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Best Poems Written by Miguel Mendoza

Below are the all-time best Miguel Mendoza poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Miguel Mendoza Poem

A Kiss On Vj Day

"Times Square was magnet to rejoicing
hearts, as mine was on that day the victors 
came. With roses, red, as were perhaps,
my cheeks, I vowed each bloom for
every home-come valiant there I'd see."

"I see her still despite the sixty years,
a taintless angel clutching there a bunch
of roses, red, as were her lips, a pair of
magnets that had drawn me close and
closer yet, and in a flash, the kiss."

"The kiss, a flash of light, and all from
senses blotted out, save for warm, tender
lips on mine, my body backward bent
in sweet surrender held by arms, the scent
of roses crushed between our breasts."

"Our breasts thus pressed, the roses in
between; how long did we remain thus
still in time? For but a span of breath
commingled, held? A moment's measure
of twined heartbeats kept in trance?"

"In swooning trance, then rudely snapped
out from by surging mass, rejoicing river
crowd, there wrenching him away, and me,
still stunned, forgetting there to hand him
but a single, breast-pressed rose."

"A single rose, if but to press to lips, or
in between the pages of a book held dear,
a keepsake from an angel kissed but with
no name to call in sleep-failed nights,
for failing there to even give my name."

"My name, I wish I had the sense there
but to whisper to his ear then yet so close.
Perhaps, it would have been the key 
to worlds away from lonely wards and
wakeful nights with just the sick with me."

"With me is but the memory of lips, their
warmth the years have deftly dimmed;
that kiss, a quick-eyed lens man stilled, now
wrought a lifelike replica of vanished time,
one budding love rose crushed by fickle fate."

Details | Miguel Mendoza Poem

To Bend the Date Palm

Know that you can't bend
the date palm down on knees
and crouching meekness like
supliant pines bent low by 
brazen hands and bronze 
wires wound on 
kiln-glazed
vase.

Know it will 
with straight trunk,
task your patience, will
and power, ere it lays
down on the sun-scorched
sands its straight-ribbed,
lethal-bladed leaves.

Know for sure, 
there's grace and beauty
in a bonsai-ed tree 
to quench your thirsting
heart. Alas! for dates,
for always, you will scale
the heights to harvest 
sweetness hungered for, 
or be just there content
with dust-caked windfall
strewn on desert dunes.

Details | Miguel Mendoza Poem

The Brave Bear and the Brown-Haired Boy

When bombs rained down a neighborhood
In Shiah, south Beirut one night
A brown haired boy tight clutched his toy,
A cuddly brown-furred bear, in fright.

And sobbing through the roaring din,
He whispered to his cuddly friend:
"Oh, Teddy, Teddy, hold me tight,
And stay until the bombings end."

The cuddly bear then softly spoke:
"My little friend, be not afraid.
Just hold my hand, and never cry,
We'll go to where all toys are made."

"We'll ride a fast, green, chugging train
That goes to Cave of Childhood Joy,
Just hold on tight and walk with me."
He told the brown-haired little boy.

And toddling off, they left in haste
To board the waiting silent train,
That left the station right on time
When all the other kids were in.

It softly chugged through tunnel bright,
Then reached the Cave of Childhood Joy.
All kinds of good things, there they saw,
And everywhere a brand new toy!

There, too, were dancing ice cream cones,
Brown trees with leaves of chocolate,
A bluebird singing on a branch:
"You're welcome all to choose and eat."

They did, and drank sweet soda pop
From spring they saw there flowing by;
They played on swings with silver chains,
While ponies neighed sweet lullaby.

Some drank fresh milk from gleaming cups,
And others picked sweet berries pink,
While others ate cream puffs so soft,
All fears just vanished in a blink.

The bear then told his little friend:
"I'll go to guard the tunnel door,
To stop the ants from getting in."
He left, and couldn't tell him more.

He hurried out that joyous place,
To bravely take his sentry post,
But bombs rained down the tunnel door
The entrance got, with rubble, lost.

And when rescuers came in haste,
To search through rubble for the boy,
They didn't find a trace of him,
But just his brave and cuddly toy.

Details | Miguel Mendoza Poem

Madonna of the Rubble

Forgetting is a vain refugee camp,
    Madonna, for still these walls get
    breached, amidst the daily, frenzied
    barter of honed art for bread,

While slaking arid, thirsty hours with
    bits of loving, or even in deep sleep's
    opiate-laced salve; your shrill wail
    ricochets on palisades of silence,

Wrecking dreams, when your arms
    thrust out, ghost-like haunt heart's
    corridors to pained remembrance
    of your hearth bulldozed to jagged

Rubble, grating deep your ample
    loins that Gaza noon of nightmare,
    hooking deeper yet the piercing
    scythes of questions as regards

Your fate and of your son's. Again,
    the mind turns, tosses on this bed
    of dusty shards and tear-anointed
    debris as you once more scream

Your picture-perfect, front-page, 
    silent pain, yet made more potent 
    than all sounds heard down old 
    Palestine when wailing, wreathed

The wretched walls bedaubed with blood
    of innocents, when wanton death and
    mayhem, too, by Herod's mighty hand
    decreed, made firm, held sway.

Details | Miguel Mendoza Poem

Dreaming of Babylon

Hand of power, heart of whimsy, tamer of
mighty rivers. Rivers of initial learning,
nurturer of ancient gardens, gardens in

their fabled beauty hanging yet in utter
freshness in the fecund hearts of poets.
Poet at heart cooped solitary, hostage of

life's fickle fortune. Fortune dreamed
with vanished glories still as green as
tendrils twining. Twining on to memories

heart-held, held while tending patch of
foliage, muttering through graying mustache,
"You're soft muffins, crumbly cookies,

munchies in my white cell circle; circle
stony though surrounds me, I'm still palm tree,
brave, steadfast; that you're not, but bush."

Details | Miguel Mendoza Poem

Prowling Through a Whore House

PROWLING THROUGH A WHORE HOUSE

Alone,
in heat, I prowled
my whore house, scanned
the faces of the ever-willing ones
awaiting for my picking.

“Heck, no!
I’ve had them all,”
I said. “Have even come for some
of them again and yet again
for want of something new.”

Off to another
whore house then to prowl,
and trawl, then found a plump one, 
thin one, and another in between, 
paid price for take-home beauties, 
“Hah! Monogamy go hang!” I said.

An orgy 
dreamed and hungered for, 
the licking, ravishing, caressing
through a dark night, senses-lit
and straight up till late morning, 
heavy-lidded, sheets in disarray, 
weary, after all assumed positions
still not wanting to let go
first wanton beauty in my arms.

Ah!
Two more books to go!

Details | Miguel Mendoza Poem

Ozymandias Ii

A modern herald in an ancient land
Announced to whole world this: "A massive bronze
Hand lies beneath some lofty columns grand;
Nearby, a cracked and spit-drenched head, so huge,
The mustached lips yet primed for stern command,
Cold eyes that espied what passions were unleashed
From now freed hearts years-cooped in vise-like grip
Of this same hand but just a while past raised,
Atop a marble pedestal stripped bare
Of titles. Once his very name, but heard
Made subjects cower, freeze, in utter fear!
Soon will this hollow head be wracked by rust,
So, too, this hand that ruled twin rivers lair,
While toppling slowly hailed the waiting dust."