Best Subtractions Poems
In this world and in this life
(Are we all just another number)
A tax statistic or
a corporation's itemized figure.
There are of the pluses and negatives.
The accounting of the additions and then the subtractions.
These are the balance sheets of life.
This is with "gains, and losses."
Is that the higher plan for mortal man
existence on this dusty earth?
A salary, or no salary.
A bank account, or no accounts.
Zeros and Ones, 1, 0.
Added together are they supposed to be fine gold?
A man’s worth weighed
on a numbered scale of more or less.
Were we created to be only digital number notations?
Numbers in hourglasses filled with very fine earthly sand.
Grains of sand running then emptying,
into the canvas of time.
This of dusty dust: yet, not solely returning to the ground.
For, we are very, very much, much more: than that ever seen.
"Yes, not solely just numbers indeed!"
Categories:
subtractions, appreciation, hyperbole, introspection, life,
Form:
Free verse
He says he loves me then he says he loves me not
He loves me today but by tomorrow I'm forgot
He runs from my love but returns wanting more
I guess I'm to blame for letting the traveler explore,
See travellers just wander and are never here to stay
They admire the scenery and enjoy the display
They tour the land and ride the attractions
So memories become their only subtractions,
They search for an experience that is what they yearn
The condition once they leave is none of their concern!
So how can the land be devoted and true
When travellers come and go out of the blue.
The present is now and where he's travelled to,
But the past he calls home so he must return soon
Most likely just a visit although time can only tell,
But what he lusts is in this land and he knows it very well
He may call that place home but its this land that he seeks
Travellers on a mission never realize until they hit their peek
He continues to damage this land down to its core
So what's left to offer when their is nothing left in store?
The resources were depleted and the land left bare
He comes and goes as he pleases it doesn't seem fair;
See this land has been abused time and time again
Seeds that were planted, were means to an end
But pleasure and satisfaction was always accomplished
Because this land provided where the homeland was disadvantaged!
But despite the history and despite the trust
Submit to his urges is something he must.
So this time around his departure is permanent
Lack of faith and loyalty was the final determinant.
The damage he caused cannot be rendered,
So his visitation rights he has surrendered!
So leave this land I say and never look back
This is the path you chose I hope you can stay on track,
Cause travellers have memories of the lands they have stained
But the land only remembers the one that remained!
Categories:
subtractions, analogy, betrayal, boyfriend, change,
Form:
My mind reminds me of you,
you're stuck in my life and there's nothing I can do...
Three little words have haunt me and it's my
own being thats taunts me...
I've gone this far and made a life without you
but why do I continue when there's no life
without you....
High on the thought things will be fine and
Living as a king with no means to my action
I'll be damn if my bank questions my
subtractions...
Schooled by my past and learning it now
how could I relate to the child I help make
for the questions that they'll ask will be
impossible to fake!
Give me my license you call diploma
and let me wake up from my nightmarish
coma...
Get on with my life for Everyone to see that this
Death in me will eventually be set free!
Categories:
subtractions, graduation, life, me, life,
Form:
Life’s equation works in a different way,
each moment is accounted for as is each day,
one be one, as we pass through time’s sieve,
what remains in the end is charity we give.
balance in the bank does not follow you,
friends and relatives will soon bid adieu,
all that wealth does not matter anymore,
your values are morals to settle the score.
life’s biology has different rules,
let us forget all that is taught in schools,
one plus one two, is not how it is done,
two people in love may say they are one!
when a child is result out of these two,
one plus one is three, that answer is true,
as more children come, there is a new tally,
as they become part of one family!
additions, subtractions, beyond our hands,
equations written no one understands!
foolishly we count sunrise and sunsets,
yet ignore the heart that beats in our chests?
in the big stream of life each drop is known,
each tree is counted, each seed that is sown,
each life created, each leaf that is dead,
each word spoken, many that are unsaid!
many have been and gone and more will come,
multiplication is part of this sum,
statistics here has no median, no mean,
sad tears that we shed do not wipe them clean.
the assembled gold medals on display,
will be sold in the market cheap one day,
that brave soldier and that pious old priest,
their value in sand, no different from beast!
equations of life are different kind,
never needed wealth that is left behind,
no matter what is in your final will,
sum total of your life is always nil!!
from nothing we come to nothing we go,
between those zeros, life is a transient show,
they who know this truth, know the travel route,
we know not Life’s true ‘power’ , nor its square root!
10 syllables each line
rhyme aa, bb, cc…
Beyond that- it does not matter,
life will write its own equation!
Categories:
subtractions, 12th grade, 8th grade,
Form:
Rhyme
Could you imagine,
A face like that?
Created by the face of an angel
And modeled like fashion
For the damned and deceased.
A respected locksmith,
Drunk on insomnia and aging,
Kissing the pavement
With bare and busied feet.
The Brazilian beauty
Who prides herself as
The representative of blushing.
The one who catches the bouquet
By chance and
Throws it away before anyone notices.
But on a theory in a slip of time,
Before the extinct proposition
And an oddly proportioned new born,
Curls a quivering life form
In the belly of this woman so sweet.
Born from innocence and named Mary,
For the sake of Jesus.
She is not 36 nor is she 16
Yet she is at the fruitful age of 57.
And at 57,
This symbol of love and innocence
Is fumbling with the curiosity
Of breast feeding her unborn child
That wiggles and withers with frailty
Inside of her.
Dark wood,
Unimaginable line,
Where could you have gone
When the pages were as blank as the faces
And for the life of you,
You couldn't tell the difference.
Just say it.
Rip it from the tip of your tongue.
Show your taste buds no mercy and speak.
Grow.
Expand.
Consider the possibilities when
It appears there are none.
Enjoy the pain
And embrace all oppressions and oppositions.
Slumber in the smutty bluntness
Of a marital masquerade.
Quit it
Then keep it going.
Move the stones
And bend their broken subtractions.
Crack the indescribable aptitude
Of times motive for murder.
Explicate reason,
Smoke your lungs away,
Cry your eyes out,
And suck at the wastelands.
Categories:
subtractions, adventure, allegory, angst, life,
Form:
Free verse
“Teenager,
The growing youth,
The future leader,
The light of the nation,
Listen to the words,
All mathematically,
Like the equation y = mx + c,
The y-intersect you can meet at
As a young girl or boy, which might
Make a proper fraction, or an old man
Or lady to make improper fraction,
You might be driven by multiplying
Alco by hol which produces the product
Alcohol, thinking that you are algebraically
Dividing the eyes of parents so they won’t
See you. Hey! Listen you are multiplying your
Day subtractions on this earth,
Subtract the other part of your external life partner
If you were simultaneously connected together
To be non-linear simultaneous equations, which might
Be difficult to be simultaneously solved, don’t fall in
Love with a man who cannot stand perpendicularly to the
Ground,
Become zero today, you don’t need
Addition or multiplication,
Always power yourself to zero to always and
Constantly become one if instance you were mistaken
And shaken, do not be between brackets of subtraction
And addition if you are addition, since subtraction might
Swallow you because of her wide mouth,
Teenage pregnancy,
All mathematically,
Avoid being in each and every man’s hand like a scientific
Calculator, don’t make circles like a compass around boys
And men, don’t helplessly lie down like a thirty centimeter
Rule, be wise and focus girls and boys, remember teenage pregnancy
Is not girl’s pregnancy,
All mathematically, take care”
Categories:
subtractions, anger, courage, cry, dedication,
Form:
Epic
Nomad in strange lands,
Doing it with your hands,
Not reprimanded dead,
But given an actor’s head.
Time to do, breadth and space,
So you don’t leave your trace,
Because your actions are private,
Since you are not an ape primate.
Caged within freedom and jail,
In there, but your jail is your wail;
The two realities are conjoined,
In an experience you’ve coined.
Knowing that right and good,
Exist potentially within your hood,
And that you’re free in your actions,
Of theft and burglary subtractions.
Although you feel it’s your height,
To take that which is your right,
You understand you are wrong,
That to your good friend you belong.
So you resolve every time,
To stop your criminality mime,
And admit to your friend malice,
And take the righteousness chalice.
Categories:
subtractions, anti bullying, best friend,
Form:
Heroic Couplet
Lovingly, Apu
Prithwiraj Chowdhury
Pulu, how are you? Are you all well, these days?
This pen is down on spark, too soon, quite a dismay!
These letters are tracing more and more blurry , even more than a foggy winter morn,
Where all these years got eloped, along the way? How come, a mystic fate, for so long?
It seems, as if , these gone days, the sundial rested the bonded mystery on a railtrack.
With a longer story to tell, between, I managed your address , now it is with me.
Silly me! I have simply forgotten to introduce myself, a thing in my task list, yet to see,
Can you recall me? I am roll number forty six, Apurba Kumar Roy, to be more precise.
Last time, I saw you in Nagpur, in a factory workplace.
Do you know what happened, then? I visited Khulna, Aparna’s village place.
Khulna, in Bangladesh, now, so the map says.
Who is there, still living in residence?
Is there anyone remaining, who calls you “Pulu”, other than me?
Kajol is a married family man now, he is posted in Calcutta, with his service.
Apart from all these, let us come to the topic of this letter, why so, why this one, now?
Do not have any clue to begin with words, to fetch a river of tears with cobblestones, to let you know.
It has been almost thirty years since we last met, no correspondence , nothing at all!
Perhaps you will say, “It is all your fault, why did you not do so, to add up to makeup?”
No stories of addition are left these days, all evolved with subtractions along a lifeline!
My sister left at age six, dad at ten, and while at seventeen, mom left me, for good.
And the spring on a blossoming twenty two, took away Aparna, too!
And not only them, in a seasoned present tense, all are gone, the smoke train engine, my nightingale of sorrow.
(To be contd.)
Categories:
subtractions, lonely,
Form:
Free verse
Advance and dance towards destiny
Galumph
Defy the lie and cry of scrutiny
Triumph
Over hurdles seen and unseen
Drive and dive to arrive
At the intersection where a queen
Awaits your appearance as you strive
To breach odds stacked against success
Meant to land in caloused hands
That have toiled and moiled to access
The priceless dream magic wands
Dangle to whet your appetite
To fight on
As your sacred satellite
Orbits in the vicinity of the zone
Where proximal development weighs your mettle
Questioning
Whether rejection and dejection can unsettle
Positioning and repositioning
Couched in sound marshalling of interpersonal skills
To peel
Layers of humbug from stills
To feel
Love concealed beneath an iceberg
That threatens to undermine your schooner
As you voyage towards Johannesburg
In tandem with Charlie Pride, the crooner
Spicing up your voyage with bliss ballads
That wash away
Distractions and subtractions from salads
That hold sway
When you pursue the path your heart
Declares full of promises
Meant to signal your restart
Of negotiations to soothe pieces
From your life’s jigsaw puzzle
Whacked out of shape
By a Kalashnikov muzzle
Whose lion-like nape
Reminds you to turn right
At the crossroads
Where might and fright
Debate whether Heaven and Hell roads
Intersect inside the crystal ball of love gone mad
Despite head shrinkers’ efforts
To decipher why glad guys go sad
When love distorts
Good intentions into daggers
That hurt with curt behavior
Turning smiling faces into feeble figures
Pleading to kneel and confess love ain’t no savior.
Categories:
subtractions, poems,
Form:
Free verse
No one’s perfect
No one’s is angelic
Beautiful in body
but filthy in heart
Fluent in speech yet,
stammerer in action
Metallic in body but
a desert in morals
Shining star in sport
yet a tail in reason
Close to Almighty
but afar from man
Life’s like a computer game
Full of additions and subtractions
Categories:
subtractions, allusion, humanity,
Form:
Sonnet
A world that wouldn’t understand
Perhaps wouldn’t care
Line by Line
More than just words
Memories from yester far
Journeys and Struggles
Storms of Damnation
Hour glass of time
Personal Memoir
Not in a book, but one’s inner spirit
Beginning to extension
Closed Doors that opened
Death wanted to snitch
Life came through with a catch
A Higher Calling
Shown the way
Living today
Life’s Chapters
Endless pages
Emotions in rages
Interseed Approaches
Additions and subtractions
Inspirations through multiply
That moment
Certainty arrived
Life pages, that I am
Categories:
subtractions, anger, anxiety, betrayal, care,
Form:
Free verse
What if I said you're too strong of a woman to worry about a loss?
What if I said you could have any type of man you'd possibly want?
No matter what your Knight will always be by your side,
And as my Angel I know you'll always be here even if I need a guide.
What if you were single for a year and then decided you want me as your man?
Do you think I would be available to step forward and take grasp to your hand?
I'm a patient man but there's a limit to my waiting,
But then again I must remember it's been years since I did some dating.
What if someone came along and swept you off your feet?
Or vice versa do you think either of us would feel defeat?
Put together all the what if's that are floating throughout your mind,
Then cast them all out because the answers will not be easy to find.
What if this and what if that questions will stress you more than you imagine,
You should continue to move forward and start making subtractions.
If we are meant to be then we shall be together,
And even though we have deep emotions doesn't mean we'll be forever.
Live your life and only worry yourself of your own happiness,
And don't be fooled by petty game or a drunken kiss.
But please hear this cause I must confess,
My heart has been screaming at me so listen to this.
What if I fell for you and didn't want no one else to stand in the way?
What if you're the woman I'd rather wake up to everyday?
What if I cared so much for you I would rather you be happy even if that meant with
someone else?
Your well-being matters more than my own loneliness which is just another matter to be dealt.
Miss A.W., you are one of a kind and truly one unique woman that's hard to find,
Your alter ego Destiny...speaks to my soul and fills me with the right amount of joy to
put me in a peace of mind.
Angel...to me you are beautiful...exciting...a very rare person I'd love to share my life
with,
Every aspect about yourself makes me believe that God personally sent me a gift.
Everything you are is exactly what I need in my life,
Answer this...what if I could feel that your heart wants me involved in your life?
Categories:
subtractions, romanceme, heart, woman, heart,
Form:
Rhyme
“Another game?”
“Yes, I think so but let’s change
the rules. What if we create some
holes in the game, three or four
perhaps with parallel endings?”
“Yes, I think that would be fun.”
Who predetermines the rules?
What if you step over a crack in the sidewalk,
And the rules become inverted
Finding you are younger than when
You walked out the door in the morning?.
Unable to remember exactly where you are
At this moment. Unnerving. Like a giant
Pinball game, worlds flicker from one
Universe to another, bouncing off
Each other into the vast chaos
Of empty space-time. A troubling thought
When everything has to be so ordered.
Measured to an infinite set of
Rational equations that spin themselves
Out to the edges of galaxies seen from a million
Light years. Stretched taut across the sky, and
Still we expand the search.
What if there are monsters and jesters sulking
About the universe? Existing on parallel planes
Where we play out endings for their
Amusement. They move us like chess pieces
On a game board, further into the
Blackened heavens, expanding outwards and
Beyond to what we comprehend as our
Very existence. Game pieces moved
Against a clock as we wander the
Night sky to the back streets of the universe
Asking is there anyone out there?
Always the same questions,
Always with different answers.
How far is far enough? Perhaps we are
Moving on a river, afloat in endless space.
Travelers searching for the shoreline
And a place that seems vaguely familiar, trying to
Recall where we were a few moments ago.
Anything is possible. What if the journey
Takes forever? And we find ourselves standing
At the abyss of space being sucked into
One of the game’s black holes,
Able to view our beginning in our end.
A tiny speckle of an atom floating alone
In nothingness. All we have ever known
Is reconstituted in the spinning hole,
Billions of thoughts wallpapered; nothing
Ever lost. We speculate, conjuring up theories
With eloquent additions and subtractions, and all
We can do is hope for the best. A game played
Over and over, with no rules, no winner.
Hawking’s Paradox.
Categories:
subtractions, science, star, time, visionary,
Form:
Narrative
All the cardinal points
The Equator line
the metaphors
all the comics
the myths
souls
subtractions
additions
all the abstractions
are human creations
in vain hope
of fulfilling the infinite empitness
including
hope and infinity
Patricia Evans
Categories:
subtractions, life, people, philosophy,
Form:
Free verse
All your words and all your actions, you hurt me very much. What are to be my reactions, no love your cold cold touch.
I must forgive and love, Let it fly like a dove, I must love love above.
Taken away by subtractions, all your words and all your actions.
Date Written:9/7/2021
2 Place
Forgive and love is so very important. Not always easy but must be done.
Quietus-August 2021Contest Judged:10/2/2021
Sponsored by: Unseeking Seeker
Categories:
subtractions, hate, heart, love, words,
Form:
Rhyme