Best Unheeding Poems
I look in your eyes
what do I see
A shell of myself
who I used to be
A minuscule fragment
of who I was before
When red carpet
stretched out across my floor
A day and time
opportunities, abundant
Long before I became
hopelessly redundant
I see an array of patches
from my many mistakes
My eyes tell a story
of painful heartaches
A veil across my skin
of wrinkles and cellulite
Shards from the past
when my future was bright
Bags under my eyes
from restless nights
Not dead, but a disgrace
I've become a blight
My once white teeth
Now a yellowish tint
Thanks to years of smoking
to relax and vent
I despise you
for what you reveal to me
You show me ugly
and how it feels to be
Unheeding of the causes
for my bruises and scars
You show only the top layer
worn and charred
You are so vain
with your spotless surface
Come to think of it
you really serve no purpose
You make people conceited
More often, depressed
It doesn't effect you at all
you feel no distress
You hold your head high
As if your invincible
No one dare break you
Superstition or principal
But I can see through
As clear as glass
You have no soul
Just useless mass
You're a thief of identities
Because you haven't, your own
No personality to claim
An ever changing clone
Not a person or a place
Just a thing
With nothing to give
Nothing to bring
There will come a day
You will shatter to pieces
Your frame will fall apart
At the perfectly painted creases
There will be no memorial
They will trash your remains
No one will miss you
A thing without a name
The world is bleeding
We stand at the edge of a precipice,
Looking in fear on our Earth,
Boiling, bubbling, and steaming,
With pools of blood flowing.
Warplanes blanket the sky.
Volcanic sounds pierce the ear.
Booms of gun shots rent the air
Lightning passes blinding the eye
The skies let down a deluge of tears
The old world is strangled to death
Toxic waste muddles up every head
The world once dressed in green
Now wears a mantle of pollution
Green- not a colour any more.
The earth wriggles in pain,
But its silent whimper
Falls in deaf unheeding ears!
A sword dangles on a thread
Ready to fall anytime over our heads.
Might dissipates men’s eye sight
From everywhere rises the bleak cry for help
Pale faced grimaces of death as bombs explode
Groans of pain as bullets whizz past
Once warm blood spilled over the streets of Paris
Twin towers were raced down in the U.S
School children massacred in many parts of the world
Now the animosity between Russia and Ukraine,
Iran and Israel keep the world on tenterhooks.
All through the globe, seismic waves of terror
Sweep across… effacing life, love and dreams.
With modest tools, if the Neanderthal men fought,
Modern men are powered with lethal weapons
Any of which can annihilate the whole world in seconds
Men themselves turn as weapons,
And explode like bombs killing thousands.
Where shall we find a bastion
From this rabid pack of wolves?
From the quagmire of terror, we need an escape
Let it be writ on every wall and billboard
‘Down with War, Down with Terrorism’
Pill bugs wet with dew
as crawling gray domes mirror
green turf, salmon sun.
Copter seeds whirling,
a squirrel chases paper
treasure for her nest.
Young cat mock-tweeting,
wily sparrows unheeding,
paws press on the screen.
Argentina's son, a lineage to immigrants
shaped by boyhood aspirations
diminutive left foot striker
taunted "dwarf" in childhood
his growth hormone deficiency
overcome through meds and workouts
a counter to foes physically imposing
Messi's daily slog of skills
agility and balance
slow grind of mastery to mesh the skills to speed
on the football field, Messi dribbles through opponents
pivots round defenders, takes an opposite direction
accelerates
de-accelerates
takes stock of field positions
awareness like a lordly hawk that calculates its prey
a kick triggered whittles through the air
the ball's stinging centre,
flight controlled
at a goal keeper spiralling to the ground
this FIFA World Cup champion
devout in faith
celebrates goals by a gaze upward
a pointed hand to the heavens
another field of his embracing
790 - Messi's career goals for Barcelona clubs and
Argentinean glory
football awards that roll on like credits on a movie screen
on field moves that burrow into memory
through the entanglement of limbs
Messi's footwork, like a dancer's gift
his sprints to fill the field with unheeding power
midst the bulging roar of fans
a homage to glorify the footballer
before he fades
to legend
Poem written January 4, 2023
NOT LISTENING
Choral gladioli in formal circles,
Standing awkward beneath the pines’
Shade - their pinks and purples
Gasping in the gloom for sunshine.
Immersed in a happy crowd mustered
Around them - dandelions in masses
Like children in unruly jostling clusters,
A natural attraction - yellow dresses
Dancing to the music of the breeze,
Laughing and touching heads,
Fast growing, well rooted - at ease:
They want to be here, they‘re glad.
Gladioli are ordered there in rings
Dutifully participatory,
Rendering songs an outsider sings
In unheeding dandelion territory.
......................................................................................
Written 27 July 2014
(I wrote this when watching the formal beds of flowers
in a somewhat overgrown garden in the city.)
From the deep recesses of mind
emerges a stimulation
that necessitates a defined
sudden, high-level invention.
Once imagined its stay is brief
and must be dealt with before lost
to distraction. I would as lief
act on its potential than toss
it on an unheeding scrapheap.
Each notion is temporary
and must be exploited to reap
whatever essence there might be
notwithstanding it goes to seed
or an idea that succeeds.
She was in her prime,
her slender body
is still intact, no wounds but
her mouth.
It is open and her teeth
are red – red and jagged,
like an impaler’s spikes
on which many a tiny creature
has squeaked its last.
Blunt grey eyes stare ahead
still, not comprehending,
but blindly aware of something.
Perhaps someone should move her,
throw her into a dustbin
or into someone’s garden.
The unheeding traffic
has completed its task
and sweeps blindly past.
– 2 –
Here lies McPuss,
hit by a bus.
Requiescat in pace.
Can I ever aspire to have, from you, a glance?
Can I ever dream to have, with you, a dance?
On a yacht
While the mermaids will watch
All enraptured
By the fiery glow that emanates from our burns
Our burns, shining forth
Making us hoarse
And worn, all spent from love making
All tired and being to the rest of the world, unheeding
Why, you have been blessed with everything that life can offer
From beauty to money
From sexiness to power
You have it all
While I am, if not a creep
A simpleton
A simpleton, having been by your allure, stunned!
A simpleton with a tendency to glance up at the skies and wonder
Really wonder
About where is this world heading to
Revolving on itself everyday and every night
Having theories and science to cure its sickly plight
A world it is, made of false pleasures!
And I, belong not here,
I wish I could have the powers to steer clear
To ride away, to seek the world above
But since I am made to be like I am;
An imperfect human;
I cannot help but stare at you
I cannot help but want your attention
I cannot help desire to be your world
I'm a creep maybe, obsessed and enamored
I'm a freak maybe, being made of plain features
I'm a shadow while you are the sun
I'm a moth while you are the butterfly
I'm human while you are a god
But since I don't belong here
I shall make no fuss
I shall live on my life
As long as I am meant to be!
For Contest Creep
Sponsored by Silent One
We started out, as lovers do,
Unheeding as the world slipped by
Of how, or when, or even why
We fell in love,
And nothing mattered then but me and you.
And then one day, as if on cue,
The music stopped, I can't say why,
And there we were then, you and I,
Two lovers out of love,
But were we sad or glad the dance was through?
I think of us now, now and then,
Not of the how, or why, but just the when,
With some remorse but no regret,
And I hope I never will forget,
Even should I let love come my way again.
THE STRANGER MAN (3)
But let life live its life and I mine.
I ease myself of all worries
And drift where I may such as liberal
As a wind and unheeding to the obstruction
Where of the fate of the wind lies.
With same velocity on toward the hurdle
And whether it shall scale through or not
It is of no concern to the wind.
In this wise, once I burdened the future.
Of what will be is the mundane-minded query
Always to guard against the future
Is as to the cloud preventing away from sight.
Thus I scrimp and stake all that I earn
As savings for futurity yet behind the cloud
Haba…again and again lost it all in a duel
With forces of circumstance ascribe not to!
Love is an elusive finch that flutters
And made me become both foolish and wise.
The elixirs of love are the very banes,
Anxiety, longing, heartbreak…name me!
So lovesick for love I lost compos mentis.
It is all a delusion I bargain with my heart
I pursue her no more, let her seek for me
If she loves and I shall test her genuineness
With life-span patience while I wander still
Till I return we shall unite yonder the horizon.
The mind alone the power of love can feel
And her essence can tell in absence of her.
Let it be so, I shall not be enamored
While she crave for my presence
My wistful heart is not for her I see
I do without her and keep the beat on
I sold her my heart even in absence
And now she is gone to have a soma.
Farewell dear to blow air to the wind.
Why tug scudding cloud and cling a shadow?
I will let go of all I love and heave the burden
Not on my shoulder but the ease of my heart.
From the piles of corporeal stocks abscond,
I tire of them because they content me not
From years searching for gold and myadestes afield…
But from within the recess of my heart I find
An amber gilded gem concealed in the depth.
I never was good mixer having to know first myself
For men someday shall walk the solitary path
While also to sing the soloist song;
Friends are strangers for they shall depart
And strangers are friends for they shall arrive.
Mount Baker seen from my window,
is framed in his garment of snow,
towering over his neighbors and
admired from the valley below.
His beauty can't be disputed,
the poets and artists concur.
His jealous sister is angry.
He's taking attention from her.
So proud of the fact she is taller
than all of her brothers save one,
resenting Rainier for his stature,
he's too near her loved god, the sun.
Mount Hood, Mount Adams and others
who make up the great Cascades Range,
have at one time or other ignored her.
She vows this contempt will soon change.
St. Helens could hold it no longer,
her deep seated, smoldering rage.
She vents it early one morning,
the anger she's held for an age.
The havoc she's wrought is tremendous.
She feels no regret and no shame.
She's striking a blow for sisterhood.
The world will remember her name.
She forfeits some of her beauty,
which passing of time will reclaim.
The others now bow to her fury.
She basks in her ill gotten fame.
Her brothers are slumbering giants.
Their power is yet to be seen.
They're holding their strength in abeyance,
giving Helens her reign as the queen.
We love them, unheeding the danger.
We daringly dwell at their feet,
knowing full well we're under the spell
of idols with dues swift and steep.
St. Helens has sounded a warning,
with some of us paying a price.
We stay, though aware of the perils,
encased in that beautiful ice.
When fairy tales were in fashion, before true love was rare,
A prince wooed a maid who was flaxen and fair.
He came every day and patiently knelt
Before the dark tower wherein his love dwelt.
He'd call out, "Rapunzel, oh, show me you care,
And let down a ladder of your golden hair."
This scene re-enacted for forty long years,
His plaintive pleas ever falling upon unheeding ears.
But one winter's day, very bitter and cold,
The prince puzzled to fathom what his eyes did behold.
Overnight, it appeared, her hair came unbound
And the tresses lay scattered all over the ground.
As he gazed at those sad locks, his poor heart was torn,
Was his loved one now bald, her long hair shortly shorn?
Then the prince felt a chill shoot right down to his boots,
He perceived that the gold was quite black at the roots.
Suddenly down came a note in a filigreed cup,
"I can't hear the doorbell, so just come on up."
"Are you freaking kidding me?" he cried, quite beside himself.
"My perfect Rapunzel is bald-headed…and deaf?"
Much chagrined, he charged in, but the higher he climbed,
His ire waned at the prospect of the treasure he'd find.
He opined she'd be virtuous, angelic, demure,
But then he stopped dead in his tracks at the door.
The crone he encountered at the top of the stair
Was morbidly fat, and far, far from fair.
The prince blanched at the warts and stiff hairs on her chin,
As she lewdly, and nudely, gestured him in.
She lay draped on a bed wearing only a smile,
But a true prince is immune to lascivious wiles.
While most heroes in such tales are stalwart and stout,
This one raced to the casement and flung himself out.
As he plunged to his doom from that horrible room,
And ever nearer beneath him he watched the earth loom,
The prince yelled as he fell, shook his fist, and he cursed,
"Why the heck didn't I vet her on Angie's List first?"
It was suggested that I plan my
Own funeral
The entities living on me
In me
Have ensured that I will not last forever
I lived quietly among my family for eons
Uninhabited
But never lonely
Then the entities came
Looking for virgin land
Wild and free
With no history
- as far as they were concerned
They lived here peaceably
For a hundred sun orbits
And multiplied and prospered
They had brought life forms with them
And they, too
Multiplied and prospered
Until I became overcrowded
The entities
Moved out of their original small settlements
And built vast cities
Which necessitated digging into my soil
Blasting my hills
Retraining my rivers’ natural paths
They melted my poles
And emptied my oceans
Soon I was covered in concrete
They polluted the air
The land
The water
Until I lay in spoils
Dying
So now I must plan my funeral
Brothers, play the music of the spheres for me
Mourners, pray to the sun for me
Remember how happy I was before
The occupation
The entities are finally leaving
In search of another virgin
Sisters, will you send out advance warnings?
“To the next victim:
Beware noisy unheeding beings
Who land with silver ships
And make false promises
I don’t know, maybe you can freeze them out
Or melt them down
Blow them away
Or shake them off
Or drown them
I hope you do not do what I did:
Accept them in peace
And hope”
I don’t know when or if these entities will ever learn
To respect what is not theirs
So I must plan my funeral
Brothers and sisters, could you combine
Your energies
To push me closer to the sun
I would like to be cremated
To return from whence I came
I do not wish to remain here
A forgotten
A dead dusty red planet
Alone
1.
In an ahistorical fog:
all the Ways home,
all the signposts,
treacherously hidden
by greedy men and women:
all eyes off the ball:
mere contemptible bourgeois folly.
2.
The rain is unending,
the wind howls,
the flooded river races,
its banks rapidly disappearing
in this darkness at noon.
Laid bare by the flashing, crackling
lightning, the wagon teams and
terrified, shouting horsemen
careen downstream.
Deafening thunder booms rolling.
In the swollen, swirling river,
w/ eyes wide in panic,
the horses kick wildly,
their neighing strangled and
silenced by the dark, rushing flow as
they disappear beneath it.
Both the beasts and the
men are doomed,
but for one of each.
That horseman, cursing,
desperately leaps unto the
back of that horse,
making its way struggling, swimming to the
shoreline, w/ their safety certain,
a horse changed midstream.
3.
The Robot Fighters:
savvy, Western workers
upright and true, foresighted and brave:
like the proverbial "physicians healing themselves"
they throw themselves fervently into
putting their "own house in order" first:
Toppled and wrestled under human control,
each and every evilly spying machine;
all the cruel, unheeding AI
stopped dead in its tracks;
all the poisonous tools of the trade
laid down in righteous protest,
w/ irrepressible Luddite spirit:
Alive, the fearless Machine Fighters
forced into action, wisely not waiting
for irremediable, dystopian 4,000 AD
before making their move.
4.
Greasy grasping fingers:
the fly in the ointment:
usury unchecked.
*****
Curtains, thrown open wide:
the startling, stark light of day:
usurious vampyres scatter,
run for their lives.*
*"The reason why the Persians [sic] were always slaves and always
will be is that they could never say 'No'."
--- Thucydides, ancient Athenian historian and general
The Ruba’iyat of Créteil Lake- Part Six
Awake! Dour Dreamer! And draw the curtain of benumbing clouds
Fairies hover by ears to whisper mantras dispelling doubts
Already unheeding magpies cluck rudely tongue-in-beak
And trans-continental flights from Orly pierce through rain clouds
Good hour or two has gone by since Metro Lac broke loose
Gardiens de paix drive into the buckle of her tresses noose
Barnacle geese strut at her feet preening proud feathers sleek
Mullahs wash their feet by fountains gushing djellaba loose
Murmuring Berber prayers from cowed heads rise to the skies
While lyceen innocence dries up on loud tutored lies
Do hotel beds lost in arbours get bought for sleep or trysts
Stompings on her esplanade nose-bridge: she frets and defies
Wake the dreamer of unwholesome dreams and set the hour right!
How long lone and stricken chained beneath the main tight!
“What ails thee beneath thy furrowed frown! O! Prisoner of sin!”
The tent-maker’s son still roams with galaxies drifting plight!
“Lift that gorgeous head just once: let us see those laser flashes
That make this lake look thunder-struck even through sun-glasses!”
Fitful sparrows in hedges and eaves seek not to share her thoughts
Oblivious Mall shoppers let slip lone tears from her gashes.
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2013