Unexamined Poems | Examples

Yesterday's Wishes

Yesterday’s Wishes 6-25-24
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Yesterday’s Wishes

Yesterday’s wishes never grow stale,
Immortal dream walkers glint in platinum.

Fresh hope with wings, like moonbeams in a mason jar,
Nudges wrinkled wishing stars
To capture a prayer implored on the first star,
Slipping through starlight on a chivalrous quest
Determined to take destiny outside the ephemeral.

One fluttering penny never scarred by disbelief
Lives in moments of perpetual could.

A breath, ever new, kisses Heaven
On a still pond without wrinkles
With a heartbeat that shakes time and astronomy
By blasting beyond algorithms and black holes
Into the unexamined fantastical.

Ever youthful wishes charge past the iron will of probabilities
When heartbeats flutter outside of mortality.

Possible stomps on the impossible in resurrection
Grabbing Eden’s fragments, fancies of faith,
As yesterday’s wishes belong to eternity
And live in a forever dawn waiting to bloom.

Safe and Sound

chrysalis tears
   meconium oozes
soft wings cling

butterfly’s
  pupal fluid
red like blood

caterpillar and chrysalis
   combine to change
ugly duckling to swan

first flight
   like a falling forest tree
without sound

without witnesses
  beauty unexamined
unmounted

The Unexamined Life

An ancient Greek named Socrates
Once said, "The unexamined life
Is not a life worth living."
He might also have gone on to say
That the unexamined heart
Is not a heart worth giving.
Old Soc was right, of course, I guess,
But he forgot to mention
That you can only examine
Small chunks at a time,
Because life, as a whole,
Never gets anyone's full attention.

I Will Be The Better

I Will Be The Better
*
To have left the world
Without making it a better
Place for ourselves and 
Our animal friends, 
What kind of a life was that? 
*
To have left the world
With family and friends 
Remembering me as cynical,
Sarcastic, and pessimistic
What kind of life memories were those? 
*
To have left the world
Loving conditionally, 
What kind of love was that?
*
In my next life I will be the better
For letting our world's
Flora and Fauna 
Instruct me in the
Ways of stewardship.
*
In my next life I will be the better
For loving my family
And friends unconditionally.
*
In my next life I will be the better
For listening to the children 
With my heart and soul 
And let them guide me
In the ways of innocence and wonder.
*
And when I cross over, 
I'll give a nod to Socrates
Who, once upon a time, said,
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
And I will be the better
For having examined mine. 
*

I Dance With Shadows - Yclept Sonnet

When dappled shadows flit through darkened backstreets, 
and whispers rendezvous with one another,
the usual bright spirits take a backseat.
They nurture remnants of rebounds which smother. 
When cadence of sweet trilling of dawn chorus		
unwelcome thief: give dream a few more seconds.		 
Deceit of sun when rays are merely porous,		
its loving embrace reaches out and beckons.		 

Fomenting trouble ‘gainst my better judgement;  
tormented by unbidden thoughts of moments. 

The unexamined life is not worth living – 
fulfilment’s in the act of freely giving. 

Inspiration that’s echoed in poetry,
I dance with shadows in this vibrant city. 

Poetic form: Yclept Sonnet. For more details regarding this form, please see my article, Introducing Three New Sonnet Forms, here on PS. Also, a 'Summary of Metres' is depicted.

Satchel of Ordinaries

I sat quietly staring out the porthole window
As we were passing over a village in the low hills
A cumulus cloud casting over its ominous shadow
Far below in the silence of the engine’s shrills,  
I wondered where those tiny people were going 
Beneath the wing nary a songbird nor butterfly
Alone streaking through the frigid air, the Boeing,
Not a face lifted from village below to the sky
Then it was gone, as quickly as I had imagined,
I rummaged through my satchel of ordinaries
Forgetting a whole community of unexamined
Miniatures, no concern for untended cemeteries,
I had long forgotten when the plane descended
My sweet reveries in solitude, my journey ended. 

Written June 10, 2022
Submitted to "2022 Marathon Mile 1" Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Mark Toney

Void

If it is that there is luck,
fortune, flower and boom,
tell how,
for then would be peace of mind,
if not the sense is just,
an adventure of vile,
the same thing last year seeken love,
ere case still is a calamity,
ere from a different angle,
the worst are such waves and night
mare sighs,
perhaps, it cannot be so unexamined.

Let Poetry Show Me

I think I've got to take a little time today,
A little moment to ponder on few issues,
I'd better read between the poetic lines,
In case I need it when my heart is turning cold.

The bloody and rough path I must tread,
Feels like the heaviest rock upon my soul,
But through the blurry and uncertain future,
I see greatness and brightness,
Which gives me hope for better days.

In my whole life, there's been heartbreaks,
Undoubtedly, I can't face them again,
I really can't stop now or later,
I've already gone far, given in my body and soul,
To change this nasty and unexamined life.

Indeed, I want to know the meaning of self-actualization and inner peace of mind,
I wish poetry can show me,
I just can't hide anymore,
Because poetry has found me.

Socrates

S - Sage,

O - Outstanding

C - Cosmopolitan,

R - Reason's

A - Apotheosis,

T - Transcendental

E - Euphoric  
  
S - Spirit. *







©  Demetrios Trifiatis 
     13 December 2019


* Socrates, Greek moral philosopher, teacher of Plato ,born in Athens in 469 BC , died in Athens in 399 BC. 

Here three of his famous sayings:

a) I know one thing that I know nothing.
b) There is one good-knowledge and one evil -ignorance.
c) The unexamined life is not worth living.

Knight In Shining Armor

You wanted
a knight in shining armor
that I could never be
but you were too shortsighted
to realize that I knew the path
to your liberation

and you turned a blind eye
when I tried
to point out the road home
ignored my every whisper
as the clues 
went blindly unexamined

Know Thyself

Know thyself
Confusing – maybe?
The reality - we are all we’ll ever have
Personal awareness is of utmost importance - indeed

Evolutionary dialectical battle
Vociferous the subconscious mind 
Perpetual synaptic reactions
Unexamined – troubled - unkind

Awareness precedes Transformation
Transformation – Holy Grail - life’s key
Rise above the ancient biological chatter
Peace of mind – pure ecstasy

Discard the externals
Internals – it’s all we can change
Situations will certainly challenge
Challenge self by knowing – knowing self minimizes the pain

Nothing in life really changes 
Therefore we are challenged each day
Knowing thyself is imperative
Awareness of self enlightens our way

Beings of Imagination

Beings in Imagination 
By Mark Miller 
Brazen colors dance suspended, 
Over time's delay of existence. 
Frozen stills by photographs gravitate 
By a grounded descent in cognitive dissonance. 
Emotions explored yet unexamined. 
Sentry ghost crawls through holes silent facticity 
Thrown down the relative subjective 
As our pendulum stands over the meek blue of blind devotion.

Overgrown With Vines

Overgrown With Vines


Three meatless, boney, fingers clawed
at the hard dirt, glistened in the emptiness,
cursed the damnation of the full moons lie.

Death and the shallow grave had come quickly
a sharp metal edge the instrument of both.
The vines, the ever growing, ever reaching

strangling vines had come much slower,
clutching and grasping the remnants
of an unexamined death.

He had fought them, the vines,
struggled to raise a hand, to signal
the intruders of his silent hell.

Slowly he succumbed to his fate
gave up the ghost of justice delayed
relaxed into the dirt and stone

accepted the anonymity of a life
the ignominy of a death
overgrown with vines.


9/29/2016

submitted to – Overgrown With Vines – Poetry Contest
sponsor – Broken Wings

Hash Tag Socrates

I wonder if sage Socrates 
opined today
And said listen good people to 
what I have to say
Where would those people who 
are paid just to spin
Fit this sage controversial free 
thinker in

Or if Jesus Christ happened to 
show up unannounced 
And gently our greed and our 
hubris renounced
Would we be like doubting 
Thomas of old
And need to see for ourselves 
the scars and nail holes

The owl of Minerva flies only at 
dawn
But the curtain of doubt has 
been long since drawn
By Cyberspace knowledge that 
frowns on reflection
Sadly rendering so many with 
more answers than questions

If the unexamined life becomes 
the standard of living
And free thinkers pose 
questions to a world less 
forgiving
Who's left to take sides in the 
age old debate
Is it necessary to deny 
knowledge to leave room for 
faith.

Only One

My lips not curve, when he walks into a room 
My eyes not heed to see this face all known
Chores will not stop, my hand knows more the broom
And still he starts, cause cleaning not for stones

My love for him not empty, but not full
He gazes, for his memories are in play
And yet I feel like unexamined spool
I know he's reminiscing of our younger days

A girl that had fallen for a man
And a boy that had fallen for a time
It took him some, when he finally took that stand
But when I saw him, I already knew he was mine

But now we've aged, and our love feel's like it's done
But, then again...we are each others only one

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