Bantered Poems

Twilight

The corn has ripened.
With it is the wizened laughter of a
Mirthless age, showing ashy teeth
Of dappled cowries.
A flavescence so bantered by the courage
Of wilting bloom!

Sadly, sea waves truss the feet of
Burning skies, loosening the tongues of beaches,
Which, with ague, recline on cold, cringing currents.

Old cats mourn the fall of strafed pillars
Burrowing through silt-buried kennels re-grassed for the
Salutation of new vistas.

The Travels of Time

It exists firmly in the realm of fiction,
    Where time travel is bantered back and forth.
        While allowing no control or direction, it might
            Easily end up East or West, or down South or even North.

As a dimension, science is fully supportive,
    Since Einstein formed the merger to those of space.
        Bringing gravity along to bend it further, so
            It's curvilinear, not just straight to retrace.

Here the mind seeks to warp the curvature,
    When the math becomes circular in the end.
        This leads to the question as to whether,
            We can seek the past or the future, when we spend.

Mankind's journey is of endless curiosity as
    We seek to understand our place in the universe.
        Through this exploration, we come up on the theoretical,
            That blends with hypothetical paradoxes to disperse.

The essence of time will be continually pursued,
    By wondrous minds in physics and beyond.
        One can only hope that our imagination shows wisdom,
            And we don't breach the fictional boundary as a vagabond.

Reverse Polarity---

Reverse Polarity

Linage totally broaden,
Spun before the darkness;
Nothing be closed bantered-black,
Horizontal dismissed toggle;
Lists topsy-turvy tracks,
Vertical crevices

Lever rests supported pivots,
Supported cryptic; 
Representation essential role,
Bi-polar toll;
Black darkeness reverse polarity;
Now of this is clear to me?

7/17/23
Reverse Polarity Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Unseeking Seeker

My World In A Story

My world on a piece of paper
Drawn and felt under the Moon's vesper
Simple life I rended
Under a tree I shredded

Early in life I staggered
Held only a pencil and a paper
Walking with shoes of a cobbler
Trudging many roads that bantered

At sixteen my life turned and spinned
In a world not mad, but splinted
At eighteen my world tuned in din
Like a song in a jukebox, worn and tinted

Years passed and my world stayed the same
To act and strive without shame
My thoughts that broke me in two
In a world that honed me to be true

The world is full of mystery
Stand up and walk over misery
God opens a way to relive a life
His name I praise all my life

Past will always be a history
History of any man with clogged stories
Stories that can break you or mend you
Stories of you, all but one in you

New World Order

I am going to admit right up front
I am not a believer in this “New World Order”
In my opinion, it is a conspiracy theory,
Devised by those who are eager to confront,
Of it, frankly, I am more than somewhat weary.

I have heard blather from right-wing extremists
As far back as 50 years ago of a super-government
Being planned by a powerful cabal of power brokers
Closely aligned with international communists
As hard to nail down as fantasies by Bram Stokers.

In truth, we already live in a global society
And nations of like politics have bonded in kind
But national sovereignty is still the prevailing view
In my way of thinking, freedom is still a priority
Though some leaders are of a different mind.

If the world ever succumbs to a “New World Order”
I shall not be around to be a part of it, I know
In any case, I can tell you it is very slow developing
As I said, 50 years ago it was bantered in the corridor
So, it is not something that has come galloping!

FIRST PLACE WINNER
Written April 8, 2022
for "New World Order" poetry contest
sponsored by Robert James Liguori

Goat's of Sport

Here I am watching modern-day gladiators,
    As they compete and look to win.
While various opinions are bantered about,
    As to who might be the greatest, by comparison.

This subjective search is ever-changing,
    With the ebb and flow of time.
Not to mention some defining ambiguity,
    Such as, how is the greatest achieved in the climb?

Some may look to prolonged winning habits,
    Whether individual or belonging to a team.
While others, look more to pure, physical talent,
    Breaking down skills and athleticism that others dream.

Since there is an aspect of longevity,
    Built into the term, as if it's a crime.
Maybe we should modify the acronym's expectation,
    And seek only the 'Greatest of A Time'.

State of the Union

I've been watching these two groups lately,
Left and right & all those between.
Where resolutions appear adrift or absent,
And legislation became downright mean.

The battling and the bickering, seems to be
Creating fear all along to blame.
While moderation and discourse through debate,
Has fallen painfully, only to face shame.

As this nationalism is bantered about,
Extolling the revered, capitalistic way
Only to 'trash talk' anything socialistic,
As if the demonic would come out to play.

And forget anything of a brave new world,
As globalization is fought and ignored.
Because that one world government might
Loom closer to some, & we know how that's deplored.

Yet we have also witnessed a dismal harvest,
When seeds of distrust finally bore their fruit.
While some felt it added to our greatness,
More saw only failure that was absolute. 

Since our greatness isn't defined by the irrational,
Its definition lies with opportunity & equal chance.
So as we feed on our roots of diversity & fairness,
Our growth will be the fuel to romance.

To the Upcoming Artists

Humble thyself for thou shall be exalted, 
Be gentle to your fans,  for your domain needs audience,
bragging is not the way to stardom, 
be humble, gentle and inaudible..
I know many who bantered the crowd with their banger,
and still remain humble..

the industry is wide, 
competition is stiff, 
many starts and make hay, 
few remain in the top,  

To the upcoming artistes,
Let thy fragnance of your perfume locate your promoter,
not thy smoke pursue the him from your sphere, 
To the upcoming artistes your local fame is a blessing, 

Your pride is venomous, 
Your bragging is calamitous, 
Let thy vanyard be ponderous, 
for you're a work in progress, 
Let thy lyrics bring salvation to many, 
Let thy beat be a saving soul to the dying soul,
Let thy fame be your wealth..
Few are called, many are talented, fame is not for all..
Let thy wave wavy the waver.. 
Let thy success be bigger than Biggy khali

Not My Circus

Poems are exploding out of my mind field
Like bullets ricocheting in lots of directions
Once they leave the shoot I have no control

Ideas are bantered about unlikely, unbidden
Un-coaxed, spontaneous out-of-control missiles
The same poems that have been imploding in my dreams

I ask my muse, do you need my help?
She dances and laughs, kicking around ideas 
Seriously, I say. Can I do anything?
She smiles at me and I hear 
Not your circus, not your monkeys.
I begin to type….

A Scatterbrain's Guide To the Five Stages of Grief

There are five stages of grief my Shrink told me.
I did them out of order, thanks to my chronic ADD. 

Denial was suppose to be the first stage,
but Bargaining is what I did. 
I bantered with my inner self for days,
placing unrealistic bets and bids.

Anger is said to be next,
but Denial is what appeared.
My situation was too perplex
I wanted it to disappear. 

Acceptance took Bargaining's place,
I embraced my defeat.
I bowed down from my losing race,
not wanting a repeat. 

Anger transpired instead of being sad.
Depression didn't come like I was told. 
Sounds cliche, but I was boiling mad,
I saw red, and lost control. 

Acceptance was not what I felt last,
Depression was the unaltered state I was in.
Melancholy was my final forecast
of Griefs ultimate tailspin.

Transcendental Trauma

Their elan and their eclat only made my ennui bloom
It made me long, made me yearn for the womb or tomb

When given carte blanche by the dilettante masses
I found my creative spirit to be lacking true passions

I pined to be a paradoxical paragon, a peculiar paradigm,
An anomaly in the cacophony, not a soldier in peacetime 

I had a  feeling of deja vu while they bantered and prattled
In the baroque anteroom I was illuminated yet addled

To be avant-garde, nay, prototypical, I must make them look inside
To see the truth, to eschew the ersatz, to embrace what's bona fide

Eve of November

It is the eve of November
  fall harvests gathered and stored away
All Hallows eve
  and the gray black wisps of clouds
  stretch across a brilliant white setting sun.
EEiry images trace faint spewed  tracks in the sky
  and hovering in ominous flight below
  black shadow crows cry out and caw aloud.
Burly squirrels dig furiously 
  burying acorns beneath dried leaves
  then wave their tails in bantered chit chat.
October bows its head
  swooping low in a false curtsy
  welcoming the winter cold.

Sean and Bella

Sean and Bella
By Franklin Price
11/20/2015

Was  on eleven/twenty
When Sean and Bella came to town
Had traveled for six hundred miles
Since nineteen's sun had gone down

They rolled into the back yard
As the clock was striking five
Were  tired and quite bedraggled
But were very much alive

Was the first time that we'd seen them
As a husband and a wife
She is our daughter's oldest
He's the love within her life

Greetings and salutations
Hugs and kisses all around
The neighbor's dogs and chickens
Did not even make a sound

We all got in the kitchen
Where we bantered for awhile
Were so glad they made it 
Their coming surely made us smile

Could have  talked for hours 
But had to let them go to bed
Sleep was calling me also
Had to clear my clouded head

They all are now still sleeping
Won't be long before they rise
They have to leave in two short days
For now, they're our burgers and our fries

Who In Middle May Part

Who In Middle May Part

If of my love this might be mere token
Why have so many rules been broken
And if about you I don't give a dam
Those are the ones who I usually slam.

What can cause me to be real annoyed
Is for no reason my poems were deployed
Sent way far out into overgrown unknown
Then someone saying they weren't my own.

By thinks similar to this were you bothered?
Bantered around and hooped and hollered 
After realizing that it takes pretty thighs
And great body for people to recognize.

Is there a possible way this can be prevented
From sounding explicitly sexually oriented
Unless I happen to be some odd old fart
With orange hair who in middle does part.

James Thomas Horn
Retired Veteran and Poet

Beseeching the Whitelace Ghost

( A sequel to my poem “The Lady of Whitelace Castle” )


Are ye, my lady, an apparition
or perchance a fair servant frail?
The ruddiness of pinks 
touching neither your cheeks
as you wander about so pale

My lips turn blue from winter’s cold
under this arch of elm sentinels
growing quickly despondent 
not knowing the truth
of your present presence tale

Speak, please now, that I may dispel
ghost sagas of Whitelace myths…
Be ye her Mistress 
in this ghostly vision
or the fair servant once lost in the mist? 

Some hold the truth in the latter
but for me the true facts do matter
as I am the one
that bid Mistress farewell
when her hand was promised another

It’s been bantered about for years
that you seek true love unattained
I’m wondering now
if our forbidden vows
is that love that you search for in vain

I beg that ye now speak your story
tossing my sanity here out as witness
for in health’s decline
my heart also seeks 
the lost love of the Castle’s Mistress

I stand here now in this snow drift
shivering skin on now brittle bones
I could surely die
A satisfied man
If my joining your spirit would atone  

© 2014 Debra Squyres 01/30

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