Calling Your Name
Chasing the distance
making love to a memory
Living in the space
between heartache
— and dreams
**
The Devil’s Alleyway
I follow the river
whenever she calls
And answer mountain winds
that blow in the fall
I cross mighty deserts
through cactus and thorns
To brave city streets
— bereft and forlorn
**
Choice Undetermined
Life is about freedom
freedom is about options
Spread out before you
like lines on a map
Choice undetermined
awaiting direction
Venturing forward
— wandering back
**
The Present Surpasses
Never embrace
what history rejects
March to the clarion
as virtue begets
The present surpasses
what the devil demands
When free will bespoken
— the moment commands
(The New Room: May, 2026)
Aware!
But What To My
Wondrous Mortal
Gaze Does Appear
But A Majestic
Framed Feathers
Bold Dark And
Bespoken Black
Vulture There!
At The Apex, At
The Peak! Wanted And
Morbidly Humored For
Want Of Wafting
Tempting Mortality-Ness
Itself, Wisdom Darkness
It-Self -- Well Bade...
***
Oh, What Love! What
Darkness In Loving
Un-Attention.
-Gray Squirrel
04-05-2026
At trumpets blare bespoken fair
In all the noise and bluster
Enamored round in stately air
Imbued with heavens luster
What they don’t know
one can only assess
What they can’t see
they can never possess
What they affirm
they can never deny
What they proclaim
they can never imply
Things they impugn
only traitors allow
Things they assume
they will never avow
Things they besmirch
they will never applaud
Things they embrace
they will never defraud
Once they betroth
all suitors be damned
Once they constrict
to never expand
Once they commit
to never rethink
Once they get sober
to never take drink
If they remember
those promises cast
If they retender
the future and past
If they stay open
the visions will come
If they’re bespoken
— the truth zero sum
(The New Room: January, 2026)
Poets
don’t create
a thing
But
recreate
what is
Ordering
their
size and shape
In lines
bespoken
his
Poets
take what life
gives out
Then
changing
mass and form
In words
not used
their way before
With
feelings
— newly born
(Villanova University: November, 2025)
I
Namibia is my most beloved country,
Like it is a marvellous Beulah land
With a mighty will, great glory
So, be glorified, my free Motherland.
From red sand deserts to the shining shores
And the sun gives me its setting,
Echoes of the seagulls melodied its choruses,
Masterpiece of Paradise is mesmerizing.
II
Wisdom of the people is ancestor-given
As whose blood waters our freedom is glorified,
Their heroism is unforgotten
And the blessing of diverse culture is bespoken.
What makes me so proud today?
Being a Namibian and free is what I cherish
My love for the Motherland is displayed everyday
May the dreams of my country flourish.
as it ticks to walk
a way goes, often in for another
rounds of bells, daring
caring as carriage
to bespoken
left wing goes
wanderers does
innocent with blames
love letters
pickup lines
campbell's soup lies, without a droopy
nothing likes hert
miss interpret that
intrepid repose cats
lakey at edminton
empty pens in his mouth
Long Thin Blade of Weariness...
gloom of daze parries the long thin blade of weariness
metaphors adjust frequency matched patterns of
interwoven connectivity through mirrored meaning...
sameness, a variation of conformity, eventuates in
perennial lack for something notable to
be rendered as an attendant distraction...
corsets laced tightly although furtively hidden...
armatures support long in the tooth masses of
wobbly flesh and bones devouring kindred signs of desire...
levied endowments of netting bespoken quietly
as their whispered confluence of thoughts,
still wet from their birth, makes for an interesting
Sunday brunch as served by some, received by others
halve to have not - who says who scrapes the salt
from the mines of harvested beingness?
who doth say anything at all?
2024
Long ere breaths a chalice dawn, eternal
trials beleaguered gone, test the wayward course
yon distant clinks, bespoken image seized
his past governed weights in tallied journals
that time possess and nonesuch empty force
where quills and parchment favor bags clang-freed.
Light gusts midst a low mountain scroll past fish
and bread, the first author writes his new creed,
"God is Emmanuel" with us, endorse,
"Jesus is God's Messiah" ... crowds, Jewish
profit taxes, Prophet souls ... source.
I welcome the feeling
of leaving behind …
No Facebook, no Twitter
no Email to blind
Controlling the message
undigitized truth
My mind free of programs
my spirit induced
Where magic is whispered
no texting or bytes
Bespoken the voices
I hear in the night
My memory stays active
not stored in the Cloud
Rebooting what’s under
— enlightenment’s shroud
(The New Room: January, 2024)
You cannot surrender
passion
Kill the seeds
of a new dawn
Silence
a word bespoken
Or finish
—what can only start
(Dreamsleep: November, 2023)
The child of
a desert wind
and a mystery …
he swept across the land
Knighting each moment
with martial intent …
death
at his command
All enemies chosen
with glorious care …
each battle
zero sum
His legend immortal
written in blood …
the future bespoken
—eternity's son
(The New Room: August, 2023)
The gulf between us
is such a yawn.
It's boredom
drawn out
in endless re-runs.
Opposites are meant to
attract like magnets,
north and south.
Right!
But our chasm is abysmal.
It's a melody of maladies
and sick jokes bespoken
by a stand-up
with yawning incompetence
standing on a cliff,
shouting into the distance
while peering into the gulf
of what might have been.
No one's listening.
Right!
The invasion upon us
attacked by a neighbor
no village is safe
their scourge overruns
The enemy dressed
as civilian turistas
our border wide open
and freely they come
No shots have been fired
or prisoners taken
the keys to our arsenal
willingly loaned
Our schools now infested
with quotas bespoken
surrounded and cornered
—the fault but our own
(McAllen Texas: September, 2022)
The world is becoming
impossible to govern
Each person that island
Donne warned us about
All sense of belonging
in mirrors bespoken
The strength of shared values
—our vanity flouts
(Dreamsleep: February, 2023)
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Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.