Jogging the Mind

A place for poetry and pondering.

Verse Poem 26

The summer has arrived but a tide of optimism has yet to wash over me. Perhaps in a few weeks I will have nature or ocean poetry for you, for now, it’s a political rant that rhymes. It’s like other political rants except this one sounds pleasant to read aloud. Oh, and it’s also correct because I wrote it! Just kidding…unless? Anyway, let me know what you think if you decide to read it.

The Circle Jerking Winners’ Club
At the Circle Jerking Winners’ Club, we
Batter our butlers and butter up those
Reporters, the keepers of the order,
The porters to us—the hoarders—they
Tell our tall tales, selling storied details
Depicting your world going off the rails,
Railing against the farmer, the harmer
Of the American way, their under-the-table-pay—
A migrant crime! Never mind that we
Need our shadow economy, our illegal
Monetary gain while we blame the pain 
On the farmer, crafting dishonest armor 
To ward off the ponderer—do not think
About us, we are above such fuss, 
All of us: we have defied America’s trust,
Built the trust fund that shunned that
Meritocracy we claim exists in this little
Democracy—or rather, plutocracy—
We embrace our hypocrisy because,
Honestly, morality is more of a mentality
For you: the farmer, the plumber, the
Electrician, technician, mortician—morality
Is your mission, your only volition, 
And we control its definition; law and order
Is the border between us, the narrow
Corridor keeping you in line—avert
That fine? Keep in mind, we can assign 
Jail time, so continue your kindness and
Demonstrate your blindness to our 
Highness: be nice to us, you cannot 
Fight us, we are Midas and you are detritus
At the Circle Jerking Winners’ Club.

July 13, 2026

America, American, But who am I referring to?, commentary, democracy, ego, media, meritocracy, plutocracy, poem, poetry, politics, self-aggrandizing, verse

Verse Poem 25

This week is teacher appreciate week. At the risk of revealing too much about myself, I am a public school teacher in New Jersey. This is important only because the following poem references Genesis which is just an application educators/administrators use to record pretty much everything important that goes on in school. I enjoy teaching but this week we received sleeved bagels and expired cookies from Costco from our administration. Neat. That, among other things, inspired this poem. Anyway, let me know what you think if you decide to read it.

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! 
The nature of educational nomenclature
Is as principled as my principal, which
Is to say, not at all--I mean, it’s fine to call 
Those Fs Ds, there were difficulties!
In fact, the teacher is not a preacher, our 
Grades are not gospel, so why be hostile?
Indeed, marking tardiness is just foolhardiness,
Why crusade when they’ll be cross with you?
And Genesis is Jersey’s nemesis--the nebulous
Application that is the administration’s 
Obfuscation operation, disappearing 
Writeups, clearing tardies, and smearing
The parties that care, tearing apart these
Teachers and those cheering them on from
The bleachers--graduation’s become a
Summation of parental menstruation, 
Rather than a demonstration of ability, or
Even stability; the parents’ complaint is the
Taint of merit, and invokes the parrot response:
Congratulations, you passed! All half-assed
Work is worthy, it’s not mercy, it’s for her, see?
A student’s feelings are the only real things,
Marks are a farce, designed to make an arse
Of them--it’s unreasonable to expect the feasible,
The achievable is unreachable, so it’s best to 
Make the student unimpeachable--after all, 
Our children are the future!

May 9, 2026

i really do love teaching but the system is awful, new jersey, nj, poem, poetry, politics, satire, teach, teacher, teacher appreciation, teacher appreciation week, teaching, verse

Verse Poem 24

I wrote this and have not edited it. I have not posted much even though I have hundreds of poems unpublished here. I suppose you could say that I've been busy but I guess it's more unwell. I liked this poem even though it's all out of whack. Anyway, let me know what you think if you decide to read it.

I Am the People Simulator
Emulating humanity and fooling myself to sanity,
Thinking I was a sympathetic soul when I'm
Phrenetic, just soiled, roiled up, empathetic—
Like some sympathy sickness, all fidgety 
Waiting for the other shoe to wear 
But when I'm clad, in your clothes, I’m glad—
Even if you are sad there is sense in your
Sense such that I will drink in like a potion,
A concoction of antitoxin, my blood breathes
In your veins as I take the reigns—you
Sustain me and I can't help but drain the
Meaning, the dreaming, from your mind, kind
Of theming my thoughts into little snapshots:
Purpose, joy, love, hatred, until I have an inflated
Sense of you, a cognitive dissonance of
Undeniable resonance, a personal irrelevance
That is justified evidence that I am not who I should be—
But when I am you, and I've stolen your view,
Your valor, and your value, this I shall use
As the basis of my baseless homeostasis—
A sad sack of flesh fleshing you out,
Empathetic, sympathy sick, sucking out
The blood until I flood my veins with you,
Until I am drunk and you are dead or have shrunk
Back from yourself and lack the legitimacy of
Emotional intimacy because it belongs to both of 
Us, the whole of us, the goal of us—you and me—
Will be completely one because I will have already won,
No longer sick and mixed up but fixed up—fixed on you.

March 18, 2026

doppelganger, I am become you, mental health, ocd, poem, poetry, vampire, verse

Verse Poem 23

This morning there was a regime change. This year is the 2026 Midterm Election in United States of America. In the spirit of democracy and absolute insanity, here’s a poem to inaugurate 2026. Anyway, let me know what you think if you decide to read it.

This is an Election Year
And you’ve gone crazy, forgetting 
saints and forgiving demons, 
resurrecting legions of liars
then watching frothing mouths
start stampedes in Gadsden
while bucking the flag—those
asses and elephants make
flagrant faux-pas as they rule
and rue our days, turning us 
unto ourselves as Brutus; 
our Ides of March are the march of
idles worshiping idols—
we are the greatest of all
American assassinations,
the theatrically suicidal 
society stabbing itself
and claiming victory while
bleeding red white and blue—
this is an election year,
and honesty’s taboo, riots
aren’t new, we don’t know what’s
true, yet the Republic rests 
on you.

January 3, 2026

2026 elections, 2026 midterms, election year, midterms, poem, poetry, politics, regime change, Venezuela, verse, What a year

Verse Poem 22

To hell with sequence, I say! My wife had surgery recently and it tore me apart–she is totally fine but my OCD was absolutely insane, hence the delay. So, I wrote this poem while in a very strange mood and it doesn’t sound like anything typical. I will try to post something more “typical” next week, but, as I said, to hell with sequence!, so who knows? Anyway, let me know what you think about this poem if you decide to read it.

I Crave a Nest in the Wall
Burrowed within the softest fiberglass,
Surrounded by newspaper, yarn scraps,
And twigs as fine as string, nestled as a
Singing bowl of my silence, echoing 
Only the ringing in my ears, what’s left
Of conversations in the past life:
Piercing, stinging, prodding—just
A background buzzing reminder
That my life remains, yet, subdued,
Warmed, cocooned, now close to you. 

I would watch you stare at our wall, alone,
Comforted by mutual loneliness—
The fact of our lives, intertwined and
Untouchable—my feeling for you will remain
Ethereal, even as you demystify yourself
In the mundane, becoming naked and 
More beautiful than I have words for,
And when you dress, I will have nothing
But the lies you give to your friends,
And family, whatever is left of them. 

When you are gone, I will collect
The fragments of your soul, trinkets
You will have forgotten, been unmarried to;
Ribbons, flecks of food, flaxen locks,
While whispering my warding mantra
I will take selfishly but selflessly enough
That I was never there, just invisible feet which
Cannot wake the dog; I undisturb your
Dwelling, telling the echoing walls all
The secrets you've hidden from yourself. 

I will know when you return from work
And will be excited not to kiss you
But love you all the more as you undress,
Destress, and express an honesty which
We both were ignorant of before this day—
I will chitter in the walls with excitement
But I know you'll call an exterminator 
If you were to find me, so I lay upon my nest
Of your unmissed things and watch, 
Waiting for you to forget about me—
So that we can both co-exist in peace.

December 3, 2025

empathy, love, nest, not even sure what to say about this, observation, poem, poems, poet, poetry, secret, secrets, true love, truth, truths, understanding, verse, weird, writing

Verse Poem 21

I’m breaking sequence again but I had this sort revelation of perception recently. I’ve known this is true for sometime but something just sort of clicked during this conversation about the many perceptions of life and how different it can be with versus without mental illness. Anyway, let me know what you think about this poem if you decide to read it.

Good News!
Have you been informed that not everyone
Cries for 4 hours at a time, that it is somewhat atypical
To be paralyzed in the prone position for 13 hours,
To fall asleep, spend another 14 hours fetally, feebly,
And weepily grinding your soul to its core through
Death threats (as suicidal ideation and idealization),
To feel the affirmation of guilt that all you’ve built, loved, and
Been loved by will cry, if you were to die, so you don’t die,
But hope that’s somehow a lie and stay lying down until
You go to work on Monday and smile and laugh,
Love and desire, feel empathy, and aspire, all while 
You conspire to hide how desperately depressed you are-- 
That it’s actually not normal to not accept sympathy because you
Seem a symphony of perfection and production, not self-
Destruction, but a modicum of a man, coworker, boss, friend,
Yet feel a fiend and later scream out your self-esteem until
Your throat is numb, driving and barely deciding not to hear
The call of the void chiding you, confiding in you, dividing you, 
Yet you take the exit not the tree at 124 mph knowing that 
The same sweat-soaked, yellowed sheet and mattress
Will be the same ones you cry yourself to sleep in
Again, and again, and again, and again, and again, forever--
Did you know that not everyone does that?

October 7, 2025

bad news, day in the life, facades, good news, hopefully you don’t live like this anymore, instability, life with anxiety, living life, masks, mental health, mental illness, ocd, poem, poetry, verse

Verse Poem 20

Hello all,

This is not the next in the sequence of 5, I’ll get back to them soon, but I wrote this the other day and it’s a uplifting, sort of, kind of poem, which is a nice change. I hesitate to say uplifting though because I don’t think it’s all completely positive, it’s just a narrative on the progress of medication and my experience with it thus far. Anyway, let me know what you think about this poem if you decide to read it.

Best,

JCO

Medicated
Now that obsessive compulsions are ordered,
And the disorder’s replaced by this new world order,
I’m no longer a hoarder of intrusive thought,
Exclusive only to abuses which made me seclusive;
Now obsessions are obfuscated while I’m sedated
On Busbars--I’m not lurking in bars, or driving cars
Too quick to silence the bitch, to satiate that itch
To lock the door, to do better and more, more, more;
Now that compulsions have faced their expulsion,
I am an emulsion of meditation and healthy contemplation,
No longer complacent in the impatient hatred of 
Nascent thoughts that robots ought to call cold;
Now intrusive intrusions are mostly delusions,
Fluvox fought them and got them gone, though
My doubt never counts them out—but little bouts
Of insanity are just my vanity and lack of faith in my humanity;
Medication is my healthy manifestation, my mind’s
Salvation from the temptation, the devastation of
OCD and the actuality of my mentality without it.

September 26, 2025

busbars, commentary, compulsions, disordered thinking, fluvoxamine, intrusive thoughts, medicated, medication, mental health, obsessions, obsessive compulsive disorder, ocd, poem, poetry, verse

Verse Poem 19

Hello all,

This is the next of the sequence of 5 poems I like. I wrote this after getting too drunk but, luckily, I did not suffer quite as terribly as the subject of this–quite intense–poem. Anyway, let me know what you think if you decide to read it.

Best,

JCO

B.A.C or Blood Alcohol Conflict
I’m a puddle of blood scabbed pale,
An erected defect of dogpiling flesh, 
Muscle, and bone--a biology of bile,
Spit, and shit laying in the aisle, leaking sex 
And fumigating pheromones wet to the touch; 
I’m a moistened madness of heavy breasts, 
Dark desire—feverish, with a fire inside, 
A fading red-hot coal lump barrumping on,
Thumping, humping, hoping to fill ethylated veins
Feigning life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, 
Pumping a sappy mess through spidered flesh 
Which bursts as boils fresh on a face pocked by 
Pustules picked and plucked--totally fucked--
A metabolic cholic frolics about my gut, 
Discharging discharge in a deluge—
My drunken delusion this was some sort of 
Solution is now my dissolution, 
As saturated blood is supersaturated, 
And as my life is evaporated:
Inebriated, I aspirate until 
Asphyxiated, still completely 
fixated on anything 
else.

September 10, 2025

a poem for how sick the world is, Alcohol, BAC, blackout, Blood Alcohol Content, consequences, dead, drinking, drunk, ethanol, glutton, gluttony, poem, poetry, too much, verse

Prose Poem 7
Hello all,

I wrote a bunch of really gross and disturbing poems recently and I’m really a very big fan of all of them, which is unusual. Typically, I am very critical of my own work and only like 1 poem of every 10 but I like all 5 I wrote in the last month or so. This is the only prose poem and probably the most intensely sexual (and I think a little silly too), so this one is sort of unique. Anyway, let me know what you think about this poem if you decide to read it.

Best,

JCO
```
I Think I Love You
I want to squeeze you until you squelch and squeal, squeak inhuman biology from your squishy anatomy, suffocate those breasts with my suctioned zeal, hear the veiny surround sound of swishing Capulet platelets, the blood of my Montague-y fascination, our gooey manifestation--I want my nostrils streaming, squishing, squelching into your supple sternum, cracking under pressure, until my embrace destroys my face, your spine squeegees like a towel twisted as my fisted fingers, laced, crush closer to my face, and then at last  I hear your deathly embrace as there is no space left between us.
```
September 5, 2025

embrace, hug, intense, juliet, love, love poem, poem, poetry, prose, prose poem, romeo, romeo and juliet alliteration, sex, sexual, squeeze, too much lol
Verse Poem 18
Hello all,

I got married, went on my honey moon, and spent a lovely summer with my wife. That’s why I have not been posting at all the last 2 months–but I am happy to get back into it. I wrote several poems in the last few months and edited a few short stories I’m working on but I decided to post something a little different. This is a poem I wrote in high school or very early on in college about a regretful marriage and I post it now because I feel the complete, absolute opposite sentiment of this poem, thank God. Anyway, let me know what you think about this poem if you decide to read it.

Best,

JCO
```
Eternal Regret
With breath the smell of fresh-laid dung, 
A loving kiss I grant resistant; 
While charming is her serpent tongue, 
I often wish it keeps quite distant; 
A face of green, and boiled strewn, 
She leaks and reeks but all to often; 
And in the silver gleaming moon, 
I dream, I dream, she finds a coffin; 
I know, I know she troubles so, 
With that wretched hair and putrid stare, 
That widdle-waddle of a sow, 
But yes, you’re right, my cross to bear: 

Her presence will always linger 
For I put the ring on her finger.
```
August 25, 2025

eternity, fat, gross, love, marriage, married, poem, poetry, regret, ring, Shakespearian sonnet, sonnet, stinky, technically not iambic pentameter but whos counting?, ugly, verse