I feel like writing - the feeling is itch-like.
Perhaps something aesthetically unconvincing
to feed the algorithm or better yet, something
carefully designed to invoke irate criticism.
“You aren’t the boss of me!" I’ll be thinking.
It’s my understanding (ok, a 15 year old told me)
that younger GenZs go to dances and just stand around
because GOD FORBID someone takes a pic
of them looking stupid while dancing.
I’m genZ but I want to shake myself apart on the dance floor.
I don’t stand looks - I switch it up with..
“If you think I look stupid
- I don’t look stupid -
your FACE looks stupid. (I sneer)
I can stop dancing any time
but you’re stuck with that face.”
Of course, that's an old insult - as old as teens themselves
but sometimes you have to go with the classics.
.
.
A song for this:
Get Him Back by Fiona Apple
Cassandra by Florence + the Machine
It is remarkably insane,
To look vacantly out the pane,
With a green bottle of Bollinger champagne,
Enjoying the wobbly rain, rain, rain!
I would rather spend a day in Spain,
Or sit by the seaside in Ukraine,
An alternative of gawking all in vain,
At the wet and soggy rain, rain, rain!
My entire day would certain remain,
Unstimulating and very mundane,
Before the sympathy could sustain,
I would flee away from the rain, rain, rain
I would pose and listen to Zakir Hussain,
Without experiencing the Nyctophobic pain,
And munching on the Christmas candy cane,
For my drink, I’ll gulp the rain, rain, rain!
Oh! I desperately have the need to explain,
The very day I had to constrain,
As it was not so germane,
To taste the polluted rain, rain, rain!
The cloudburst valiantly fights the Elaine,
The pellucid flurry wondering it's Shane,
Tries to stuff the muddy moraine,
But sadly cries into rain, rain, rain!
The baffled sleet faces refrain,
Awaits the rush hour of the town’s train,
To run away from the aubade, so urbane,
Sadly, the unconvincing rain, rain, rain, goes away.
[Arrival of summer]
BY SATVIKA UNDER THE PEN NAME SAVERA
What is this sense that's made to be?
An afterthought expunged to reality?
Does this sense have a scent
of revelation, betrayal or of backing down?
Is it smelly repugnant, or a tasty, tangy treat on tongue?
Is its resolution crystal clear to bed-fellows one,
or lackluster and unconvincing to some.
Does it ooze up between the cracks between the lines of evidence?
Or is it refined in time, from raw materials mined to sublime?
Is it an ore, that lays there like gold,
to be panned and picked up among the nonsense sand,
with no need of refinement?
Making sense is a happening happenstance,
a presence, made and revealed
in the present tense.
I’m huddled in a corner -
I’d move but I’m paralyzed
by invisible patterns of heavy air
and magnitudes of decision.
I know I must motivate
this unconvincing vision of myself
to struggle with the immaterial forces
and perform the pointless activities of life.
.
.
.
ps, I write short stories too
I can’t do this today
Peering through dirty windows at citizens disappearing
Behind shells made of unconvincing paper
Masking unspoken fears, unshaven faces
Unrealized hope
As I sip on day old coffee
Listening to church bells ring meaningless summons
And politicians competing to weave the biggest lies
As the forgotten ones stand in lines separated by social space
To acquire food with borrowed money on borrowed time
From vendors looted the night before
Under the glow of torched cars, flaming buildings, and burnt down lives that don’t matter
Streets filled with hate for brothers and sisters
Whose skin is darker, whiter, different
I can’t do this again
Sitting hour after hour
Watching, waiting
Alone
Behind broken memories
Wondering where you are
Everywhere I look
You are not there
I can’t do this
alone
I know it's highly unconvincing, Mrs Blackwell;
an unimaginable storyline no doubt.
In all your years of teaching science at St Hilda's
you must have thought our wild excuses would run out.
I know you'll calculate with ease my fabrication
but hope my alibi will raise a passing smile
for even scientific minds abrim with logic
can set imagination free once in a while.
And so to tell it in a nutshell Mrs Blackwell
last night a swarm of flying reptiles hit the town
and gazing upwards with increasing consternation
I noticed one was breaking rank and swooping down.
Then with a thud it landed right outside my window
its sturdy beak began to smash through my defence
I had to pinch myself to check I wasn't dreaming
for such Jurassic visions counter common sense.
And then the flaming pterodactyl ate my homework
and Mrs Blackwell, I do hope you'll understand
that when a flying reptile lands inside your bedroom
events will rarely go as smoothly as you'd planned!
10.02.21
...And Then A Flaming Pterodactyl Ate My Homework Poetry Contest
Sponsor : John Lawless
The sun
Who lights up the day
The moon
Who lights up the night
They both get their chance
To shine
At some point
Maybe it's not your point
Yet
Or maybe
It
Will never be your point
Because
Maybe one time
The sun
Won't
Shine
And we'll be stuck
In the dark
With no light
Nothing else
But darkness
The screams
The shouts
The panic
The pain
There was no light
All there was
Was hope
That could be
Snatched away
In less
Than a second
But that hope could stay
At least
For a while
Possibly
Maybe
Probably
But after
People start
To vanish
It gets to the point where
It's
Unlikely
Improbable
Questionable
Unconvincing
And it's growing to be impossible
To maintain
That hope
So you can try to stay in the light
Until the darkness takes over
And you’re stuck
In the shadows
Please don't say Vegas.
We're halfway between Durban and Bloem',
so don't say Vegas, okay ?
Thankfully you found a way, reluctantly,
to settle on the right answer
without saying it out loud.
All the way to the beach,
so I hopped in, and I didn't laugh.
I introduced myself
and for an awkward moment
you introduced neither
yourself nor that guy you wanted to be.
Perhaps you didn't want to introduce
yourself, anonymous as me.
And you didn't need to introduce him,
how could I possibly not know his name ?
Then, after a moment of that,
you introduced him anyways.
It would be a long, silly drive.
You said it. Your voice was not unconvincing,
you had it pretty much down.
You actually said the name,
as if you wanted us both to believe it
but knew that neither of us did.
I'd never seen sideburns so thick,
or hair so black and slick,
the sunglasses looked the part too.
The rest of it was not as flamboyant
as The King would have wanted it to be.
I was friendly and nice
and made sure not to laugh,
but we both knew the truth,
and I really wanted
to be far from Bloem' today.
16th August 2018
All the gym's a stage
And all the pale boys merely players;
Unconvincing ones, too.
At the theatre entrance
I part with pride
For a curious form of Vaudeville.
The maxims of inertia invert.
No longer are the masters
Of the ruling class.
To make up for their deficit,
They perform:
Cackle, strut, and prance disgustingly,
Strive insensitively to sound “street,”
To be street.
(Street actors.)
It must be black magic
To float over concrete,
To steer balls
Into circles.
Audience: the girls and I,
But especially
The dark magicians themselves,
Who either sponsor their imitators,
Or disapprove and sneer.
Cheated of my cash again,
I hurry backstage
And recognize the actors
Without their costumes,
Sporting familiarity: Hollister, Jansport, Abercrombie.
The bell rings; they exit;
The shoe polish
Washes off their faces;
They morph
Into rich white boys
Once more.
If only my words could convince you
of your beauty, so deeply that you'd
no longer seek the validation of your
longtime, warped, fickle friend
She, whose capricious counsel you
seek to confirm those fears of yours
that always tease and taunt you
when you're in her company
But alas, I am merely the beholder
and you are not beholden to me
or my words, no matter how I
long for it to be so
Those glass and silver eyes
will always refute the pictures
that I paint of you in the light of love
with the palette of perfect sight
Lord I just want to write a poem for you
because I love you so much
You have been with me through so many things
So many things that go on you have helped me pushed through like a glorious soldier
You have been so patient
So many times I was mad at you
calling you names - names that you don't deserve
But you never get mad
You carefully craft out ways to give it to me
You let me see things the way you see it
So patiently so majestically you guide me
You could have said "I am through with you" but you didn't
You could have run and say "I'd never see you again" but you stay the course
Why are You like that?
Don't you know that I hated you?
Don't you know that I did not care?
Why You care?
Anyway, your work does wonder
I still am the headstrong person
I still am the unconvincing head
But You got me
I love you in spite of myself
I love you no matter what you did
So don't do bad things, okay?
I love you running up and down
inside and upside
Wild and restrained
Up and down
I love you Lord
Marilyn wore a pretty pearl of yellowish white
on her golden necklace, which had an alluring shine,
anytime she was in the mood for a kiss and an embrace;
I constantly doubted her honesty from her unconvincing face.
It was a clear midnight and that pearl
resembled a small moon anyone wanted to own;
I touched and felt its charm giving it another frown,
but unknowingly, I seemed to have broken the mystical spell.
No longer she desired those kissess she thought were " Sweet and wild "...
but she suddenly ran in shame as someone who had lost all pride;
oh, the blame was on me for having touched it and fantasized!
Yes, untrue love has its prize: a shattered dream never realized!
Beautiful Marilyn, are you wearing the same pearl to attract
another guy and make him taste Heaven with flames of Hell?
I would cover your bed with roses and rubies, if you threw away the pearl
that enchanted me with your spell and made me lose you on a lovely night!
Inevitably, soon it would be upon us.
Its arrival was imminent.
As I assessed the situation,
preparing for its appearance,
I simultaneously continued to spew inane words from my mouth,
and feigned interest in the inane words being spewed from hers.
It was lurking nearby.
It could pounce upon us at any moment.
At the end of the next joke.
Following the unconvincing laugh.
Prior to the changeover to the next random, mundane topic of conversation.
I could smell its presence.
I could sense its whereabouts.
As I adjusted myself to prepare for its arrival,
I wondered if her adjustments were in like kind,
or to position her for a defensive maneuver.
Still, I was not sure.
Then it was here.
Silence beyond compare.
Eyes looking into hers, and then away.
Catching her eyes looking into mine, and then away.
Just as sure as I was about its arrival,
I was equally sure of its soon departure.
But in what manner would it leave us?
Through the start of the next boring topic?
Through simultaneous, confused laughter?
By her announcing it is time to go?
Or, … by our first kiss?
Oh, how I hate
and yet, live for … the pause.
Old man, I resemble you in inversions
With your palace plucked from
A ninth cloud and dragged as
An infant's relentless screech
Crying inevitably for attention
And contributing nothing save slavery
I would dine upon it
How I killed God and pulled the next
Kingdom into palace gates
How envious they would be!
Smuggled into a devil gorge and starving into pieces
It is like lilac, calming but altogether unconvincing
I would fall to my hands and knees
Digging a perplexion of graves within rock bottom
Swallowing the communion wafer of a bullet
My blood, a revolution
And my shattered bones consumed.
The trial lasted two days,
she was accused of being a witch,
no one expressed sympathy.
The accusers were unconvincing witnesses,
they stuck to a script,
and the truth was stained, and ripped,
she was found guilty,
it was to be death by fire,
her thoughts drifted, higher and higher,
with anger her mind was soaked,
hatred build as she choked
not only with the injustice, but the smoke,
mortified,
horrified,
terrified,
she accepted her fate,
skin sizzled,
but she did not scream
the sky opened and let out a soft drizzle,
and she floated to heaven on a dream.
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