Joy of pleasure, a child of poor parents,
Bliss alone founts from a perpetual spring,
Joy fancies scores of fond uncles and aunts,
Never lasts long the song they choose to sing.
Being a moth made of mere moments nigh,
It sleeps all day, to wake in glare of night,
O Bliss, thou art a dancing butterfly
That spreads its beauteous wings in Nature’s light.
Perhaps I should call thee a honey bee
That gently sucks nectar from a flower
Beetle, nor ever a black bumblebee
That plums and cherries a whole would devour.
Thou art a Lark that no rain clouds would chase,
The bane of joy of pleasure’s to be blasé.
__________________________________________
Sonnet |04.10.2010| joy, pleasure, bliss
Poet’s Note: Mundane joys and pleasures are carnal and they never last long, unlike bliss that founts from deep within. As a popular poetic imagination goes, an Indian Lark, called Chatak, drinks directly from raindrops falling in its widely open beak. It prefers to go thirsty but would never appease rain clouds.
There is no god in England
(I learned of that this day)
For when a man is stricken
He has no more to say.
He lies in expectation,
The end to shortly be,
Torment is blindly gazing out
Through eyes that barely see.
The blaze within his body
Radiates, and yet,
The chilling of his very soul
Allows him to forget.
With sonance all around him,
The sobbing and the tears,
He listens to so many words
Whereas he hardly hears.
And so, within his restless mind
His hopes are all he'll keep;
All he'll find to warm his heart
As those about him weep.
And in the darkness of the hour,
When all is done and said,
He sleeps the sleep that comes to pass
And rapes his weary head.
In mournful shrouded clouds my darkest mood does dress
in desolated winter drear no spring can bless.
Your death did steal my breath and heartbeat like a thief,
I’m nothing but a dying tree without a leaf;
barren branches bland reaching skyward in drab brown -
doomful gloom, I ache and pray winds to take me down.
Susan Ashley
June 17, 2018
~ Sixth Place ~
Contest: May 2019 Premier 1 (14 Line Max)
Sponsor: Brian Strand
~ Fifth Place ~
Premiere Contest: What I Really Like
Sponsor: Maureen McGreavy
~ First Place ~
Contest: When Line Six Is A Perfect Fix
Sponsor: Silent One
~ Poem Of The Day ~
June 19, 2018
An addiction it is!
An addiction to my being.
Like the daze of the drugs;
the ruthlessness of alcohol.
It has me confined! Traumatized!
I am a slave for its mesmerising solace,
Feared by the social life, Tremors of the society,
Where is my innocence, my joy of living?
I thirst for you,
I thirst for you,
Yet willingly I give unto you.
Until my soul is stolen, left behind an empty carcass.
Am I brave enough to give away?
No! Never! I’d say,
Until the break of the new dawn,
All shall stay the same,
And my choice still vain.
The bane of able men, is a blind, deaf and crippled world,
Lacking in discernment, decorum and sincerity,
Wanting genuine gratitude, profound wisdom and propriety,
Choking on complacency, and adrift in a sea of avarice,
Void of foresight, and ignorant of looming calamity,
Full of men greedy for mere gain--like a mantis stalking a
Careless cicada, oblivious of the oriole behind!
Sighing, the sagacious seclude themselves and bide their time,
Waiting for better times.
All rights released into Public Domain
In its whisperings and articulations
A searchlight into that hidden recess
The bane of acquisitions
Becomes the flight from humility
On which freedom rests
Shall we render benefaction of such
Crude and insidious notions.....
I have abandoned all my ships,
Just because I see stars.
That is when you caught my glimpse.
But I should recall
That since everything eventually dies,
Now, you are just a supernova's ashes.
(The strained stars
Are through the pain lane;
Slain in vain with seraphic darkness and darkened brightness...)
So, bring me the horizon,
Because I need new stardust
To soothe my astral scars
Of the dim nights
That your paroxysmal ashes burned...
Now, there is a voided starlight
Faded in myself.
So, I'll try to ask Alexandria
For the book of universal knowledge,
To see if the blackness could be subdued
From these arcane dimensions...
(Let lights feign,
Let stars rain,
Let starfall begin.
[Meteors clash within our abyss]...)
Alone again, I admit
That I am a star between darkness and light;
So are these chains
The starless bane of my life?
Regardless of answers,
I am left with blurred promises
From these stark and ambivalent catharses...
I want fame and humility
I want war and I want peace
I want God and I want freedom
I want freedom and enslavment
I want to settle down, and keep moving
I sprint home and crawl to work
I'll eat my fill and then I'll starve
I will kill and I will resurrect
Give me extravagance and give me banality
entertain me and bore me
LOVE ME AND HATE ME
LOVE ME AND HATE ME
so I will show you my lithe desires, absurdly ensuring I will NEVER be at peace
open your mouth and laugh with me
laugh