
As some scribbling can at times be quite base,
persecution
should never
stymie
flow.
*a double dactyl: /**|/**
flibbertigibbet: (n) a frivolous, flighty, or excessively talkative person.
__________________________________________________________
FUN FACT
Euclid of Alexandria (Mid-4th century BC—Mid-3rd century BC), the great Classical mathematician, believed that the numbers 1, 2, 3 & 4 must have some mystical significance because their sum total is 10—ten was thought to be a number of power. He called this relationship a tetractys.
Ray Stebbing based his poetic form, Tetractys, on this. No spaces between each stanza and the poem is presented in line with the left-hand margin (or it might be centred) - either way, it would visually give the design of a triangle.
endowing superlative creature comforts
reduce wretched survivors scant band of bare naked ladies
beastie boys, foo fighters espying counting crows
ready to buzzfeed toe kin *****sapiens
bereft, expunged, faux invincibility kickstarting
learning basic survival skills
forced to rescind twenty first century trappings
shifting paradigm sans primacy
pitting dishabille helpless imps against killers
who do not shrink from ethically principled
but give full reign to selfish callous deleterious foibles,
gruesome harmful indiscretions
sprouting with mushroom rhizome rapidity
ousting the omnipresently
(well nigh since time immemorial
virtues cultivated, futilely integrated, lending oomph
residentially, scientifically tendering ubiquitous DNA
foisting gabled, heralded, instilled,
justified kneaded love thy neighbor motto
lyft ting in one fell swoop delicately
embroidered, finely graven, heavenly ideals
no more patent leather shoes reflecting up
nor doodling Yankee staking claim to fame via feathered cap made of macaroni
thus such jingoistic, holistic, fabric ripped retroactively
ramping atavistic simian base,
thus leveling the playing field.
Mother Yin nurtures a domestic economy
which retains indigenous becoming within nature-spirit
nondual places
Yin,
a concaving womb
for as long as Earth's collective memory
of light and dualdark
may recall.
Patriarch Yang's convexly vertical strengths of hunting,
colonizing,
commodifying
segregating quantitatively deduced values,
are not a priori possible
without primacy
of nondual co-arising
bilaterally horizontal horizons
of yin's dawn with dusk
dualdark matriarchal sacred MoonTimes.
0-Soul
WinWin
in each here and now moment
of living and dying
with focusing bicameral balance
on matriarchy's polyculturing outcomes
easing patriarchy's recent past
of monocultural ego-over-investments,
turning now toward cooperative re-investments in Mother Earth
from which human nature
RNA-derived
to DNA thrive.