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JP Goss Sep 2019
They came into this world
Starving, pathetic, and in need of work
Computer beings seeking profit,
We called them millennials and,
Like bacilli to honey,
They will eat themselves to death;
I’ll be waiting with an open casket.
When the time comes,
Issued as both punishment and reward,
Fitted just for lazy things,
And it shall be translucent,
As all human desires are
An empty display
Of material just as ubiquitous.
I’ll be the funeral director,
Engorged by suffering,
When the time comes
I’ll be waiting with an open casket.
The skin that does not bleed
When struck, requires only a few
Strikes more,
The arms which do not tire
When pushed, require only a few
More loads,
The will that does not break
When overburdened, requires only a few
Lashes more—
When the time comes
I’ll be waiting with an open casket
And let the ocean, in pacificity
Carry them to the collective
Dead of this world, to churn in anonymity
For eternity; a true hell to the ego,
I’ll be waiting with an open casket
Just to send it off with a nudge.
Fat people canes
  They buckle and break
Fat people canes
  They smell faintly of steak
Fat people canes
  Always arched
Fat people canes
  Holding up the heavily starched
Fat people canes
  Struggle down the street
Fat people canes
  An aid for battered feet
Fat people canes  
  Support poorly distributed weight
Fat people canes
  Caught within a sewer grate
Fat people canes
  Can't handle the load
Fat people canes
  Easing movements slowed
Fat people canes
  Used to skewer crumbs
Fat people canes
  Used to butter buns
Fat people canes
  Prop for a hefty handicap
Fat people canes
  Can't fit within a taxi-cab
Fat people canes
  Deserve a wage
Fat people canes
  Traded in for a Rascal with age
Cori MacNaughton Oct 2015
The White Whale

She swam the gauntlet
Six times, seven
Then took a chance on love
And was rewarded
Far beyond her hopes and dreams

But now this eighth trip south
Much harder than before
And she so weary
Overburdened
Unesteemed

Then it went wrong
The water
Kind no longer
Tainted and impure
Took first her child
And then, no longer caring, she

When soon she came to rest
Among the rocks
Almost as if to say
You’ve cared not for my ocean home -
Now you must deal with me.
When I started college, I majored in marine biology, and my primary interests then, as now, were whales and sharks.  

This poem, written on 6Feb99, was about a pregnant female California grey whale, Eschrichtius robustus, which had died at sea and washed ashore on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, in southernmost Los Angles County.  Although in life grey whales are dark to light grey, depending upon age and the amount of barnacles and sea lice encrustations on their skin, after death the outer skin sloughs off, revealing the blubber layer beneath, making the whale appear white to the casual observer.

Local residents were appalled by the stench, as whales' bodies are designed to retain heat and thus decompose rapidly, while biologists agreed that a spike in local bacterial levels in near-shore waters most likely contributed to the death of the whale and her calf.

My favorite scientific name for the grey whale, which I would like to see become California's state animal, is the obsolete Rhachianectes glaucus, which translates literally to "grey swimmer along rocky shores."  I can't think of a better description of these magnificent and loving animals.
Nomkhumbulwa May 2022
ESKOM

Where do I start?
Writing this by candle light;
Yet today we are lucky,
Load shedding came early

The system is done,
Its broken, corrupt,
Time after time,
Excuses one after the next

Us we are lucky,
In some ways anyhow;
For we have a few means
To keep warm for now

Others are not,
In fact most are not,
They suffer, they die,
But ESKOM - care they do not

Yes it was once ok,
to be totally without,
But once electricity is introduced,
Its difficult to go without

Those who have the means
Have done what they can,
Generators, gas, solar,
Options are endless, but only if you can

To most the expense is impossible,
Of course we want solar,
We want clean energy,
Just like we collect rain water

Its nothing new,
Its now been decades,
Leaving people to suffer,
ESKOM one problem after another

Winter after winter
Just when its needed most,
ESKOM takes it away,
Light, warmth, taken away

People light fires with paraffin,
Then bring them indoors,
Just to keep warm,
In the morning they dont wake up at all


Where is investment in alternatives?
For ESKOM cannot go on,
As one of my cousins said -
The grid is often more off than on

I cannot complain,
Not for myself anyway;
I choose to live here
I'll do things my own way

But I do see suffering
Knowing a long winter is ahead,
With an overburdened health system,
Knowing every winter leaves people dead

How much longer will it take?
For ESKOM to finally close,
To open doors for others,
Its time to get rid of the coal

In a Country basking in sunshine
nearly every day of the year,
The lack of solar power is saddening,
And shameful, but ESKOM doesnt care

Yes we have fire,
But we also have rain,
Those two dont mix,
Cannot cook on fire in the rain

The saddest things is this,
That ESKOM just dont care;
Lives dont matter to ESKOM,
Anyway - they have their share

The few that can make do,
They can afford to.
So everyone else is forgotten,
Nearly 80 percent of the population

Its cold, its wet,
We cannot light fire,
If we do its outside,
Buildings no longer designed for fire

How much longer ESKOM?
Will you allow people to suffer?
Will you eat all the money?
Will you do this to South Africa??

We all hope for a brighter future; quite literally...."brighter" ..  :)

Nomkhumbulwa **
apologies im new
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2023
<|>

v V v  writes:

It is quite amazing to me that everything in life, love, relationships, survival, progress, growth, etc. .. it all boils down to some type of sacred balance.. a balance that is extremely precarious, and fragile... even the known universe follows a sacred balance, the seasons, the tides, day and night, if any of those balances slip, we no longer exist.. fascinating and brain bending truth

<|>

3:27AM

there are somethings you just know

read the words above, without hesitation,
knew therein lay a poem co-missioned
that required instantaneous creation,
as if it was a observable commandment
that need instant gratification,
nay, more so,
a relieving, an unburdening
a lifting of a hearty blockage impeding,
distressing my existence

perhaps
our lives are a life long attempts
to keep
A Balance,
our individual and mutually conflicting
of-all-our-imbalances,
as they intersect and sway,
on a flood plain, ever unstable and shifting,
so many eddies colliding on the surface of a mighty river

yes, there is something otherworldly here,
yes, even sacred,
in the finest sense of that overburdened word,
so oft overemployed that
one man’s overburdened sacred
is another’s overworked profane

but sacred is sacred

at a level just above our collective reach,
is an aspiration, a respiration and exhalation,
we unconsciously try to time our breathing in coordination
with our surroundings,
grasping, gasping, grabbing
for understanding, micro-management of the minutest
current of water or air running contrary to the main current,
that we plunge willingly and willfully into

when we open our eyes
every morning
and confront a new array
of illusions, allusions
and conceive our own illustrations,
and paint our lives and every act
on a corner of fresh page of a giant, ponderous
tome
(or tomb, if you prefer)

I know you understand.

in a few hours, I will rise to
be confronted by chaos and challenges,
armed with bits of strings, tape and bows
to wrap them into a cohesion,
to present them to you,
insert them into your eddy,
and in the froth of poetic collision,
is our constancy of connectivity and breakage,
a perpetual reformation

so that we may
mind-bend into each other,
verifying our mutual dependency
and saying together,
out loud and silently

we exist,
we edit,
our eddies,
our overlapping lives,
in a never ending series
of Venn diagrams
all delicately balanced
at a single point,
forever transitory and reforming
our language of calculus
on a curve of constant change.
3:27 AM
Mon Sep 18
2023

with the kind permission of v V v
Marched in step
Toting a little red wagon
Stride carried pep
Dragging that little red wagon

Weathered in rust
Creaking in the sun
Covered in dust
It weighs a ton

Overburdened by basic trinkets
Remnants of Christmas 05
Macaroni made cumulonimbus
From school days off winchester drive

Photo of family for evidence
Not that it means a thing
Victim of malevolence
Thrown out in early spring

Winter brought about the cough
Toting a little red wagon
His whole system seems off
Dragging that little red wagon

He's feeling old
Went and turned lethargic
Held onto the cold
Wallowing in hardship

Deterioration apparent
There's something horribly wrong
Behavior aberrant
His strength is gone

Innocence in tow
Holding onto reactionary bliss
Writing name in snow
...Blood marked abyss

Death encroaches.
He falls before his little red wagon
A young boy approaches
And steals that little red wagon
Me Hgrub Apr 2017
little pink pills
designed to soothe the
overburdened mind

sleep never escapes me
serotonin has

or was I just a hamster
running in a wheel of
self destruction?

your imprisoned pet
to play with
only
when you felt like it
Mohammad Skati Feb 2015
Although life makes me overburdened with                                                          A lot of loads of pains and a lot of sufferings,but                                                   I will not give up at all ...                                                                                          Always those one-thousand of miles of my long trip                                            Start difficult ,but                                                                                                     Everything will be better and wonderful ...                                                            Although people bother from all sides,but                                                             My faith in God will not let kneel down to anyone                                               Except to the Al-Mighty God anytime ...                                                                 I know that way is Very long in life ,but                                                                                            I will struggle to suppress all those bad factors                                                 That will let bend down anytime ...                                                                    I am not that one who easily kneels down to circumstances,but                     I will stand up facing life with bravery of a fighter                                           Who looks for that good way in life ...                                                               I never give up and                                                                                              I will not give up                                                                                                  Simply because I have my own persistence and                                               I have my insistence on my continuation in life                                                Till the end ...........
Joe Cole Jun 2015
You know for several weeks, even months
I lost the inspiration to put pen to paper
But since coming  back here my mind is overflowing once more

Life is such  simple thing
But now overburdened  by technical things

Nature is such a simple process
But now overburdened by genetic improvisation

Love, the most simple and natural  process of all
But now overburdened by the  need to outdo the girl next door

Keep it simple for a better life
Mohammad Skati Apr 2015
There are those ugly burdens of life and                                                                We are greatly overburdened with those                                                                Absurd,ugly,and sad pressures of life ...                                                                 We try to overcome those ugly pressures                                                              Of life ,but all in vain and hopelessly ....                                                                Unless we are standing on a hard ground,                                                            Then all we do is useless and absurd anytime ...                                                    Life pressures us to fight back its atrocities,but                                                     All comes uselessly and all in vain anytime ...                                                        ___________________­
v V v Sep 2023
Nat writes:
so many eddies colliding on the surface of a mighty river
yes, there is something otherworldly here
yes, even sacred,
in the finest sense of that overburdened word


Ah, what you speak of is
the very eye of God.

I see it in a Kaleidoscope of color
perfectly balanced yet
confusing all the same,
and the beauty of it!

A chaotic comfort like adrenaline.
The simple confidence of the knowing
held together by a single point of reference.

His bright eye the Fulcrum

o_______o
^

between:
The Sacred and Profane,
teetering in perfect balance
(For now)

between:
Respiration (The In) and Exhalation (The Out)
He resides in the pause between breaths

between:
Air and Water
(The Earth hovers within)

between:
Eyes Open and Eyes Closed
We live and die within the blink(s)

between:
Connectivity and Breakage
(Our true desires at the watershed of)

between:
Out Loud and Silent
(One without the other drives men mad)

Again Nat writes:
we exist,
we edit,
our eddies,
our overlapping lives,
in a never ending series
of Venn diagrams
all delicately balanced
at a single point


So perfectly stated.

The very eye of God.

Here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=rVKRRzaf21U
The god from the past came stalking,
Came clambering over the hill,
He’d woken first thing in the morning
With a hangover, fit to chill,
Those Roman debauches with grapes and wine,
The reds and the whites of the Tuscan kind,
The fruit of an overburdened vine,
Were sapping his energy still.

He’d rubbed at his eyes in the dawning,
And wondered where everyone went,
For nothing remained of the Roman baths
Not even a soldier’s tent,
And where was the maiden he’d last embraced
The sweet  Lucina, so fair of face,
Whose long held virtue was laid to waste
When the force of his love was spent.

Invidia’s green and brooding eyes
Had watched as he laid her down,
Had mixed her potions to match his lies
As they struggled, there on the ground.
She thought, ‘No god should be so remiss
As to offer a rival a tainted kiss,
From now, I’ll act as his Nemesis,
He’ll sleep while the world turns round.

She poured him a draught of her potion then
The last of his thirst to slake,
Though Empires rose and fell again
She vowed that he’d never wake.
The buildings crumbled and turned to dust
As the god dreamt long of his love, and lust,
While Nemesis thought her scheme was just
And the field turned into a lake.

The ages tired and the gods retired
To their mansions, high on the mount,
But he continued to sleep and dream
More years than he could count,
The god slept through in a dream sublime
While generations were buried in lime,
Two thousand years was a blink in time
For the gods in their banishment.

He woke on a chilly Autumn day
And found himself in a lake,
Shivered once, and then strode away
For his heart had begun to ache,
He walked down into a valley plain
Green and fresh in the Autumn rain,
When out of a tunnel streamed a train
With a scream, and the squeal of brakes.

‘By Juvenal!’ cried the god in shock
As the carriages streamed on by,
Then up above, like a giant gnat
A vehicle flew in the sky.
‘The world has changed since I fell asleep
The gods have fled to the mountain keep,
And men have conjured a giant leap,
The world has passed us by!’

He ran headlong through the tunnel
Hoping to find Lucina again,
And that was the great explosion that
Nobody could explain.
The diesel engine was rendered flat
With carriages piled on top of that,
While Nemesis on the mountain sat
Her tears flowing like rain!

David Lewis Paget
Riq Schwartz Jul 2014
You stole my breath
but needed only ask.
Gave love freely
and demanded the same back.
You took no ****
so never gave one.
You showed me the way
- my eyes followed you -
to feel no regret.

You were bold and brazen,
I was empathetically italicized,
leaning on you
in times of duress.
You gave and gave and gave and gave and gave
two-bit trinkets
half-assed like alimony.
I took and took and took until
I was overburdened and
rooted in place.
You walked away like an action hero
and never looked back.
You showed me the way
- my eyes followed you -
straight out the window.

Yesterday you gave
     me a call. Said
     you were fine.
I didn't ask
     if you felt my eyes
     searching you out
     in dreams,
digging deeper through memories
to us, together.
You teaching me to love
     selfishly,
showing me the way you did.
My eyes followed you,
  followed yours
     following her,
and you showed me the way
you felt no regrets.

Perhaps sometime I can show you
how I find my way
straight out the window
and let your eyes follow me
down.
Lots of help from Jamie L Johnson (http://hellopoetry.com/jamie-l-johnson/) and my dear friend Blu. As always, thanks for reading!
It is here at the point where no life exists
where shadows lurk and life is made
while Creation does nothing but watch itself
in a hole that never ends

Ether dances and joke at beginnings of dust
as we bring to life that which longs to smell
misty dew, try luck and fate on stages of illusion

Here we eat pomegranates in custard
apple skin, breathing in salty spice from
pink peas in tunnels of horns
here throats are channels of finality
columns of joy in hope

Here silence is the loveliest sound
sights contest to bloom on trees of golden chandeliers and flimsy nightgowns after
dinner mints

At this point of open fluid blueness
sightless serpents mingle with  lights down
their spines
bracken love is made then broken like
crockery on a shelf overburdened with fear

At the beyond orange magic exists in
hair without roots, round and round
in bones without marrow, mouth to tail
as God puts together noses and arses
makes granite curves with candy floss fingers

Here man is woman, woman man
goddesses in curls and red sequined
slippers witness Tarzan at work eating
pineapple with prickles, tongue to tongue

Here a point becomes the only space
space falls into time, time into circles
numbers into letters, letters into nothingness
while black Persian cats cavort on blankets
of faith

At the beyond things jump and don’t move
spring by standing still, guitar notes run
along in blessed focus, locked in flights
of danger

Here you fall and fall, scream a soundless scream ~ blond lashes in a teacup filled
with **** and *****, where a flame is
not a straw to hang on

At the beyond it is so !
Emily Galvin Sep 2016
We reach a time in our lives
Shuffling along our own dusty highways
In the warmth of a whisky stained dusk
Watching the honeyed heat of our future seep along the horizon
Into bruised sky of overburdened past
We each meet the same crossroad of decision
The two sides of our soul extending welcoming arms
As we stand, a prize in the feud between mind and heart
Practicality and passion
Security and sensuality

Who am I to choose which gravelled path to follow
Whether to take the wrinkled hand of prudence
And crunch the stones of wisdom and logic with each familiar step
Does my future lay ahead
At that point where the sun kneels to kiss the ground
And throws its glowing arms across the earth in a blanket of safety
Not in passion, but affection
In the comfort of routine
The reliability and purity of what is, and what has always been

Or does it sit within the flicker of a fiery heart
In the sigh of breath that creeps along with the breeze
That trickles down my spine
And dares me to turn my head, to look down roads of impenetrable darkness
To embrace the possibility of the unknown
And the leaping tongues of flame that might lie where those paths end
To be engulfed, and to know myself within that destruction.
Is it the voice that whispers inside my veins
"should there be more than this?"

I stay static
Leaderless
A spectator to the conflict of the soul
Stuck fast in a deadlock of inertia and indecision
Awaiting that moment
When the last glimmer of sun has bled through the cracked earth
And I open my blurred eyes to icy silence, shapeless and pure in its clarity
To see, without obstruction
That the decision is clear.
My future transparent.
That there was only ever one road I could take.
Jai Rho Jul 2013
Along the far wall
beneath the outstretched
limbs of jacarandas
I see him walking
each morning at
his constant time
even when the sun still
half asleep hides behind
overburdened clouds

Sometimes he
waves and
sometimes he
smiles but
mostly he just
walks on looking
down the road to
where I wonder

And I only
watch him briefly
now and again
on days when
I am able and
on days when
I am not I know
that he is there

Until the day when
I look out and see
that he has reached
his destination traced
by constant footsteps
beneath the outstretched
limbs of jacarandas
along the far wall
Lucia May 2018
If it were up to me,
I'd let myself rot here
Drowned in my cotton sheets
And allow my skin to finally sink
In between the gaps of my rib cage.

Rot and
putrefy and
fester and
ooze,
Flesh dripping off bone,
So this stink of my own decay may be apparent to me alone no longer.

Senses overburdened by defeat.
can't bring myself to get out of bed
Poetic T Sep 2014
I collect my tears
Never to loss that emotion
To the floor below,
Happiness
Sadness,
Pain,
Joy,
Stored never to let them go,
When ever I feel
Overburdened,
I take a drink
Droplets
Clear,
Pure,
Transparent,
Emotions, an elixir
These tears sooth the pain,
I have shed so many,
Some moments,
Others for days,
I never let them evaporate,
Collected them once again,
If tears ever decide to fall.
Cruelty and savagery explodes upon our streets
violence multiplies in every part of society
nobodies safe in the urban jungle or their homes
promises to cure the soaring carnage has failed
deaths go on as the young rule many no go areas
where is the law and order to protect the people
why are the taxpayers pockets endlessly drained
there is still too much ground left blood stained!

Emergency services being attacked on their call outs
hospital staff assaulted in Britain's A and E units
trying to help all the thousands of drunken revellers
as those giving support are being put under pressure
decision makers seem to live in a different dimension
as their statistics down play just what is happening
out in the harsh concrete and tarmac jungle no control
if gangs and criminals power grows evil will take its toll!

Law and order has been dissipated society breaks down
as with official bureaucracy we all shall drown!

This could apply to anywhere on our overburdened earth!

TheFoureyedPoet.
Who really is in control where the few rich rule the majority!
Donall Dempsey Jul 2024
OVERBURDENED WITH RAINWATER

Ahhh...your smile
lights up this room

... you, as ever
its centre

head thrown back
before the spill of laughter

like a buttercup
overburdened with rainwater

hair scattered
in all directions

the wind
adoring its fiery tresses

you, the beautiful
Medusa

& always
that pose

hand on hip
an ever-lit cigarette.

Some of us
still cry.

Others hold
back tears

like buttercups
overburdened with rainwater

& still you laugh
at our grief

locked into
the landscape

of your
photograph
Geetha Raj Nov 2011
Drops of salt stayed on
Un-wiped on her hollow cheeks
As if to bear down her overburdened life
With the load of un-shed tears.

Her trembling hands, were weak from work
Her palms felt heavy, as her kids held on
Her chest was filled with love and warmth
Her eyes kept winking, as if to keep away fear.

Her kids - her treasures, how could she preserve
Her only refuge now was her mother's lap
And that was where she headed now
To mark an end to the troubled souls.

She bought them balloons, candy and ice-cream
As they walked towards the welcoming beach
She walked slowly, clinging tiny arms
And soon the salty waters, were licking their feet.
Written on 19th Jan, 2003.
Found this one hidden away in one of my old diaries, again.
I did feel a little depressed after reading it though.
Auroleus Dec 2014
The way we don't joke.
The way we sometimes never do.
The tendencies of overburdened humans.
Internalizations.
Expanding walls.
******* up what matters most.
Never playing host.
Chicken flavored gummy toast.
Rhyming **** that don't make sense.
Putting up with ignorance.
Thoughts of death and suicide.
Neglect on ******* override.
Ted Aronis Dec 2016
Captured by the promise to stand
TA 2016

We see the item, it is something that we need.
They see us looking, and they know we want it.
Unscrupulous, Some. Overburdened, others.
Unscrupulous coveting only profit, stumbling with greed
Overburdened with required proof, abiding by the creed.

However, we stand in hopeful anticipation
Craving participation, seeking validation, a fulfillment of our needs.
Forever, paying the price for being unique
These things, required by a few, but needed, for we are weak.
Many times, Fulfilled, but purchased with full consternation

For help to speak we pay the price.
To claim our independence, we pay in full.
To stand, even up for ourselves, we take a slice.
The things that normally go simple, for this they require flesh.
You see, our needs and their wants rarely mesh..

With no regard to pain, the flesh is extracted
The price is demanded through greed or obligation
Unscrupulous, Yes some of them are
Certification, expensive and required, the price will be exacted.
With no regard to the help needed, our cries unheeded.

We are captured buy the goods that pave our very way
The prices and their intent, we lack the power to sway
Simply, if we need it we have to pay.
If they claims in the end are shown untrue,
There is little, if anything, That we can do.

To a greater or lesser degree it's true.
They manufacture, package, and ship it to you.
But, they will extract their flesh,
Arizona makes promises and quickly reneges
Shameful, unscrupulous, and likely burdened with guilt.
Kriti Mishra Jul 2019
She took a hesitant first step
Closer to bay.
Sand crunched under her toes,
And cold slapped her ankles,
As a wave broke upon the shore.
Receding waters,
Left her tilting like creaking post,
Overburdened with laundry.
Surprised, she jumped backwards
Retreating to the sane solid ground.
But sanity lost,
To the wild, tempestuous sea.

— The End —