Underfed Poems | Examples

Dreams

Overwhelmed! It’s so easy to be
In this world of made-up history.
As the price of all we say and do
Comes crashing down around our ears
And the ghosts of what we thought were true
Are smothered in all our fears.

Underfed! And all our hungry hearts
Are starving for more genuine arts
That will lead our souls to honest truth
And set our longing spirits free,
In the realm of the immortal youth
Unbound of all tyranny.

For, in our dreams of far-away,
Imagination rules the day
And all that seems just fantasy
Becomes so plain to see.
And, in our dreams of never-been
We are all heroes once again
Escaping all the gravity
Of what is but reality…

Don't Serve Me Anything Old and Cheesy

I've been served lots of unappetizing things 
that simply did not please my palette.
Being force fed with bitter or insincere words 
is unappealing presented as a crisp green salad.

I would rather be underfed and malnourished 
than to feast on something too briny or cheesy.
I won't feast on a buffet of regurgitated foods, 
like dill pickles offered as sour grapes... sleazy.

Nothing has more stench to me than rotten food. 
As an example, mold spores inside blue roquefort,
and don't ask me to swallow one bite of sarcasm. 
That would take far too much of my time and effort.

I'd spit out a spoon of any soup if in it swims a fly,
or if the spices were added by the hand of a hypocrite.
A warm peach cobbler would make a scrumptious dish
as long as inside there'd not be left on purpose... a pit.

in a funk

wilting in the setting sun
dissolving deflating
undernourished underfed
neglected rejected

unknown
a mystery
if any degree of pampering
can bring me back to life



AP: Honorable Mention 2025

The Siren's Song

She wants freedom to touch her
She wants symbols to wear
Sailors at dawn
Bear no response
As if they’re not there

She repairs to the ceiling 
As the walls tumble down 
Underfed, under bed
But she’s good for now

‘I look for you 
But not for long;
I call to you’ —
The siren’s song

She plans for the wedding
No one there but the gown
Save a place
For her eager face
Guests depart the town

She smiles in cathedrals
Vacancy to her prayer 
Up all night, teeming white
Her powdered purse on the stairs 

‘I sing to you,
With whom I belong.
I swim to you’ —
The siren’s song

1996, 2022

A Particular Nod From God

i pray for better days
damona prays for another bone
i pray for damona's health and well being
damona prays for the safety of our next home
i pray for the strength of our underfed bodies to remain intact
damona prays for the lawful elimination of all leashes
i pray for those whose situations are far worse than ours
damona prays for those who are still skin and bones from extreme malnourishment
then we feel God nodding towards a particular area
then we see a man tattered and weary
with the money i made doing odd jobs here and there, i buy the man soup, crackers, and water
i bless the middle aged man with this gift and a five dollar bill
the man thanks us and wishes us Many Blessings and Safe Travels
i reply by wishing for God to Smile on him
as i wave to say goodbye, the man rubs damona's head and softly says 'He Already Has'

Dimples

Sit still, XXri Brook
Dimples, smile, light
Too much for the heavy flight
Of a daydream, happening 
Across from my mother’s anxious look
Is my reason in a book?
Maybe another book
Buried in my room
Me, no doors, nor nook
Dimples overstretched, still deep
I hide beneath a sheet
'Till the sun comes back
I’m counting down from 3
But by 1, they turn to holes
No dimples in the mould
Of the shelter from this tree
Overgrown, still underfed
My father decomposes beneath
Scratching me down
Where I break reality
The garden will pull me back
And I know it isn’t far
But backwards rolls between
As I’m running towards a sun
No one else can see


7/7/2021

The Nature of Man

The ocean now looks the rain in the eye
Swelling with ego and pride
Humming and Hissing flows with the tide
Wrestling the ships and the boats
And laying claim to some of our lands.
Even Adagun adorns himself like Agbara
The little puddle by the road side
The left over of the afternoon rain
Prides himself before our feet
Willing and waiting for the sky to open
For him to take of his share of what drop descends from the heaven.
The fishes now have their freedom
For years no sight of the fisherman's nets
They have grown beyond average
And have witnessed years of abundance.
Some have become sharks
Willing to swallow their underfed comrades.

(C) Ayinla Muyideen Adeleke

Hunger

Hankering hordes of hungry hovering hawks haunt hoodoos in Utah. 
Underfed California condors cruise canyon cataracts for corpses.
Nesting, starving swallows swiftly search for slime and straw in Saginaw.
Gorging ravenous ravens roam Wrangell’s razor ridges in Alaska.
Eager pelicans patrol and plunge for perch in pallid Pacific waters.
Returning red robins round up ripe raspberries in Rhode Island.

4/1/2019 Writing Challenge 6, March 2019 - 6 lines Poetry Contest Sponsored by: Dear Heart

From Now On

“From now on, I’ll be good, Mom,” my son said.
This came after not too few tears for him I'd shed.
It used to be once he got out of bed,
my boy would get in trouble! He was led
by some strange drumbreat pounding in his head!
While other children liked to have books read
to them, he’d throw his to the floor instead!

He wasn’t treated cruelly or underfed,
yet often out in public, I would fill with dread
from his behavior or when he saw red.
He broke his toy cars, his bike and sled.
I felt like I was hanging by a thread;
I wondered if my boy would ever wed!
The year he started changing, my fears fled.
"From now on, I'll be good, Mom," my son said.


May 25, 2018 For the "From Now On" Contest of Nayda Ivette Negron
Note: This is only marginally fictionalized. Later he joined the Marines, 
put himself through law school and wed!

She Is Nice

This prose, a shipwreck...
Barnacled and long forgot
at the bottom of a lonely sea.

This song, a rusted railcar...
alone
      'n fallen 
        
           down 
                      a 
           
                    d  h
                     i  c
                      t
                    

beside a siding 
at                                                     the edge 
of a 
once-factory-town.

These words, an underfed pack mule...
                          high
packed and piled         with 'needs'
and wobbly-leggedly hoofing 
                                                down
a screeway, knees buckling backwards.

The words I choose
can't bear the feelings
i hoist upon, i strap to them
but i persist and enlist
whatever i can write
and stuff it full of my feelings
and send it, in my blind lover's hope,
off to you.

Hoping only that
some small sense of
what i'd packed 
finds you where you are.
A world away from my heart.

It is my only cruelty
to weigh down, to insult these
Words.  To charge them with
my heart's effulgencies.

I am kinder than i am to these words.
I am kinder than i am to these words.

Psychomatic

The World is sick,
and I,
I am sick with it.

A bomb goes off in my head,
my stomach can't remember
when it last was fed.
My eyes are weak;
I can't bear the sight
of devastation any longer.

The World is sick,
and I,
I am sick of it.

I am indifferent to the depravity,
blind to the destruction
deaf to the declarations
of war and propaganda
numb to the demands
of the underfed.

The World is sick,
and I,
I am sick with it.

Ball Bugger Fred

Ball buster Fred wants the workers unfed,
and when his **** turns to clay,
reborn Karma says,
black in the face he will pray,
but his God wants him there underfed,
ok....Don Johnson

Naked God

God's organic clothes are coming unglued,
seasonal seams tearing apart,
emerging alarmingly chaotic
whatever, dissonance?
Supremely straight white noise?

Next time,
I'll recover your naked monolithic culture
in clothes of hard rooted wood
and yet how would you wear them?
Who could?

Perhaps we did
when God grew a tree 
like earthy S/He.

Children of Me/We healthy trees
defectively praying for underfed worker bees
while ripping apart Earth's fertile forests
becoming undressed deserts

Unflowing river sand beds 
bereaving naked tree trunks

Dead dry 
senseless
sexless headstones
where future children of trees
would otherwise have grown moist fruit,
divinely dressed.

Turkey

T is for talented, can gobble and gobble and gobble
U is for underfed, won't taste good, scrawny 
R is for regal, feathers fluffed up and holding waddle up high
K is for keen, too eager 
E is for earnest, long face and won't give a small gobble or laugh
Y is for youthful, too young too die!

I Can'T Help Myself, So How Can I Help You

shot down and abused
misled and used
shed blood and felt pain
lose more than i gain
turned mad green and so sad blue
i can't help myself, so how can i help you

malnourished and underfed
followed blindly and been misled
drank from the wrong cup
went down but could not get up
put on my clothes inside out and on each foot the wrong shoe
i can't help myself, so how can i help you

been called a dingbat
kicked like an alley cat
two seconds from getting laid
solo silhouette on the shade
i am considered a 'man' only by a chosen few
i can't help myself, so how can i help you

rip van winkle old
igloo eskimo cold
oblivious and forgotten
vagabond and downtrodden
i am a hundred miles away from reconstructed brand new
i can't help myself, so how can i help you

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