Best Uninhabitable Poems
When sleep deserted me
I crawled out of my bed unseen
To delve into the crevices of the dark
With the curiosity of an explorer
And the near comatose of a somnambulist
I walked up and down the steep slopes of the night
Like a night watchman
Without a lantern in hand.
When my legs grew weary
I sat on a rock
Covered with moss and lichen
Staring into the dark night sky
With no constellation of fireflies
Flashing their torches anywhere
Sitting there, in that bewitching night,
I listened to the song of night birds,
The rustle of leaves,
The howl of wolves,
And the night wind’s rave.
Looking into the dark pockets of the night,
I thought of human mind, a deep gorge
With many an uninhabitable corner
Where serpent desires lie coiled,
Scorpions crawl with toxic pincers
And predators roam to prey upon helpless victims.
The mystery of the night absorbed me,
Her muffled sounds, her dark beauty
And her elusive charm, like thick night fog,
Percolated deep into my consciousness,
And I floundered in a fathomless sea,
Swirling in her eddies and currents.
It whisked me away to lands far…far!
But on being washed ashore,
I was in a creative delirium.
I am now in No Man’s Land,
Where everything is in a coma of stillness,
Where no light glimmers,
No door ajar
And no one in sight!
Here the poet in me breaks open,
The somnambulistic comatose,
And down way flow my thoughts in indelible ink
Which only I can read.
Like a night bird,
Roosting among the branches of a tree,
I sing of my heart aches,
Of my yearnings and longings.
In the barely audible whispers of the night,
My song reverberates in the eyeless abyss down,
And in the dark desolate valleys below.
People say, ghosts walk the earth at night.
Oh! I am not scared!
I am not eager for the dawn to break,
Nor want to put my pen down!
Categories:
uninhabitable, fantasy, night, poetess,
Form:
Free verse
Seriously Jealous,
inherently over-zealous,
a calculation of the wellness-
of present day hellishness...
Seriously sophomoric,
traumatically important,
radical-
a spaceship uninhabitable.
Playing a game,
never would have guessed I was a lame...
Being insane,
while people are on their way.
Driving the plains,
with wheel chairs with sprains,
going to work on the veins,
with fangs,
from behind brains,
I withstand the shame,
and accept my fame.
Categories:
uninhabitable, allusion, assonance, baby, bangla,
Form:
Epic
Like the days of invasive explorers, your plight commenced
You went explosive with yields of unrestrained wealth
Dishing out involuntarily, streams of the inflammable oil and gas
From your natural reservoir, they flowed relentlessly
Filling the insatiable pockets of merciless exploiters
And saves of ambitious tyrants with abyss of desires
When the rain washed through you into the ocean
It saturated their evaporated poison, to your detriment
It rendered uninhabitable, your courses and earth
To flora and fauna, flourishing for your sustenance
And in squalor, you watched your trove emptied to itching laps
And helplessly, you watched your pride develop wings and flew
Because your sons swam in despair and self-pity
They became agitated, restive and mutinous
In attempt to protect and resuscitate your emptied chest
They sank you further into undeserving disgrace
Even your daughters, in shameful act, they marred your pride
Like a frustrated childless widow, you mourned your future
Behold a new dawn, fresh with dewy hope, Niger Delta
Behold your children - calm, sober and improvising
The land and sea in joint effort are returning your glory
With remorse your exploiters are returning
And in search of your face for reconciliation and favour
To your sudden elevated height, they flock to pledge allegiance
Weep no more, treasure trove of a giant -giant of Africa
Weep no more, splendour of a jewel - jewel of Africa
Weep no more, Niger Delta!
Categories:
uninhabitable, hope, recovery from...
Form:
Free verse
In 100 years Mars will be an Earth-like clone
with a thick breathable, transformed atmosphere, rich in oxygen.
There will be clouds in the sky,
rain will fall again and the rivers will run.
Billions of years ago,
Earth had virtually no oxygen in its atmosphere.
No human could survive here.
The atmosphere was choking; rich in carbon dioxide.
Humble plants changed all that.
For plants consume carbon dioxide
using sunlight to make sugar,
releasing oxygen as a waste product.
In time, with all this pollution,
the oxygen levels rose, to today's 20 percent.
Creating the atmosphere this sustains
respiring animals like us.
In 100 years this will happen again on Mars
which will be terra-formed to be Earth-like and habitable.
Ironically, over 100 years,
humans learned much from the uncontrolled
greenhouse effect that destroyed Earth's climate
making it uninhabitable.
Humans were too selfish to stop this process
until it was too late and irreversible.
Conservation was dumped forever, as a concept,
because it threatened human survival.
Releasing carbon dioxide and water frozen in the Martian soil
will see the atmosphere thicken and get warmer
Plants will be engineered to survive on a new Mars,
to consume the carbon dioxide and make it rich in oxygen.
Mars will become green again, the rivers will flow.
Mars will get warmer, inhabitable and livable.
A new home for humans, freed from their spacesuits,
by a plant-driven transformation.
Mars terra-formed,
reborn, rejigged and renamed as Earth II.
Categories:
uninhabitable, earth,
Form:
Free verse
Catharsis of a King
Twisted trees, gnarled and warped
by wicked winds, curled in crippling
curling toward faint warming of the sun,
clinging with clutched roots to rocky crags,
overhanging the crashing roar of foam tipped
breakers. Stone face of shear cliff etched by
fine chiseled rivulets, tears shed by dark clouds
pummeling a world below, shaping the prisms
for a future sunrise, deepening the chasms of
canyons, uninhabitable but for their beauty.
Creatures that defy the bounds of “beauty”
yet define the artists form, call us to stare
at simple brush strokes. Explosions, eruptions
of hot, steaming lava, scalding and denuding
mountains, torturously flowing to a
roiling sea. Swirling vortices of
madness, vicious brushstrokes tearing through
the gentle country landscape as if change was
overdue. Humming birds and fireflies,
mosquitoes, gnats, and icky things
one feeding on the other,
the warring and the gnawing that would
discourage even mother. Sunrise in the
jungle, moonlight on city street, church bells
that daily ring, calling us to celebrate
the catharsis of a king.
John G. Lawless
9/18/2014
for Brian Johnston - God's Kind of Poetry contest
Categories:
uninhabitable, god, natural disasters, nature,
Form:
Free verse
A random road wanders across the desert
as voluminous clouds chase the rising sun
nary a sound can be heard, save for the
whipping wind and clicks of insects.
The yawning horizon stretches out
reaching towards a vast, expansive sea
its crystalline beauty is but a deceptive liar
for death surrounds her ever lapping shores.
Almost uninhabitable she is
like a barren womb in want
her waters are lifeless, a fluid grave
bearing witness of her desolate decay.
Fish carcasses tell their solemn tales
along her distant, lonely shores
their bony apertures are splayed and pecked
hungry seagulls circle, hunting for scraps.
Relentless winds are spreading littered
whitewashed bones, causing them
to tumble about
conjuring up a false sense of life.
Now the moon is rising
as acrid air hovers over the sullen sea
the winds seem to shout, “go away”
a dull emptiness prevails.
The blackest night, save for the moon
descends upon this accursed place
where the bony beach rattles its lifeless tunes
along a haunting shoreline
that no one wants to see
where no one wants to be
beside the Salton Sea.
Categories:
uninhabitable, dark, death,
Form:
Free verse
Sunshine undulates across verdant plain
casting dark shadows ushering twilight zone
ringing athwart tree trunks
invigorating, joyously kickstarting,
and plenti revitalizing
bountiful nature buzzfeeding
vim, vinegar and *****
caressing, massaging, and palpating with
soundlessness inducing bub bully giddy,
and sudsy spongy schmaltzy
harmonic livingsocial kerplunk
also intoxicating this perk o' late
ting teetotaler, no longer ginger
who doth oft times ale
with melancholic funk,
whereat imbibing nectar
of the Gods with fulfillment
temporarily quicken ends euphoric,
albeit 'pon firm meant soberly drunk.
Ah...nothing more uplifting
than (Anita Bryant raisin eyebrows)
plugging sunkist orange treat,
this sensate being privy,
sans front row seat
agog at orchestral, festival, viz
choral paean courtesy sweet
flora and fauna feat
bequeathed to Mother Earth,
a requiem pulsating with heartbeat
pitch perfect exultation
glorifying spring days soon obsolete
ethereal, ideal, and
sensational tonic to gin
prestidigitation, qua
natural psychological helpmeet
pleasant distraction with intent to read
temporarily placating, needling craving
for Pete sakes daily
fix this news junkie,
trembling when complete
awareness he doth accrete,
where quite glum, how
civilization didst mistreat
planet, hence feeling downbeat,
especially haunting ghosts of
Native Americans drumbeat
signal harbinger debacle
i.e. environmental doomsday
soon fated extinction
sealed and complete
inexorably inching closer to reality
necessitating superman to defeat
global warming rendering vast swaths
uninhabitable as Gaia global
temperature packs tremendous heat!
Categories:
uninhabitable, appreciation, beauty, butterfly, earth,
Form:
Pastoral
In the most interior halls
Of grandfather, opa, Herr Uberlebende
His mind
Behind the film that shrouds his eyes
(Fading, opaque, impenetrable)
There is a gap between the rooms that line the dusted floors--
A hole between the satanic years
When worlds erupted and world war too,
Between eight year old boy and that
Thirteen year old half-man
(His portrait was burned with all the rest,
That filled the uninhabitable rooms)
A line of broken apartments hide
Padlocked, wired, sealed by ghosts.
They lie repressed beneath the floors
And grandpapa, my dear
Has not been to clean them since
The doctors taught him they didn’t exist
Don’t exist
Extract your belongings
(We’ll pay your fees)
Whitewash the walls—
And then you leave.
For it would be your death to enter
Into those vacant rooms
Starved walls
Where you, yes you,
(Oh Opa, pappy)
Emaciated your soul
Deprived, you
Forsook your abode—
When an eight year old Liebling
Peering between life and death
(Retreating behind his hole in the wall)
In his splendid apartment—his very own
Looked up
At the S.S. poster boy—
And Himmler’s devil asked—
“Who is home?”
And the answer came back, in echoes
Echoes
“No one, no one is home
There is an empty apartment, empty, empty;
and no one, no one is home.”
Lies come true.
Now only echoes and the massacred
tread in the purged, forbidden rooms.
Categories:
uninhabitable, loss, recovery from..., sad,
Form:
Free verse
Attorney General William
Barr black marker in hand
kept promise to censor vital
details of Mueller Report
swift as Usain Bolt candidly,
grandly, lustrously, roundly
youthfully blocked out more
rapid than an elegant eland
vibrantly, regally, magically,
and gracefully skirts borderland
which favored topography
constitutes grassland or woodland,
far more pleasing to observe,
than reading adulterated brand
of aforementioned compilation,
distillation, edification, fortification
zeroing questionable activity
upon head of trumpeting brigand,
whose arrivistic, bombastic, caustic,
demonic, electric broadband
outsize ego still convinces
me, thee commander in chief
delegated one or more chargehand
perhaps while delighting as
gourmand savoring chateaubriand,
where his best buddies imagined
themselves in seventh heaven cloudland
every so often taking siesta sans repast
or golfing with grisly handicapped clubhand
non verbally communicating,
in viz sub bully taking a peas zing
cues from presidential high command,
which coterie (i.e. den of thieves)
manipulated social media with nefarious,
insidious, deleterious, et cetera
analogous to "FAKE" contraband,
maybe even milking innocent cowhand
unwittingly planting GMO electronic
bugs amidst future bovine fodder cropland
to allow, enable, and jackknife demand
that moost every eligible voter tricked
induced by virtual reality dreamland
with sinister motive for thee "Apprentice"
rule his kingdom, and expand,
realm asper Medieval days
declaring himself chieftain of fatherland
and/ or North American motherland
where naysayers guillotined
by uncontested firebrand,
who without provocation
very likely bomb into Stone Age
formerly edenic, lush, verdant
geography into flatland
rendered hostile, poisonous and uninhabitable
nonetheless radiating for miles with gangland
forced labor tilling barren, desolate, fissured
landscape erecting unsightly grand
standing room only (cause he know Shylock)
terrain (reign) vast highland
manor as poobah, and husband
to his only heiress, the former
a kooky monster from foggy bottom marshland.
Categories:
uninhabitable, anger, animal, freedom, humorous,
Form:
Political Verse
Demise
The mansion anchored seaside
erosion
from the wrath of the tide
impelled now reposes
haunted on the rise.
The ocean floor raw,
uninhabitable,
like a barren womb,
surrounds the symbol of
the über wealthy 1%
alienated
when the world collapsed.
Categories:
uninhabitable, allusion, destiny,
Form:
Prose Poetry
Call it as it is!
Not mistaken.
Not uninformed –
They just don't care!
Death in record numbers
at our Southern Border;
Death in the streets
of large cities from
Fentanyl...They just
don't care! Mask-less
getting her hair done;
at the seaside with
his obedient dog, steak
for him and Kibbles
for the population. She
parties in Florida,
while the streets of New
York are rapidly becoming
an uninhabitable sewer –
Even pigeons, rats and
roaches objecting to
piles of feces on sidewalks,
along curbs, obstructing
their normal foraging, healthier
diets of tossed pizza, bagels
and imported lox – They just don't
care! Using God and religion
as a prop, to control the naive
masses, while they get richer,
sitting ever higher on their
imagined Royal Asses. Already
card-caring Mammon's. They
just don't care! Obsessed
with Pursuit-of-power –
badly in need of a soul-cleansing
shower – the Devil Delighted,
fiery-plans for each selfish-hide --
advance reservations on a
Subterranean Ride –
Categories:
uninhabitable, patriotic, perspective, political, poverty,
Form:
Prose Poetry
And God led Moses to Mount Nebo
for his lush, new domain to survey,
in the riches of the Promised Land
among valleys of trees and olives.
Where birds in the sky soared free
and wild beasts roamed the land
along the dales and rolling plains,
Moses by his God was blessed.
There he lived in that quiet place
wider than mortal eyes could see,
right in God's bountiful vineyard
till the day death took him away.
Yahweh was kind to Moses.
Eons have passed since that time
and here this pilgrim now stands
where Moses once stood in awe
to view what God to him bestowed.
But what do I see?
Barren earth of rocks and boulders,
parched, lifeless, ugly to the eyes;
craggy peaks and harsh wasteland,
uninhabitable ravines and canyons.
Yonder out to the north the Golan,
once Syrian, now by the Jews own,
just like the serene lake of Tiberias:
grabbed, annexed and conquered.
In the western haze is a mighty river
whose waters once swiftly flowed,
blocked by a concrete Israeli dam
away from Jordan where it belongs.
Far west is the ancient city of Jericho
where the Lord warded off the devil,
no more than a strip of old Palestine,
fenced in the West Bank, entrapped.
Lucky Moses and the chosen people
for by God from their bondage freed!
cry, Palestine, cry, a homeland lost,
long overdue your awaited messiah!
Categories:
uninhabitable, history, places, time, god,
Form:
Narrative
Violent offenders released without bail
a senseless reform, it unfailingly fails
Victims walk alone in dark alleys at night
then rant on the news 'bout the lack of streetlights
Movies at theatres feature a killing a minute
Hollywood's culture of death implicated in it
Crude rap songs glorify every nasty habit imaginable
blare from sidewalks and streets uninhabitable
Guns so easy to score on the meanest of streets
adolescents own more than the cops on the beat
Single mothers on drugs, absent fathers in jail
young kids left untended, what do 'values' avail
Do murders seem senseless ~ They're so often not
They happen for good reason in the society we've got
Categories:
uninhabitable, america, death, murder, society,
Form:
Couplet
Donald Trump Das Fuehrer's Braggadocio
Wrapped up in the Christmas holiday spirit,
I surmise doth allow
nationally collective obliviousness
to steer ship of state
(these United States)
to suffer retaliatory browbeat
ting activates, detonates, generates
je nais sais quois maliciousness
upon North American consciousness
from wickedly vehement uproarious tirades
the "FAKE" president doth crow,
whereby every word uttered
by the misfit mealy mouthed madman
in the Oval Office directly
impacts Lady Liberty, sans dow
wager even when the brash,
defensive, haughty...commander
in chief doth raised by alternately
by one or both colored eyebrow,
which nonverbal hostile
body language triggers
concomitant domino fallout
to devastating effect,
whereby analogous nee
palpable invisible reverberations
trigger thee threat
of global mortal Kombat flow
war moves the dial on
the Doomsday Clock to foreshadow
the stark realization of glow
bull thermonuclear conflict to hoe
var ominously over planet Earth,
which scenario haint Noah Joe
king matter, cuz
more'n juiced *****sapiens know
wingly, would be decimated,
where from Noel fierce
riding hobby horse, could
weather thee irrevocable low
down, once bombs away loosed,
and poised to strike
every fibrous marrow
with an irreversible tendon cee,
yet some hardy
species might narrow
lee escape radioactive fallout,
and blithely usurp meaning overthrow
this most menacing creature,
whose opposable thumb didst pro
pell the nasty, short tempered,
and mean minded
to upset status quo
and shred of a fatalistic,
graphic, and horrific roadshow
no Wizard of Oz (zee us born)
negating, obliterating, and pulverizing
the uninhabitable landscape
with burnt offerings
much more frightful than scarecrow,
which worst case scenario,
could explode today or tomorrow
leaving no trace of unlovely bones
merely mass cremated powder,
hence forsaked salvation
from... say Beto
O'Rourke, whose actively
democratic gumption joisted paradigm
grim fate recklessly
(hypothetically) did veto.
Categories:
uninhabitable, discrimination, imagination, innocence, night,
Form:
Dramatic Verse
Island
If I were an island
Made by nature or by man
I wouldn’t feel alone at all
I would devise a plan
I’d slowly but most definitely
Proof I was smart and wise
For I would turn myself into
A most desirable paradise
Where everything was thriving
Plants and animals, the whole lot
I’d labor steadily and with joy
To make exceptional this here spot
As I would lie there by myself
I would seem isolated
But that would only be assumed
I would be underrated
I would have no appeal or charm
Nobody would come near
Who knows if some would even think
I was a place to fear
But in my isolated state
I’d flourish and I’d bloom
For all the silence and the peace
Would leave me lots of room
And when perhaps by accident
After quite a lot of time
Someone who ventured over here
Would see that I’m sublime
And off he’d go to tell the rest
Of the jewel he had found
He’d tell of all that he had seen
This would for sure astound
What they had seen as overgrown
Uninhabitable and scary
Now caught the interest of them all
They were no longer wary
But by that time I would have been
A natural reserve
All guarded and protected
From those who would have the nerve.
Wendy Nipas
Categories:
uninhabitable, joy, smart,
Form:
Ballad