Long Expendable Poems

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Last Words

Let's be kind with our words and the hearts of others. Live, love and learn. No regrets. Blessings. 

Last words
By Michelle Morris
08/05/2023

If these are our last words
Let them be words of love
Let's not regret the past
Our relationship or memories

If these are our last words
Let's not shed tears of sorrow
Not every love is forever 
Let's be grateful for the chance we had

We often feel expendable 
In the throwaway culture of today
People ditching each other by text
Hurting hearts and souls and heads

Why aren't we learning to be better?
Why is humanity being replaced by AI?
Since when do we play down our light?
Forget our souls live on forever?

If these are our last words
Let them be words of love
Let's not regret the past
Our relationship or memories

If these are our last words
Let's not shed tears of sorrow
Not every love is forever 
Let's be grateful for the chance we had

If we think before we speak
And consider before we act
We'd make so many better decisions
We'd choose kindness before we choose hate

Life is for the living
Doing our best for everyone
We can leave a legacy of giving
Kindness and empathy to our fellow man

If these are our last words
Let them be words of love
Let's not regret the past
Our relationship or memories

If these are our last words
Let's not shed tears of sorrow
Not every love is forever 
Let's be grateful for the chance we had

If these are our last words
Let them be words of love
Let's not regret the past
Our relationship or memories

If these are our last words
Let's not shed tears of sorrow
Not every love is forever 
Let's be grateful for the chance we had

Let's be grateful for the chance we had...
Love lasts forever in the Universe...

© Michelle Morris, 2023
Form: Lyric


You'Ll Never Do What I Do

We don't reproduce - most of us don't want to,
you're built different, can't experience what we do,
further, our perception is beyond your mindset,
doesn't mean'better,' stay - our place isn't to let.

We know goalposts have moved, grow up, move on,
but you can't, not possible when all is said and done;
also now, which one is which, I hear a deep voice,
no matter what, you'll never really have a choice.

We are devious, wicked, irrespective of commendable,
that degree of nastiness would only make you expendable;
stay as you are, then you may be better, don't you see?
Why do you want to be just so tricky evil like me?

You can't, never will be, no matter how you progress,
you're you, not like us, not really capable of caring less.
Form: Sonnet

Premium Member Indolence

An occasional gust of wind will lift the translucent white voile curtains and then drop them like a child losing interest. The effect is like flash photography, a burst of sudden sunlight that paints our irises, then quickly fades. 

It’s a cool Paris morning. In the low 50s. The windows are open and we forgot to turn on the heat. It’s perfect ‘under the covers’ weather. We’ve succumbed to laziness, refusing to get out of bed. Lazing-in is new enough to us that we’re defining it with a gamut of synonyms.

“Listlessness, torpor,” Peter says, his index finger tracking the slow twirl of the ceiling fan. 
“Stupor, slumberous, supineness, ” I updog.
“Ooh! total submissiveness,” Peter said, drawing the last word out like it’s dirty.
“Every man’s dream,” I confirm.
“Inertia,” he says, triumphant in finding an engineering word.
“Good one,” I compliment. “Lifeless, loafing laggard,” I add.

There’s a knock at the door. 
We look at each other guiltily, like we’ve been caught.
“We ordered breakfast last night,” Peter remembers. 
“Oh, yeah,” I said, “you get it,” I suggested.
“Why me?” he whined. 
“Because you can wear less and because what if it’s an ax murderer?”
“These people work for your grandmother, she employs ax murderers?”
“It could be a revolution - this is France - it happens.”

There’s another knock.
“Get it!,” I bleated, like a helpless goat.
“Am I expendable?” he asked, as a man might plead to a jury.
“Women and children first,” I remind him. 

There’s a third knock.
“Ok,” he says resignedly, as he rises, draws on shorts and heads for the door.
“You’re my hero,” I assure him, before I pull the sheet up over my head in case it IS an ax murderer.
.
.
slang: updogged = to continue a conversation trend and maybe improve it.

Premium Member Woman In Chains

she carries the child on tired hips rested on chains ‘round her waist

wasted on freedom designed to serve a white man’s lustful desire

branded inferior as time repeats itself and the pain knows no end


a tattoo on her skin confirms her as chattel in self-righteous shackles 

festering wounds of Apartheid resemble the foul stench of humanity

as her child suckles from an empty breast and cries out for more


they did not really abandon slavery merely gave it a different name

too sweet are the rewards of exploiting the world as we know it

division of labour and they enshrined her firmly as an illiterate pawn


her soul wrapped in skin and bones and her eyes like rusted steel

an empty gaze almost gave up on merits of justice from hollow eyes

camped in concentration of power domination she is raped daily


of her dignity while she ploughs on in fields of plenty and the dust

of history and yet she never gives up on struggle for emancipation

some got the vote in a rigged system with dice slicing the fortune


disembowled by wolves in capital’s fangs her innermost treasure

has become hope that succumbs to memories of her forebears

born into poverty and meant to stay there she rattles her manacles


in vain in defeat because leg irons and handcuffs are made from

diamonds and gold in the heartland of theft and misappropriation

when her child dies she carries another from the master’s loins


expendable and forgotten her tears are salty and polish the gyves 

and just maybe might help to corrode bilboes and unholy bonds

because human emotions do not forget who triggered the hurt


outcast in a so called homelands or locations she requires a pass

to enter the kingdom of opulence in which she serves as a maid

but the young maiden has become old and dies cleaning their dirt


a stolen life is all that her daughters will remember with hatred

and when they rise they too will die by the greed of their captors

but one day the tables will turn and revolve in anger and retribution



20th August 2020


‘Apartheid’ in South Africa was the system of racial discrimination

Workers needed a ‘passbook’ to enter rich suburbs for work

‘Homelands’ were the allocated regions where black people would live

Their abodes where called ‘locations’ to sweeten the tongue of evil

Everyday Kings

I’m no king author
But I’m an author of my script
He rides and I write
To tell you what days might be like
I am at your disclosure
Un-expendable 
but humble in my composure
The kiss of allure
Blissful and pure
How much more
Might we on this journey endure
I was once a written testament
Now I write when it’s best I vent
Brandy on a sunsets portrait
With all this said 
I am your’s unfortunately
Sadly a pioneer to keep
A lung punctured and barely breathing
A mothers sore beyond her bleeding 
Keep your depths in confinement
She was a touch of blueberry
With a wine’s scent
Life can be brutal at times
Did you think I’d lay 
And never awaken
Awaken never to lay
It’s been an honorable stay
Perhaps I was awakened too late

This is for the last good night
Sleepless in my last good fight
I am sure to be alright
Sleepless on this last good night


Premium Member Expendable For a Cause

A young man carrying a green duffel bag
over his shoulder shifts when he walks.
Off to war for our country and flag.
No military knowledge with little talk.

Enemy troops marched across the bridge, 
with tanks, and hundreds of machine guns led.
As he sat dug in along and across the ridge,
bullets were zipping right over his head.

The dawn of the morning across the glen; 
a plan was thought, bargain it was, the loss
of two companies to stop a million men
and ten thousand vehicles from getting across

Pop, pop pop, of distant sounds and then more,
trading volleys of gunfire with blood and gore
A friend gets killed and he dies to the core, 
trembling with raging fire. A Casualty of war

5/24/2017
© Eve Roper  Create an image from this poem.
Form: Quatrain

Pipe Dreaming Democracy

Today’s a day that’s supposedly filled with political rhapsody/
Yet I sit down and write these words in full spiritual apathy/
I rather be electing a leader whose ideas can capture me/
Chattel ghosts are after me so I can’t afford to be an absentee/
That’s the way it has to be. Many died for my right to choose/
Even if I don’t like the dudes, I must vote, despite the mood/
Despite my feelings that elections do little to bring changes/
Choosing sadists with king wages as their armies sing praises/ 
Imitation sages. Thinking their group rhetoric is visionary/
Ideas as basic as having sex in positions missionary/
Political dysentery. This system has always been infected/
Vote’s been subjective since the first slave owner’s been elected/ 
I’ve been neglected and I don’t have the dough to get noticed/
One of the faceless voters. A pawn used in racist quotas/
I face disorder but I’m weighed down by a chaotic tapestry/
Guilty of blasphemy as I elect the next masonic majesty/
The honest travesty is the reality that we’re all expendable/ 
The poor’s reprehensible as the rich’s laws are extensible/
Democrats more sensible? They all come blunt? I doubt it/
Republicans don’t like me. At least they’re up front about it/
Our wisdom’s clouded. We can’t see their both on the same team/
With the same dream/ 
Get as much as they can then wipe the slate clean/
This bipartisan system doesn’t allow new voices to surface/
The powers that be, when faced with new choices, get nervous/
They’re hired to serve us, but we transformed them into royalty/
Despite what we feel morally, parties demand total loyalty/ 
Pay raises quarterly as their conduct grows more disorderly/
Abhorring me and the very few civil laws supporting me/
I don’t mean to be apathetic about the electoral process/
Keeping tabs on the government is an acceptable obsess/
A myth like Lochness? Is Democracy just a pipe dream?/
I must vote to find out. No matter how pointless it might seem...
Form:

DROP THE FACADE

DROP THE FACADE

I see people week in and week out. 
They come into the night clubs in 
their lavish cocktail dresses 
or their designer shirts.  

With enough bling on their hands 
arms to dazzle the sun, they go up 
to the bar time and again to order
some exotic expensive drink. Only 
to be wasted by it being washed 
on the dance floor or forgotten on the
smoking balcony outside. 

They circulate the usual clubs and pubs. 
The same continual crowd. 
The same caked up faces. 
The same costumes. 

All on a lifestyle they can’t really afford. 
You can’t live the Gatsby lifestyle 
without the Gatsby wallet. 

It’s not the sparkly Jazz age anymore. 
It’s the crisis age of the cost of living.

On Saturday nights, they spend like 
there’s no tomorrow as though 
they’ve got fifty more bank 
accounts overflowing with money. 
Takeaways, online shopping, 
meals out, new fashion accessories and then-  

On Monday, they moan and groan 
that they deserve a pay rise and 
how the government isn’t fair as
the national minimum wage isn’t
high enough.

No mind,
No caution, 
No self control, 
No responsibility, 
Just falling into a pool of debt…

You are who you are. 
Your bank account is not expendable.
Your wallet is not Gatsby’s. 
Drop the facade.
© Leon Cole  Create an image from this poem.

Illusion of humanity

Do I believe in humanity?
If you ask me, then "no".

And the reason doesn’t require an explanation.
It’s everywhere.
You only need to look... look with open eyes, open ears, and a mind willing to see.

Look at the world.
Actually look at it.

As a girl, I learned early that being human does not promise humane treatment.
We say women are human, yet the world treats them like exceptions...like objects, assigned roles, owned bodies.
At times it feels as if we are not seen as people at all,
only as things to control, to use, to shape according to convenience.

So I’ll ask again:
do you believe in humanity?

I won’t answer yet.
You can decide for yourself.

Set women aside for a moment.
Look at everything else.

Look at my country.
People without clean water.
Without education.
Without healthcare.
Without dignity.
Without a future.

And still, they are told to believe that our India is a Vishwaguru.

They are not demanding accountability from the government.
They are not demanding food, safety, or reform.
Because belief is easier than questioning.
Worship is easier than asking why nothing works.

I don’t even know what to write anymore.
Maybe exhaustion has replaced language.

So I’ll ask again:
do you believe in humanity?

People who have nothing are still willing to die
for prime ministers,
for religion,
for identities handed to them like cages.

They fight their friends.
They fight their families.
They bleed for men who will never know their names,
never feel their hunger,
never care whether they live or disappear.

They believe those men belong to them
because they share the same religion.
But the truth is simpler and harsher.

He does not care.
Not about faith.
Not about loyalty.
Not about suffering.

They are expendable.
Votes.
Noise.
Numbers.

So ask me again if I believe in humanity.
Ask me why people starve with folded hands.
Ask me why they defend power that would never defend them.

I won’t answer.
Because the world already has for anyone willing to look honestly.

Everyone knows the truth.
The real problem is this:
people refuse to accept it.

And living in delusion is far more dangerous
than facing reality.

Premium Member The Ladder

I climbed the highest ladder, 
To see what I could see; 
I saw my fellow countrymen, 
Living in poverty

I climbed up even higher, 
Embracing open skies; 
Murder, death and bloodshed, 
Appeared before my eyes

I saw a ruling power, 
The middle class shrank to poor; 
Powerful wars and conflicts, 
Were standing at our doors

I saw hungry children, 
Here, on our native soil; 
Only the rich grew richer, 
Thriving on the wealth of oil

Greed crept upon the land, 
Like thieves in the night; 
They took away our liberty, 
To strengthen their own might

Those who fought in wars, 
Their victories spelled defeat; 
Many returned as heroes, 
Only to wander the streets

I climbed above the highest clouds, 
Beyond where eagles soar; 
Our social security famished, 
No healthcare for the poor

Drugs polluted our communities, 
While terrorists stalked their prey; 
Children spat on their elders, 
Sunny skies were turned to gray

I saw an exchange in power, 
No yield in government rules; 
Technology dined on the obsolete, 
Our economy stolen by fools

With fewer days of promise, 
Though many years of pain; 
The poor are expendable fragments, 
Millions are dying in vain

I climbed as far as I could go, 
To the depths of the galaxy; 
I saw a new beginning, 
With Christ eternally

The poor and oppressed were equal,
While no man ruled in heaven;
I saw love beyond the ladder,
And peace among our brethren
Form: Quatrain

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