Best Underwhelming Poems
See the impacted eyes, heavy
and the frozen heart, begging
to be released; the tongue
dry, but the cheeks like a flume.
See the round table keep things
close to their chest, lest they spill
the fragility, each glass fragment
that stabs, glues together like
a madman’s vase, complete
with a bouquet of black roses.
Indecent the descent of disheartening;
refusal to believe in uncoupling;
what a crap shoot, show, expletive.
See touch, the tangible eyedropper,
mike drop, warm shawl; a momentary
squeeze of a lemon. Lies go down the drain -
momentarily, mightily, momentously;
bubbling up as a panacea when drained
of all kith and kin; their comfort
and understanding underwhelming,
often pitiful, a pittance. what is needful
is others likewise in a sinking boat,
keeping one another just above
the water line; bailing out each
other’s pain; finding camaraderie
in the breaking; the flowers in the vase
turn dark blue and purple - deep.
See the healing begin, for some.
Some run, some squeeze the lemon,
some rely on the lies. See the death mask
tremble, then a phantom’s half;
never quite whole but jewels
replace the wizened half.
See the pain, the cuts, and crimson eyes.
Don’t become a master of disguise.
See the help, the forest through the trees,
remember your honeybees
given to eternity; find them in the honeycomb.
free verse with poetic device
Having just disembarked from a date with death
on the water, time’s gateway forked for a moment.
Was it the mere dropping of an oar?
or perhaps an encounter with storms?
more milestones, maybe a meeting with the Master?
What purpose was there for extending my life?
Underwhelming thought - a single moment in time.
An irresponsible, selfish person with evil intent -
stabs at significance without a thought, without a care
for whom she hurts or whose lives are changed. OR
Breathtaking thought - a single moment in time,
A responsible, noble human being can create hope
by presiding over, planning for, defining...
inviting the power of the moment.
I chose the latter, went back to school and
became a school teacher to make a difference.
written September 24, 2014 with revisions on June 3, 2018
the skeleton that was me
i remember him well
sweating in the port-a-john
wondering what went wrong
the skeleton that was me
i remember him well
walking the shaky leg walk
to any type of water fountain
the skeleton that was me
i remember him well
looking at everything yellow
at the mere attempt the simply sit up
the skeleton that was me
i remember him well
living my life in the underwhelming
state of parking lot depression
the skeleton that was me
i remember him well
daydreaming as the moon
shined over my offensive, weary presentation
the skeleton that was me
i remember him well
becoming lost as that welcoming
bowl of hot soup medicinally burned the rust off of my esophagus
the skeleton that was me
i remember him well
thanking him for surviving and adding
to the autobiographical art that is now Me....
The Forest
The forest never
asks where it is
it always knows the way
be like the forest
You'll find me in the forest
Beneath the silver birch tree
With ribs in weaves of primrose
And stomach in knots of heather
What beauty today
In a land such as this,
Spinning blue skies
Dizzy from twirling leaves,
Stars in the water
Shining like sunken treasure,
Loose trees shifting
And dripping warm sun down their backs,
And everything, everything alive.
What beauty today,
In this land
Like a steady stream
That trickles through the forest,
I will persevere.
Though my journey is unknown,
I know I’ll reach the ocean.
Magnificent leaves
Beautiful tall pines and oaks
Mysterious, Dark
In this wild resplendent place
ferns unfurl softly green
below bearded mossy trees
rain falls, birds call, echoing
sound of deep forest
breathing
Its wild in here
yet so peaceful
your love has made a forest out of me
You are the forest
that I'm willing to explore even at the most dangerous and darkest area.
Just to discover
your beauteous mysteries.
As the wind blows
through the desolate trees
of a forbidden forest
and the falling of the leaves
is all that can be heard
everything stands, still
there is no time
only peace
Adventure has started
you have to capture my heart,
i will be running ,
so begin the hunt.
Be careful to choose the right path,
my forest is enchanted,
you might fall into a trap.
pick a weapon for this fight,
you must be cautios,
don't let me out of your sight.
i'll be hiding somewhere far,
watch your moves,its dangerous,
i could leave you a scar.
i think you have a chance to win,
just let your mind run wild
and keep your heart clean.
Love,is like a forest,
so big, mystifying, and enchanting,
yet,so evil, dark, and dangerous.
Life,is like a tree in a forest,
one out of many but individually beautiful, with
amazing aspects,yet,ordinary, overpowering, or underwhelming.
Friendship,like a branch on the tree.
a part that makes something, different,
and wonderful,yet,differing, imperfect, and vast.
We are a part of the forest.
In the forest of hope,
One will find tranquility, prosper, and love,
In the forest of hope,
One is all and all is one.
In the forest of doubt,
One will find hostility, failure, and evil,
In the forest of doubt,
One is none and none is one.
By Aliza Kashmala Kiran
The feelings aren’t healing,
Discontent continues wheeling,
The outer skin of my patience desires to find its true meaning,
My heart is causing friction,
The inabilities need fixing before time runs out,
The pressures of being the one,
The man,
The one man that can oversee the potential growth
and harvest it seeds,
The one who initiates and provides stability
has an underwhelming handicap.
Can I save myself?
Is the rot going to end up simply killing me?
There's a secret men's club,
Of men at the pub,
We are men, we drink beer,
Loud laughter over here,
Slap shoulders, cheers,
We are men, we drink beer,
Bring that barmaid over here,
Let's drink beer, cheers,
Loud laughs and leers,
"I'll give you one, my dear!"
Men laugh, say,"Hear, hear!"
Chicks walk by smiling,
What are babes thinking?
"Underwhelming,
Have a look at them,
They're no excuse for men?"
Men laugh and don't care,
More beers over here,
There's a secret men's club,
All the men's down at the pub.
Does your loneliness seem hopeless
Is your nearest friend too far
Is your self-love close to empty
Your night sky without a star?
Do you know life’s question’s answers
Does your crystal ball shine clear
Does the path ahead show promise
Does your sleep come without fear?
Do you leave life’s banquet sated
Do you have someone you love
Does God’s love for you seem boundless
Does your faith fit like a glove.
Do you feel like lost apprentice
Is your life’s force not your own
The sad truth quite underwhelming
In such thoughts you’re not alone.
But this concept doesn’t help much
To stem tides of loneliness
That seem caused by lunar forces
Beyond scope of worldliness.
I think Christ’s the only answer
To a sanity that saves
To trust in God’s provision
Man’s wisdom just enslaves.
Brian Johnston
December 14, 2015
When I'm pining for the power to yield
Breaking all the branches I seize
Acres for the taking in a forest of mistakes
I can't see for the trees
I level
With the shallow playing field
Dreaming up a blueprint to floor you
Delicately drafting
Inconspicuously crafting
The grand facade before you
Where my art lies
The best is underwhelming
When it comes to helping
How I promised I woul...
So I'm peeking past the pitch of my prime
Modeling the modern stage
Perforating patience with a paradox
In place of where the sophist meets the sage
I level
With the hallowed bottom line
Hopeful like the point of a nail
Architecture fractures
In apocalyptic rapture
Where false frameworks prevail
There my heart lies
The beat is overwhelming
When it comes to helping
How I swore I could
I guess I'm knocking on wood
Knock knock knocking on wood
Excess
Will not lead to progress
Will not let me access
What I learned I should
Rid me of
Termites
Crawling into airtight
Trademarks of my disguise
Make me decide I'm good
When I'm just knocking on wood
Knock knock knocking on wood
Knock knock knocking on wood
© Michal Czechak 2016
By Laura Dee Battle
January 23, 2015
Distantly it seems to fade into the sunset
All those life or death situations now seem underwhelming
The online battle cries used to feel like such a threat
Why do I buy the very things their oppression is selling?
It's starting to feel entirely pointless and crude
Indulgence is the currency upon which we survive
It doesn't make sense anymore to keep up this feud
At war with the world, but do I have to fight to feel alive?
I have a picture in my head of everything I need
And increasingly it seems to involve nothing but peace
Machines and tv take me away from the misery in me
It's nothing but foreplay to me without a release
I've had all the tools I could ever hope to use
There is no longer an excuse to keep avoiding the truth
I've tried it all before with nothing to show but a bruise
The scar in the front of my mind that tainted my youth
The reflection of shiny things and home furnishings
Isn't there more to life than the emptiness I see?
I used to have it all without having a single thing
The less that I possess, the more I'm feeling free
Just gimme shelter from the noise in this place
The world that I live seems seems to be a disgrace
Where am I to go with the currents I face?
I'm swimming with the koi, up the stream at our pace
I'm swimming forever
Away from that place...
THE EMPTY FILLED CUP
Ever felt a vacuum despite the fact you fill-up others?
But how can you fill up other "cups" if your cup is empty?
Can an empty cup fill-up another cup?
But if you're actually filling other cups,
Is it possible to say you feel empty?
Self-sufficiency, the coin you search for in the bag of grain.
Can you "find" another whereas you're in oblivion yourself?
Overflow before filling others, find yourself to find others
Else, life is overwhelming and efforts underwhelming.
When things don't add up, it's time to subtract.
Subtract toxicity and laxity, keeping positive vicinity.
Past is haunted & painfully blooted still, face life undaunted.
Fill your own cup first with joy, peace and Love.
Then, you're able to overflow effectively into other cups.
VickManuelPoetry {VMP}.
Copyright©2022
In this moment
Of sheer damned damage
I grasp it
As if I owned it
It's devasting tragedy
It's underwhelming overture
A symphony of sadness
Bringing a drabness
To a whole new light
For your eyes
Enter surprise
Everytime an Eden dies
Paradise is lost
As the look upon
Your bewildered face
A well known man
Prospered today
By throwing all his
Troubles away
Without a care
In the sand or sky
He blows his glass house
With all his might
A God once
Begat this wind
Let it blow the new tide in
A counterpart to a planet
It's moon
Gave a perfect ellipse
On which it sways and swoons
On a day which burns like June
The synopsis starts
To fall in tune
I see now how earth was born
Spitting out from fiery arms
A mass that just basks us
In a light
A light for us to read at night
Knowledge was his first insight
That built his godhead
Into a sturdy third eye
Now they called us civilized
What turn is forming
Next for mankind
Robots becoming biological
Humans becoming machines
Still the fear is there between
The lines and cracks, overlooked
Where I currently hold my peace
In a place that don't exist
In a place you won't believe in
I stretch my imagination
On the cusp of my creation
These words can burn in better now
As visual stimulations
Mr. Robert Mueller
There's no man duller
Even the Dems are ready to bludgeon
This underwhelming -- curmudgeon
Natural compassion,
like unnatural hate,
is left hemisphere teachable
and right hemisphere contagious.
Perhaps also like hate
(fortunately I know less about this
journey in misfortune)
compassion cannot mature
through merely didactic reasoning,
words,
thoughts
devoid of healthy/pathological
safe/danger
anticipation/anxious feelings
Positive communication experience
commitment
predicts healthy integrity
Nurturing
and nutritional support
Nature's cooperative respite
into nondualistic yet spirited peace,
resonantly non-anxious safety
breathing light in
and power out
A lifetime environmental healthy
guarantee
that I will notice,
respect,
attend to,
anticipate moments when alone
to fill with imaged complex solidarity
rather than emptying
into dark silent apartheid,
despairing manic loneliness,
uncomfortable forced separation,
segregation,
severance.
Compassion
grows from infant attachment
into childhood appreciation,
puberty's struggling acceptance
flaring into peaks of passion,
adolescent sympathy
for EarthTribes left behind
and out
and under
and away,
blown up by abuse
and fractured by neglect
Of HerStory within history,
rich indigenous polycultures,
ancient ecofeminist liturgies,
healthy and impassioned sexuality
Marginalizing into unstable labels
of Either Us Or Them
eco-political competitions,
divisions,
polarizations
of what MotherEarth
wove
wombed
birthed together
For mature
adult
healthy and safe
EarthTribal empathy
Which,
when felt and known,
seen and heard,
touched and smelled
as uniting co-empathy,
we deeply feel
and wide-culturally speak
of integrity's theistic mystery
Sacred,
wondrously overwhelming,
awesomely unspoken underwhelming
Present CoPresence
Steadfastly anticipating
timelessly stable
strong yet flowing
compassionate
universally uniting
Yang-Yintegral
health polarity and wealth circularity
CoBinary
CoPartisan
CoPassionate
green communion.
Integrity can feel overwhelming
when compared to underwhelming
disintegration
Nascent powers of joy/sorrow-full integrity
have emerged perhaps too late in
full and emptying life,
which feels sad,
at best bitterly happy
to take so long
to move from wounded child
into integral binomials
Like thinking universally
feels happily unitarian,
and global consciousness
grows interdependently intersectional
even balancing mono/poly-theistic
ego/ecosystemically inter-religious
And biosystemic health
feeds polycultural joy
breeds polypathic integrity
Synergetic as win/win transpartisan
co-empathically felt transporting
thoughts anticipating co-operative
happy and humble
transparent and vulnerable
co-intelligent
co-empathic dialogue
While economic co-investments
joyfully contribute
to shared green/blue
spiraling
ecologically revolving
revolutionary political co-passions
In-between
reconnecting
religioning theological
regenerating ecological win/lose
wounded children
and win/win
joyfully healthy
quietly smiling elders
Feeling sensually shameful
thinking neuro-sensory soulful
silently smirking
sainted bio-exotic
quixotic
curiously bicameral
bilateral
bisexual
bi-transtheistic
bi-polynomial balancing
co-binary 1/0 ego/eco
secular health embodying sacred wealth
touch outside
felt inside
bipartisan win/win
neuro-systems.
In the morning,
I am not a poet.
This is no matter of opinion,
It is an undisputable fact, and don't I know it.
I am not a poet
In the afternoon, either.
Not for a lack of trying,
The words simply won't flow from my hand to the paper.
When the Sun sets,
Nothing that I write could or should be considered poetry.
Every line sounds like gibberish,
And should be treated accordingly.
But when I finally rest my head
And close my eyes on my disappointing diminished hexaverse,
I imagine myself in a world where the constellations spell out similes,
Until I am finally submerged.
I frolicked through a field of Forget-Me-Nots
As I basked in the moonlight made of metaphors,
I could not help but gape at the world
That was unlike anything I had ever seen before.
Hyperboles whizzed past me,
An ode to life echoed through the air!
I could hear onomatopoeias crashing against a distant shore,
As personification ruffled my hair.
I sat myself on cloud like grass
And turned my gaze upon the stars,
They twinkled with the secrets of long gone poets,
Whispering sacred bars.
I tried my best to listen
As Orion and Scorpius traded elegies,
'Til the Man In The Moon said,
"Not yet my child, you are a poet yet to be."
And so I tore myself away,
And resigned myself to the beach,
I took in every inch of thalassic beauty
As far as the naked eye could see.
I contemplated what would happen
In the morning when I woke,
Would I continue writing underwhelming sonnets,
Until the day I croak?
"No!" The Sea roared
As the tide came rolling in,
"You will write of what you witnessed,
And one day when you return again,
Bellatrix and Hercules will tell your story
To the fleeting comets that come 'round,
They'll say 'There! There they are!
That's the poetic dreamer we told you about!'"
Once the Sun had risen I waved goodbye to the Sea,
And although I was nervous I made sure not to show it,
For I knew the pen would always be mightier than the sword,
When in the hands of a poet.