Best Unreasoned Poems
The Discipline of Failure
By John Herlihy
There is a discipline to failure that no one can deny;
We are set up to fail miserably, by others on the sly.
Risk can be calculated into the mix to heighten success;
You cannot achieve higher goals if you settle for less.
There is more discipline to failure than there is to success;
Failure teaches us about caution and scrutiny, I must confess.
To examine what went wrong in spite of concerted efforts,
And to learn from our many mistakes like seasoned experts.
My individual success may produce unreasoned envy,
Coloring with darkness the meaning of the word friendly.
My failure only exposes me to the vulgarity of people’s insults,
But insults do not necessarily impinge upon my final results.
Success by definition includes the inevitability of failure;
Without the risk of failure, mediocrity will be our savior.
Failure makes the drudgery of digging holes into a fine art;
We dig our own graves and then lay down with a broken heart.
Risk-taking is now a fashionable impulse in the modern-day salon;
To ward off failure, we cling to it tightly like a police baton.
We take risks in the hope of achieving a glorious success,
To ward off evil and make sure that failure has every redress.
Make every effort to control risk, otherwise risk will control you;
What seems at first a pot of gold may only turn into a boiling stew.
There is a time to have courage and express the need to be bold;
But recklessness only invites failure and the feeling of being sold.
Hold fast to the discipline of failure as a means of achieving success;
By God, I will ultimately succeed in my goals and never settle for less.
You've heard it said... "follow your heart"
For relentless desire bleeds for craven want
Yet when indecision weighs on life's many parts
Those opposed abandon not incessant haunt
Pin pricked light shines brighter
Through onyx colored scene
Weakness revealed when life is darkest
Specks of defect in the fortress of our need
Ones heart can be a complexity
An up hill struggle when obscurity feels blind
A quandary of perception in a house of mirrors
Reflections twisted by perplexities of the mind
Follow your heart yes live your dreams
Leave not your mind unreasoned
To walk the path less traveled leaves
A consequence of actions completed
So it is with indecision
To scale the weight of what's to come
When precious life hangs trembling in the balance
A calculated measure of the hearts true sum
Can we really overthink those choices we make
For somewhere every road has an end
Rugged or velvety destinations take root
And blossom where choices were stemmed
I've heard of double minded fools
Tossed like waves in the sea
Perhaps it's simply this woman's folly
To think it couldn't happen to me
Oh to measure the value of dreams
Which to follow or leave for not
Simplicity frowns on passions extremes
Such answers must be skillfully wrought
I pray that with my every tomorrow
I'll be wiser than today
Knowing when it's time to seek the dream
And patient if I must wait
For now I wish but only
To know my own heart in truth
And weigh the scales of value correctly
Then follow with greater wisdom when in naivety's youth
My first wife wanted more than I could give her,
My work she told me robbed her of attention,
All my energy focused on ‘provider, '
Caused much more trouble than I care to mention.
What wives really expect can be a killer
When you dismiss their tears as just invention,
Even if you love her like Henry Miller,
And serving marriage is your sole intention.
Believing her tears were just unreasoned whim,
My own efforts destined to save the marriage,
My selfless piety filled me to the rim,
And without outside voice, who could disparage?
Many years later, I can now see my plight...
Both educated, I feared she might earn more,
And her doing so would show me in bad light,
My fear wed me to my job, a loveless whore.
I lacked heart to say I feared losing her heart,
Which would surely reveal that I felt 'less than, '
Give her one more reason to think we must part.
So trusting in love wasn't part of my plan.
I suspect young couples oft make the mistake
Of really thinking that life's under control
They think what 'they' give is worth more than 'they' take.
And feel sure that 'their' path will honor 'their' goal.
But a couple is always more than just one,
The other's opinion surely worth seeking.
And yet when at long last your searching is done,
Don't be surprised if you find love is peaking.
It is good for the soul to release some goals
And friendship might just be found in the rubble,
Sometimes a rest to just see how the thing rolls...
It is a great way to stay out of trouble.
The life of mature minds
is aid to all silly clowns
adorn life and silently binds
and blooms each face and efface each frown.
The bluster of emotions, floods down
the mind and sheer delight glistens
on lips, and insipid nature drown
in delight, and to each incertitude silently listens
The drops of blushed desire with tinge
of fantasy and wild ecstasy drops
from minds abroad and bring
the sole being some consolation and passively props.
The restlessness of the soul
and uneasy hidden fears
and slow down incertitude rests all
and dim blur eyes literally tears.
The unreasoned thoughts perplexes and retards
and swarthy leaden eyes fails
the brimmed tear eye silently guards
but full emotioned, to visage dribblingly sails.
The mortal gazes at psyche as an urchin
with wild surmise and feel puzzled
to things unknown and admire with chin
up, full gape wide and blank eyes dazzled.
The church of the eyes
By Fatmir Terziu
Those just out of the egg,
The confused yellowings
Open their wings, take an unreasoned stance,
Only their mothers understand them.
They open their light wings
Over fleshy bodies, carefully breathing.
Pressed against the blossoming buds,
The rose petals
Guarded by the thorns.
The aroma of the flowers, the varied colours, everything
Embraces the reason of love in the church of the eyes;
the prayers have started.
In the garden, the last preparations are performed
By all the living things,
It is the time of multiplications
And love has raised its head.
Over newly blossomed roses
Where the buds shade the egg hatchlings
A snake slithers towards the nest
Aiming to end
the newly born dreams.
The thorns are privy to the wrath of the sun,
Bringing from above the whole curse of the sky.
The feast restarts soon,
When the snake fleetingly burns in flame.
A stairway that leads to the white borders,
Of edges pointed where condensation forms.
Untainted transparency reflects the glaring Sun,
At the side cushions of white and brown
- a tired mind's sanctuary.
Stilted conversations fly across spilled drinks,
Become waste with a price unreasoned.
Men and women sit alike but have unlike minds,
Choke on bitter tea upon nostrils they spit.
Black souls served behind the counter,
Plastered confidentiality jealousy arises might,
For alas one hands a slice of chocolate cake
To a girl of crippling thoughts; alone, desolated
Tongue twisted around the fork her heart quickened
Tripping guilt lies on the plate she ate at previous.
Angriness burned bright fueled by unlike minds,
Reflections obvious once darkness spread fast,
Acid of sweetness churned in her stomach,
Fullness unbearable calls the unwanted desire
To leave the Glasshouse, to go home and purge.
Somehow their eyes met and he smiled
Was it wrongful for her to feel glee,
So tad yet so pure?
Pushed up from stomach's abyssmal pit
Choked off cries, constraint deformed
Packed with panic's punches
Right here where words are formed
Throat cords tightly gripped
Resistance rules my holding back
While mouth stammers mind blown shock
Fear sped thoughts fly blindly
Wild-eyed in disconnected space
Beneath pain's radar, dead-ends faced
Cant find escape through tiny slits
In self expression's cut free places
Stripped sounds,unreasoned, so distraught
I'm cramped, wrapped tight, shut up,
Curled up, gone again without a trace.
Mind flails blind at hidden threats
Going to die, my heart attacks me
Going to die, my only thoughts
Half- crazed, clownish acting out
Breathe in, breathe deep, breathe out.
Breathe in, breathe deep, breathe out...Slowly...
Breathe in, breathe deep, breathe out...Slowly...
I feel myself levelling out...Slowly...
Kindness holds keeled heart upright
Kind words rein me in, damp down fright
Caught unawares by calming help
Relief seeps through, soothing thoughts
Shifts gears back to lucid tracks,
Take it easy, take it easy, pressure's off
Life's plain sailing once again
Breath in, breathe deep, breathe out...Sigh...
03/06/2017.
Poetry to me is a very beautiful thing,
It’s about your identity and community,
About friends, family and kind feeling,
And it’s about how you place in society.
It reflects upon your sexual partners,
References them as your mind’s pivot,
What love’s base is, about its garners,
And what should be loves fine ingot.
It explains sociology, culture and trends,
Shows your diversity, admits your choices,
Specifies any displacement for kind amends,
Any disorientation for your readers’ voices.
I believe poetry can just be for yourself,
For your own edification and collection,
Because if by it you identify as an elf,
You won’t be defined as uncanny deviation.
Indeed, deviation does not exist in poetry,
Nor does it form the reason for its writing;
Poetry embraces honesty, love and sobriety,
With an imagination where truth is flying.
The credibility of poetry goes unquestioned,
Because if you lie by it, you’ll feel the traction,
It always takes you seriously unreasoned,
Never disqualifying a difficult emotion.
Your awkward emotions are disquisition, code,
Eagerness and enthusiasm are their reception;
Sociology by it can become your chatting mode,
And politics can become your injuring person.
Poetry as a literary art is fructuous with stance,
Offering a handshake to any from a dumb;
Sets alight concepts and feelings to enhance,
Lives that may otherwise be under the thumb.
Ok, I'm not paid to think (like the TV shouting heads), I have no real voice (vote), and certainly no credentials—but I'm as invested in America as any high-school citizen can be—I've pledged allegiance 3,000 times (hhmmm ... do they doubt our loyalty?) and when it comes to loving America I'd have to say my classmates and I are at the center of the spell.
I'm afraid we're growing up in the age of hate ... the age of phony outrage where each position large or small is high noon and violence is afoot even when policing ordinary citizens.
We won't address the multitude of old problems in this new age ... we'll just unleash a marquetry of half truths to dispute the proven until unreasoned arguments reach their paranoid fullness. The real world is alarming enough—let's just push that away and ignore it—and while we're at it let's $lut shame the poor, the old, the sick, the unemployed, the hungry and the hand of mercy.
I realize America was never one moral atom bonded for the better—but those anvils that forged us appear neglected or forsaken. I'm afraid what's happening now, what we're seeing and hearing now, is a symphony of erosion—that by the time I have any say at all, the middle class will be gone—
America turned slum—where even the voice of despair will be termed traitor.
We'll only be able to see our greatness in museum souvenir shops where nothing is affordable and everything is made elsewhere.
Salivation of intent
mouth watering, ne'er extent
I must envision
in practice risk content!
Salvation must be real
or I am only spent
to chew away the corners
unreasoned with resent!
What is then in God's order
surviving daily task
to walk some safety's border
insuring my relapse!
My actions must stay forward
in diplomatic stance
the hungry heart's affording
must emphasize ~ enhance!
Starvation as encumber
eliminating class
is not a Godly answer
but usury's repast!
To find solitude in a helpless mind
A silent new world from its judgment found
To ponder this curse unreasoned and blind
Anger is pressed when arguments abound
To find a crack in mirrored perfection
Where prideful instructions will intercede
With memories of the mind's reflection
Now old and failing and meant to mislead
Tethered to distress from the mind's mire
Trapped in its kettle of old boiling brew
To suffocate in its murky quagmire
As clarity of thought passes from view
To find each thought a dim lit realm of shades
To hold them close as the memory fades
5/13/18
contest Premiere II...Open Poetry contest
and reason fell to bed
as the yellow moon
climbed the Eastern bare-branch
trees.
and tendrils from a long-forgot fire
reached upward, skyward, starward
for what they could not grasp.
what they could not warm.
what they could not know.
what they could not...
and reason fell to dreaming
as the stars timided, and spoke
and somewhere, lost in snow,
a simile curled dry lips
and reason slumbered under
all-the-horizon somewhere in
the glowing sun
and reason was forgot as a poet woke
-ShhDragon
Your song resists the lyrics mine proclaims
by measured whispers begging Autumn’s reign
not drown this season with unreasoned pain
nor hobble Winter leaving April lame.
Just as the wick betrayed by yellow flame;
I feel a waning candle nearly slain;
reduced to nothing but a hopeless stain
in empty darkness where the strained are tamed.
And though the morning sun surrenders red
upon an apple by the skylark’s song -
don’t shadows lengthen as they glide along
until once more the naked fall is dead?
Such are the mournful notes my lips undress,
while wishing yours on mine again would press.
This internal conflict
I cannot fight
This is not black and white
This unreasoned spite
I cannot get through
I have tried
This message lost too,
lost in the deep wide
Two forces collide,
the pieces scattered
far and wide
Years to track down what mattered
This restless angry sea
throws its might at me
Waves of emotion
Seething ocean
What can I repair?
This loss of tranquillity
It is so unfair!
Am I losing my sensibility?
Is this damage done?
Have I lost a son?
Has the restless angry sea won?
The lost message,
floating on angry restless sea
It must be me
The things I might have done,
to make me think
Before I sink
Before my son
I cannot get through
He wont let me too
Rising sea,
beating its waves on me
This storm must stop
I am ready to drop
Seething sea,
throwing its'self at me
Waves of emotion
Restless ocean
This conflict I cannot fight,
peace is a right
This restless angry sea,
upon storm tossed message
that is me
Ok, I'm not paid to think (like the TV shouting heads), I have no real voice (vote), and certainly no credentials - but I'm as invested in America as any high-school citizen can be. I've pledged allegiance 3000 times (hhmm.. do they doubt our loyalty?) and when it comes to loving America, I'd have to say my classmates and I are at the center of the spell.
I'm afraid we're growing up in the age of hate.. the age of phony outrage where each position large or small is high noon and violence is underfoot even when policing ordinary citizens.
We won't address the multitude of old problems in this new age.. we'll just unleash a marquetry of half-truths to dispute the proven until unreasoned arguments reach their paranoid fullness.
The real world is alarming enough - let's just push that away and ignore it - while we're at it let's s1ut shame the poor, the old, the sick, the unemployed, the hungry and the hand of mercy.
I realize America was never one moral atom bonded for better.. but those anvils that forged us appear neglected or forsaken. I'm afraid what's happening now, what we're seeing and hearing now, is a symphony of erosion - that by the time I have any say at all, the middle class will be gone - America turned slum - where even the voice of despair will be turned traitor.
We'll only be able to see our greatness in museum souvenir shops where nothing is affordable, and everything is made elsewhere.
.
.
This was one of the short essays in my Yale application. I post it now as an election classic =]