Best Absentmindedly Poems
The evening air is warm; the sky
ablaze, splashed in hues of scarlet red.
Lost in reverie, she sits on the porch,
on her favourite woven wicker chair.
Absentmindedly, she twirls her finger
round a strand of silver-white long hair,
reminiscing, eyes half closed, hairbrush
resting on her lap beneath a frail hand.
She smiles as images tease her mind,
momentary glimpses of carefree youth
which all too soon disappear, unrecalled,
lost once more in the hazy mists of time...
-----------------------------------------------
5th February, 2016
Over the years
some were carefully carried
tied up in tiny bundles
held tight against the heart
While the other
more awkward ones
were pulled behind in a cart
like so many precious parcels
taken along for the ride
But a few fell
and rolled astray
off by the wayside
along the way
Some were missed
right away
with heartaches and tears
While others were
eventually missed
after some years
And some not noticed at all
I see people now and then
rummaging around
by the wayside
for what they've lost-
Some with long, sharp sticks
poking, prodding absentmindedly
collecting debris
Some on hands and knees
with brush and trowel
excavating so carefully... but-
Most of the time
the wayside is no place
for happy reunions
Often what was lost
if it was, indeed, of value at all
will not still be there
after some years
but snatched up and carried away
with care, by another who
saw its worth
Or degraded past
the point of repair
until what was lost
can never be recaptured
or replaced
Or sometimes what was 'lost'
simply wasn't worth keeping
in the first place
but purposefully discarded
cast off like old garments
too uncomfortable to wear
Relationships too heavy to bear
tainted by disrespect
dishonesty, neglect
subtle streams of unkindness
ever-so-slightly visible envy
marking their faces
like red flags
But the idea of
something having been lost
is powerful, and nags
at our hearts 'til we forget-
these things and their cost
yes, we forget-
Most of the time
the wayside is no place
for happy reunions
shaped like a boat,
a sock peeked out,
down under the rim.
a baby bootie,
a boot camp scootie,
befuddled the face,
bright red,
of a pale blond —
a mother on the side.
could have been undies
lining the sailor cap!
waterlogged laughter.
sea of despair.
however... i showed her up,
dereliction of my polished shoes.
barely an adult,
sneakering to hide
in the head,
luckily placed as a guest
in the gatehouse
and not out on my rear guard
or thrown in the brigg
for my lack of attention to detail.
the blond carries her family in a seabag
— not allowed —
can’t find the other sock.
9/3/2020
All In A Day Poetry Contest
Sponsor - William Kekaula
scootie means child that is between the stages of crawling and walking. Here I’m using it as a baby’s sock.
sneakering is a play on words as I had absentmindedly put on my sneakers
We're grouped together ready to party
just standing around waiting for the coach.
Not a stag do exactly, just us men.
Before you ask, it wasn't fancy dress.
A football Friday night out for a drink,
one or two, possibly looking for sex.
I certainly wasn't looking for sex,
no women allowed in this lad’s party.
Tam who’s just arrived is getting a drink,
he’s our mate and first team footballing coach.
Back from a wedding rehearsal; full dress.
So he’ll be glad; being back amongst the men.
We arrive at a pub heaving with men;
just a handful of the opposite sex.
God knows who came up with this **** address.
It isn’t lively enough to party.
We agree that we’ll get back on the coach,
however, Tam bought us all one more drink.
At the next pub I get the lads a drink,
‘Okay,’ I say to them, ‘It’s my round, men,’
and hand three pints of lager to the coach.
My thoughts absentmindedly turn to sex,
when I look towards a crowded hen party
and see a girl in a skimpy red dress.
‘Check out the girl, in the little red dress,’
I say to Liam, passing him his drink.
‘I’d love to get an invite to that party.’
‘Aye well, you, me, and the rest of the men;
thoaght you wurny interested in sex?’
he says, as we watch her approach the coach.
It’s half past two; the last round’s on the coach.
He’s fondling the girl, his hands up her dress.
‘Jesus man, go outside if you want sex,’
I say, ‘It’s your round; last orders for drink.
I’ll be up there with the rest of the men.’
The bar closes; it’s the end of the party.
I board the coach with the rest of the men.
It was a good party, plenty to drink,
and Tam’s having sex wearing the red dress.
The knob turned
And opened the door
The door of the apartment
On the first floor
And the sudden gasp
Of air that the fireplace exhaled
Knocked an ember
To the floor
An ember that had been glowing
In the hearth
The room, a peaceful space
Warm but gloomy
As it slowly cooled down
The mercury downcast
And receding fast
“Close the door”! The inspector barked
Without looking ‘round
And with the click-thunk sound
His from followed the mercury
As it slowly pummelled
From his forehead
“Very curious”, said the man
In the coat
“Within a locked room,
This man may have been smote”
No open windows
No unlocked door
As the ember absently
Scorched the floor
Examining the body
The inspector soon found
A pocket of stones
And a pocket of ground
And as he thought
He absentmindedly made
A muttering sound
The rain pelted
The ground
Into submission
As rivulets of tears
Ran down panes
To coagulate into streams
To flow past
The old cemetery
At the end of Murray street
Where many a corpse
Wrapped in a sheet
Waited silently
For the trump
But there is more a decomposition
Than a composition around
It was there
Where
Those smooth stones
Were found
- The same place as the ground
The inspector knew
‘tis there that the man had gone
To a place of death
With which he was now one
To place of rest
Is it possible? Rest?
To where his love lay deep
Under the shadows of grazing sheep
To sleep, to sleep
But not a dream
His death was his last
Longing scream
The rocks and the ground
Was his last request
To lay with his love
To lay down and rest
True Identity (By:Josner Saintil)
There are girls who go about
With short skirts and unauthentic hair
To get them, many men would fight and shout,
Yet they are not regal or fair.
They do what they see others do
They dress sinfully or to attract attention,
Following the crowd absentmindedly,
Just makes a mindless girl with no identity.
There are boys who get girls easily
Pants always below their waists
Not really knowing what Love is
Only lust for a pretty face.
Tattoos and gold teeth
Trouble, weed, and going to jail foolishly.
But a grown man with no future, Just makes a hoodlom with no identity.
Many let the world and music change them.
Thinking that a club
Is more important than education.
Trying to live like rap stars
All mindless fools
'Cause not knowing what you stand for clearly,
Just makes an uncritical thinker with no identity.
Those who stand out from the rest,
With great thought for tomorrow,
Those who see the world for more than it is,
Knowing that this is a world of sorrow,
Where dog eat dog in any way,
But still work and dream for a better day.
Those who know who they are and going; their destiny,
Are those with TRUE IDENTITY!
Many many years from now on a busy morning,
suddenly for a moment Mallika my name in your mind,
it will force you to stop and look at the sky
and from your heart will come out a deep sigh,
memories of love,
suddenly so fresh like a 'dewed' morning rose
remembering your lost love again
absentmindedly you will touch my last gift with moist eyes,
"love thy name is eternity"
your fingers will follow this line on that bone china vase,
I know time will go slow though tears will flow faster
and I will be nowhere
near you "before the next teardrop falls",
only my memories closer,nearer to you,
happy,joyful,cheerful,pleasant days
when the moon rose in the sky just for us,
will these glimpses of happy days wipe tears from your eyes?
If not,if you are still running on empty
just listen to my words floating in the air,
"love thy name is eternity".
© kash poet 2012
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Placement: 5th (June 2012)
Contest:Mish-Mash
Sponsor:Tracie
RULES FOR THIS POEM (HA HA HA HA...enjoyed the challenge)
===========================================
Line 1.. must have 13 syllibles
Line 2.. use the name of someone you love in this line
Line 3.. must rhyme with Line 4
Line 4.. see above
Line 5.. can only have 3 words
Line 6.. must contain a palindrome
Line 7.. use the title of your poem in this line
Line 8.. must rhyme with line 3 & 4
Line 9.. must be one of your favorite short quotes
Line 10.. use the name of a country in this line
Line 11.. 5 words in this line must rhyme
Line 12.. use only 6 syllibles in this line
Line 13.. Add all or part of a song title to this line
Line 14..use a synonym in this line
Line 15.. use 4 different words that mean the same thing in this line.
Line 16.. you cant use the letters A D or L in this line
Line 17.. Use the words happy and eyes in this line
Line 18.. the words 'running on empty' must be used in this line
Line 19.. must rhyme with line 12
Line 20.. Use a line from one of your old poems in this line.
Praying in her back room
Her eyes focused on her Father
Even when downtrodden
Never giving up
On her family,
Making it her mission to
Embrace love and the ability to
Nestle their desires
Absentmindedly she forgets her own significance, while
Love and trust is all she
Wish for, to
Open the doors to her heart, she
Magically succeeds to keep
Everybody happy,
Never forgetting, that to get love you need to give love…
Her fingers feel the soft grass beneath bare toes
and she sees the blue of the summer sky
though the touch of racing fingers across a colorless page
She smells the apple blossoms that waft on gentle breezes
and hears the honey bee who visits each tiny flower
as a distant whippoorwill sings in the June morning
Her mouth waters at the taste of wild strawberries
sweet and ripe as the juice runs down her chin and
she absentmindedly wipes it away
She feels the sun on walks with her dog
and wonders what does a yellow sun look like
as through the page she feels its warmth
Over the raised dots her fingers fly with a
thirst to experience more of the life that
she can only imagine outside her dark world
Turning the page, she reads the clouds that
fly past in a earnest wind that plays with kites
in kaleidoscope colors pulsating in a fighting breeze
A knock at the door and the book is closed
as finding her cane, she is back in the darkness
of a unforgiving world of questions without answers
I want to be
A part
Of your safe haven
Where I fill in
The chair next to you
Surrounded by your family
I want to see
How your face lights up
Making jokes and telling stories from work
And when you laugh
Your hand
pats my thigh
As our legs
Are intertwined
Underneath the kitchen table
I want to see
Your reaction
When I blush
After your mother
Asks what I like
about you
I’ll place my hand over yours
That are on my thigh
And I’ll tell her that
“He has shown me
That life can be
full of color
That a man’s hand
can be more
Than just a weapon
Cause when he drives
He absentmindedly holds mine
And kisses it
While I’m continuously glad
All the windows are down
To block out my heart racing
He has taught me
That simplicity
Holds more weight in our mind
Like how I have memorized
The creaks in our floor
On Friday nights
When he makes dinner
And I’m swaying my feet
From sitting on the counter
Or how I silently adore
Every move he makes
And try to hide the smile on my face
With a glass of wine
While wearing one of his old t-shirts
That now smells like me
He repeatedly has shown me
That hearts
Don’t have to falter with jealousy
Amidst the whispers
And constant smirks
From my past
Or the desperate beckoning
From girls
With lip gloss smiles
Cause he has pulled out
The chair next to him for me
In his safe haven
Where my blushing laughter
And stories from this household
Have created connections
He always entwines
his legs with mine
With his palm up on my thigh
Waiting patiently for my hand
Despite ever present
Scars on my left wrist”
And his mother can hear
the warmth
The thoughts covered in color
In my voice
Every time
I speak of him
A click, click
and the burner lights
tonight
I am not going anywhere
but the end of the hall where
the broken fluorescent light
can help me cook and write
A red frothy sauce bursts, hot steam
rising up, mist over
a scratched tin pot
a dirty burner hissing, 17 floors
up in the tower with the whistling windows
And a microwave reading 6:58…
But the clock could be slow
and so could this grey day
As though it sarcastically is appealing
to my melancholy stomach
which absentmindedly turns in sync with
the wooden spoon stirring
the steam into submission
I now how to cook a couple of things
and I know a couple of songs very well
I also can cook up a couple of songs
when called upon
And I do
more often than I ought…
Life
is sort of like the deep red pot
which I try to keep from burning
I try to brown each side of my heart
to keep it from really hurting
But I usually cannot
and today it’s hot
and it’s a bit hard not
to turn the stove off
and bring myself to walk,
away...
I’m just reminiscing
and mixing in basil leaves
like other things, I try to convince myself
that this won’t be forever
That maybe one day, some venture
won’t lead to the red hot mess
and the seething in my chest
that always results from my best try
to love …
But a couple of leaves can’t do the trick
and nor can happy thoughts
convey, on a grey day in torre
that things will ever go my way
No, I just pray not to think
as I wash the dishes in the sink
which drains the waste of my ambition
down and out, never to be seen
I guess that’s just
how it has to be
Life may not be for me
when I making
Emotional spaghetti
As The Note-Taking Girl scribbles
And absentmindedly quibbles
Her fingers are animated wriggles
Churning out eccentric squiggles:
Letters of Ever Clumsy Angles,
One like a creeper that tangles,
As many like threads in singles,
Wherefore her teacher openly wrangles
And after explosion stiffly dangles
Before her the option of A Street Hawker
Bearing a case with or without a locker
And around patrolling with jingles
Or she be whipped and a nearby ear tingles!
But that wasn’t The Rescue from a writing
That keeps a teacher’s eyes biting!
(A throw-back piece, a breakup poem from high school)
What a lonely, peculiar, eccentric figure I must be. A girl, in a garden, crying at an iPad, in the dark.
Earlier, at school...
It was a clear spelling out, like steel cuts thru fruit.
As he spoke, he looked down and away, his gorgeous face blank and indifferent, as if I were wasting his time or he was talking to a child needing an obvious truth taught quickly.
When he finally looked back at me, I saw no pity in his impersonal, hazel eyes.
I couldn't breathe, I couldn't think, I needed time to contemplate the universe's new laws.
Can a girl just suddenly die of heartache?? because I was sure my heart had stopped, locked and frozen.
Finally, I gasped in this impossible new air—the force of it made me hold the cold-iron stair railing—the game is rough.
He's so—male—all chase and careless passion—intelligent teaser, a skilled steersman of excited climates... Oh, you simply have no idea.
And now he was, gone—still there physically—but gone to me—as if he'd transformed into a hologram or had begun to orbit some other sun, he just...
"You made me feel special." I said.
I had lost my balance on this faithless and unequal world, where heaven so cruelly punishes desires.
"You made me feel I mattered, such a favor." I said, absentmindedly, as I turned, and went back up the three steps into school.
I don't think I looked back at him as the door closed. After all, he wasn't there anymore.
I think he called my name, like a question...
.
.
Song for this:
Still Is Still Moving to Me (with Willie Nelson) by Toots & The Maytals
Helpless by The Cleaners From Venus
old enoch goggleyed and goatbearded
strolling with a jealous god
under a silksilver sun
beneath a stonewashed cotton sky
stopped
sighed
tugged at his rusty sackcloth toga
trailed a barebrown
caloused big toe through
the ochre coloured sand
stung a split nail on a surprised scorpion tail
and solemnly suggested
by way of a pleasant stutter
i know you
i know you lord
i know you well enough by now
to know when something is eating at you
the lord your god coughed
chorally
cleared his throat in the note of cee
felt in his clotted cream cloak for something
came out empty handed
tried twice
tried thrice
then clutched a nonchalantly folded handkerchief
chased the holy perspiration halfheartedly around
the temple of his whitewhiskered features
with its fine ivory linen
then threw the wet rag
absentmindedly into the yellowing dust at his tanned
manicured heel
i know
i know
it is a habit
a bad one
but habits are hard to break
particularly the bad ones
yahew nodded his licey leonine head
in a languid yep
but came there answer
no
Again looking through judgment
Before broken conclusions could be drawn
Subjected to day drifts of a pawn
Eternal distractions of ailment
Never solid in your establishment
Total consciousness is gone
Minimal dreams at dawn
Internal daze while fluid is absent
Neglected recognized logic within
Down the tunnel of forever
Ejected thoughts of whomever
Decaying of the body’s thick skin
Lying through the world’s endeavor
Yet this mishap can be a deadly sin.