#modernlife poems on Hello Poetry

Pat Adamek Oct 2015

Vices

In front of me I see a table
A table full of vices
A table which remembers the nights before
Covered in evidence of vices
Coca cola and Pepsi labels stare each other down
A beer cap and cigarette ash and packs crumpled down
An empty water bottle
A cellphone and a lighter
Littered with change is the table
Covered in nickels and quarters
George Washington's looking forward onto Golden Arches
Around the table the chairs are still pushed out from the people who brought him them
Left now but ghosts haunt the places they have emptied
They beg for anyone to notice the hell they are in
They scream look at what I have left you as a message
Look at my vices!
The sections are mapped out on the top of this table
Each vice has a person and each one a label
And the labels they leave are the proof there's a problem
They turn to these vices and hope they will solve them

#youth #consumerism #modernlife #americanpoetry #yolomentality

Molly Jenkins Oct 2015

screens I

and often nights? i -
i’ll have no trouble
it’s the screens that
do me in.

the fallen angel
the lithesome, spent glow
of do-overs
it just
does me in.

i am too possessed
by mercurial vapor
a dead self
at 2 and 3 and 4am
egging on, asking
“keep looking? it’s
somewhere in the archives.
it has to be.”

i promised, i promised
i wouldn’t, i promised
or I’d spend months
years, decades of life
living in the guesswork
the in-betweens
lying in the pathways
between the thought
and the reflex.

i could scroll a whole
lifetime away
in wanting.
it’s the screens that
do me in.

#technology #badhabits #haunt #modernlife #inaction #halflife

Sanjukta Nag Oct 2015

Are You There?

The light that burns darkness
Still sleeping above faint sky

World is splinted with woods
Steel is constructing mankind

Removing the portraits of life
They play the game of smoke

Happiness crossed terminator
Reddening my eyes with moan

Let me discover my reflection
On pupil of Your evident soul

Lift me up with Your firm arms
For staircase demotes to Hell

Tend my existing solitude and
Whisper, “It’s still not too late.”

#god #modernlife

JG Fletcher Jun 2015

Talking

It's strange
When you first start
Talking to someone
The interest is there
Attraction is ever present
Yet, you aren't looking
For a relationship
Just companionship
It may blossom
Into something more
But for now
Simplicity is key
It's all you need

Written on a scrap of paper and a pen while I was at work.

#relationships #talking #attraction #modernlife

Pat Adamek May 2015

Make Today Meaningful

A poem to make today meaningful.
Though I did something
It was nothing worth sharing
So you've heard before, no one's caring.

I'll write a poem to make today meaningful.
I'll be constantly reminding
You that you never had a good grasp of timing.
And it wasn't jealousy that forced me to quit responding
It was the fact that you would only text
me that I found alarming
...and you wrote a poem to make the end meaningful

You really must be my favorite author
I've bought your work time and again
I've your words stuck in my head
And you said
"You're reading too much into this" and had nothing else to offer.

#love #relationships #technology #modernlife

Michael Apr 2015

Out of Order

She said the Guatemalan women
had a trick for situations just like this.
A variation on a familiar tune of
slow and steady wins the race:
Just take small-calculated steps,
don’t exert too much force,
and when you finally reach the end
it’s like the journey was a godsend –

but I rise helium heavy, each step
an angular insult to my weight.
This modern pilgrimage of bottled water
and Doritos, clothes marred by tide and decay.
Otis, I pray that you’ll hold me once again
I’m not made of hearty peasant stock
My hills are made of concrete and
I order Seamless ‘round the clock.

#modernlife

Michael Apr 2015

This isn't a poem

It’s just made to look like one,
to follow your preconceived notions
of what a poem should be and do

This isn’t a poem and I’m not a poet,
I wish I could **** with a stanza
flashes of lexicon that burn right through

If this were truly a poem, and not pretend,
not even your marrow would survive
but these are just a few words I spewed

Waiting for the Mexican lady to finish
folding my shirts and boxers into neat piles
while I scroll past titles in my Netflix queue

draft

#confessional #modernlife

Seán Mac Falls Mar 2015

Zx Haiku ( dying breed )

Some extinct species . . .
Man without tattoo, piercings,
. . . Never owned cell phone.

#haiku #mystery #humour #ironic #fable #modernlife

Seán Mac Falls Feb 2015

You Who Have Lived But Once Only

( Sonnet )*

You who have lived but once only—
Take time from dream to wake again,
See, with true eye, a ladder rungless
As it toys its way in sandbox heaven.

You who have tread with many worn
Suit, plied for journey into sorry night,
Dressed in drab and tear of souls torn
Between grave earth of morning light.

You who have scribed all letters black,
Never knowing blood burns to a page
Writ by chosen knack, ease of tar path,
All made bets to poor sage of tragedy,

Never showering in sparks of chance,
You who— have lived but once only.

#life #sonnet #routine #choices #fable #modernlife

Daughter of Avalon Jan 2015

Emptiness

Surrounded by strangers
Seeking empty pleasure’s
I feel the pressure to be clever

It seems that everyone nowadays
Is just another caricature
Painted with overwrought clichés
Originality is lost, yet no one cares

What are we to do when all we know is to break and to be broken?
When *** is our religion
Because it’s the only time that we don’t feel alone

#society #modernlife