Bystanding poems on Hello Poetry

Sylvia Plath

Elm

for Ruth Fainlight

I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root;
It is what you fear.
I do not fear it: I have been there.

Is it the sea you hear in me,
Its dissatisfactions?
Or the voice of nothing, that was you madness?

Love is a shadow.
How you lie and cry after it.
Listen: these are its hooves: it has gone off, like a horse.

All night I shall gallup thus, impetuously,
Till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf,
Echoing, echoing.

Or shall I bring you the sound of poisons?
This is rain now, the big hush.
And this is the fruit of it: tin white, like arsenic.

I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets.
Scorched to the root
My red filaments burn and stand,a hand of wires.

Now I break up in pieces that fly about like clubs.
A wind of such violence
Will tolerate no bystanding: I must shriek.

The moon, also, is merciless: she would drag me
Cruelly, being barren.
Her radiance scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her.

I let her go. I let her go
Diminished and flat, as after radical surgery.
How your bad dreams possess and endow me.

I am inhabited by a cry.
Nightly it ***** out
Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.

I am terrified by this dark thing
That sleeps in me;
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.

Clouds pass and disperse.
Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables?
Is it for such I agitate my heart?

I am incapable of more knowledge.
What is this, this face
So murderous in its strangle of branches? ----

Its snaky acids kiss.
It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults
That ****, that ****, that ****.

svdgrl Mar 2016

Believe in Something

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that you will faithfully execute your role as a citizen in this democracy, and will to the best of your ability, preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States?

Do you expect your president to? Your congress?

You don't have to believe in politics because even if you don't
they will still exist.
They will still make decisions that effect your livelihood.
You could move away, sure, but if you lived here long enough,
you're an American.
And wherever you go, they will see you as your country.
They'll hear it when you speak.
You could refuse to preach for a country you're not proud of,
that's fine.
But the grumblings often heard from these masses, the complaints,
the horrified hushed whispers and the disdain,
those shouldn't be uttered either.
Those masses were the students in school who never received awards for participation,
they're embarrassed by their government but have never stepped foot in a polling booth, better yet, never even registered to vote.
I know, because I was one of them.
We know the arguments.
We all fear that our vote wont matter.
I'm part of a generation where it seems that
giving a **** isn't cool anyway.
Dank memes are meant to be liked and not followed up on.
Armchairs are in every home and those who sit in it keep it warm.
But there's more on our heads, guys.
And even more in our hands.
They can blame us left and right for the indifference we practice,
but we'll only justify it in our silence.
Give a ****.
Give two.
Sitting around in echo chambers
only results in deafening noise.
And you can't run away if you can't hear them coming.
And the voices, they sometimes make me sick to my stomach.
but I'm stronger than fear mongered puke.
And though it's "cooler" to bask in your sickness amongst my peers,
It doesn't move anything.
I don't need to know or be a minority personally to know that they're being hunted.
To believe their stories, that have been proven countless times anyway.
And I strongly believe that neither does anyone else.
Bystanding up to the man will result in blame games.
Do something. Even if it's not much.
There's promise out there.
You just have to make an oath to find it.

#politics #believe #try #government #vote #millennials #election2016

Tom McCone Dec 2013

figuring if

go ahead and say it.

unsure, like slowly breaking
              daylight, realization
              sneaks in around
the corners,            here, i sit, still;
                                blind and idiotic and
           so **** unsure.
moving in slow frames, bystanding certainties' presentations,
                                                                        maybe i need this.
  maybe i need you more than anything.
but,

how
could
  you ever need me, darling?

I'm a mess and you're sinking in. you could never disappoint me.

Sydney Rianne Bouldin Mar 2013

The Moon Struggles Like The Rest Of Us.

Bystanding,
Glued in place.
We have all have committed,
This facile crime.
Limits breached,
Time cant be on your side.

Lulled,
Into an effortless sleep.
In the absence of action.
The tides change.
We faltered.
Was there a choice?

You have that shine, potential in the sky.
Opportunities arise during the day.
The moon struggles like the rest of us.
Shadows don't mean as much at night.
But just by witnessing they decay

David Murphy May 2016

The Rat

Swimming along the bed of the night sky,
The Rat lurked to appear and disappear between the luminatons of bystanding street lights too ignorant to notice.
Stealing into your big city garden.
With mischief to make.
Hopefully not again.
This time.

Fionn Sep 2021

zwei irdische seufzer (two earthly sighs)

zwei irdische seufzer (two earthly sighs)

Outside, rain will pour down onto the glistening black pavement, while the bystanding pink white clouds hang overhead bashfully. Outside, the oak trees shake their purple leaves mournfully, shaking the excess droplets off of their sorry shoulders. Outside, only the faintest animal cries will be heard over the storm.

Inside here though, artificial light provides artificial warmth, and there is sour whiskey and scones aplenty and the thick curtains are drawn to prevent the windowpanes from exposing a sad truth. Inside here, smiles will be passed around the smooth polished table like candy bars, and young faces are lit up by candlelight. Inside here, things are bad but they could always be worse.

something im working on

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