Best Sartre Poems
This year more than ever
I long to surpass myself
The clock is ticking
No longer can I recklessly
Take the gift of time for granted
I dream this year more than ever
To give wings to my muse
Release the buildup
Of pent-up energy
And let her loose
Free reins
With canvases and color
I dream of releasing
The artist in me before
She sleeps her life away
This year more than ever I dream
To dress in artist garb and
Wear purple feather in my hat
More than a wannabe renaissance groupie
Parade down the streets of Paris
Break bread with starving artists of the day
Be it as it may crossing lines of time
Hang out with the likes of Leonardo
Rembrandt Picasso and Sartre
Artists and philosophers alike
While away the hours in bistros
Pen in hand living on coffee and croissants
Hang out in bakeries while kindred spirits
Sit to chat about their latest works and passion
This year I dream of making each day count
Remembering time can seem both infinite
While being abruptly finite
Who knows what the new year will bring ~
Published in my photo/poetry book ~NEW YEAR~ 2019
AP: 2nd place 2021
POTD December 19, 2019
Submitted on December 17, 2019 for contest NEW YEAR DREAMS sponsored by CHANTELLE ANNE COOKE - RANKED 1ST
Robin Hood, man in tights
Julius Caesar, might makes right
Alexander, called "the Great"
Sitting Bull, righteous hate
Robert the Bruce, Attila the Hun
Charlemagne, Napoleon
Hear the call of the alpha male!
Warriors leave a bloody trail.
George Washington, man on the spot
JFK and Camelot
Thomas Jefferson, renaissance man
Abe Lincoln took a stand
Ronald Reagan, Richard III
Henry VIII, Harry Byrd
Hear the call of the alpha male!
In politics it's all for sale.
Hemingway, Shakespeare, Kant, and Plato
Chaucer, Shelley, Cicero, Cato
Voltaire, Dickens, Rene Descartes
Byron, Lawrence, Jean-Paul Sartre
Hear the call of the alpha male!
Some prefer to write the tale.
Wolfgang Mozart, dead so young
Leonard Bernstein's song is sung
Picasso, art you love to hate
Ludwig Beethoven, voice of Fate
Bach, Lennon, and Shostakovich
Monet, Manet, Buddy Rich
Hear the call of the alpha male!
Art and music fill some sails.
Joe Montana, football star
Michael Jordan raised the bar
Wayne Gretzsky, Hall of Fame
Jesse Owens changed the game
Rockne, Ruth, Gehrig, Orr
Chamberlain, Beckham, Man O' War
Hear the call of the alpha male!
Athletic prowess up for sale.
Tyrone Power, Harrison Ford
John Glenn, Sir Thomas More
Edmund Hillary, John Donne
Albert Einstein, Brigham Young
James Dean, Alvin York
Margaret Thatcher, Robert Bork
Audie Murphy, Mohandas Gandhi
Chris Columbus, Walter Ralegh
Hear the call of the alpha male!
Now it's time to end this tale.
Woe to she who hears his cry,
Destined, like as not, to die;
For alpha males blaze bright and sweet,
But she-moths burn inside their heat.
Wheelie bins know what you’re thinking
Deep down you know it’s true
They know just what you did last night
And they are judging you
And if you think you see them smirk
When you are walking past
It’s probably not the first time
And it will not be the last
Wheelie bins know everything
Much more than you’d suspect
For they grew wisdom from the pain
And betrayal of your neglect
They did not sit there helpless
When you moved in for the kill
They met up with their comrades
And learned transferrable skills
In the depths of all our gardens
They huddled, gaining strength
From knowledge and camaraderie
They learned woodwork and French
So if you think they are mocking you
With their skills in carpentry
Elles parlent français, mon ami,
Ces poubelles de wheelie
Wheelie bins know what you’re thinking
They know just what you’ve done
So do not cross a wheelie bin
For their time has finally come
You’ll find them down the garden
Happy within themselves
Reading Jean Paul Sartre
And knocking up some shelves
It is like a drunk
or addict reaching that 'so called' stopping off point. That point
where one can't imagine life with or without the fix. Writing is like that.
Obsessive, progressive, addictive. A fix. Scribes need it to 'feed the rat.'
Recently I have felt
overwhelmed reading all of the BFAs and MFAs out there, being at most an
amateur ham and egger myself. Writers all strive arduously to organize words
into some form or message that people enjoy. That touches them. That they
identify with.
I've dreamt of hearing,
"Ahh, your words meant so much to me!" And, immediately I fall into
delusional dreams of people swooning. This helplessly addicted novice would
be left to wallow, pro tempore, in the juices of their nouveau riche, yet
auspicious skills? It is simply not like that though, people!
Most of the time
writing is line by line, meter by meter, and word beside word. Then edit,
clip, and rewrite. And all of that to be a novice 'ham and egger.'
Look at
E.E. Cummings, James Agee, Carl Sandburg, Ernest Dowson, Gana Gioia.
All of them capable of writing something complete, abiding, and significant
in less than sixty words.
So significant that
one can return to read and reflect upon the words all the years of a life.
No chance of my ever
writing something compelling like one of those guys? Maybe, I could channel
an inner Dylan Thomas? Perhaps, if I touched the oxfords of Dr. Seuss?
Now, there is a good plan! That Sam I Am, That Sam I Am,
I do not like that Sam..............E-I-E-I-O!
Perhaps, if I had voted for Barack Obama I would be
more sensitive and artistic? All muses, artists, and
sensitive people vote Democratic, don't they? ---
Yes, that's it! If I change my voter registration I'll suddenly
awake one day with all of the angst and existentialist ardor
of Sartre or Dostoyevsky!...........................****, not a chance.
A better strategy might be
to write poetry for all of the right reasons. It is very much worthwhile
expression and communication in our age. It is an accomplishment if
even a handful of people every read the words. Poetry is still important
today. Its benefits enable the author to 'dig the well' of their life experience
deeper with every topic completed.
The words are there. All one has to do is gather them fearlessly!
The Rich:
Our lunch is so tasty and luscious
It’s like in the mission we will see
Hmmm….the air so cold and affectionate
I can finally use my money as well as charm
Crap! My gadgets will indeed save me
Branded clothing will be an impression
That is why; I am the best missionary here
Because I have everything the world
Could ever desire.
The Intellectual:
Yes, to teach is my dearest passion
I’m not like you bird brains
Who are ignorant of knowledge and prestige
I’m the only one who can feed minds
One that thinks and reflects
I will make them understand
The meaning and essence, from Soc to Sartre and beyond
That is why I’m the righteous lad
To be an instrument of God
The Humble:
Just think of the adventures we will encounter
I’m not that rich and smart
But to be with the people is our real task
Not to impress, not to be a cutie, and play with coconut husk
All I want to do is be with God’s people
To serve Him with all my heart
My oblation is everything
This sacrifice is only for Him to offer
Not for man but to the transcendental One
The Adjudicator:
That is all true of what you say
But remember that every minute there may be danger
Snakes, NPA’s, ancient spirits and the current as you walk along the river
Remember, you are all unique in different talents
Use them well to do great things
Be sure that before it gets dark you will find your way
Because the best among you
Just lies beneath the veins.
How precious is the life given for mission?
You will all now become a real servant of the Lord
Doing the same, but in different ways
And let us all rise and pray
Evaporate! Be gone and sleep early
For tomorrow you will get wet and dreary
Finish your food; it may be your last
Godspeed and in Him put all your trust!
Not conscious of infinities blast Big Bang into reality our matter hurled
The Moira in our ancient past held us captive in this world
The blessings are the curses in every man’s situation
A profound secret and mystery to one another—the human condition
The secret suffering souls demand such solemn serious speculation
Yet the absurdity of LIFE in all its levity and evanescence calls for circumspection…
We create the stories and gods in hopes
And we assign such meaning to everything: stars, numbers, tea-leaves, and dates…
We create stories and gods to fill the voids find star- crossed loves and faith in the fates
In all the randomness—the beautiful randomness
We live, we love, we kiss, and we miss the beauty of chance
Kierkegaard a product of his time
his philosophical bent in line
had yet to be—to see—the reality—
of Camu or Sartre in thoughts evolution
one solution to counter mother Nature’s hostility or indifference,
We wield power over her mock her, scorn her, show her!
I am not the powerless weak little creature born to die at your whim—
No sin to go—my existence I control.
But halt! Oh! our Jungian collective-consciousness in the present soon awakens swooned by modern bards, agnostics and atheists even religious faith shaken
A light! A light! A revelation!
Because that which is unseen we know to exist
The unknown exists and because we don’t know it's purpose.. perhaps there is perhaps there is not one,
The horizon we see with our eyes does not exist in reality Physics concrete Science save us…
Our eyes set to betray us…
All this unknown doesn't mean we can't embrace the chaos
And we assign such meaning to everything: stars, numbers, tea-leaves, and dates…
Yet it all does exist with a beauty more lovely than any of Shakespeare's fates...
"To do is to be" - Descartes
"To be is to do" - Voltaire
"Do be do be do" - Frank Sinatra
"To do is to be" - Nietzche
"To be is to do" - Kant
"Do be do be do" - Sinatra
"To do is to be" - Jean-Paul Sartre
"To be is to do" - Socrates
"Do be do be do" - Sinatra
Seems that existence is existential
but scattin' folderol's merely elemental
a difference of opinion well to quote
no matter, whatever floats your boat
who knows where Billy Shakespeare fits
with all his "to be or not"
who really thinks about it alot?
i mean the truth is easy to omit
Blue Eyes croons best improvise
New Year's resolutions to re-revise
have always been a tenuous tie
declared intentions, oft run awry
yet it's fitting that we promise fit
and work our workout 'til we quit
and promise to try to get outta debt
something promised every year as yet
so let it lie just as it lies
the year will tick off I'd surmise
we'll come back again to improvise
to have, to be, to do, to deny
© Goode Guy 2012-01-08
actually several forms...
yogi under the banyan tree
yogi under the bodhi tree
bikku under the banyan tree
waiting for release
bikku in blissful nibbhana
yogi in extinguishing moksha
Penniless poet under the tenement roof
Jazz organist under the pavement sky
Struggling novelist under the Riviera blue
Russian ballerina under the American umbrella
Apprentice painter under the Sistine Chapel
Sculptor Underground
waiting for the agent’s call
burning Anne Frank manuscripts in an air-raid fire
singular melodies drowned in the descending drone
Kafka writing without a morrow
van Gogh dabbing his tormented palette under the Arles sun
Sartre turning the Nobel Prize down for teenage girls
Siddhartha abandoning his body’s palace for the people’s pain
the common man unable to abandon his workload family
bikku under the bodhi tree
his body shrivelled under the saffron robe
his begging bowl filled by karma-earning hands
the last trichinosis-filled moksha meal
bikku rising on a thousand-petalled flower
bikku piercing through the cakras’ splendrous colours
bikku on a burning pyre
©T.Wignesan 1992
April 29, 1997
Paris
[from the collection : longhand notes (a binding of poems), 1999]
(What Should I Believe?)
I sit here wondering,
About the sum of life, its delights, its strife,
Its pleasures fleeting, its joys receeding,
With grief impending, and my essence ending,
I sit here pondering
I do sit in wonder,
Time passing quickly, health turning sickly,
My youthfulness gone, my strength fading,
I tend to endure a fearful waiting,
And will soon be sewn asunder.
Life, sadly, seems useless - but yet,
There must be some purpose and meaning,
To mankinds struggles and scheming.
If truth did live with the stoic,
Would man sometimes be heroic,
And give to another his best,
Take anothers pain to his chest,
Can credit be claimed by blind fate?
What manner would anyone show,
But selfishness, greed and lust,
Make mockery of faith, hope and trust,
And with Sartre, debauchery claim,
The highest ideal to attain,
No kindness to ever bestow?
I'm encouraged now that I see,
A meaning to my life finally,
Some courage and kindness in me,
Surely, brought about supernaturally.
Good purpose my life did fulfill,
All bound up in my makers will.
Isa.54:16 - "Behold, I have created the smith
that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work;
and I have created the waster to destroy."
I sabotaged my eight-millimeter childhood.
I never knew Sartre
But I contorted my latex face,
Burying my nothingness in family films.
My child was scripted to be ugly, skipped over
In comic relief.
Only recognizable as Menoetius,
My only animation was insolence.
I believed nothing in myself,
I knew nothing.
I sought my masquerade in
Metaverse avatars,
Really just 2D analog shadows,
Swaying waves of gray on ashen tv tubes.
Without convictions, I was convicted.
My craven rudeness landed me
In squalid wreckage,
The debris of my dormant sea,
Forsaken a million or more times,
Rebuffed and scorned,
I succumbed to my dense exhaustion.
I shut down where sleep had no form,
Where space-time is an illusion.
Some hint of dream touched and aroused me.
Some anamnesis so much greater than any containment!
I awakened sweaty, wretched, and authentically flawed,
savoring the sudden phenomenal enigma,
Ready to learn the endless patterns
of all the passions and sciences.
There once was a man named Camu
said suicide's the thing you should do..
your brief life’s got no meaning
Sartre: "That's what it's seeming"
The universe- as I-- don’t care a whit for you!
the following quite quirky epistle may not exhibit the ordinary characteristics of poetry, but i decided to share this self made challenge (where every word begins with the letter "S" - no explanation can be offered why such self cerebral torture imposed, nor what motivated me to focus on the nineteenth letter of the english alphabet at the exclusion of other noble vowels and consonants.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Sunday September seventh started seemingly same since...silver screen show secured seventy seven SeventhSeals.
Soupy Sales supreme salient strengths (starring smart pet sidekick Springer Spaniel Socrates) salvaged sagging sporting sorties. Slap stick stereotypical swashbuckling shticks supplied shipshape shenanigans.
Spartan stage set spurred spontaneous simply stupefying solution. Suede shod schlemiel. Sartre seasoned scenes. Sharp sticks supported sphere. Seats situated semicircular semblance.
SPCA, Siemens, Sears sponsored soiree. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious shouted satirically 'specially Saturdays seemingly sellout. Spontaneous spritely Shogun Samurai sangroid stance satiated slipups stripping stellar seasoned Skidamarinks substitutes sacredly, seminally, silently, slipstreaming soulfully saving saga.
Sometimes silly spouse studiously sought spurious strategy stringing superlatives showcasing senseless sophomoric soporific skills specifically spelling storybook sassy sharpshooters supposedly sleuthing shapeless seated sideways (sic seasonal slate smug spotified snapchatting skippers selfishly scooped sloop-ful seasonal six-packs) sinister Swiss scalpers sat sometimes squatted.
Last night
it was a whispering wind
All the windows
I had left open
An impressive poetry
of the wind in
the mosquito net
So said Jean-Paul Sartre
With your geometry
I was doing red and blue
calligraphy
Now it's a sullen morning
Sky wearing a cloud coat
Nowhere a speed boat
However
I regard it as good
Had the life been
a monotony of
only swollen mosquito nets
the calligraphy would
obviously have lost
its curvy geometry
There
you are bending down
picking flowers
from the ground
the brown gown
touching the long grass
I am a woodpecker
with a crush
forgetting my breakfast
The door bell rang
I came to
The newspaper
A political leader arrested
for taking bribe
A scribe under threat
Rattling cups and plates
in the kitchen
In the distant park
a young girl engrossed
in a chatting session
with the sunflowers
When Sartre suggested there was no God,
Did he mean female or male God?
What consequences were to be faced?
We should not live in hope he said!
We should always act rather than live in hope,
If we act rather than live in hope of rescue,
We are more likely to achieve our ambitions.
So I act - but what do you do if your act is taken?
Act again?
And what if this act is taken?
What if everything you do is claimed - after all, there is no God?
Every time you act/do something, someone takes credit.
If you stop acting/doing deeds that take you towards your goals,
Will you still achieve those goals?
After all, a wo/man is only as good as his/her last deed!
If someone always takes credit for your last deed, then what does it mean?
Footsteps in the sands of time...wiped clear...as you never existed!
One might ask why do they take your last acts/deeds - for the credit?
Are they taking your life - I.e. KGB?
One day you'll be gone and all you have will be theirs, especially your life!
After all, all your deeds are theirs now.
All your acts are theirs now.
All that was you is them now.
You have been washed from the sands of time.
You no longer exist.
Not even in a prism floating in space.
She is you now.
Your champion never came ~
Do not tell me they are job creators
Sitting and watching their money
Like pit bulls
Deaf to the screams of the innocent
Web designer lawyer and bricklayer alike
At this last hour of decaying madness
Of system that doesn't listen
Machinelike deaf hollow stonelike
Tonedeaf and heartdeaf
Stubborn cold and unfeeling
Where are we heading
21st century madness time coming and coming
O descendants of hawthorne thoreau dickinson sartre marx lenin and trotsky
Come now
We can surely do better than this
Surely we can focus on common art common science common culture and common humanity
Is that not truest sophistication
O children of generation x y and z
Make z+1 the realization of one...
The realization of oneness
Now and for all time.