Best Self Regard Poems
A lot of parents these days are self absorbed self glorified babysitters
Raising a youth with no standards or morales, without limitations
A fantasy reality with no self regard, and no intellectual education
We are part of the problem, afraid of our neighbors, defying our creators
Creating our own gentrification, watching with blind eyes as history repeats itself
Standing by, in silence, until they decide the next people to blame it on
With no self identity, a nation built from conformity, eliminating unity
Breeding hate for generations through misled communications and misinterpreted history
Can any fonder love myself endure
Than self-regard bestowed upon a name,
Or for the cause of unrelenting fame
Become a thing unpleasant to inure
Myself, I think it wise, I must demure,
And savor all the taste of dignity
If takes the pleasure from my liberty,
Then I shall suffer long to be obscure.
I struggle for the loss of all that’s me,
When ego flees in search of undue pride
And leaves an aching heart bereft with tears
While my emotions, hopes and dreams, do flee
Perhaps what’s left behind inside of me
Are nothing more than strains of devilish fears.
written December 7, 2021
Our current situation,
in the evolution of our species,
is one in which the ego has forgotten its true role in the psyche
and has usurped the role of central regulator. Carl Jung
Sometimes the best gift you can give yourself
is to forgive yourself
for not thinking and feeling and acting
like your healthiest self
on your best day.
Set yourself down in an empty therapy chair,
but keep your interdependent biosystem dancing,
choose your words to yourself kindly
with active curiosity
as your body reminds
rewinds
revisits
remembers
your listening empty-chaired mind
I'm exhausted by your confusion
about what you would actually need
to be healthy
and what you think you should want
to feel better about your lack of integrity
lack of compassion
lack of self-and-other-respect
lack of curiosity
and maybe something like
lack of reverence for life,
too much severance
from considering the probabilities
of a feeling-wealthy death.
I want to be free of your insatiable craving
to be appreciated
even by those you don't appreciate,
to be recognized
even by those you don't know,
and adored
despite your incapacity to feel adoration.
Why do you wander off
and leave me neglected
malnourished
dehydrated
bereft
uncared for
unappreciated
uncelebrated
unadored
neglected,
verbally abused?
So, please share with me,
what do you feel you personally need
as informed by your own past experience
on your best trauma-free day
doing your physical
and mental
and political
and economic
and social
and environmental
healthy
loving kindness best?
My heart thumped away, trembling
In the sigh of an autumn grace
Reflecting the moments, when love
Painted my doubts in sapphire laughter
Silencing each hesitation with joy
Poured out on the spirit who knows
She’s finally found her other half –
Something better than she can describe
My heart, beating recklessly withing me
Sending darkness a reminder that, with him
I know only the radiance of a kindness
The miracle of a light promising healing
The wonder of two who know what it means
To love beyond self-regard, with a love
That adores more than just the attractive
Love that admires even the unpleasantness
If it brings them closer to their most cherished
Treasure – the target of their affection
This love knows the meaning of acceptance
This love is wise and warm and willing
To give from the heart and soul, a feeling
That embraces even the letdowns, the flaws
Little catastrophes who inspire our hearts
To overflow with a love that is kind, generous
Gentle and considerate, a gift from the spirit
Who knows what it is to influence with love
This love is the sensation stirred to life
By the spirits of two who know the meaning
Beneath prayers, promises, praises…
The tenderness of giving more than things,
Giving with the intention of spreading
Pieces of a nature, affection that can’t be taught
Understanding, forgiveness, caring…
That can’t be bought – these are gifts from heaven,
These are gifts from the heart!
My heart still trembles at the thought
Never knowing the joy of this love that brought
My heart to the realization that this gift
Is more beautiful than the most breathtaking
Intimacy like this brings the heart satisfaction
The soul a sense of appreciation and the spirit
A connection that inspires joy and affection
~
Tonight I bare my folly to the moon
O’ moon, you saw the ways the devil woos
How roses swoon to songs so out of tune
But hearts refuse to see the naked truth
A bloom that seeks the sun to feel the glow
For gentle touch and whispers from the breeze
Instead of sonnets sung with warming breath
His mirth has had his laugh, and left with ease
I trace the choices made…each withered shard
Love strove to use me up, and follow scorn
I stand alone, stripped bare of self regard
As petals fell away, stripped down to thorns
Love’s fragrance steals my breath, against my will
Made captive by a heart who seeks it still
~
Lost Love Sonnet For Francine's Contest:
By Carrie Richards 1/20/12
When thoughts cease to flow ~
Where does ego go” prompt
by Unseen Seeker
Ego ego, wherefore art thou, ego
are you inert, in our dreams libido
I cannot sleep, twisting to and fro
need to take, a sugar filled placebo
Not sure I believe or even agree, no
Ego ego, an ineffable growing credo
All our unconscious, cannot veto
where wilful thoughts, do indeed go
Does self-regard need a torpedo
humility answer’s’ only if I believe so
By David Kavanagh N/A
Unfinished words I now retrace
Are drifting now like petals in the wind
Blown long ago, from some old hidden place
This is the night that calls me to that place
From deep within my vase of memory
I fell in love with words, but knew that love was fleet
My words recall, and help to write a poem
As if it were a thing to touch and feel
That time and years would take to make complete
I write again on petals now retrieved!
And still, somehow, sweet fragrance lingers near
When thoughts were flowers falling at my feet
I’ll pick them up, and dust them fresh and clear
Tonight I bare my folly to the moon
O’ moon, you saw the ways the devil woos
How roses swoon to songs so out of tune
But hearts refuse to see the naked truth
A bloom that sought the sun to feel the glow
For gentle touch and whispers from the breeze
Instead of sonnets sung with warming breath
Each petal has had his chance, and left with ease
I trace the choices made…each withered shard
Words strove to use me up, and follow scorn
I stand alone, stripped bare of self regard
As petals fell away, stripped down to thorns
My words now steal my breath, against my will
Made captive by a heart who seeks it still
______________________________________________
1/24/13
self regard
brings
self respect,
pleasure
pride
simple bliss:
the touchstone
of contentment
laid bare...
...self..care
The Marketplace of Thought!
Don’t I love who I’m open to - would share soul with (somehow in words -
in poetry, revealing me)? Must I place worth on goods ‘vain’ hawk
to earn a look? Let self-regard be life’s canard! God Loves such cheer?
May I find wealth in other’s health (I pray), by Grace of God’s intent,
not courted rhymes that plague our times, end freedom found in ‘Will of God’
(that lights all life)! Oh, bless the ways God’s muse serves days! Count that enough!
My labor’s mark you think a lark (not worth fool’s ink or up to snuff)?
What you begrudge, I would not judge. I serve my truth! Is it so odd
that’s what I’d share? Your truth is yours if it’s just Coors (in lieu of rent)!
But rent’s still due (my point of view!) I’m happy though to share a beer,
not make you wrong (to me, love’s song!) reciprocate without a squawk.
Life shared’s a chance to change the past, hoist sail up mast, view world like birds!
Long Tooth
October 14th in 2022
Poet's Notes:
Another poem with distant rhyme and note too that each line has an internal rhyme as well! What fun!
Opportunities to rest
in unconditional self-regard
also present risks
of unmitigated narcissism.
While self-respect
is my prerequisite
for pursuing resonant win/win integrity's
full bodied potential savor
flavor
favor
MeWe co-passion
for EgoSelf
as also part of
sacred EcoOther
co-arises global
unconditional
regard for healthy life
over harmful death
and all conscious
curious creatures
in-between Alpha
and Omega
great transitions.
Ego wealth of self/other compassion
values love
above all else,
although perhaps more could be said
for an unconditionally regarded
sense of humor,
Ego/EcoSystemic joyful
resilient compassion
remains cooperatively therapeutic
powering through competitive
narcissistic trauma histories
Of win/lose closeted
micro-aggressions
miscommunicating
what was originally intended
to express warm unconditional regard
for oneself
as part of cherished Other
Dipolar
(not bipolar)
co-arising regard
co-gravitating toward
a shared sense of healthy humor
Which is a loving fruit
of the Holy Spirit
the serious narcissist lacks
in his dominating patriarchal
capitalist
anthrosupremacist
EarthView
Of unconditional
LeftBrain prominently learned
disregard
for empowering cooperatively curious
and warm
and enlightened joyful
bipartisan caring co-relationships
Loving
open
transparent
vulnerable
non-judgmental
means compassionate
unconditional Me-and-We
integrally cooperative regard
For opportunities to rest
in unconditional self-regard
despite past
and present
and future risks
of unmitigated
LeftBrain monopolizing
monoculturing
monotheistic
snarky narcissism.
We met over oysters and scallops in the French Quarter
of a mismatched ether.
She sent pictures - her in a mirror, beside a mirror,
partly hidden by a mirror, naked under glass
(I still have that one).
She liked to reflect and be reflected.
I admired her self-regard, her low-minded succulence,
Her high-handed high-heeled slipperiness.
Raw fresh oysters and Dom Perignon for breakfast and lunch.
Scallops seared in butter on a crostini and a
Sauvignon Blanc for supper.
This minimalist diet kept her svelte, prim, and of course
most improper. I thought of her as a swim without a swimmer,
splashes of her revealing her lovely lips, and they were indeed
lovely,
red but not scarlet more a sea anemone rouge
as it fades to a pink laced coral.
The camera may garnish but it cannot hide
that kind of salty lusciousness
caught fresh every morning.
I likened her to a glistening slickness to be sipped or guzzled
Her words slipped through you like Gaelic eels.
Her neck undulated as a dolphins caress
as she swallowed her catch and zoomed.
I confess to an occasional shame-faced queasiness;
and then oyster and scallops are best consumed
over the internet where too much of them
cannot sour the stomach or tease you softly
with a squirmy aftertaste.
Yet I still imagine her in a mirror again
her teeth as pearly as pearls, yet snip-snip sharp
and as pointy as stiletto’s rent through a fished-up
filet of heart.
Then came Trump
No one talks about Syria anymore,
Was there a war there?
The bombing of Mosul the long siege
Trump occupies the news
And the whole world from pigmies
In the inner Congo, to the tall Dutch
In Amsterdam, are Psychanalysts?
The press robbed of their pompous
Self-regard like a school yard bully
Scolded, plots shocking stories about
The President of the USA
(On November 9, 1799 Napoleon Buonaparte
launched his coup d'etat in Paris. It made
him a dictator, and corrupted him beyond
salvation. 18 Brumaire was the date of the
coup, by the revolutionary calendar in use
at the time.)
As climbing greasy poles habitually goes,
this wasn't (one must say) exactly polished.
To be roughed-up – but by politicos!
Can't blame them: no-one likes to be abolished
(especially not these ego-bloated shysters!)
What else? Oh, in a paroxysm of rage,
in distant climes, eccentric Kapellmeisters
were gouging (scoring?) through a music page.
For all his smiling talk of ease and glee
(tomorrow), his eloquent implorings,
unfailingly, this moment always comes.
The pipes are always drowned by the drums.
and that sleek sloop named self-regard so sleazily
slips free of all that nurtured it – its moorings.
an enduring
mystique
insistent,partisan
steeped
with
self-thought
intense
innate,yet
heartless:
self-regard
tainted by
self-love
It would be a shame
to go on and on and then out
longing for grace
of some imagined historically significant life missed,
or simply more entertaining and health wealthy lives
laughingly not chosen,
to instead choose to belong in slow learner loyal grace
of this love life limply lived place
I could have chosen to hurt hurting people
by delightfully deliberately applauding the U.S.
as RedBlooded Earth's manifest supreme land
of patriarchal self-infested opportunity.
But we might instead agree
this is also a matriarchal land of love liberty,
one of a few scattered seed-invested places,
warm inviting wombs
of opportunity for health incubation
with concomitant risks of nationalistic pathology.
It would be my unpatriotic shame
to exit Matriarchal EarthSoul
without fully belonging in graced opportunities
wealth-lived risks
of predestined integrity.