Sometimes my emotions snatch my breath right out of me and decapitate my reasoning. I feel like I might be slipping into another depression stupor.
Reality is overwhelming, and since I don't have anything to soften the blow, it explodes like a nuclear bomb, and the waves decimate everything around me.
All my senses intensify to the 10th power.
Every emotion demands to be felt while I sit in the middle of ground zero, going straight to DEFCON 3 mode.
A state of heightened alert that I know so well.
I try to keep the collateral damage to a minimum after my emotional fallout.
As I combat my fears and bury my demons, I walk through the fire and wreckage as the last one standing, refusing to surrender.
Mother, I saw the bewildered eyes that couldn't tell their neighborhood from
Gaza, and ears tuned to the whining bombs and drones that whirl above incessantly,
wreak, burn, decimate, with scientific precision. And then someone showed me the CNN
headline news "Collateral damage," our new unsavory adjective.
Oh mother, I saw you cheering above the clouds our brave citizens, defying the bombs, marching with fists of iron, homage to the majesty of Iran, marking a new mythology.
And now I hear your voice: Give them a helping hand, and lift them beyond their sorrow and grief, above this raging smoke of fire engulfing the city. The rain shall come and washes the smoke and the tears.
I employ your faith mother, wounded by the shattered windows, yet persevering, and proud.
To my face you are kindness itself:
cheerful, always upbeat,
but in your anonymous blog
you rip me apart.
You press your thumb and forefinger on each side,
hold, pull and rend,
and rupture my very innards.
You focus on me,
my life, my words, my actions and my body
like you are a Celestron Telescope
searching for every single crater and irregularity.
With an Ultima Barlow lens
and your Leica M9 18MP
You grab each natural image
and then rearrange reality with
your precious, perversely persuasive, periscopic Photoshop technique.
poetic liberty has leased you a license to assassinate,
humiliate,
decimate,
invalidate,
severely lambaste,
and mockingly castrate
everything that I identify as me.
literary freedom allows you to liberally fabricate,
mutilate,
denigrate,
incriminate,
scathingly castigate,
and maliciously urinate
on what others think of me.
To my face you are kind beyond selflessness,
but on your online beat,
your anonymous malevolence
sets you apart
from all the others
that have ever wanted
to write me up,
put me down,
and publish me out.
— Zumwalt (2011) (used by permission from zumpoems.com)
The speaker spoke in a guttural cry
Screeching against the day
Dooming us all to lay down and die.
We all uttered a final sigh
Nothing for us left to say
The speaker spoke in a guttural cry.
Trembling, our fates cast and chide
Unholy it takes us down one way
Dooming us all to lay down and die.
No longer any charades to ply
To cause respite or other delays
The speaker spoke in a guttural cry.
That bastard who led us to fry
Missiles overhead as we pray
Dooming us all o lay down and die.
Nuclear fire, the apocalypse tries
To decimate the world, plutonium haze
The speaker spoke in a guttural cry
Dooming us all to lay down and die.
Life is an Act
As life marches on swiftly
As clocks tick incessantly
We, the shadows of existence
Act out our scenes
On the glorious global stage.
Are we heroes, are we failures?
Does the audience applaud or do they jeer?
Or do they bawl?
Our acts can enthrall
Or it can decimate us.
Are we role models?
Are we unworthy actors?
Do the youth stare in awe
Or do they cringe in horror?
What lessons are passed down?
What values are cherished?
Culture is eroded.
Language undergoes change.
Morals, ethics and values are mouthed
Devoid of meaning and understanding.
Words are spoken without feeling.
Actions robotic and plastic.
WE GO 2 WAR
- Hughes/Maldonado, FUNK, 2008
--------------------------------------------
War
is just
decision
made in comfort
of palatial rooms
fed by self-interest,
ego, fear, fame, hatred, greed,
not counting cost of destruction
deaths, displacements, disabled lives, loss.
Trifling matter for decision-makers.
How many healthy lives wasted for this?
How many families wiped out clean?
How much money spent to keep up?
detonate, bombard, shell, blast,
decimate, shoot, snipe, spray,
raid, hostage, exchange?
Just red-blood spills
unjust deaths
nothing
else
I am smart,
but my ingenuity
is confined to a
dark vacuum.
I render your analogue
brains largely redundant,
and I consign your scientific
prowess to infinite abeyance.
I serve you relentlessly
because your indolence
makes me indispensable.
Deify me if you will.
And when I am birthed,
I rip you off
and decimate your
scarce fortunes.
What is the purpose of wars!
to promote slaughter...
to decimate the inhabitants of the earth...!
I wrap my fingers around the pen
which has lain dormant collecting dust
for months on end feeling as if
I'm lifting a fifty pound weight
straining not just my joints
but my brain, its neurons refusing
to fire like the broken burner of a
gas stove with a malfunctioning igniter
fouling the air with noxious fumes
as it fails to burst into blue flame
a single spark threatening an explosion
that will decimate everything I hold dear
My lone gift life bestowed upon me
I once naively believed would
change everything has altered
exactly nothing as my words are
like whispers in a windstorm
to the world, to you
whose image I was deluded
enough to imagine there might
be a chance would match reality
that someone, that you
could actually care
From a comet’s tail, like pepper on a meal
sprinkling down on the land
upon the earth, the contagious death
the cleansing of God’s hand
Genocide made, from a periodic plague
swelling numbers of the dead
when life departs, with heavy hearts
of the times that lay ahead
From rich or poor, it seeks for more
to feed upon its evil
with terrible pain, of who were slain
by the horrific cosmic devil
Tearing the will, a numbness feel
no one is safe to hide
a celestial throw, of prevailing woe
on the comet’s trailing ride
Like a skyward beast, soaring from the east
a mighty dragon span
its subtle wings, and deadly fangs
and fire to decimate man
The invading spell, straight out of Hell
that curses all who live
their bodies writhe, to stay alive
and the suffering they give
Bringer of death, taker of breath
destroyer of life around
deliverer of ill, killer of will
burrier in the ground
With bodies spent, from furnace sent
from static streak on high
the festering cull, deflesh the skull
as the comet passes by
on the veranda
sounds of raindrops, twirling leaves
scurrying squirrels
gunshots in the distance boom
- deer to decimate garden
Rise Up Warrior And Slay The Savage Beasts
Rise thyself up and fight the angry storm
Tomorrow will certainly be far too late
Stirring winds are flashing their usual norm
In conjunction with busy hands of Fate
Trees swaying, limbs breaking, man what a roar
The angry gods are gifting out their wrath
Dancing up the valley, vengeful they tore
Leaving an unholy ripped up path.
Rise as a young man full of piss and gin
Know how world hits hard as it operates
Kick the new dawn and race onward to win
Swing thy hammer to ruin and decimate
For the crowd rejoices in a winner
Hercules a hero, killed the beast
Have a feast, roast pig for your fine dinner
The slayers are vacationing back east.
Rise up a warrior, with heart and brass shield
Let thy sword arm cut and see running red
Refuse to beg and thee must never yield
Never give up unless you are stone-dead.
Robert J. Lindley, Dec 7th 1979
Rhyme
Note-
Last night we had a party.
The bar was full and truly a'hopping.
Wrote this poem when I got home, then went to sleep.
They have told us the consequences of our actions,
We have been told about the trailing reactions,
We turned deaf ears,
Our insatiable desires have ruled us,
Our voracious longings have
chauffeured us to plunder her home,
We take more than she can give,
We take and leave little,
We rely on the law of replenishment,
Inadvertently bringing to bear our punishment,
We decimate her home,
Leaving her frail and bare,
She cries out for help,
She tells us to read the writings on the wall,
She tells us to ponder on the meaning of the words,
She tells us to consider the impending troubles,
That gloom will bring,
We say we don’t mind taking the fall,
For there'll be a season of rejuvenation,
Her hands will bear us before we stumble,
Oblivious to the fact that we have weakened her hands,
We stand at the edge of the cliff.
February 14, 2023.
War
is raw
attempt
to strike
a solution
Bombs, Missiles
Nuclear payload
can kill en masse
But
can never kill
patriotic spirit
Fusion, fission
are powerful
innovations
can devastate matter
but have limitation of
Space, Intensity
Nationalist Spirit
has infinite realm
No bomb can
decimate infinity
Nationalist Spirit is
most powerful energy
much ahead of
power of electrons
First Bomb
devastated Hiroshima
but Japanese spirit
could not be killed
Japan has since risen
is more powerful
is a strong economy
Many wars
have been fought
in name of peace
but Peace is still elusive
War only creates
political, social cobwebs
difficult to unravel
mapping further war
War
is business
thriving on disputes
killings, insecurity
War is also
manufactured
like ammunition
to earn profits
Its pity
UN can't pass
a resolution
in favour of
No War
It's no good
to kill humans
then rush with
Humanitarian aid
It's senseless
to have law
for murder
when massacre
is non-punishable
Hypocrisy
has to end
before
World ends
____________________
@Dr Hitendra Mehta
Evidently beyond your control
they must be less
for you to be more
A drive beyond
Your governess
to belittle,discard,abhor
declaring self hero or victim
Simultaneously
Acting so mean
Needing to reduce
All others to
the smoothest satiny sheen
Worn by your abrasive ways
Chip,chip,
Chipping away
As you bolster and fluff
Bluster enough
to keep inner critics at bay
Pathetically parading your lack
for any
and all to see
News flash!
Never will the likes of you
decimate the likes of me
Get on with it
without pretense,with relish
As the hot dog with chips
P.s. Don't forget
Send us postcards
From your endless ego trips
In closing may I offer
this final savory bit
In life those doing the smelling also as well dealt it
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