Best Abyss Poems
Do not build a ladder
when I fall into the abyss—
I did not call for climbing.
The thorn in me
is not a riddle to solve,
nor a window to repair.
I am thunder, not your project-
rain needing witness,
not your umbrella.
When I say I’m drowning,
do not throw ropes of reason.
Let me sink into your silence—
weightless, unrescued, yet unalone.
Be the shore that does not move
as my waves thrash and settle.
My pain is not a puzzle.
Don’t match it to your pieces.
It is a wild bird—
let it wheel, let it scream, let it land
uncaged cage on wild earth.
You see my storm
and lash advice like scaffolding,
but I need someone
to taste the torrent,
to say yes—it bites, and burns,
not someone who murmurs
“you should have stayed inside.”
To love me is to shhh,
to hold space as sacred,
to hear with your cells,
not just your ears.
Italian restaurant; pasta and wine - red, like the eyes of a bat,
Screeching from a cave, dark as the eyes of a snowman,
Coal plucked from a bucket, the mop was deposed -
By the broom, new sovereign of all instruments
Resound with the trumpet on Everest’s peak
High as a clown doused with vodka,
Watery eyes drip deep to the void.
Abyss without meaning that threatens to consume all life -
In an Italian restaurant.
Makeup: lonely face and painted smile
Dark hole: crying into nothing
Hell exists after all. It claws towards me,
Dragging me down and holding me tight.
Then I am lifted, eyes flashing.
It is my turn at the abyss….
Another stares down to me as I reach up with spindly hands.
Seaweed turtle abyss
Smoke, Poodles! Mystic Weed.
Touching on my friends tweed.
Baloomp he goes as his red nose falls off.
Falling to the ground forever like a knife at my throat.
Help me the glassy shine remains, slicing through the endless vacuum of time.
Below may be aliens, enemies, frenemies, or even God? But all I know is the megladown stops me from reaching thee in the black hole below and above- an abyss of loss an abyss of soul an abyss of time has made me its fool. Baloomp he says to me. Awakened I see nothing. Nothing. Nothing and me.
28 February 2020
Written for "Clown at the Abyss" contest, sponsored by Kai Michael Neumann
I smell the coppery scent of fresh blood,
and the stench of death, excrement, and piss.
A soldier lies dead, his face in the mud;
I never thought that war would be like this.
My mind is numb; I cannot shed a tear,
nor change reality—why even try?
There is nothing left within me but fear,
the more I live, the more I want to die.
I fear the killing will never be done,
for Hope has all but abandoned me.
And I fight a war that cannot be won,
pain and suffering are all that I see.
War is an ever-expanding abyss,
where mere survival often feels like bliss.
THE DITCH BECAME ABYSS:
Collaboration with Tim Smith
When I was here
All the music sang lalala
I only saw your eyes
When you were here
All the words read you you you
and all made sense
When we were here
In a different life, the river flowed
rippling love around us
Now without a we
No longer captured in a breeze
The ditch became abyss
Now without you here
All my days are blue blue blue
and my senses darken too
Now without me here
my head is spinning round round round
no longer seeing out clouded eyes
***
January 4, 2016
Tim Smith
Darren White
The seamless sky called life glowed with cloudless beauty,
on the rippling breeze flitted a butterfly free,
on its wings I painted lattice of my being.
Flowers of my meadow bloomed all seasons for me.
The dawning horizon splashed the spectrum of bliss,
on unfurled buds of dream I was on course to fly.
Euphoria took me to realm of fantasy,
I didn’t see storm clouds gather at the edge of sky.
Splintered in the flickering vive of tinged twilight,
in the vortex of spasm I saw my sky decay,
and crumbling with my dreams in the abyss of void.
In its dark depth I found the end of my pathway.
The flushing meadow turned to withering debris,
the destemmed flowers didn’t see new sunrise in spring.
Surge of summer rains carried away the petals,
the butterfly lost colors from its broken wings.
September 27, 2020
Syllable count : 12 each line
Checked on howmanysyllables.com
Contest : Writing Challenge-Decay
Sponsor : Constance La France
A muffled voice barely audible
his words are ice
cold enough to freeze the warmest heart
My Heart
As heavy as lead
slowly drowning me
pulling me into a never ending abyss
Darkness
Silence
Emotions
my own madness taking control
surrounded by my own desperation
the more I struggle
the more I become the rusty weather worn anchor
oxygen deprived lungs
Burning
gasping at any change to feel alive
Walking all alone through the bleak abyss
The ravens watching from silhouette trees
Inspiration dead, writing I did miss
A dark event put me down on my knees.
In the distance I saw gold rays of light
I hoped and prayed that it was my escape
At forest edge 'twas the sun shining bright
And down below a heavenly landscape.
At the valley below the river flows
Deer herds sip water from clear flowing streams
It's heaven on earth where nobody knows
A Shangri La only found in your dreams.
Lucky was I the right path I did choose
By rivers edge stood my beautiful muse.
Written on 15th November 2019
When there is no inspiration poetry contest
Sponsored by Silent One.
i sit here
aside the lake
grounded
in thoughts
alone
the full-moon rising
casts a lambent light
on the watery stage
where the orchestra
of night normally plays
there is no song
falling off cricket's wings
no cicadas of melody
singing along
the flowers stand tall
for they cannot bow down
to the final chimes
in night's call
when a breathless wind
befalls around them
i sit here
aside the lake
grounded
in thoughts
alone
there are no echoes
of footsteps
to follow me
through the confines
of darkness or mind
just a linger of thoughts
and shadows
that cannot speak back
through the abyss
of my loneliness
In the night I saw light,
it was you and we flew;
over the trees on the breeze,
till the 'morn was new borne;
and I kissed love abyss.
__________________________
October 14, 2019
Poetry/Leonine/Love Abyss
Copyright Protected, ID 19-1188-486-02
All Rights Reserved. Written under Pseudonym.
Submitted to the FFI Blog Series 28 - Leonine
Brian Strand
Podium Place 1
The Abyss In Loving Someone
Falling in love with the darkest abyss of someone's soul,
Finding their ugliest, darkest part of them.
Rounding up the demons that lurk around inside of them,
The deep darkest abyss of their souls' sea.
Then when no one is watching,
You get down to the deep level of their souls.
And then there you'll feel as though,
You've seen and felt their hell.
When you get that deep inside someone:
You'll find that;
You'll need to love the hell out of that one person.
Or if you've to fall in love, for that one's light,
Before having to stand alone in the darkness of them?
Then you'll be loving those people,
On top of the surface, they show you.
But that isn't real:
It's lusts of their flesh.
Where the eyes of a human had opened:
From the temptations that were born;
By dark forces and were ashamed.
And that's the devil's playground,
Wanting you to bite from it's forbidden.
Ranked #84 "Best New Poem" from PoetrySoup™
out of 100. Sept. 22, 2020
“Nobody likes a clown at midnight.” Stephen King
CLOWN AT THE ABYSS
Darkroom abscessed
with neon blush and black-blood —
sunken eyes look surprised
to find oneself in a dank dungeon.
Fecal stench, not humorous,
screams on each bold painted-on face.
“Are we dead?”
“When did I die?”
“I didn’t want to take along this honking nose! It never quits!”
“These humongous shoes, like flippers, so cold they grip!”
The clowns, their smiles and frowns,
continue to gripe in the big tent abyss.
The epic fail of their lives an applause
from the demons who have them in grip.
Like fools, they suppose, they can feel their way out.
They march in one straight line with clanging chains,
chortling, “Heigh Ho! Heigh Ho! It’s off to work I go!”*
You see, they can’t help being funny - never could.
So on they march clinging to claustrophobic walls.
Yet they, one by one, begin to notice no floor exists.
Squalid birds, their chains rattle and roll,
with cheap jokes that never cease.
“Take my wife…please.”
Rings through the air. The demons cackle and boo
their despair, occasionally deflating the roof of the tent
on their heads - it sticks to their gooey faces, causing
them to run out of hot air, go limp, confine their space
even more - no audience to exploit. When the roof rises
each one finds water caterwauled at their faces, then
strapped to a chair as sufferable makeup - acidophil -
leaks behind their eyes, into their pores, maliciously.
Clown at the abyss digs his nails into the soil, climbing
a mountain of ill will, always failing...falling, and then
the jokes hammer again...over and over, head over heels.
...head over heels,
with no end…
2/27/2020
Clown at the Abyss Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Kai Michael Neumann
*Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
in the deep abyss- of nature I find great peace- wild flowers swaying
fluttering leaves sing- a blue stream bubbling along . . lost in tangled ferns
______________________________
December 30, 2019
Poetry/haiku/abyss of nature
Copyright Protected, ID 19-1212-747-02
All Rights Reserved. Written in Pseudonym.
Written for the Ku Duet
sponsor, Silent One
First Place
The girl I see in the mirror ...
has eyes the color of black ... and there is a pain
hard to look at for it will break your heart
and deep within dwells
a forever melancholy, grief and sadness fathomless
~ the corridors of her memory are ink like
her love is buried in the abyss
and each day she puts on a mask of cheerful ~
and in dreams she walks a starless night
seeking those memories beneath
immersed deep down in the pitch black of her mind
till she hears the song of a nightingale
calling her ...
~ and obscure images float from far beneath
cloudy and murky yet she reaches out
to hold them to her heart ~
oh, these are her loved ones gone from this realm
just names chiselled in slate
down a long gloomy winding road
a huge ebony raven is cawing an ugly sound
she is frightened and ... wants to fly away ...
into the ... 'black' yawning sky
~ she wakes in the shadowy dawn of a new day
knowing she will dream of deep darkness
each time she closes her eyes ... forevermore
... until she too is part of the abyss ~
___________________
August 24, 2021
Poetry/Free Verse/Black Abyss
Copyright Protected, ID 08-1384-111-24
All Rights Reserved, 2021, Constance La France
Written for the Premier contest, The Color Black
sponsor, Chantelle Anne Cooke, Judged 08/29/2021
Third Place
everywhere i turn and everywhere i twist from the east into the west...
everywhere i look i see angels in the abyss
in pitch blackness or on dead end roads
in pure darkness or in bottomless holes
from lambs to wolves
with force or finesse
everywhere i look i see angels in the abyss
surrounded by shadows and followed by forms
when mushroom cloud madness keeps coming with more
from the north to the south
when shouts turn into machine gun spits
everywhere i look i see angels in the abyss
when danger is driven by demons of destruction i give glory to God and His holy reconstruction
when the black smoke of sin disapates like a mist
everywhere i look i see angels in the abyss
in my greatest hour of need
entangled and enslaved and wrapped in wicked weeds
when sour seeds sprout into monsterous myths
everywhere i look i see angels in the abyss
I walk in silence as I defile
Chasing circles with a vixen vile
Only the shadows know my pain
For I walk in silence of slumbering shame
With solitudes of the fortress built
I walk in silence with a gainful guilt
No tomorrows for the sorrows sing
For I walk in silence with a sinful sting
Tears that build an ocean view
With crying clouds and a haunting hue
I walk in silence within your essence
Quicksand thoughts and projected presence
The minstrel plays a saddened song
Listening in the deafening silence that I furlong
Lonely lingering in the great abyss
For I dare to dream for your silent kiss.
July.22.2016
Loneliness - Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Nayda Ivette Negron