Should I emulate the master? How dare I do that?
All attempts to imitate, I know, will just fall flat.
Each endeavor, amateurish, surely heads for doom,
perpetrating waste of hours. Effort's rose won't bloom!
All this pain speaks truth to me: Ev'ry bard can't Shakespeare be?
Impecuriousity
Social involution
My religiosity
Isn’t my solution
Get me out of unrest
Let me kneel and pray
I shall pay with interest
On a better day
Lend me a mercy of your God
Put me back in line
For my amateurish nod
Pour me some wine
I don’t mind manipulations
If its good for me
Take away my old frustrations
Drink my packet tea
Take some bucuits in my cupboard
Tell me of my troubles
What I can’t, or can afford
I shall blow that bubbles
Just to see them flying over
In the skies of grey
Isn’t it a mean October?
Next time I shall pay.
~Running the Gauntlet ~
Simplistic in its structure…
Nearly amateurish…
Unpolished attempt…
Superficial…
Facile…
Without subtlety…
Nonsensical…
Journalistic attempt at prose…
Lack of complexity…
Unimaginative…
The underlying message is vacuous…
Unsophisticated…
Puerile attempt…
Your submission is not appropriate at this time…
Not for us…
Not the right fit…
Not quite right for this publication…
We invite you to submit more…
Do you have any other work we could consider…
Your style is unique…
Our interest is piqued, however…
Enjoyed your work and would like to move forward…
Please submit the first fifty pages…
Thank you for your work we will be publishing…
Any railroad man will tell you truly,
If you ballast the ties with river stone,
Your rolling stock is most sure to de-rail.
All your back-breaking labor laying track
Will have earned you no further capital gain.
I don’t even want to hear you complain.
You can’t make the base for the needed grade
By taking cheap and amateurish shortcuts.
You’ll find such lazy effort only leads
Your precious locomotive off the line,
And so, to see the sad end of a train.
Just like chalk art in a hard driven rain.
An engineer can keep his smokebox clean,
But ballast drift will ruin his machine.
You are in your blue period -
turquoise swimsuit, buoyant in azure.
Behind your shoulder,
Brighton West Pier,
A snap taken at an amateurish angle,
you’re diving sideways into the waves,
the gaily painted structure
tumbling after you.
A day later, the pier burnt down.
Charred wooden bones,
black skeletal pilings stumped naked.
Vaudeville, lyceum, taproom, and arcade
once rocked beneath bunting and banners
now only wrecked rafters,
broken fingers grasping still at yesterday.
A hint of flames behind your image,
an esplanade crumbling
scorched waves.
It's the blue that saves you –
Your wide open blue eyes
your goofy blue bathing cap.
The photo is blistering,
it was a close thing,
nobody yelled fire when I took it.
~~~~~
The pier closed to the public in 1975 and fell into disrepair for decades,
However, on the 5th of February 2003 the historic U.K. Pier
was engulfed in flames.
Counsellor
He was an independent therapist
for people who thought they were drinking too much.
His first question was: why do you drink so copious?
The answers were varied; he asked them to address
their problems, and desist from alcohol for six months,
Sometimes it did the trick.
Those who could not see he sent to A.A.
He had experience from working at a private clinic
where the religious aspect played a vital role.
The expert rejected his system, lost his licence
to practise his amateurish an uneducated views.
He has met people who thanked him for finding
they were not alcoholics and by those he had
directed to A. A.
Tiny little hole in the wall
Their real business putting on plays
But wee mini art exhibit
Open to the public
During the day
How I loved to slip away
At lunch time
Just a five-minute walk
Entering their park was so peaceful
For the workaholic in me
A most self-pampering outing
A rare delectable treat
A church-like silence greeted me
Quiet yet ever so intense
And there they were
Art pieces clamoring for attention
Craving for any bit of admiration
Sometimes the works were amateurish and disappointing
But for the few times they were awe inspiring
It was magnificently grand
Either way always worth the outing
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
Of all the mornings bless’d in recollection
Though plenty and abundantly of late;
Imbued with sparks of glorious perfection,
Has every daybreak seem’d thereafter every date.
When sunrise blush’d her cheeks this Christmas, waking
A part of me feels yet should I have known,
The beauty of your nature’s undertaking
Would render that sweet record overthrown.
With your first word, ensnared you my senses
spoke then my soul: “Found have I, counterpart”
Breached, has each and every word since, my defences,
But know your last will surely shatter this old heart.
So heed you well, though amateurish this my sonnet!
For’t’s true my conquer’d heart doth love the heart that won it!
That was a nice move you just made
to get yourself crowned prom king
Checkerhead
But now you’ve graduated to playing chess,
and you can’t just jump the queen
You can’t jump her Amazon bones to win,
like you did silly Susan back in grade ten
Checkerhead
Those clumsy, bozo moves
ain’t gon make no self-respecting woman buckle
Your amateurish pick-up lines
will only make the opposite sex wanna chuckle
Checkerhead
Always trying to woo some stranger
into your bedroom
Never getting close enough to her heart,
to make her wanna jump the broom
Checkerhead
You’re just a natural born loser,
in case you didn’t hear what she just said
Her and her friends
are gon sweep you off the board,
and under the rug
Then squash your fragile ego like a little bedbug
I see the bulge in your fleshy pipe of lead just went dead,
did it now ...
Checkerhead
For every step my father took,
my short legs took three.
“Daddy, please,” I called to him,
“you walk too fast for me.”
My sister took a husband;
my brother went to sea.
Our father sighed, “Our family time
has been too brief for me.”
As my teen years ended
and college lay before me,
Dad shook his head in sadness,
“It’s all too fast for me.”
When Mama died, we reminisced
their forty-seven years.
The passing time, the life they shared
were captured in our tears.
And as computers came of age,
Dad watched me surf the net.
“I’d like to learn,” he said to me,
“But I’m not ready yet.”
Then as Dad lay dying, carrying years
that numbered ninety-three,
I could not help but say aloud,
“They went too fast for me.”
* I wrote this poem on the way to my father’s funeral. I wanted to read it aloud as a tribute, but my sister said the rhyme made it sound too amateurish. She has her PhD in Literature, so I didn’t argue. I should have.
Magnificently speechless,
Your hand held tenderly within my own.
We steal with clumsy adoration,
Through an amateurish unknown.
Graceful eyes that flicker shut,
Into a sleep that tugs you from shore.
And in my arms, we’re carried away,
By feelings too fierce to ignore.
My dearest friend, divine and unparalleled,
One day you won’t wake up alone.
When facades slough off like heavy garments,
When at last we’ll be at home.
Darling, if ever I were in love,
If ever, than certainly it is with you.
For you are my greatest miracle,
And far too good to be true.
When Dad died, I wrote a poem to read,
a tribute to the love he bestowed.
Tears fell as, at jet speed,
I scribed emotions that overflowed.
Before the funeral I showed it to you,
hoping you would allow me to share.
“Amateurish,” you said and I didn’t pursue.
For rhyme and meter, you didn’t care.
Just three months later I’d compiled a book;
a publisher said she was impressed.
How I loved that expression, that look
you gave me when with it was published.
*For Michael’s “I’m More Than What You Thought” contest
by Carolyn Devonshire
In the pocket of an old coat
about to be donated,
I stumble upon words scribbled on a pad
as I watched my husband die.
“Your love is the most precious thing in my life.
Do you know I see you as a shining star --
my mentor, my lover, my best friend”
Preparing to move,
I find a letter.
a note from the first boy I ever loved.
“I want to date other girls;
but I want to stay friends.”
Why had I saved this?
To renew the pain again in days to come?
We never did stay friends.
In my desk I discover
a verse I wrote while flying to Dad’s funeral.
I’d wanted to read it at the service;
my sister said it was too amateurish.
“For every step my father took,
My child’s legs took three,
‘Daddy, please,’ I called to him,
‘You walk too fast for me.’
“As Dad lay dying carrying years
That numbered ninety-three,
I could not help but say aloud,
‘They went too fast for me.’”
And now as days are numbered,
my muse stepped out the door,
leaving me in God’s hands.
Don’t know if I’ll be writing anymore.
*Entry for Carol’s contest “Pieces of Paper...a Poet’s Heart”
By Carolyn Devonshire
for your love i would do any thing
for anything you ask is possible
anything you want, it is my desire
that you have it
even the stars are not asking too much
because i can whisper words to make you
know there already yours
the sun on a cloudy day is what you'd feel
from the warmth of my arms around you
the full moon on a dark night is what you'd
see when you think of where my love is;
always over you
the ocean with waves that say: more love,
more love, more love, more love with infinite power
that covers the shore ever more, ever more
the mountains that reach the sky
and valleys that make the floor
the trees that give us air
and flowers that we love
i would do anything for you love
any thing you ask is possible
for you to have everything you want is my desire
any thing you want (is possible)
some what amateurish but a good start in the early 90's
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