A syllable count
holds no doubts
the green leaf,
will turn to red
and then to brown
and crispy
in just one hand
gets crushed
released
and its then
the beauty
of something
becomes
nothing.....
We never
appreciated
the it....
Something
more than we
saw as
shining
a path founded
and gently
holding hands
kindly
of your castle
left in the sands.
My inner child
I hate the trembling
of this conscious
of my young cheeks
I wish suffered
the least.
But I swallow this
of the harrowing
of no built of bliss
but
how I came to miss....
Days I didn't sleep
for most of the days
of built we are of clay
and knocked of hay
I know my ways,
the scars I caused
I am a garden hose,
a killing
of a baby
as I sleep
in my dreams.
I hate
the welcoming
to this
reality,
scars
are harrowing
and I do not believe
you too
are over this.
I was always obsessively
full of painful anxiety
and blood of wishing,
I can scream,
but blood never washes off.
A something
in the wave of distressing
a tidal wave of hope-lessly
and its full of their hate
and my own backyard
of retaliation,
of why I sleep
for hours of eighteen
Why can't I
just live in my dreams?
Will I be able to
if I spill the blood
of the guilt
of my painful momentum?
I never felt joy,
until my lights were out,
and my fantasies
were true events
as I remembered
and now the holy
of such remembered faces,
Jesus and I never
had a good
relationship.
I feel my soul,
is escaping to joys
of their misery
and they won't
pretend,
I meant anything
in this damn world
Its getting worse.
Stars fall into cereal boxes
that we munch and crunch
without a spare for dresses
or a flirt as we were kids..
We see nothing
but the innocence
we were meant to be.
The hunters chase after foxes
with a shadow and a hunch
to spill the red of messiness,
and a strange to rid...
the world of something
so beautiful......
silence isn't homely
but utmost sincerely
of the line that ends.
justice for someone,
I can't pretend
to be on the mend
of this conscious.
I hurt and I destroy
like a heat seeking
missile of no phony.
The mistakes are not mine,
it was the creation of I.
I woke up these demons
and I can't control them.
Excuses are blasphemy
I made on a whim.
How justice should fall
like a triggering
of games of dominoes.
I am happy to lose.
Least I could do....
I look in a mirror
and see the severing
and for once,
I see her suffering....
Your heart has a yearning
And a burning desire
To share what you’re learning
Like voices of a choir
Small pieces of paper
With the things you have thought
A con or a caper
How the villain was caught
No time is a wrong time
If you wake up at night
With a thought of a rhyme
Then you know you must write
Watching movies with you
Your friends do not enjoy
For you catch every clue
And discern every ploy
And time seems to fly by
When you sit down to write
With that glint in your eye
There is no end in sight
You longed for the teacher
To ask each for a story
You wrote down your feature
Of our flag called, “Old Glory”
Friends with the dictionary
Filled with word after word
To some it seemed scary
When the big words they heard
But not to the writer
You knew you’d become
A reader delighter
You knew you’d please some
So write on forever
As your stories you tell
A writer so clever
Right inside you doth dwell
The stench of endless days clings to my name;
My folly, like a rust, but stings not him.
A meek heart paid for by relentless blame,
Youth’s bitter wine- a draught forever grim.
Past twilights reel in cadences untrue,
I fall, a penitent within the flame;
Bound to repentance- ash where roses grew,
My voice, the echo of a sullied name.
O sickle, strike the valleys we once promised,
Lay low the ghosts that haunt my dwindled shore.
Let golden breaths on iron fleece be kissed,
And singe the thought that kept me wanting more.
So let the world unspool what once I wore,
That even ruin might return me pure.
Beat beat beats
The Tom Tom of the drums
Tom yom Tom Tom Tom Tom
Sounding beats the drum
9/17/25
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr.2025
Beat beat beats
The Tom Tom of the drums
Tom yom Tom Tom Tom Tom
Sounding beats the drum
9/17/25
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr.2025
step …
across the sill
this haunted house
walls of torn paper, dripping
crumbling plaster ceilings
hanging like rotten vines on a gaunt
and bony frame
dark, broken windows, the
empty eyes that stare -
once aglow with
the bright from within
life and light … and love
made a home
until …
just an ember -
one flame of your kiss -
and it was gutted
burned raw and ruined
with no thought to what filled these rooms
or graced the facades
or warmed the meager marrow …
now all phantoms
howling in the barren halls
sodden and saddened
for sake of the abandoned -
the threadbare -
dilapidated … desolate
welcome to the
vacancy …
your fool.
Copyright © 2023 Gregory Richard Barden
( artwork is a number two pencil sketch of the cottage from “Summer of ‘42” by the poet )
for fun we wore a blindfold
but clammy fears left heart cold
in silence thought veil thinned out
light restored, erased was doubt
Sometimes with increased wealth
We have to give much more of ourselves
as life happens we react
then sense consciousness contract
which is good because we learn
to overcome ego’s burn
though life seems like a circus
we are here for a purpose
and when love’s flame is steady
to meet God we are ready
Desperation, draw me not like magnets pull
But once again let saneness possess me in full
Do not ravage me like a loin upon its prey
Block not the seeds of thoughts that come to save the day
Like limbs of a tree in the presence of a gale force wind
The heavy weight of thy encumbrance makes me bend
As a cookie being crushed underneath a fisted hand
Sapping my power, I become a broken man
Hope beyond my greatest self, suddenly appears
Dashing all desperate thoughts, releasing all my fears
Focused like a camera’s lens, my eyes see a way
Attitude and mindful thought, must have their say
Ideals forming one by one, possibilities
Desperation lost this time, healed is my choice of realities
Constance's contest, "Dream Within A Dream". Poem written: 09/14/2025
Falling, falling, gliding, boom~ land
My dream overtook me
Wonder enveloped through night's arms
Taking me home to see
A gentle breeze becomes the muse
Through the endless dark night
Having a dream within a dream
Moonbeams lead to the light
A wand was weaving stars
Their radiant glow kissed like dew
Inspiring my soul's flow
Reach, climb, touch, grasp hold, a breakthrough
Then the silent dawn cracked
I embraced my dreams in quick flight
Results being gob smacked
Now that dew adorns earth's soft face
Dreams revealed my unfinished trip
A journey needs to be taken
A trip within places
That sometimes disgraces
Those silver threads stitched hopes and dreams
Are tattered with broken spaces
Gentle whispers weave light
Inspiring a poet's destined place
From dreams, sunbeams lead to new light
Winds of honest scented
insistence glided my wings
through life’s many dramas.
Raw breezes fragrantly
touched my unsure skin
with soothing perfumes
promising my faith was
not errantly consumed.
I thought, go until I had it,
not go until the path quit
without signs I had tried.
I imagined a target future
sat for my eventual,
precisely aimed, bullseye.
That’s a notion I did covet,
even leaned it towards perfect.
If bottled, wind's cologne could
release sachets of peace to
waft serene blends upon and
through times of disquietude.
Specific Types of Introspection Poems
Definition | What is Introspection in Poetry?
Poems Related to Introspection
contemplation, reflection, soul searching, scrutiny, meditation, rumination, egoism, self absorption, deep thought, self examination, brooding, introversion, heart searching, self observation, self questioning,