Best Unexamined Poems
Look as far and as wide as you can, my friend,
Turn your eyes towards the sky and try to pierce infinity-
This vast unknown-
Ponder about its existence
Let not a single thing unexamined
Any stunning flower untouched
Any majestic bird unobserved
Any magnificent fish unnoticed
And tell me
Isn't life a miracle?
An unbelievable story?
An inconceivable design?
Yet
A mesmerizing reality?
Look how heaven and earth are put together:
A harmonious whole operating with such precision and
With a single purpose in mind- LIFE!
Tell me, could this great design be the outcome of chance?
Of a hazardous consequence?
Or
The work of blind forces?
Look closer my friend, once again,
Pay attention to the details of this incredible miracle of life
Look how things are so wisely operating
Observe the relationship between a flower and a bee
How they are interrelated,
Interconnected and
Interdependent
Marvel how, although they both are so transient,
They maintain eternity
Note the way they obey the cosmic laws
Thus
Enacting the choreography of life and death that divinity has conceived
And by doing so they become divine themselves and their art holy
Let us, my friend,
Be inspired by them and let us create our own
Harmonious coexistence
Our own choreography, inspired by God,
For
To incarnate His will in reality
So as to glorify His creation
And us to live in peace as He meant us to live!
© Demetrios Trifiatis
06 August 2019
* This is my 2400th poem.
Thank all those who have commented on my poems since 2012! I also thank PoetrySoup because they have helped my poems become known thus they were published in books and anthologies. Soon, I think to stop posting. God bless you all my friends.
I sat quietly staring out the porthole window
As we were passing over a village in the low hills
A cumulus cloud casting over its ominous shadow
Far below in the silence of the engine’s shrills,
I wondered where those tiny people were going
Beneath the wing nary a songbird nor butterfly
Alone streaking through the frigid air, the Boeing,
Not a face lifted from village below to the sky
Then it was gone, as quickly as I had imagined,
I rummaged through my satchel of ordinaries
Forgetting a whole community of unexamined
Miniatures, no concern for untended cemeteries,
I had long forgotten when the plane descended
My sweet reveries in solitude, my journey ended.
Written June 10, 2022
Submitted to "2022 Marathon Mile 1" Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Mark Toney
can it be, equanimity the antidote
a life unexamined, is a life not worth living
self-absorption hears the drum of one
it an ego-driven malfunction
wrong reality rapt in silent adagio
the sponge soaks the water and cannot desiccate
your desires alone illusory, arrogance
leading to aversion, not to confuse with self-love
Oyez soliloquy! (gavel strikes) so hence
primal love you claim to defend—a chimera
Voir Dire on Love
I Am Anaya
2/21/26
** “The unexamined life is not worth living” – Socrates.**
Looking Inward, Asking For Serenity's Grace
Looking inward, a soul that so silently weeps
For the realization of dear dreams born in sleep
And cessation of wickedness in this dark world
Those unexpected strikes from lightning bolts hurled,
Deeper in that inner web, hiding there alone
A phantom- it's ice-cold, hard beating heart in hand
Magnitude of negatives, more than one can stand!
Looking inward, where heart its gasping whispers beat
As if constant traffic on golden bricked streets
Therein the winds of romance so quietly wait
Chance and the manipulations of hands of fate,
Sweeter in that inner web, hiding there alone
A valiant knight, armor clad and steely eyed
Holding true to the hope on which millions relied!
Looking inward, asking for serenity's grace
Welcoming true light, demanding courage to face
The unknown and world's barbaric mercilessness
Yet brave enough to let love abundantly bless,
Chained in that inner web, hiding there alone
Those pleading for swifter rescue and hopes return
To lift them from bondage and flames set to burn!
Looking inward, a soul that so silently weeps
For the realization of dear dreams born in sleep
And cessation of wickedness in this dark world
Those unexpected strikes from lightning bolts hurled,
Deeper in that inner web, hiding there alone
A phantom- it's ice-cold, hard beating heart in hand
Magnitude of negatives, more than one can stand!
Robert J. Lindley, 6-09-2021
Rhyme,
( To Seek Wisdom To Break Out Of Inner Bondage )
When dappled shadows flit through darkened backstreets,
and whispers rendezvous with one another,
the usual bright spirits take a backseat.
They nurture remnants of rebounds which smother.
When cadence of sweet trilling of dawn chorus
unwelcome thief: give dream a few more seconds.
Deceit of sun when rays are merely porous,
its loving embrace reaches out and beckons.
Fomenting trouble ‘gainst my better judgement;
tormented by unbidden thoughts of moments.
The unexamined life is not worth living –
fulfilment’s in the act of freely giving.
Inspiration that’s echoed in poetry,
I dance with shadows in this vibrant city.
Poetic form: Yclept Sonnet. For more details regarding this form, please see my article, Introducing Three New Sonnet Forms, here on PS. Also, a 'Summary of Metres' is depicted.
You plot and scheme but things
don't always fall into plan,
I know now what most men might
learn in a life span,
but all my knowledge of philosophy
cannot spare,
the rare yet paralyzing storm of
despair,
my life of mediocrity was traded in,
for a life full of agonizing doubt yet
one free of sin,
I often wonder how people get
moved by sayings so plain,
and how do you find the meaning of
life when life is so mundane,
Nietzsche was supposed to teach
me how to deal with pain,
Aristotle was supposed to cleanse
my soul and brain,
how could the pursuit of simplicity
drive me insane,
perhaps I overestimated what I
stood to gain,
So I adopted the infamous
Schopenhauerian concept of love,
claiming conspiracy over something
so rosy as the above,
a life based on rhetoric, a life devoid
of all romance,
the possibility of which I passed
when I had my chance,
we the blessed modern beasts claim
that instincts are for men of the
past,
"except when it comes to love", a
paradox my head cannot grasp,
I spent my time of recreation in
elation
admiring intellectual creation,
which lead to hesitation, stagnation
and later self-condemnation,
but I stopped fearing the
unfathomed,
gratefully, profound discontempt
gracefully unraveled,
I don't promise that you will find
bliss in midst of the abyss,
but if somehow it's my point that
you've managed to miss,
its simply the unexamined life isn’t
worth a drop of piss.
(From Apology (by Plato) 360 B.C.
"The unexamined life is not worth
living" said Socrates before his
execution.)
If we pray for other countries to prosper, real neighbor ...
As Old Cultures and Histories model, imbibe, declare ...
There would be fewer dark nations seeking refuge in whiter
Would you even consider praying for Nicaragua, El Salvador,
Gautemala, Honduras, and Mexico to reach more of their poor
With JUSTICE, fair prices for what they own, sell, barter???
Even as Scott Simon exposes HOBBY LOBBY, Bible Museum builder
Paid a fine ($3m) & helping denude Iraq of its Own, "war souvenir"
Of our celebrated warriors of freedom, and yes, capitalists-investor
Yes, you have to think hard and forgive me, for this NEWS
You may hide while ululating Fox, Skunk, Weasel News (fake news?)
As we who escaped here for religious reasons, send kids to our prisons
The unexamined life is not worth living, said Socrates
Who died rather than parrot what Religion and Politician needed
To hear, to let him continue teaching (Questions): Deductive, Socratic ...
I have drunk poison too, and something died, something living
Yes, Iraq can teach us that Occupation is worse than dying
The Museum curators still hide Gold Treasures, 15 years & counting ....
FOOTNOTE: Please google "HOBBY LOBBY," funder of Liberty University, too.
I ought to have, much earlier, added this NOTE:
"Hobby Lobby" is a leading American Company that prides itself as "Christian." It bought stolen artefacts looted from Iraq since the 1990s, and paid a fine of $3 million to the US Government. They also have enjoyed that dubious honor of helping "build" the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. More love for Museums than for people alive today? You do the research & RE/consider ...
Overgrown With Vines
Three meatless, boney, fingers clawed
at the hard dirt, glistened in the emptiness,
cursed the damnation of the full moons lie.
Death and the shallow grave had come quickly
a sharp metal edge the instrument of both.
The vines, the ever growing, ever reaching
strangling vines had come much slower,
clutching and grasping the remnants
of an unexamined death.
He had fought them, the vines,
struggled to raise a hand, to signal
the intruders of his silent hell.
Slowly he succumbed to his fate
gave up the ghost of justice delayed
relaxed into the dirt and stone
accepted the anonymity of a life
the ignominy of a death
overgrown with vines.
9/29/2016
submitted to – Overgrown With Vines – Poetry Contest
sponsor – Broken Wings
I wonder if sage Socrates
opined today
And said listen good people to
what I have to say
Where would those people who
are paid just to spin
Fit this sage controversial free
thinker in
Or if Jesus Christ happened to
show up unannounced
And gently our greed and our
hubris renounced
Would we be like doubting
Thomas of old
And need to see for ourselves
the scars and nail holes
The owl of Minerva flies only at
dawn
But the curtain of doubt has
been long since drawn
By Cyberspace knowledge that
frowns on reflection
Sadly rendering so many with
more answers than questions
If the unexamined life becomes
the standard of living
And free thinkers pose
questions to a world less
forgiving
Who's left to take sides in the
age old debate
Is it necessary to deny
knowledge to leave room for
faith.
S - Sage,
O - Outstanding
C - Cosmopolitan,
R - Reason's
A - Apotheosis,
T - Transcendental
E - Euphoric
S - Spirit. *
© Demetrios Trifiatis
13 December 2019
* Socrates, Greek moral philosopher, teacher of Plato ,born in Athens in 469 BC , died in Athens in 399 BC.
Here three of his famous sayings:
a) I know one thing that I know nothing.
b) There is one good-knowledge and one evil -ignorance.
c) The unexamined life is not worth living.
You wanted
a knight in shining armor
that I could never be
but you were too shortsighted
to realize that I knew the path
to your liberation
and you turned a blind eye
when I tried
to point out the road home
ignored my every whisper
as the clues
went blindly unexamined
Clairvoyance veiled by the unexamined presence fails
To telltale what future prevails
Disguised as chance, fate rewards with wiser presents
Perfect timing and mystery its essence
In this sense our senses failed to grasp
Until the future is the past
Like secrets seeds buried beneath the present keeps
Futures unknown
Intuition enhances senses deceived, though most reap what's sown
Mythical, parabled, theoretical, volition's reward is considered good karma
Our needs, granted through experience explains ancient dharma
It's evident perfect hindsight's enlightment
Trandscending sin, spiritual pollution
Trial,error and inventive success is evolution
Forsight time travel's the future is BRIGHT!
So now there falls the longest dark,
The hours of stars and cold
That in their icy silence reign
Above a world full dropped to rest..
The winds carry off another year
As the newborn next comes stealing in.
We turn within to find ourselves,
To dream of what may come to birth
Out of the death of what has been.
The fire cracks upon its grate;
Ashes sigh and settle.
Tomorrow's shadow stands await
Against the door
As all things turn upon the fulcrum of the night.
What wisdoms we are granted
Stir deep within the deeper quiet.
May they rise in us with the rising light
That draws along the dawn.
The old year sinks into its Forever sleep;
But let us bring its lessons to the new,
For the life unexamined is a fallow field
Untouched by hand or heart.
A new year beckons,
World turning back to face the sun.
Let it find us fresh with hope,
As does a bridegroom find
His smiling, waiting love.
Yesterday’s Wishes 6-25-24
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yesterday’s Wishes
Yesterday’s wishes never grow stale,
Immortal dream walkers glint in platinum.
Fresh hope with wings, like moonbeams in a mason jar,
Nudges wrinkled wishing stars
To capture a prayer implored on the first star,
Slipping through starlight on a chivalrous quest
Determined to take destiny outside the ephemeral.
One fluttering penny never scarred by disbelief
Lives in moments of perpetual could.
A breath, ever new, kisses Heaven
On a still pond without wrinkles
With a heartbeat that shakes time and astronomy
By blasting beyond algorithms and black holes
Into the unexamined fantastical.
Ever youthful wishes charge past the iron will of probabilities
When heartbeats flutter outside of mortality.
Possible stomps on the impossible in resurrection
Grabbing Eden’s fragments, fancies of faith,
As yesterday’s wishes belong to eternity
And live in a forever dawn waiting to bloom.
chrysalis tears
meconium oozes
soft wings cling
butterfly’s
pupal fluid
red like blood
caterpillar and chrysalis
combine to change
ugly duckling to swan
first flight
like a falling forest tree
without sound
without witnesses
beauty unexamined
unmounted