by Suzette Richards
Resurrecting Poetry and Forms to Tantalise new Readers
This is not a lament for lost forms....
by Sumaiya Hawsdeen
From a young age, I found my voice in the rhythm and rhyme of poetry....
by Suzette Richards
In my current contest, The Pirouette, I am calling on specific rhyme schemes to be...
by Malabika Ray Choudhury
Dear Soupers,
September has reached her golden midpoint, and here in Canada, dainty flowers still nod...
Every Christmas
I receive
My share
Of gifts!
And,
I wonder
How Santa
Knows
What
I need most.
My Santa
Does not come
All the way
From Greenland
Riding a Reindeer Sleigh!
He does not
Come in
Red Santa costumes
But in ordinary,
Everyday clothing
Because
My Santa is not one
But many!
They are
My relatives
And, friends!
Santa need not
Be a person
In red costume!
Santa
Could be anyone
Bringing gifts
And, good cheer
To one and all
During
The Christmas Season…
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Our family heartbroken when my father died
Looking back don't know how we survived
Must be an invisible hand that was our guide
Staying with strangers I swallowed my pride
Living at mercy of those who could provide
Looking back don't know how we survived
Dreaming of college quite starry eyed
Yearning to succeed as my mother advised
Living at mercy of those who could provide
A long time our family collectively cried
The essence of survival took us on a ride
Yearning to succeed as my mother advised
Endurance won over putting hurdles aside
Took years but we made it to the other side
The essence of survival took us on a ride
Don't wish on anyone such unwanted slide
Our family heartbroken when my father died
Took years but we made it to the other side
Must be an invisible hand that was our guide
August 28, 2017
Placed 2nd: I'm a Survivor
Sponsor: Julie Rodeheaver
Seducing Evil No More
Perhaps at the days complete
This date with death shall not
prove to be deadbeat.
The outcome has proven quite concrete.
Tragedies that shades
itself behind deaths eyes
piercing to contaminate
like some blastomycete:
Ready to enter my blood to do some harm.
like some invading fungi who does not laugh
at the joke, but at the joker’s lack of antidotal charm.
As death is now my escort;
Invasion needs no persuasion.
I've awakened myself, to realize such a thought.
Finding my words nesting, in some confessions plot.
That is why I never sympathize with evil.
Abetted, by the fluid allure of death.
Follows me like fresh fish with a trail of flies.
In poetic terms, it’s easy to describe
the evil that is flowing, like sewage in a flood.
Around every corner, I have found,
The hatred from which I strive to hide.
Led me to find a peaceful place near the trees
Where peacefully, I now reside.
Sitting alone with one trusting friend, as
we admire the color of the trees in the quiet.
We meditate and sit in amber silence.
Without anticipation of the judgment of each other.
I’m awaiting in the port of my life for a sign
From the world of those who have departed
For I trust, my beloved, in angels
And in that dead who has rise.
I'm superstitious, that's why I believe in the phantoms
And in the dreams where you appear to me
I see you, my beloved, in a large field of flowers
Beside a forest of oak trees.
A kind of ray lights your face
Like the moon illuminates the earth.
In this night, my love, I wish for my end,
But the death is gone far away.
I gaze into your eyes once again
Your destiny is not to see me at all
I’m isolated in the outside world,
For is no place for me in your grave.
I flutter my right hand's to the sunset
In a farewell I don't want to believe
I'll wait for you at the same time tonight
For it is only in the darkness I trust.
I am sitting on the slab of my soul
Exasperated by my clown-like face,
For me your pallor means a new life,
And from now on, I will be by your side.
The life wants me to be calm and to stay
But tonight I will ask for my death to come
For the boat of my existence has no rudder
Since the day you departed to God.
One red rose stays blushing in my garden
I caught a glimpse of it in the early dawn
On the carpet of green, as a lovely dame it does sway
Flashing hues of contrast on a dull monsoon day
A flower with petals of such delicate contours
Yet sheltered by sharp stinging thorns that pierce
Rain drops dripping off its soft ruddy face
As blood rushing from a wound’s open surface
Fairer far than anything, one can envision
Its petals, woven and spun by angels of heaven
Oh symbol of grace, you rock me in delight,
And in me a thousand poetic fancies ignite!
Placed Second
Nov. 17, 2021
The Rose Poem Contest
Sponsor- Robert James Liguori
Cat Love ©
Don't ruffle my fur that direction! I've got it looking just the way I want.
I love you but I'm very busy today.
Don't move, this is my lap time and I'm very comfy.
Scratch right there, no a little more to the left, a little higher, to the right.
Look what I've brought you--isn't it beautiful? I killed it in the garden.
That's what we're having for dinner?
You need to work on how you pick your friends. I don't like that one and besides he had the nerve to sit in my chair!
I could find a better human, you know, if I put in some effort….
But I guess you'll do…for now.
Dog Love
Pet me, pet me, pet me! Oh boy! A butt rub!
I love you to the ends of the earth and beyond!
I'll just lay here quietly, I won't bother you, as long as I can touch you.
Throw the ball! Throw the ball! Again! Again!
I love my dinner, you're such a good mommy!
'Walkie', 'go outside', 'go for a walk', 'let's go pee-pee'. Yippee! Where's my leash?
I love your friends. That one scratched my ears and told me I was a good dog.
You're home! You're home! Why were you gone so long….it doesn't matter now…You're home!
You're the best human ever….I love you!
Joy unspeakable
That peaceful feeling that you are giving me Lord
The calmness you provide
The knowing that you will make right everything
The right feeling that only you can destine
You gave God
Because I had asked You Father
Thank you God
You are the Father who hears
And answers
You who sees
And gives
You who always grants requests, petitions
To your children
You who always keeps your Word
And brings them to completion
We just need to trust You
That You will fulfill
God , help us trust in You
And plan everything on You
Make our lives revolve around You
You who are the Center of the Universe
Who commands the earth, the air
The very breath that we have
Our very being
Center You for us Lord
Help us keep straight
Our eyes fix on You
You –The Magnificent, The Excellent, The Majestic, The Transcendent
The Eternal, The Ideal, the Absolute, The Ultimate One.
In deepest, darkest depths of my despair
I find myself without a saving grace.
A pendulum of pain prevents my prayer
from rising upward through the dead of space.
Within these walls a war where no one wins
repeats itself just like a worn-out rhyme.
No swain should e’er succumb to swinish sins,
for he who does the crime must do the time.
And yet there was a time I loved her true,
and in those days we dreamt without restraint.
These merry memories now make me rue
a life I should have lived with more constraint.
For now, I dwell inside this cursed abyss,
a mournful soul who misses her sweet kiss.
"Soar Now"
Soar now among angels and rest in God's arms,
free from this world, suffer no more .
Walk in the light and feel the warmth of God's love.
No pain, no worry, you are truly free of earth's bonds.
Soar Now
Your spirit is one with God, and from on high,
may angels comfort you.
Because of you, this world is a better place.
You made life better,
You made people better.
You were a special blessing on this earth .
You brought happiness, joy, love and laughter
as only you could bring.
We look up and we see you in the heavens!
Your face, your smile..... God is beside you.
Your spirit and soul are at peace,
and you are forever free to soar.
SOAR NOW!
on summer worn bench
sits the old man --
statue with flesh
Underwater where sound
carries much farther
the bustling of fish feeding
awakens the whales
tis morning above
frigates are moving
their noise like fright rising
all the sea's creatures
suffer it's passage
from shore into deep water
filling the oceans and seas
noise pollution is deafening
the whales by nature
swim towards the quietus
mass strandings before them
dolphins lead the way
facing an unheard of escape
frigates grow larger
and the new are born to it
the bewailing
that ear splitting deprivation
our cloud of disquiet
at sea level up on it
above the drone of ships
onboard under Cetus
no hue or cry is made of it
the devastating consequences
of 1087 feet per second
beating soundly to extinction
all that lives below
while humans draw power from it.
Like the soothing roar of the ocean, I can feel it
As it skips gently over stones unturn, I yearn to be it
It tickles my nose, ruffles my clothes, and wonders where I've been
I realize in all this running around, I've forgotten my good friend
A friend who held my hand when we were little kids
As we ran and hid from all the silly things we did
Who kissed me on the forehead and dried my tears
When the deepest pain only confirmed my fears
After all these years it still brings me to my knees
That I can listen to the ocean and her breeze
You can travel the four thousand miles of the Nile
to its source and never find it.
You can climb the five highest peaks of the Himalayas
and never recognize it.
You can gaze through the largest telescope
and never see it.
Arthur Sze
To be a part of landscape
From a distance landscape has a
recognizable outline.
A skin mite, grazing fleshy meadows
grotesque microscopic cow,
has no concept of the human form it feeds from.
Just as a mountain in close proximity
is no longer symbolic of its form,
romance and the imagination of it
is reduced to a frozen, physical obstruction
that is a challenge to survival.
The skin mite tumbles, a huge force
has torn it's clawlike hooves from
living apertures, it falls
with flakes of dead turf into a
depthless void, unoticed
by the scratcher,
and the mountain climber sees the
blinding wall of snow that
flashes by him as he falls,
unoticed by the mountain.
When he was a child,
Lost his mother;
Subsequently, her love.
Didn’t even know fully then,
What a loss it was!
Thenceforth searching for it,
Like a man running after a mirage.
Grew up somehow;
Couldn’t find it until now;
In vain were all his attempts.
Other things in life come by twos and threes…,
In place of mother, one can’t get another.
Mother is love! Love is mother!
A Brian Strand July 14 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Brian Strand
Date: 14-07-2021
PLACE : 1st
The fear and the terror,
In the eyes of the people,
who witnessed something,
Very rarely seen.
I look and see the shock,
Of utter unbelievability.
Why are we witnessing,
an evil that has been,
Repeated several times,
in the last thousand years.
The sad part it was predicted
and everyone ignored it.
Thousands have died since.
So is your interpretation War vs. Disease?
One man alone predicted everything.
As they say history has an
idea of repeating itself.
So why did we not listen
to the warning?
"Cry Ugly"
My deepest private searing pain manifests as "Cry Ugly.”
Guttural moans race like a runaway train. The wail crescendos and peaks as a Banshee scream.
Tears race down my face… my nose leaks... snot and tears merge dripping off my chin reminding me of small intermittent waterfalls… I taste salt.
Vain furious attempts to wipe this viscous interloper off my face and out of my eyes... are an abject failure... smearing and smudging it on my cuffs and sleeves.
Insidiously, shame begins its invisible infiltration at the edges of my soul… like carbon monoxide… alarms sound…
My body wracked with sobs crash into gut-wrenching convulsions… segueing into dry heaves... my worst bodily insult to endure.
Dehydration sets in... it's hellish… my eyes are burning red... my tongue starts sticking to the roof of my mouth…
I'm vaguely aware of a bone weary fatigue, like a translucent feline apparition peering around the corner… waiting to pounce… I'm helplessly trapped in "The Twilight Zone."
Another crying jag begins... repeating the cycle... this time dehydrated…
No articulate speech is possible… silently and falsely telling myself I could care less… but I secretly do care.
My shame permeates, thus reinforcing a belief never to allow witnesses…
A tiny voice of hope cries "this is wrong"... I can't make out the words, I feel its faintest vibration… yet unsure of its meaning… I feel it's important...
Gut-wrenching sobs escalate into a silent scream…the Banshee seems to be silent… but it isn't. I'm the only one who hears and feels the scream tear at my throat.o
I can't move... my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth… now I am desperately trying to pry it loose… my voice lost…
I'm doomed waiting for hours and counting the endless seconds... utterly unaware when I subtly slipped into an exhausted lethargic stupor.
Looking back at my self-imposed shame, recognizing its insidious march through my body… gathering recruits, comparing it to carbon monoxide, capturing life sustaining hemoglobin and leaving traces so this poison can insidiously and subliminally metastasize as if it's cancer.
"Cry Ugly" is my private hell to travel alone… refusing to allow witnesses, telling myself lies that I'm protecting them from helpless observation… believing this is the only course available for me to get to its other side…
This is a self-imposed solitary journey… shameful... in truth needs to be shared… so I can survive…
Sherry Barton
July 2021