Do you write to a standard
that isn’t your own
Do you pledge your allegiance
to a dilettante throne
Do you shut out your Muse
when her words pierce the skin
Do you think before feeling
looking out never in
Is your nighttime belabored
with dreams from the past
Is the daylight a hunter
your guilt running fast
Is the one choice that’s left you
the one you can’t make
Is the courage required
—your one failing grace
(Dreamsleep: October, 2023)
Categories:
belabored, courage,
Form: Rhyme
What is next to be?
My best friend’s dream is not
likely to embrace fruition without the
spur’s first
kick or vigorous prodding by
his future self whom
no one is familiar with or the
old self poised alone to welcome the new
self. Being is
not doing, unless trying has been tried.
Neither will errors be committed nor
will hope prevail. The memory of failed love yet
must be removed like the
roots of a fallen tree. At last
the belabored assessment is to
extract and lay
each section untangled in the
sun and when the lessons become old
he will become free to move and not step aside.
Be not the first by whom the new is tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
Alexander Pope – An Essay on Criticism
Categories:
belabored, break up, love,
Form: Verse
A Poet's Gift
A poet writes to share a secret depth
Of feelings within their soulful breast.
They write to grasp onto immortality,
To be remembered beyond their death.
A poet shares emotions inked upon the
Page that cannot verbally be conveyed.
They dwell in a world of dreams, of dark
And light, of imagination, of metaphors,
Where heartbreak heaves and love believes.
Poets dwell where nature inspires, and
Longing desires may elevate or decimate.
They feel compelled to write day or night
From their innate state of expressiveness.
Music, dance, and art entwined, are all a part
Of creating that sonnet, free verse or rhyme
Which may capture hearts in belabored sigh,
Cause tears to well, the heart to swell, joy to
Bloom, cause lovers to swoon in blissful reverie.
Poetry...the greatest gift a poet yearns to share
With sensitivity, with their open heart laid bare.
7-23-19
A STRAND (1048) Poetry Contest N/A
Sponsor Brian Strand
Categories:
belabored, art, poetry, writing,
Form: Free verse
My spirit wandered, sore, abused,
by selfish choices badly bruised;
a heart that stumbled through the years,
lame from its sins and filled with fears.
The world with all its dreadful ills
belabored my poor, weakened will
till down death's path I made my start,
a little, lonely, lame-girl heart.
I lost my dreams amid the trash;
my expectations cruelly dashed,
I waited for the ogre Fate
to lower on my mean estate.
Then One came riding through the dark;
He labored over hope's dim spark
and fanned the embers to a flame;
He called my heart by a new name.
No longer go I lame through life,
through lonely days of anxious strife;
my footsteps fall in steady pace
upheld and firm by God's own grace.
I trust Him now to guide me till
I reach my home, God's perfect will.
I have peace since I made this new start
with God's glass slipper on my heart.
Faye Lanham Gibson
Copyright, 1987
Categories:
belabored, christian, faith, fantasy, jesus,
Form: Lyric
Lost in the vortex
Of Retrograde happy days
All is peachy bright
Smiles ignite money tossing everywhere
With ego comes might
With challenge comes pretension
With hypocrisy comes abstaining
Well at least for...
I've seen the dull buzzards ignite
Fizzling tar smoke, allowing
Porcelain dolls to take center stage
And I should be laughing, happy free
What is wrong with me?
Born with too much on my plate
I should just relax and abate
Instead of attempting rewiring
Like the emperor of electrical engineers
Maybe i should just drink a beer
Slowly letting my head hit the bar tab
The bartender is pouncing tonite
She has a fistful of dreams
Hidden under those pacifier eyes
Shes out for blood and revenge
I go out to smoke the skyline
Absorbing dripping atmosphere
Something tells me
I've been here a million times before
I've seen where all these shadows run to
I guess i was hoping for more
Like some hidden city uncovered
I'm searching for gold
Beyond the belabored
Somehow we just cant make it tonight
I'm gonna back into my cave
To hatch a plan
Categories:
belabored, allegory, animals, business, happy,
Form: Free verse
ewe wore a woolen mini skirt
with thighs as sheer as indigenous mountains
raised high upon tilted pedestals
charcoal straps protecting the achilles' tendon
yet exposing your callous sole
an openness of character denotes your legs' spread
creamy latte cinnamon brown
aromatic appetizers before the main course
um...umm...um
the mantra echoed through the cavernous recess
hundreds of eyes blind to what women want
nervous flailing of the pointer
endangers my tactful approach
belabored lecturing covering all possible angles
except the corner pocket after class
Categories:
belabored, passion
Form: Free verse
From the twist and swirls of words within,
poetical odes are in their sudden rendering.
Contrasted with once a masters mighty whim,
part of a hearts desire caught meandering.
While the words are hence ever lasting,
resounding between a fixed earthen chime.
Passes on the outer brims casting,
hoping for a message from the sublime.
Amid constant whirring musical din,
assassinated in its illogical prime.
Silence of the poem can never win,
buried beneath impetus words of no rhyme.
Never again fronting one collective ending,
thwarts patience in awaiting primitive prose.
Unintentional in its mediocre greeting,
left here for us, worn as a tattered rose.
Where structure and art are left defining,
such rules of written English are condoned.
Exceptional poets drift toward reminding,
when gleaned, most opted words are intoned.
Belabored gist, words randomly falling,
jotted on the thinnest sheet of rice.
lightly flung about in the installing,
mutiny condoned at the intelligent poets price.
Categories:
belabored, art, introspection, on writing
Form: I do not know?