Expendable Poems | Examples

In the interests of the Nation'

Its ob-scene yet not ob-scure.' Quite clear
The people must exerscise de'jure.' there
Were buisness officers sent armed to the
Teeth..Entailed unto your deadly grief.'
Just before the court action, Dezi was looking for truth and action.' Dingo dan though planned to thwart  being beside it  TWOT leader he'd have had to decide it would be great if an offence could be pinned on Freeman, the case would never
Be tried..Now goons are expendable.' And
If one perhaps were killed, he could say good riddance 'to that free-man' and old
danny boy could ridel.! That would only leave that car crash.? Yet he was good by
Thunder..The slipperiest snake that ever had slithered around
This land (Down under)

Cemetery

Get too close and i tend to push away
Come real close and ill be prayin that you stay 
ion fk with these hos
from them i breakaway
my phone look like a funeral
all these dead bod-ays
contact name the tombstone
revisit text like a grave
walk thru the cemetery alone
wish some of them stayed
where they are is unknown
some of them betrayed
while i was on mars no bruno
drift away with space
Me,Myself and uno
you wasn't the one for may
switch and change like seasons go
like the moon just a phase
romance filled with chemicals
in my heart you were laced
at a point intangible
now its toxic waste
view em all as expendable
few i loved their taste
some like a cannibal
its you that i crave...

Peter Periwinkle

“Peter Periwinkle had a car accident,”
my brother said,
as if reading it aloud 
from the back
of a cereal box.
It took me three full seconds
to realize
he meant our father.

We were on my grandma’s farm
where she had recently died,
leaving chickens scratching
unknowingly in the dust.
Our father was elsewhere—
broken, back bent like a paperclip,
drunk at the wheel
when the other car found him.

“Peter Periwinkle had a car accident.”
He'd meant it to be snide.
A small, spiny cartoon creature—
ridiculous, expendable—
the punchline in a story
where no one comes to help.
I didn’t laugh.
I just pictured a blue hedgehog
lying still at the edge
of some forgotten road.

I hear it now
in a different voice—
quieter, without the sneer.
Peter Periwinkle,
still small and lost,
still limping along the shoulder
of some long-forgotten highway.
I don’t excuse my brother
for laughing when he said it,
but he may have seen something
I was too young to name.

Missing out

in a world of make believe
of people hooked on games
and scenarios seen on screens
people have become expendable

everyone is now jaded
content in their isolation
closing in onto themselves
with a growing distaste for socializing

we've become cynical and antisocial
friendship no longer a commodity
we smile and nod without oversharing
not letting anyone into our bubble

time is a factor we refuse to squander
we ration it in order to survive
to manage our stressful life
valuing our down time

we prefer to chill out and be alone
than to spend time with others
we're frugal with our energy

we don't invest in our relationships
sadly we’ve forgotten how valuable
rare true friends can really be



AP: Honorable Mention 2025

PAWN

                                    carved from ivory
                               placed in peril at your whim~
                                     expendable
                                                       p      
                                                        a  
                                                      w  n

Our Time Will Come

In broad day light
In plain sight
The rain has fallen 
And evaporated free
Speech over night
Riotous murder
Blame the simpletons
Protect the perpetrators
Who’ve political value
Kill the prisoner
Who shouted a view
Don’t write a thought
Or they’ll come for you
Two
Shrinking in fear
Of the new two tear
Five years to endure
But hopefully, not one 
Minute more
Meanwhile thousands 
Might die, but no will
To keep the score
We’re expendable
No longer dependable
They’ll lie until the election
Change their truth
Change their direction
Five more years to bear
The psychopaths will share
The spoils and the loot
Put us under the jack boot.
For now, they’ve banned fun
But our time will come.

David Cox 09/11/24

Pie-in-the-sky-Pin-a-tail-on-a-donkey

Democrats like Damocles Sword's imminent jeopardized positions of power hail her rise,
Decades of teamsters support, NO, Harris-Demos few endorsed her in the public's eyes,
Democrats today are like the Dixiecrats of Dewey's days are playing old-school, sex-race cards,
Repubs set in their ways, and Demos are bendable like what's his face got her on second base, charades.
He needed to win, expendable, same cards played, sex-(win over for the women voters) it is a given for the race.
D for Demos who are Distancing from Drunkards--her hidden card takes centerstage--loses face.
First line expounded of my original Pie-in-the-sky, and
the rest was a shot in the dark, played with dance cards.

*She can seek help if she don't slur her words on camera that she is, 
being tailed., f0x learned from Di' lawsuit--pass the buck.

Repubs are no angels in this with Trumy-Dumpy on a ticket and not a wall, the third possible gallops in time with withdrawals TBA.

The Rain of Pain

Rain falls like the tears of some unseen god. 
Tapping against my window like the persistent fingers of a pianist. 
The music is out of tune, and the wind provides the groaning song. 
I'm so used to it but I'm tired of starting over.
This emptiness eclipses the memories of feeling whole. 
My life is a book full of pages falling out. 
My tears race down my cheeks eager to escape my ugly face. 
Sifting through discordant thoughts not sure which are real. 
Mind trapped in a haze forever damned by fear. 
This buzz in my ear is all too familiar. 
Ringing out like church bells but also like an alarm. 
If bliss cannot be found I'll drink until I find the abyss. 
We're born to die, to be expendable. 
The life of man is unceasing agony. 
A wall once full of friends and loved ones is devoid of life now. 
And all I have to show for my experiences is hate and crippling anxiety. 
Every shadow becomes sinister. 
Every noise is a nuke dropping on my mind. 
I have been forsaken by reason. 
And as the rain washes over my face I close my eyes. 
With these tears I regurgitate the lies. 
I'm a loser and sooner or later you know I'll be dead.
Sooner or later...I'll be dead.

Words Phrases Phrases Words

I'm sure you've heard the expression
In love with love
Well that's me through and through
Nothing in life is more important
It can take over one's whole being
But there's a bunch of lunatics in the world
Who give us peace loving *****sapiens a bad name
The lunatic fringe is what they're called
Whose brains haven't developed beyond kindergarten
In their mind, they're still fighting their schoolyard battles
But on a much, much larger scale
With much more tragic results
Human life is expendable
Not a consideration in the scope and scale of their conquests
The end justifies whatever means necessary
A side of us so called humans to be least proud of
Will it ever change?
Unfortunately I must answer no
It seems to have been ingrained in our psyche eons ago
No one is perfect
But these lunatics are at the other end of the scale

A Work In Progress

I walk up to the microphone,
it’s one of those old-time microphones
that almost hides the face.

As yet my unspoken words
are pauses between mute lips.
I am a work in progress,
layers have to peel away
until I can see my true self
in any mirror.

Like all mystics I am expendable,
a surplus voice in a menagerie 
of other sounds.

When you get right down to it
our survival is for love of self
an idea that comes with
multiple flawed contradictions.

What we believe in, is someone else
for it is hard to have faith in a self
that keeps changing  into
former versions of its being.

I tap the huge microphone,
to test for audio fidelity,
then with a sigh
walk slowly off the stage,
as If 
I had never entered.

Genes Futility

Gene futility

 How can we look at a child and kill it, by using “it”
we have distanced ourselves from the child they are no longer
unique, but just an expendable extension of us.
The intense love we have for a lost child is the grief
of our own demise…it is the only proof we ever lived
the loss of a gene, inconceivable future transgression.
A child killed in a drone attack in Pakistan stirs us less
then the sight of a bunny rabbit run over; how sad it
had to die, but it crossed the road. A naked Jewish boy
in front of a mass grave, his cap hiding his modesty,
I condemn all mankind for his demise, he is our cruel
gene-based viciousness, the survival of the genus and
for it to survive there is no room for compassion.
A man who kills children whether by drone or gun kills
himself and forever he shall walk in night's shadow.

A Chill Through the Heart

So alone in the crowd with the people all around me
So alone in the dark with the lights all around me 

Feeling the chill tearing my chest
In the neck deep water of the mountain crest

Seeing the sky with the aurora light up 
And becoming a man who is fed up

Lived in the dilemma, was I a good one?
Or was I just an expendable one

Leaving the world like a saint soul
After massacring thousands of young goals

Was I dead before I was killed
By the hand who helped me up still

Yes, I was dead before I was killed 
Left with a cold heart which was beating still

The Devil Alive and Well

They are dying
in the gutters of China,
welded into apartment cages – 
children dismembered from the
arms of pleading mothers, 
protesters pushed back by tanks~
oh well, a few get squashed...
too many people anyway,
environmentalists are silent
in agreement – 

a complicit US media, those
flamboyant parrots with jeweled 
wings, spouting government's lingo,
having gladly exchanged crumbly crackers 
for meaty bones, expendable and not their
concern – not a meaningful word
from the Biden administration, Joe,
himself, a parrot of sorts – a facsimile
of what once appeared human, the devil
in his election. US Corporations
wanting China contracts, China's
digital to replace the buck, when
the American People wake up one
morning, the banks saying, you are
totally out of luck – Fortunes being made
from munitions, war mongers telling
fools they are necessary nutritions,
Hollywood yet worshiping the God
of their mirrors, bronzed and perfectly
symmetrical, to one another passing out 
golden calf awards...the Devil alive
and well.

Cement Trucks

In the end
it was too slow, afflicted
by either age or illness
or simply distracted,
flew head first
into the eye of a headlight.
Flung contorted, neck bent
back, snapped of life,
it died
clumped on a verge.
Rewound to its first flight,
its brief existence traced
untold scribblings
across time and the space
stretched between
these tall trees.

No record remains.
A full stop is placed
here on this muddy shoulder,
the end to something 
which, only a moment ago,
flickered through the circuits
of a living brain.
It leaves nothing
but a small hole
and progeny
ignorant of history.
Whatever flowering form
that bloomed here
grew in the blind reaches
beyond knowing, no more
than a short awakening
programmed by its kind,
an expendable part fed
into the machinery
through which all life churns.

Chance had my way
intersect this point
and dab thought upon thought
to stem the bleed.
No balm soothes
the wounds
of this crumpled mess.
Cement trucks rumble by
moved by the need
to fill an empty space,
as these words try to do.

There's Nothing Like a Good War

There’s Nothing Like a Good War

There’s nothing like a good war.
I watched a video of men killing men
Rapid fire, rapid death, rapid fear
When will we ever learn? Never?
It’s in our DNA and used against us
Goad a man, tell him his country needs him
Tell him, to go kill the villagers
Tell him, they deserve it. His gun needs
To by fired, it’s bullets like him are
Expendable, always more to take their place.
Nothing like a good war, a noble cause
Which has God firmly on its side
Thought up by a presidential psycho 
On his yacht on a Sunday morning
While a calm sea and fresh breeze
Tickles the blond call girl’s hair.
A moment of boredom and an
Unprovoked attack takes shape.
A couple of weeks of genocide
Watched by a paid audience
Eating from the same trough
Wishing they’d thought of it first
No, there’s nothing like a good war
A gentle genocide, a worthy cause
A mother tells her son, fight or you’ll
Go to prison, certain death is much better
She gets his boots, ten quid and a
Medal. He gets eternity. Nothing like 
A good war?

David Cox 12/06/22

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