Menial Poems | Examples

The transformation of the poet into an artist unfolds like a hymn

The transformation of the poet into an artist unfolds like a hymn to the defiant spirit,
an age-old story with familiar themes of the literary outcast,
where alcohol and poverty dance frenetically in the shadow of tumultuous love,
but at the heart of this storm lies a silent flame, an unwavering devotion,
to the written word, a warm and constant light amidst his existential chaos,
through long years of obscurity, the poet labored in shadowed and silent rooms,
building his art without the promise of recognition or shining applause,
and fame, that dreaded yet desired specter, arrived as a delayed destiny,
only in the late chapters of his tumultuous life, a testament to resilience,
in his younger years, he was a distant vagabond, living off menial jobs and wits,
surviving on two five-cent chocolate bars for days on end,
to afford the luxury of writing, letting the words flow freely,
like a river that knows no path but forward, regardless of obstacles in its way.

DOGGEDNESS

Unshaped by parental care,
He rose, a phoenix, beyond compare.
Life's struggles molded him with might,
Resolute, he faced each endless night.

Education's flame burned bright and true,
His passion, a beacon, shining through.
Menial jobs couldn't dim his stride,
Determination drove him, side by side.

Sugar Boy, a graduate, proud, with degree in hand,
His struggles faded, like shifting sand.
Employment beckoned, a new dawn broke,
His future bright, no longer bespoke.

Love arrived, "My Dear" from Adeboye's line,
A skilled gem, naturally divine.
Together they stood, a unified force,
"The Sugar" boy, with a loving course.

With harmony, their bond took flight,
Blessed with children, shining light.
"My Dear" explored the world's vast stage,
The UK, and beyond, their footsteps engage.

Now the world lies at their feet,
A testament to love's sweet treat.
Their journey, a tale of trials and might,
A shining story, in morning light.

His Name Was Reuben

I once knew a man who was tall and skinny.
I was 35 at the time with a small family.
If he had a family of his own. I knew not any.
His means was menial and his needs were many.
For this man, we did the best we could.
He knew what we believed in and where we stood.
He was homeless and hungry in our neighborhood.
We showed him God's love and gave him food.
He was gentle, kind, and never rude.
We first met in the winter of 1984 in San Francisco, and Reuben was his name.

We took him to a Golden State Warriors basketball game.
He also sat at our dinner table on Christ m as Day.

We felt privileged to meet him and help him through his pain.
Moreover, because of Reuben
My life was never the same.

Broken

I have found the fullness of brokenness in one person,
He is Jesus, the Christ, born to dwell with human beings;
For no sin of his, like a lamb, I found his cause worsen,
Scourged; thorn-crowned; spit upon; underwent such menial things...! 

Didn't, as though a wonder, kings visit him, at his birth?
Why so soon, yet, the scenes changed, and dominions sought his end?
If truth, except for parrots, is not allowed on this Earth,
Incarnation is nothing but a note by Yahweh sent...!

Neither Romans nor the Jews could ever his name erase,
Unabandoned truth stood firm; this was, hence, he rose again;  
The body was broken and blood was shed; in him was grace, 
This was why, beyond all norms, the victory he could gain...! 

Thank you, Jesus, for teaching me to be truly broken, 
My flesh and blood is yours as my reverential token...!!!

Charles Bukowski

Charles Bukowski
I read a fine essay written by a friend of mine, Bukowski
I thought he was a great poet and writer, whether the high
table of the educated literate think, or not because from 
where he wrote, the side streets of life, unfamiliar to them.
Many famous writers/poets drink; I think this is because they
have finished writing for the day, they feel empty inside
alcohol salivate the sense of tristesse, meeting friends for
drinks as whisky and conversation flows
Ernest Hemingway was a heavy drinker, which is overlooked
by his admirers, he had been to Paris, the middle-class son
of a doctor; his drinking had charm, the fishing and shooting
When I read Bukowski’s novel the “post office” I remember
opening the book, a rainy afternoon, absorbed by his art
I lost track of time; I followed his journey doing menial tasks
The boredom of having to make a living when all he wanted
to do was to write against the odds; he did write and gave
us, the beauty of his soul.

Resistence

Resistance

When the German occupation of Norway ended
in April 1945, those who had willingly worked for 
the occupation power was arrested.
Most of them were middle-class people and they
were sent to farms to do menial work.
(One has to add the farmers too was willing to sell
Their products to the enemy.)
Only a handful of Nazis were shot among them
Was Quisling and a few others.
There was no mass- shooting of the enemy and
the traitors, on the whole, it was rather a mild affair.
For the workers the new peace meant redundancy 
as all construction works the occupants had undertaken 
came to an abrupt halt.
I write this because there is in the national psyche
of the Norwegian to be a bit right-wing and haters
of foreigners especially those of Arabic heritage
Furthermore, Norway has never faced up to the past of a war
where only a few resisted. 
The people with a fascistic mindset are in power today
It is sad but what can a sailor do? 
The only exception is the merchant seamen 
every ten of them died during the conflict, and when
they came home were told how lucky they had been
avoiding the war.

The Street Cleaner

I walked to school most mornings when there is no sparing of a bus token.

Every morning with no daily routine broken.

I witness Mister Charlie in his immaculate green uniform, wheeling his three-wheel barrel with the burden of a shovel and push-broom down the main street.

In all weather, the icy cold to the blistering heat.

There is a proud and contented look upon his face.

If he had some unfilled longings there was no trace.

No look of discernment crowns his head, of his fitted place.

No Bothersome thoughts of his menial labor as a disgrace.

After the years he spent fighting in the war, To him, it is an honorable
job to be working for the city.

Even when the crowd is thick and the street is busy.

To many, he was a floating fixture taken for granted.

To others, he was acknowledged and appreciated.

To me he was a stimulus for moral thinking, living in the state of mind of the beauty of simplicity that life affords him.









The memory of my childhood in 1959. Copyright 2016 Looking At The Light At The Bottom of The Lake.

Stop Thinking

Sure life is a disappointment, but is it menial?
Salvageable? Palpable? Tolerable?
My brain waves are pondering this.
I am not a philosopher or anything,
yet here I am, thinking again.
Stop thinking! Society tells me.
Follow the status quo.
I am making up my mind.
Let me have a minute.
Life is menial for sure. 
I am menial.
You are menial.
Oops.
Sorry.
Did not mean you, Mom!

Jacky the Blue Dreamer

Jack-y
Jack-y
Ohhhh Ms Jacky 
how you court your life’s only lover
Huff and puff and contort, the smoke of your
Newfound Newport 
(Long not short)
Lazily lacking worldly desires

If I had your sense of humour
Maybe I'd too sling new places
With every shot of tobacco, being
Flung into faraway lands, filled gilded glands   
That aren’t quite backed 
enough of a bite 
sfsfsfsfsfsfsfsfsfsfsfsfsfsfsfsfs…….pfhooooooooooooooo
Toboggan the whole noggin when its
Packed to the brim, the nicotine
Porcelain eyes for your vaporent dreams
Oh Ms. Jacky, you technicolor dreamer
Wielding blue eyed sheen, portentously protruding Ra’s gleam

So alas, it seems
You spark up another laugh or two
Smoke rising up my face, the habitual ritual
in its proper place
Mercurial Smile, behind eyes unknown
A hidden grace
Solitarily confined in a Surreptitious 
Space, far out man
My menial mind is amazed at how your’s a haze
You aren’t here anymore
But
Who really is

We are all Ms. Jacky deep within

The Fat End

We are the workers, call us 
an hour before an absent fill shift
The pyramid sprouts atop of
The heavy depths of broad ordinary, 
Breadth mopped and swept

Silent cogs push motion
Everywhere, rarely heralded
Carpet of field mice scrambling

Part of the pattern, crucial 
Expectations remain ingrained 
Pith of the fruit, flavour generic
Bolster of bricks protects 
Lighthouse of blinding brains

Scratching hand to steerhouse
Tightening bolts, scrubbing deck
Nugget behind their high shine

We are the labourers, casual pay
covers days not at work, sticking
To meagre styles, life defined
By the hemming, wage stemmed 
 - Can't afford to ask questions 

Surge of activity, pothole filled
Inhibited by flurry, imagination aside
Menial smooths the cement

Minimum makes no plans
beyond next week, when, - if
I have a job. We will do any dirty
Demeaning chore, and thank you for 
Your grace in giving it to us



6th August 2020

It Sucks  - Contest

Kai Michael Neumann - Sponsor

Monsters of the Sea

A contracted seafarer...concerning no servile rank, 
kept e'er involved watch...away from menial daily tasks top deck,
while steadfast wary of...the diligent taskmaster's whip.

A dawn swift gust...brushes the ship from a rocky pillar, 
duly rallies from rest...aids calamitous bellows from crow's nest,
witnessed by crew...rose an angel disguised with devil horns.

Seawater laps feverishly...against ship's wooden hull, 
as panic over breed minds...once sturdy legs go feebly about,
cascading thoughts grips privately...every man for himself.

Another abrupt action...frees a churning sea expounds,
and an opening hole...devouring anything within its midst,
as desperation consumes...a ship has long met its doom.

A lone selfless soul of limited else...moved past the lost,
and hastily clutched a burdened javelin...and hoist it upwards,
with his petitioned combined strength...released the deadly blow.

Her dying scream...was drowned out by restored happy voices,
and a wealth of well-wishes and praises...honoring accolades,
as lone eyes of a humble sort...gaze a siphoning pass.

I'M a Lady of Leisure

I wandered on a journey, in search of treasure,
priceless far beyond any kind of menial measure.
After weeks of hard trekking, 258 miles due West,
on 6/25 I lost my 20/20  vision.  I needed a rest.

I was sick of the infernal heat on this tiring quest.
The  warm breath of summer  became quite a pest.
A coral snake bit me but I didn't cry and ballyhoo.
I ate him for dinner and wrote about him in Haiku.

I was singing my swan song; an ache in my breast,
so I gave up the search for finding that stupid chest.
Because of my selfish need for greed and pleasure,
I learned a life lesson. I've become a lady of leisure.


Views For Poems Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Funom Makama
Posted on July 15, 2020
Poem Name: Warm Breath of Summer
Views: 258
Poetry Form: Haiku
Date of Publication: 6/25/2020

A Dear John Letter

I seem never far flung from thoughts supreme and a my/their/your/importance to things at/of a conscious cramped mind. If thinking is Activity, 
Thoughts, action streams that flow from equal amounts of
"Spirits" aplenty-a necessary catalyst and music, yes
Music the ****** of word birth, unknown, exacting, pure, 
coital corporeal, clean corded from an ancient womb world,
then I am a premiere primary post partum poet, 
pious and plentiful, panoramic and primal----
least of which I follow the noneany standards of 
prose polished rule constraints of useless
ninny-nanny nonsense frivolity of any/all nil/nothing of 
menial meanderings of less viable word wit-tent. 
Everything id intended by therefore their "crowd" creators,
lest us/we behold that soulless saturated 
stingy sick mass raptures of wordly whiny wimp
wis-dumbectomies,  courtesy of ignorant intenders 
that soils its rhymes via elementary elusive exaggerations 
for the masses of asses with 
vocabularies of molasses 
when they read-listen-write-wrong rewrite
a pontious plight in that life Ass-ignment ignorant driven 
illicit class of uncreative writings of Life. Tragedy 101

A Sweet Bird

Lined face and hands of leather
   Her body punished by blazing-hot weather
She'd worked the fields for 50-plus years
   Her energy drained, along with the swamps
      ~For the kibbutz whose ideals she held so dear...

Shopworn and spent in her shapeless frock
   Offered a menial job in a kitchen smock
She volunteered to teach immigrants Hebrew instead
   The time had come to depend on her mind, she said...

Her classroom had no board, just tables and chairs
   Nor was there a breath of fresh air in there
The temperature outside nearly one-hundred ten
   Inside just two fans --Can you imagine?

Yet she taught us to converse from the very first
   In just a month, we could handle most situations
We could shop for clothes and order food too
   Buy tickets for a ride on the bus or in the train station

She taught most of us to speak Hebrew fluently 
   Her lessons with our objectives meshed congruently
Her name was Tsiporah; it means 'a sweet bird'
   Her language teaching the sweetest music we'd ever heard



             October 06, 2019
   Favorite Teacher or Professor Contest
       Sponsor: Chantelle Anne Cooke

We Ride North, Awaken

Set aside dull labour, set aside cold pleasure
We ride for the mountains, for the evergreen treasure
Ah! The call of the Lord of the Snows has come
We ride North, awaken! We ride North!

Set aside raiment of silk, set aside flag of white
We ride for the mountains, for every man’s birthright
Ah! The call of the Lord of the Winds has come
We ride North, awaken! We ride North!

Set aside frail keening, set aside menial care
We ride for the mountains, for revenge on an old despair
Ah! The call of the Lord of the Snows has come
We ride North, awaken! We ride North!

Rosamundi, Rosamundi, Rose of all the World
We ride for the mountains, for the planting of the flag unfurled
Ah! The call of the Lord of the Thorns has come
We ride North, awaken! We ride North!

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