Best Abrasive Poems
In open space free
Steel and glass enclosure
A small moving space confined
My possession of pride
Momentum propelled by young drive
A companion of trust.
The wingless bird
Tunneled timid air
Dust trailed the motion
Distance to sunrise horizon
Contracted like an accordion
Music under the bonnet.
Tread of twenty turning years
Took abrasive toll on patina of past
My adored Fiat Padmini senile
Rusted in immobile inertia
Old jalopy’s journey to junkyard
Raised the last dust
From the debris of my heart.
Written : July 22, 2019
May 19, 2020
Contest : Brian's Choice L
Sponsor : Brian Strand
The feeling of your touch
I know it in the brush of the wind
The heat of the sun
Sweeping down on my skin
A reasurrace of a hand on my shoulder
A tear wiped away
As it fell from the sky
I know much about you
Like your cowboys and indians
And the nights we would dance
a pow wow in the night lights
stars abrasive against our hearts
rubbing off the smudge and dirt
To say im proud would be an understatement
Our heritage may lie beneath the pavement
But in our hearts and in our words
The feathers still fly
Howling wolf, and I
It’s getting pretty deep, too much drivel and twaddle.
It’s time for our poetry boots to help with this obscene waddle.
I have two distinct sides one is known for shock and awe.
I grow weary of the hypocrites and their blah, blah, blah.
This pandemic has been hell, I’ve tried to connect each dot.
But I’ve seen another poet on a soapbox, bitter and being a snot.
Opinions are like stinky butts; everybody has got one.
Nobody is out to get you, so close your trap and just be done.
Yesterday I felt respectful, but today not so much.
You sound like a big baby in need of a tender touch.
Life is hard, deal with it and stop adding powder to the keg.
We have all been through a lot and would welcome a broken leg.
At what point in your life did you think your insults would be ok?
Maybe you should pull your head out and be mindful of what you say.
Most find me overly abrasive, but I really don’t care.
If nasty is what you want, then just keep poking at the bear.
I cherish you betwixt
the spaces of darkness
& white lightning,
creative spiritedness
amidst insecurities,
Chantilly lavender lace 'neath
abrasive gunnysack burlap,
mid late night news & poetry of early
dawning 'pon acquiescently sleepless nights,
'tween whispered wisps of lilting light
and duskily echoed shadows
catching twilit moonbeams whilst
stargazing midst your eyes,
enveloping infinite expanses
which rapturously
invoke none other
Hues of a darker shade, cascading across skies of illusion....
Evaporating waterfalls, of lustful desires and want
Brought forth amid fairytale words, from within fantastical thoughts
And I thought, shall I sell my soul, for their very own, desperate and lost?
I would rather smile at the stars, and, walk away from it all!
Then to ensnare myself within satans lies and delusions....
Of disappearing phantasms, that shall never see the light
Beyond these shadows of alluring and enticing, beguile
Cloaked in the dripping blood, red, of eternal fate
How precious and colorful, vibrant the flower seems to grow....
Before the desperate eyes, cast, into the darkness' chambers
As it whispers its soothing, and wistfully wanton assurances?
While sprinkling its fabricated moondust, upon these emptying souls....
Walking through this mystic wonderland of waste
Wherein shadows beckon and call, dangling their dreams of desirable
Treasures and promises, that their blackened hands, could never truly hold
Except, in these fantasies of tomorrows nothingness....
While singing these songs of hopeful yearnings, that they, shall never know!
Perishing, within the firey flames, that engulf, their abrasive sight
As pretending to be more, than satans very own, offspring
Stealing lives and shattering souls, with lovely portraits that sound
So ambitiously sweet, until, reality comes, to carry them forever away....
Not upon spectacular prisms of golden rainbows, or endless oceans, of emerald blue tides
Nor, glittering cosmic trails of stardust, which encircle, their gasping final breaths!
But within rushing rivers of sorrows crimson, cold....
Trading their eternal paradise, for a fairytales devisable fantasy, sold
To a ghost of sugar laced words, spoken, enticingly, from the tombs of a corpse
Pretty thoughts and pretty things, created, by the prince of hell, himself!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
....Stealing Souls....
Form:
I put aside my heart where love betrays the nestled night,
And egotistical echoes fall short in their submissive stagger…
Sanctioned solitudes fill the antagonizing abrasive air,
As my eyes stare through the never-ending vapourific voids.
The essence of the love I held extinguishes upon existence,
Like a severed statuesque Idol I only feel the empty now…
My tangled tears run dry for I cannot wilfully weep,
Only the lachrymose rain supports me with solace.
Now stands before you the rigamortis ruins left to rot,
No sounds I hear, only entombments of a chambered heart…
No words I speak, enslaved by illusionary imbecilic love,
I am lost in the wandering wilderness of non-existence.
Aug.31.2019
Silence Poetry
Sponsored by: Silent One
Music...Butterfly Waltz
Music that will make you cry...
Piano & Cello duets...2013
With a female virtual voice
Placed 2'nd...Thank You
It's difficult
for anything to grow
in completely dry ground
hard earth crusted over
gritty like sandpaper
abrasive
yet crumbling
at mere touch
unable to hold together
or support weight
Yet rain doesn't always
help that much
when it's too hard
or too fast
or not long enough to last
The best help of all
is a gentle sprinkle
now and then
or a slow steady shower
to soak things in
Our minds are made
like that, too
ideas carefully
firmly planted
can't take root
in dry destitution
Even ideas
of the hardiest constitution
will wither away
and decay in our brains
without that simple
life-giving rain
a gentle shower
of information
knowledge
truly is power
I began life as a gorilla – cumbersome and chunky.
I clunked my way into situations, abrasive and loud.
I also misrepresented and misspoke.
Rapidly became misunderstood and ostracized.
Life was not working...
So I transmogrified myself into a butterfly.
Flitting from place to place, not staying long enough for enemies.
Keeping myself safely out harm’s way
Keeping my emotions inside where they began exploding
So I blew up and had to reinvent myself....
Now I am a lively, happy mountain goat.
I butt people who annoy me.
Defriending them right and left on social media.
A warrior woman mountain goat.
Living my truth, my way.
Pleased to meet you!
Who knew
the fires could burn so hot
all-embracing and consuming
rejuvenating the heart with a newfound love
born to be alive with you forever
and no other, pure and unconditional
as the entire world slips away.
New life rises
feelings of emotional tenderness
to shiver the soul with chills and perspiration
joy shared so profusely it drowns out the self
so that all else fades to oblivion
between the two, steadfast and genuine
living without would be unfathomable.
How true is this love
how long-lasting
how pervasive, invasive, abrasive
mysterious and delirious
like nothing ever felt before
true love like true lies whispering
can this be real, everlasting, forever?
Only the lovers
bound and entwined in the dream
within its hidden secrets bound tight
will ever know
as they are drawn in the heat
and the fires in the distance of time.
for Chantelle Anne Cooke
True Love contest
1/24/20
It is good to be a fool once in a while,
What an extraordinary feeling to be a fool!
To know nothing,
To know everything,
Yet not convincing your heart—The most brilliant buffoon,
Letting your heart float like a boat
Without an anchor
In the middle of a lake illuminated by the half moon that looks like a piece fallen from something ethereal,
Vision yourself in that boat, dear reader,
Doing nothing but just letting that moon’s love
Lurk on your lips
While you yearn earnestly
With your eyes closed like the petals of a timid lotus,
I encourage you to be a fool with me.
The river of reverie might reduce the roughness of abrasive reality of existence,
The vastness,
The long blank whiteness of life—
The 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s
Of age are indeed agitating,
Colorless at times,
There are rainbows too,
But mostly it's white, serene and quite like a pearl or a marble.
Some people ensnare their hearts,
They think heart is some petty prisoner,
But when the boon of life comes to an end
The truth hits them in the chest
And the chains ensnaring the heart
Come gushing down with a roar like a waterfall,
Sudden and loud.
Chained hearts often become hoarse hazards,
Chained and always chasing,
But chasing what
You never know.
Heart is a bird,
A brave one
Like all birds,
But let me remind you something, dear reader,
Do you ever notice the birds looking at the sky and singing soft melodies,
The melodies they don't sing when they are soaring high in the sky?
Birds need a bower too to rest and rejuvenate,
They don't have to adorn an armour on their chiselled chest all the time,
It's just not natural,
It doesn't seem right,
So take my hand and come be a fool with me
Or just be a bird and fly freely.
Your soul is nesting your heart,
Let down the gloomy guard,
Nurture the nest
And give it a rest.
We did not notice at first—
the small rebellions of memory:
a forgotten kettle on the stove,
the absurd claim that Tuesday had vanished,
names reshuffled as if in a deck too often played.
The mind does not fall—it recedes,
a shoreline eroded not by storms
but by silent, persistent tides.
Each day an abrasive grain,
each night a hush over once-luminous thought.
She remained seated by the window,
watching nothing
as the garden bloomed out of season,
declaring spring to be a tired lie.
Doctors spoke in dulcet certainties:
"progressive,"
"degenerative,"
"inevitable,"
their syllables clothed in clinical precision.
And so began the vigil—
of sons who now became strangers,
of a husband revisiting courtship rituals
to jog the stubborn past loose,
of caregivers who measured each hour
by the frequency of wandering and repetition.
Her body persisted beyond her
as if mocking the soul’s departure;
and we, too faithful to abandon,
held up dignity like a paper shield
in the long war with forgetting.
The disease was punctual—
as if following an invisible itinerary—
it reached the final station
where even pain seemed exhausted,
and death,
when it arrived,
was not unwelcome—
but late.
Digressive Death
Deflected by summer’s breeze
Find me fallen upon my knees
Now it’s time for a pensive prayer
To let go thoughts thru abrasive air
Digressive death, I will weepingly awaken
To search the heavens that have forsaken
Longing for love within the internal light
Drenched in darkness of nocturnal night
To cries of anguish we must respond
Lachrymal lure of Satan’s spawned
Lucid layers of decaying dreams
Suffocating silences in strangled screams
Incongruent idols, immaculate imagery
Fallen angels of beguiling brilliancy
Treasured tombs that satiate the soul
Amongst wandering winds, on midnight's stroll.
Jan.23.2017
The Poet And I - Contest
Sponsored by: Mystic Rose
A towel that is white is useful
and can clean and be cleaned.
A towel is most functional
in this form.
And suddenly a sock,
a sock that is red
is thrown into the wash
and now our white towel
is pink.
How the towel tossed and turned and
fought and squirmed about in that basin
with the sock, trying to squish
against the walls and avoid that
seeping, insidious, leaking red dye.
But it soaked in and became apart of the
towel, all the same.
entwined in its fibers,
pounded into its weaving
mercilessly soaking into its being.
Nothing is white for the towel anymore,
not bodies to dry or water to clean
it is pink all pink that spreads and separates
and the towel may no longer experience
white.
Our towel, once white is tinged,
singed, tainted, corrupted, violated.
It is not its whole self, a towel, that is,
it is an unclean rag that is tired and
worn out, frayed and stained.
Sure we can toss the towel in the wash,
douse its body in abrasive bleach to
try to wipe clean the slate and return
our towel to its most useful state.
But our towel will thin, and pill, and remain
just a little bit pink.
Form:
untainted yet unfiltered
unrefined and unpolished
retry or repeat
replay and rethink
non-disclosure agreements maintain non-abrasive relations
non-adhesive and non-adjacent
pre-approved with pre-attained knowledge
preceding and preconceived
pre-you and pre-me
post-op after post-apocalypse
post-exposure and post-devaluation
anti-image mingled anti-ego
semi-coherent and semi-caring
over-bearing and under-delivering
sub-human in trans-consciousness
hyper-sensitive before hyper-aggressive
hyper-alert and hyper-aware
out-gunned or out-played
who cares
Why is there this
un-clear re-defining
of a
non-differential pre-ordained
post-humous anti-progressive
semi-important over-emphasized
under-developed sub-genius
trans-race hyper-complex
out-landish ever-changing
Societal "Norm"
Be-you, and let me, be-me.
"Phenomonology"
time drips through
the lens of philosophy
phenomonology melts
the solid realisation;
was all that time
spent inconsequential,
the purpose of it all
bought abruptly,
for an expected cost
(for this annal
somewhere soft
and vaseline-lensed,
we anticipate, it is never
an unexpected cost,
we know the cost
of all things eventually),
fraught and contradictory
brought into alignment
with a loose end,
that’s a wrap
and nothing tied,
question mark;
semicolan, pause
avoid that full stop;
simply being before thought
yolk and white separate
cracked and measured
flaws in the reasoning
of existence,
there is no rational
explanation beyond
faith and belief,
monastic pantheists
flinch to the hymns
of science’s abrasive voice
it has its answers for
substance
through the gate racing
on the get-go
phyrronism
scorches everything;
Everything,
raises its hand
palm open – there’s that
measured full stop.
structures of consciousness
shakey foundations experienced
through a First person view
beggars belief
in trust,
yet nothing tangible;
we speak to ourselves
and our internal gods;
Spinoza confers with
some of us,
excommunicated,
we understand that,
in one way or another
and we are just like
the others
but different,
waiting for validation
and logical answers
to form on our tongues
like words we swallow
to speak into life.
in the beginning
there was the word
but before that,
the thoughts;
from the mind
sits Epoché’s nature
Ataraxia
(LadyLabyrinth / 2023)