Best Substituting Poems
The publisher of Roald Dahl’s books
Thought changes should be made
To make the books “inclusive,”
But attention has been paid
With many writers speaking out
To criticize the plan
(Despite the fact that Dahl’s ideas
Made many not a fan).
An example that I read of
Would remove the use of “fat”
If a character was overweight –
Now what’s the use of that?
What they’d substitute, I wonder;
Still, most children are aware
Of dishonesty in writing
As in life, which isn’t fair.
Yet another word replacement
Would be “parent” used instead
Of both “mother” and of “father,”
If one’s gone – divorced or dead.
Or if someone has two mommies
Or two dads, perhaps they mused
That by substituting “parent,”
Kids would not then be confused.
Still, a writer’s words are sacred
And reflective of the times,
Therefore, posthumous replacements
Feel like literary crimes.
Now the publisher’s decided,
After unexpected flak,
There’ll be two competing versions,
Which, to me, seems out of whack.
Categories:
substituting, books, change, writing,
Form:
Rhyme
What is this “me within me”?
Mute masquerade?
Immortality of a self,
A puff of worthless air,
Or feelings so pure?
Can I bear wings
And an angelic creature be
To soar away
Into the screaming wind
Where no one can find me?
Shall I in my ignorance
Play lip service to gods unknown?
A fancy-dress life
Where questions are left unanswered,
Camouflage realization
Obfuscate the truth,
Sigh a metaphysical inquiry
Or embark on a voyage of discovery?
Yes I can fly amongst the clouds,
A ray of sunlight breaks through dark clouds.
Your name emanates from my lips.
Your glow repels all ugly shadows.
I bow my naked head in shame
That this miserable me dared forget You.
Echoes utter beloved vibrations,
Celestial music softly penetrate my soul,
Your presence almost too much to bear.
Once more I feel alive,
Reconciled to Your divine mercy.
Emotions spread far and deep in my veins,
Oh, to feel the warmth and comfort
As I bless Your sacred name.
The “me in me” is complex true,
Shame, vice but tenderness too.
I strive to cleanse the “me in me”
I feel Your hand stretched out to me,
Dispelling anger and pride
Kindly substituting them with grace.
Together we shall walk again.
Categories:
substituting, conflict,
Form:
Free verse
Math
Extensive & Complicated
Solving, substituting, subtracting!
It's a skill for life,
Arithmatic
Categories:
substituting, work
Form:
Cinquain
Be Polite—bathe please dear daughter
In brown pool's bored putrid water
Big Profits buy pain
Blown Pipe brings petrol's reign
Bad Pollution's bought poison slaughter
Author's note: Each line has two word pairs that begin with B and P. You can reconstruct the poem in many ways by substituting the phrase "BP" for any given word pair. However, when stating "BP", remember that these products are consumed by the broad population.
Another thing--People are now saying that this broken production company is a great investment opportunity--yuck!
Categories:
substituting, satire
Form:
Limerick
Love is won, then it conquers all through patience
But that's impossible without being kind
The two above build one to be honest
Suppressing all the feelings of jealousy
Silencing all tongues not to be boastful
Bruising egos that result from one's pride
Only the wise share from the spoils of lion's pride
Copying the beast waiting for prey in patience
Though giving man no right to be boastful
But giving satisfaction of some kind
Leaving villains in tatters of jealousy
Pulling to you those who remain honest
Noble humans teach children to be honest,
Hold close to heart their identity with pride,
Learn to murder the feelings of jealousy
Those who slur you just lose them no patience
Return slurs with virtues fit for man kind
All these show love and leave no man boastful
Calamity fall on those who are boastful
Misery awaits those who are not honest
Forgive and be cast as one of a kind
But do not become conflated with pride
Cause pride can erode the gift of patience
Leaving you sulky grumpy brewing in jealousy
Love allows no space of growth for jealousy
Fools think themselves wise when they are boastful
Taking as dull the prudence of patience
Hurrying breaking the rules of being honest
Disregarding words of wisdom with pride
Plotting to trample on all those who are kind
The cornerstone in love building is being kind
For that blocks away tinges of jealousy-
Not to cause acrimony that leads to pride-
That mauls peace and harmony by being boastful
Substituting quality of being honest-
With idle talks, lies and haste that ruin patience
Patience is a crown to those who are kind
Be honest to get strength to strangle jealousy
True love is neither boastful nor has pride
Categories:
substituting, love,
Form:
Sestina
Let's declare solidarity as power and ownership with,
and older client-service models
are power and ownership toward.
Herein lies this with and toward difference
birthed by here and not-yet Kingdom capitalizing norms
pervading our non-profit
and for-profit public/private
eco-political capital sectors,
suboptimizing mutually threatening losses
substituting for WinWin cooperative self-with-other equivalent ownership,
Golden Rule coop-owner rooting
in sacred mutually organic subsidiarity
of grace and wonder
and healthy curiosity,
holistic integrity.
Evolving current competitive LeftBrain dominance
of WinLose Either/Or thinking
rather than advocating revolutions of and for cooperative Both/And
Left/Right ecosystemic balance,
both notnot reserved
and proactively for regenerative integrating profits
shared through mutually subsidiary individual
and family
and tribal
and community
and state
and bioregional networks
cooperatively owned
originally intended
and also Self/Other Earth-centered governing.
Let's declare solidarity
mutually-held power and ownership
with regenerative WinWin integrity
including both past and future generations
reiterations
optimally resonating resolutions
primal peaceful revolutions.
Categories:
substituting, education, games, health, integrity,
Form:
Political Verse
Tease, tempt and test, my love. And I shall react,
Reach and reign, my love. Give me guidance, lest
I wander, substituting lust for authenticity.
Inscribe your insignia upon my soul. Lay claim to
Love, as if to sigh your last breath, for I’m
Embedded in the substratum of your spirit. Thus,
Spoil me with your matrix. Entice me with your
Charms. And I shall titillate, tantalize, and satiate
Your person, for mutual seduction is the art of
Lovers, and we have loved since the days of
Genesis. Thus, ours is immortal, my love, extant
As an apocrypha, but hidden as the root of
Eternity. Let manifest the fruits of love, for we are
Bonded as the pillars of a shelter, destined for love.
Categories:
substituting, art, beautiful, beauty, love,
Form:
Sonnet
You're away tonight
as too often is the case.
There's no substituting you!
Nose nestled in hair,
arms gently pulling you close,
the soundest of sleep enjoyed.
Categories:
substituting, lonely, love, sleep, wife,
Form:
Sedoka
mangled memories and misery doors of deception and doubt
one way in.... one way out
slumbering children awaken to reality and strife
into world of vibrational frequencies and light
our minds hover in darkness as our senses feel for proof
searching for the subconscious switch that inevitably offers truth
substituting truth for shades of shallow gray
sacrificing sanity as sensibility fades away
listening for the distance knock of oppurtunity
while we granny clutch the gears of spiritual maturity
the body weakens with every passing day
but the spirit strengthens as the flesh is torn away
as we grow old we are forced to believe in something more
to believe in something greater than what we are put here for
we may lose focus and sometimes stray the path
but our spiritual beings ultimately guides us back
the polarities of life imprison our minds
with chains of moral construct
but a beackon of hope flashes within the mind
offering serenity from demoralizing conduct
though we can not physically see... hope does shine
we only have to embrace it in the vastness of our minds
hold true to what is love and hope will play its part
while love paints the portrait hope will convey the art
thank you miss gwen for giving this poem a proper and honorable title i am really bad with titles i suck at it =)
Categories:
substituting, love, hope, love, spiritual,
Form:
Rhyme
Substituting for you?
Is that what I'm supposed to do?
I woke to find myself alone
inside this shell,
this rancid home.
Am I supposed
to play the part....
A monster
with a broken heart?
Where has your lover up and gone?
Is that why I am so alone?
This mirrored face,
this mirrored form,
so far removed now from the norm,
This jagged soul feels no remorse
I cannot keep this beastly course.
Madness whispers in my ear,
come back! ,come home!
or else I fear,
These jaws of death must surely seek
an innocent so mild and meek,
there is a force
within these bones
driving,driving ,hear them moan?
or is that me ?
I cannot tell,
the blood,the bones,the rancid smell,
I feel the merging of my will,
the beast will out!
I feel the thrill,
the moon is rising up my spine,
beware the beast............
the night is mine!
Categories:
substituting, adventure, mystery,
Form:
Couplet
Within my illusion
There is no confusion
A permanently placed delusion
Substituting for my seclusion
Hoping that in conclusion
We avoid diffusion
Within your mentality
There is no finality
Obsession of formality
Dependent on normality
Without a personality
Unable to attain liberality
Within society’s jurisdiction
There is only restriction
Feelings of conviction
Beings filled addiction
Typhlotic to the constriction
Their days only fiction
Within the potential
Become experimental
Make it essential
To be influential
The ending differential
Equates into reverential
Categories:
substituting, confusion, imagination, political, visionary,
Form:
Free verse
If I were not a GAY white male
living in the USA,
I wonder if I would have grown my LeftBrain up
to so easily hear
Donald John as Head Pharisee
for privileged religiously-held Nationalism--
a totalitarian fake-idol
substituting fake-patriotic raptures
against sacred polyculturing outcomes
for all multiculturing
underprivileged creolizing
natural agnostic and spiritual religious Cultures.
Susan Werner asks
"If God is good
and God is great,
Why is your heaven so small?"
If USA is good,
right or wrong, and
If USA is patriotically great,
loyal to democratic principles of active healthy cooperation
and therefore morally divine,
Why is your current CEO Pharisee of Privilege
so egotistically small,
so badnews mendaciously tiny,
rather than globally sacred
ecologically Great Transitioning
toward restoring climates of polypathic healthy wealth?
If God's timeless polyphonic Paradise
is too narrow,
too spiritually elitist,
for those of us naturally and/or spiritually underprivileged
victims of Trumpian Win/Lose privileged Rapture smallness,
then how sure are you
you have never had a queerly unorthodox sensual thought?
A flicker of sacred matriarchal woundedness?
A flash of natural wet warm wombishness?
An addictive glimmer of longing to reassociate
with sacred Virginal MotherEarth?
How sure are you of not preferring
innocent transgender lily love for each NewDawn--
Raptures in and of NonViolent Revolutionary Fields?
If we cannot recover
some active multicultural hope of landing together
in God's jealously occupied
and punishingly withheld Paradise,
if only to avoid monoculturing risks
of hellfire's sweeping overpopulated damnation
for timeless eternity
of Here with Decomposing/Recomposing Now,
perhaps it is time to recall
Jesus's God of Love,
WinWin Grace,
restorative ego-ecological
co-messianic
co-operative SpiritNatures,
secular Ego with sacred Eco ZeroZone
nondually co-arising
rapturous WinWin healing.
Transparent secular/sacred political vocations
as eco-ministers reforesting wounded Earth
to heal internal addictions to multiculturing Love.
Categories:
substituting, addiction, earth, health, heaven,
Form:
Political Verse
Jung observed
Where animus PowerOver dominates,
empirically reigns,
there lies anima’s yin-Love
soft recessive Shadow.
Positive to negative,
and double-binding negative
to appositionally reverse
not not yet re-imaged positive
power both/and democratically with.
PowerOver patriarchy
dominating mutual empathic
EarthMatriarchal power flowing with
and through
each healthy root relationship
of AnimusSelf with AnimaOther.
For some, this PowerWith agape feels sacred,
yet also cooperatively natural, organic
like what we have always most appreciated
as nourishing hands and face,
light and voice and feet,
taste and sound and feel,
humane heart and embryo regenerate mindbody.
Open EcoSystemic PowerWith others,
with Earth,
with nurture co-arising Time's regenerate Presence,
but not with PowerOver dominance,
competing Win to not Lose monopolistic life and death emotions,
thoughts,
mistaken beliefs about this animus AND anima
eco-shadows co-arising
Basic Trusting Revolutions,
great and small transitions of ecoconsciousness.
Some speak of climatic and aggressive PowerOver
in contrast to reverence,
substituting Jung’s LoveShadow
with a sacred shadowing
poly-teleological re-ligioning
multicultural WinWin equivalent
nondual nature/spirit evolving balance.
Yet, Yin emerges a binomial yinyin notnot
shadowing WinWin conscience
synergetic intuitions informed by DNA sacred scripture
love-with-health regenerating mutual true-beauty compliance,
resonance,
contenting resolutions,
cooperative relationships with mutually co-incarnate
economic balance of nutritional values,
expecting loving hand and face outcomes
for all Earth’s Tribes,
grateful for evolving mindbodies
surfing through octave-wave co-arising functions
of ego/ecoconsciousness.
For me,
power and love together are reverence
most fully accessible to each and all
maintaining cooperative nutritionally-motivated Basic Trust Attendance,
free to ShowUp, Notice, explore ego’s curiosities,
yet free from overly-cynical ruminations
about how to control mysteries and stories
recovered and discovered
uncovered and unfolding,
reweaving yet again together.
Categories:
substituting, earth, health, love, political,
Form:
Parallelismus Membrorum
Tethers and chains attached to my brain
Never have I been so aware of…
Lack of control
Gnashing and gnawing on shriveled remains
Constantly aware of…
Misplacing my soul
Shrouded and veiled to cover the stains
Self consciously aware of…
Failed attempts to contain and conjole
Denying and slighting all of the pain
Seldom aware of…
Evolution into characters and roles
Clawing and clamoring for some refrain
Deliriously unaware of…
My fragile mind’s mechanisms of control
Creating and substituting; personas to gain
Self awareness…
Gone; what once was whole
Now cleft in twain
Categories:
substituting, confusion, introspection,
Form:
Free verse
Wounds Into Scars
by Odin Roark
It takes not a wise man to know
What we resist
Will persist
So goes the healing process
Just as a tree
With its heart and initial carvings
Carries its scars with little notice
So too might we carry our own
Those verbal
Physical
Spiritual
Lacerations
Often a suffering performance
As if they were for public view
The small child knows early
“Kiss the booboo”
And mothers are quick to reinforce
The child’s need
But as we grow
We forget the essence of a mother’s care
The mother’s empowering way
To repair with love
Instead
Many wear pain and sorrow on their lapels
Trusting a confused society
Often glorifying pain
Placing many an open wound
Before audience-sympathy
Unknowingly substituting exploitation
For the teachings of maternal empathy
How wanting one’s instincts can become
Innate reaction to hurt
Once serviced by natural response
Too often succumbs to ego pampering
Rather than seeking the axiom therein
That place where accepting the hurt
Seduces pain into questioning
Bringing to bear
The precarious courage
To learn the lesson
Of self-love’s curative
Might it be
Like mother nature’s engraved trees
At any age affliction reminds us
Growing is still the purpose
Injuries and scars inevitable
Like the tree
Perhaps it’s really a question
Of how we absorb
And treat ourselves
From within
Categories:
substituting, love,
Form:
Free verse