Some More of My (Often Dark) Poems

[ladislav]

No Perfect Place.

Around the world I 've traveled far and near
And this advice I have for you, my dear-
Since our world is populated by Mankind,
A perfect place or country
You will never find.

We, unenlightened humans, everywhere are the same,
In language we may differ and in name,
But pretty much the same old habits we display,
No matter whether man or woman, straight or gay.

And what is thick in one place, in another will be
thin-
A pretty country will be rotten from within.
'Though people may be friendly, the economy is bad
Corrupt officials there will just drive you mad.

And other countries cleaner, more efficient will
appear,
Advanced and ,technologically, in gear,
But rude, unhappy people in such places dwell,
Making them as friendly and hospitable as Hell.

And in the countries where pretty girls reside,
There are also goons aplenty who by law do not abide.
The girls may like you, but the hoods have other
views-
They'll make your face one big and bloody bruise.

And then you have some countries that are so nice,
About going home you' ll be thinking twice.
But Communist or Fascist governments they host-
Just one wrong move and you are toast.

And if abroad you are, you'd better not be broke-
Nobody likes a needy foreign bloke.
The smiles that were, will quickly disappear,
And in the gutter you'll end up, my dear.

And when back home you again return,
For those screwed-up places you'll begin to yearn...
The world may be unbalanced and askew
But there will never be a better world for you.

Without injustice and stupidity in it,
It won't be interesting, not one small bit.
There will be fewer contrasts to explore;
Living and traveling in it will be a bore.

No heros such a perfect world will need,
No prophets to combat its dwellers' greed,
No poets to inspire them to act.
No harbingers of change it will attract.

Rejoice ye all that in a screwed-up world
You've made your nest.
For in this Universe it's probably the best.
If ever to a better one you will pass on,
Back to its fold again you will be drawn.

...........................................................

Is age just a number?

As we slowly decay on our journey to death,
To the time when we take our last mortal breath,
There's one myth we preserve in our saying that age
Is just one little number on our lives' splendid stage.

I'll agree with you, buddy, but to one certain point,
As I feel its advance in my body's each joint
It's a number all right, but a number of what?
I say: with it we count our coming to naught.

It's the number of wrinkles around your eyes,
It's the number of groans and tired old sighs,
It's the number of creaks as you walk up the stairs,
It's the number of backaches that you have to bear,

It's the number of layers of fat 'round your waist,
It's the number of years that you must remain chaste,
'Cause no woman will cast her eye's sensous dart,
At the fat, bald, senile and dirty old fa*t.

It's the number of hairs you find in your sink,
It's the number of age spots the color of ink,
It's the number of teeth that fall out of your gums,
It's the number of friends who are also old bums

Just like you, with pink wattles underneath their chins
And a number of ugly, and toothless, old grins.
It's the number of jobs you don't qualify for
Since because of your age they will hire you no more.

It's the number of salesmen that call you at home,
With that cemet'ry plot that they want you to own.
But the saddest of all in this grisly age math,
As we scuttle along on our journey to death

Is the number most painful to me and to you:
It's the number of dreams that just didn't come true.

It's the number of countries we've visited not,
It's the number of women that left us to rot,
It's the number of dollars that we haven't earned,
It's the number of all things for which we once yearned,

But we couldn't obtain them although we'd tried,
So we simply gave up, then got old and then died.
Yes, it's true that by numbers we our age count,
But for losers who age, greater is the amount.

................................................................

Long Distance Love Today ( my corny one)

Long distance love affairs
Used to suck-
It would be rare
For them not to run amok.

Sometimes, they'd last a while
At the start,
But then
Few would
Withstand the trial
While far apart.


But now we're living in the golden Cyber Age,
And you don't need to be
A sage
To figure out
That you have a chance
To do a lot of things
About
Keeping your romance
Alive,
No matter how long
You have to be apart
Your love can still grow strong
And thrive
And keep on burning in your heart-
With daily messaging on your cell phone
You'll manage not to feel alone
And then you'll chat
In real time,
And that
Will also keep your love sublime
And even though
You're very far away,
In cyber space your love will not decay,
And with a WebCam
You will see each other
And distance then
Will never smother
Your feelings like it would before
In those pre-cyber days of yore.

So use email, text and chat online
If fate divided you, do not resign
To losing precious love that came your way,
And let technology its strength display
To make the time when you are separated
A time in which great value is created,

A time in which your love becomes so strong
That it don't matter that you have to wait so long
To meet your love again because you are in touch
By email, texting, WebCam and the such.

And when the walls of separation fall,
You'll feel that you have not been so far apart at all;
That with these modern means to stay in touch,
Ten thousand miles nowadays don't mean that much.

We praise the Internet for many things,
But, in my view, its greatest acquisition
Has been the fact that it can now bring
Two distant lovers in a good position

To keep their love alive
Across blue oceans,
Mountain creeks
Deep valleys, peaks,
And time and space,
Just like a magic potion
To keep two hearts in place
And help their love survive.
..............................................

Longing for my Tropical Girl.


As a soft summer breeze blows North from the sea,
And the palms stand caressed by a soft August shower
My heart longs for the East and my eyes want to see
The young maiden who looks like a tropical flower.

Lips uncurled, eyes amiss, our past she recalls,
With her hope almost gone as through void she keeps staring.
Gone the bliss of the kiss as another night falls,
And she stumbles on home, her sarong grandly wearing.

It was years ago when, in tropical lands,
As a soldier and sailor I happened to dally.
My adventurous spirit that pleasure demands
Never wanted to see any gala's finale.

Months went by, drunken sprees, fleshly nights and such things
Just created a feeling of drab satiation.
It was then when Good Lord so suddenly brings
To the cloyed groggy sailors his lustrous creation.

Yes, to me, she just was like a creature of Eden
Lost among earthly things, like a jewel in dirt.
To a sailor such feelings are almost forbidden,
But I felt them not caring whose heart would be hurt.

After notable times and great promises given.
I was ordered to sail my boat on to France
By superiors who, by officiousness driven,
Never cared too much for a sailor's romance.

And I left her alone, in a grimy old haven,
'Twixt old baskets and hawkers and scales of fish;
And she wore her sarong, eyes aflame, hair-raven
Pouted lips like a child who cannot get her wish...

It has been countless months, nights and days, moons and suns,
With her image all filled, her sweet presence reflecting.
Ocean waves that would dance in their endless reruns
Would forever be her dulcet name recollecting.

Wars have passed, decades-gone. Many changes took place
In my life as my hair got tainted with silver,
But I still can't forget her ethereal face
And my feelings for her in my heart gently linger.

And somehow I feel, in this life or the next,
We are destined to cross our footpaths "de novo".
I don't care if eternity gives me a test,
I will love her forever and many times over.

In the meantime, I yearn, overlooking the sea,
As the palms stand caressed by a soft August shower.
My heart longs for the East and my eyes want to see
The young maiden who looked like a tropical flower.

.....................................................................

Devote Your Life To Money!

Oh, money, the life-giving juice of society!
It brings us its blessings of every variety,
It softens the blows that lifetime delivers,
It favors the brave and it crowns achievers.

It renders us free from oppression by jerks,
From mockings, and putdowns, and scoldings,and smirks.
It lets us buy tickets and travel away
From where we're not welcome
But still have to stay,

From creditors' letters and big ugly urbs,
From all that don't matter,
From stuff that disturbs,
To wide sandy beaches
And azure blue waters,
Away from the smoke of ten million motors.

With money it all starts to fall into place-
No longer respect is what you have to chase.
It follows you like an afternoon shadow
Thank money, it makes you a prince from a padow.

With money, all people will treat you much better,
As you are no longer society's debtor.
Sweet smiles on you they will now bestow,
Obsequious looks in their eyes start to glow.

And women, forgetting your age and your weight,
Your looks and your height and your bald, shining pate,
Will wink and remark how handsome you are
For, in their minds, you are now a star.

Oh, how pathetic society is!
A "Miss" is now where there once was a "Ms."
For quickly they 've learned that you've got all this dough,
So watch them appear fabove and below.

For freedom, for joy and enjoyment of senses,
Don't waste precious time chasing silly romances.
Just line up your pockets with luscious green money
And soon you'll be hugging a cute Playboy bunny.

As long as you're here on our green Earth,
And want to be living in freedom and mirth,
Devote your existence to dollar and pound
For money makes *everything* go around.

.......................................................................

A Foreign Language vs. the Language of Money...

When I was young
I had a dream-
To fall in love
On distant shores.

My teachers said to me
"You need
To learn the language
-It opens doors".

If local cultures
You respect,
The people will
Appreciate it-

You will have friends
And go on dates,
And you will never
Be frustrated.

And then I bought
A Spanish book
To help me learn
That graceful tongue.

I then that project
Undertook-
I studied hard,
I studied long.

And then in Spanish
I became
A fluent speaker
In a year.

I spoke it well
And felt no shame
To make myself
To others clear.

And to a sultry land
I went.
To fall in love
I hoped immensely,

With swarthy maidens,
Hand in hand,
Walk on the beach
And kiss intensely.

But even though
In Espanol
I could converse,
I did not score.

If fact, I kissed
No one at all
And moped alone
Upon the shore.

"What was the problem?"
You will ask.
You see, it wasn't
My appearance

Or language...that
Was one such task
That needs no tongue
Or perseverance...

I saw some other
Tourists there
That spoke
No Spanish, not a word.

And they were fat
And had no hair,
Each one just looking
Like a nurd.

But boy, each one
Would have a girl
That made me boil
With jealous fury.

In Spanish dances
They would whirl,
Their noses
In their breasts
They'd bury.

Why, why not me?
I'm handsome,
Young,
And I speak Spanish
Like a native,

I 'm kind
And gentle, not high-strung,
And friendly, humble
And creative.

But that was not
What those girls
Would look for in
A Gringo tourist-

I had no job
No cash, no pearls-
In fact, I was among
The poorest.

And since no money
They could smell,
Down their noises
At me they sneered,

Although I spoke
The Spanish well
Like one big loser
I appeared

To most of them.
So I went back
And learned my lesson
Pretty well:

In poorer countries
It's your jack
And not the language
That gets the belle.

Teaching Pigs How to Fly ( sing to the tune of- I'd like to teach the world to sing)

You want to teach your pigs to fly
But they just won't learn-
No matter how hard you try
Those wings they just can't earn!

You'd like to teach your pigs to sing
And play the violin,
But they just wouldn't do those things
So much to your chagrin.

You thought it might be your technique-
The lack of teaching skills
Could be the reason that a pig
Won't answer to your drills.

You went to teaching seminars
And bought some training books
To make your hoggies movie stars
And engineers and cooks.

You try to make them eat with fork
And say: "Good morning", too,
But it just looks that only pork
They can produce for you.

Don't blame yourself if oinking pigs
Don't want to learn to fly,
As all day long in slop they dig
While you still edify.

But on the other hand, you are
The one who must be blamed,
For you will never get too far,
And only be ashamed

If you attempt to educate
An animal whose lot
Is to be served upon a plate
Or boiled inside a pot.
.........................................

Abusive Boss

My boss is one abusive pr!ck.
He treats me like I am some kind of hick.
He tells me I am dumb and stupid and all that,
And that I'm irresponsible and also, fat.

He pays me wages that are meager,
And then expects me to be eager
To work my butt off for that small amount.
He thinks I am his serf and he- some kind of Count.

One day my patience will reach its end-
As soon as on his wages I no longer must depend,
He'll get a real taste of this man's sass:
I'll tell him: " Take your job and stick it up your a$$!"
..............................................................................

Flower in the Prison Yard

Few things in life can ever be so very hard
As bursting forth a flower in the prison yard;
Surrounded by surly walls and iron discipline
A thing of beauty ringed by the obscene.

No butterflies or bees will land upon your face,
No other flowers to appreciate your grace;
Just grey and scornful scowls everywhere.
To be a flower in a place like this is most unfair.

You'll bloom and open up your petals wide
Hoping that nature love and friendship can provide,
But only silence and emptiness will heed your call
To be a flower in the prison yard ain't good at all.

So many delicate and gentle wights amongst us all
Exist like flowers trapped behind a grimy wall,
Whose blossoming finds no response from soulless souls,
Who scorn and laugh at their hopes and goals.

We, humans, have no roots to keep us down fast,
And we can move around the world that's vast,
And if your qualities do not attract regard
No need to be a flower in the prison yard.

Uproot yourself and go where other flowers dwell,
Where bees and other insects will your petals smell,
Where joy by sullenness and snit is never marred,
Where you won't be a flower in the prison yard.

................................................................

Freedom by Money

We only seem to be as free
As our bank accounts let us be,
And the degrees of freedom fluctuate
With ups and downs of your savings rate.

A lot of money gives you elbow space
To better move within the ol' rat race,
And even out of it you then can move,
While other live and perish in its groove.

The money is the fifth dimension
To help you move within the other four.
May you be bless't to have a big, fat pension
To give you freedom now, and evermore.

.................................................................

Unwanted

To be unwanted isn't something awful
For if we aren't on somebody's menu list,
We thus may not be drawn into affairs unlawful
Or placed beneath that someone's heavy fist.

To be unwanted by society is not so gloomy
It may just be that we are left alone
To be ourselves, in private space that's roomy,
Where solitude becomes a precious stone.

To be unneeded means- we're not exploited
And sundry parasites won' t bleed us dry,
"Unwanted" means they just will be avoided,
As long as they leech others, should we cry?

Unwanted means: at peace and undisrupted,
Un-bother'd, un-disturbed and un-confused.
With rigid canons un-imposed and un-adopted,
We'll stay serene, undaunted and un-used.

.............................................................

Too old to live my dreams


They say that if you ever don't succeed,
Then you should try and try and try again
So that your efforts, propped by healthy greed,
Would make you one celebratory man.

I failed and failed, and tried and tried again,
And failed again, and kept again on trying,
While boyhood, youth and half of my life-span
Into eternity by me went flying.

I tried hard again, and saved, and worked,
And failed again and started bravely over.
Old Age in secret by my side did lurk
And leaped and clung to me just like a lover.

And then my dreams, I, in the end, attained,
But I was now too old to taste them fully,
My head was now with greying hair maned,
My phallus shrunk, my hands would shake, unruly.

And now I'm bent under the weight of years,
And I can hardly walk without a stick,
But I am loved by greedy bank cashiers,
And cemetery agents think I'm chic.

The moral of the tale is rather clear:
Don't live just for some fuzzy future date;
Enjoy today as well, without fear,
Lest you end up with comparable fate.

........................................................

They say that it's not me you love...

They say to me that it' not me you love,
But things that I am in possession of,
My bank accounts, bonds, and all my cash,
My diamonds and, then, my secret stash.

So be it, I shall say, for it's not you I love,
But things that you are, too, possessant of:
Your silky thighs, your springy nipples, and
The way they make my hair stand on end.

So what if it's not people that we love,
And that important things aside we shove,
Enjoy my money, babe, while I'm alive
As your affection you for me contrive.

I shall contrive my love for you as well,
As I enjoy your sweet female smell,
Your silky passages, your taut and swelling chest,
A deal like that with you just makes me bless't.

For paper, metals, power and such things,
I got a feast of meat that's fit for kings,
So what if it's not me you love, they say,
I got my money's worth, and that's Okay.
.........................................

Irony of Achievement

Everything in life requires
A long long time to achieve-
Dealing with liars, burning tires,
Finding buyers,
Continuing to believe,
Setbacks galore,
Rebound and roar.
Rebuild from scratch again.
Stand up and attain
The goal.
Grind your teeth, gnaw like a mole,
And, after a tiresome war,
You get what you want,
Go ahead and flaunt,
Except that you want it no more.

................................................................
Nullification of Reward and Punishment?

They say that if you give sincerely,
Then Heavens ,with rewards , will shower you,
How'ver, if you merely
Think of rewards; then they will not come true.
Be selfless, and do not expect repayment,
When reaping boons, one cannot be a claimant.
So if good things you do and think of a reward,
Your deeds in heavens' books will not be scor'd.

The following doeth beg my question very much,
As in my hand a horrid weapon I do clutch:
Now, if I steal and kill and harm and maim,
Insult and hurt a man, a child and a dame,
And take away possessions, hopes and dreams,
Destroy, and do all evil deeds to great extremes,
But while committing mayhem and destruction,
I think consistently of punishment and negative reaction,
That I will get from heavens, very soon,
For being one horrific evil goon,
And if I masochistically expect a castigation,

Will it then also be unscored, and I- avoid damnation?

Does not it follow logically that if you seek rewards
Your insincerity will swiftly wipe'em out
So , if you seek chastisement and expect great hurts,
You may end up not feeling heaven's clout?

....................................
Garden of Eden

The Garden of Eden
Is evenly spread
All over the Earth.
Few things are forbidden
There's everything in it,
All mirth and no dearth.

[momopi]

No Perfect Place.
<snip>
And what is thick in one place, in another will be
thin-

I like this poem, it reminds me of what a girl told me once in culinary school:

"Skinny girls are bitchy, because she sees the cake and can't eat it and stay thin."

"Fat girls are bitchy, because they saw the cake and ate it, and now they're fat and bitter."