Best Affinities Poems
A cacophony of cheers
Sand sprays like fireworks
From feet, hands, ball, hair.
Four women, two-a-side,
In a battle for the ages.
A motion of fluidity and a
Knowledge brought forth
From years in the fray.
Sun, rain, the elements,
Just more adversaries
In a long procession of
Combatants put asunder
By their clear dominance
Of a gritty game of volleys.
The Americans had few
Times met with struggle
Along their long journey
Toward the gilded yellow
Badge of Olympic honor,
But this night the glint in
The eye, the coordinate
Movements of limbs and
Lengths and deliberations,
The perfection of intents
And wiles and exertions,
Would not birth triumph,
But instead place a bitter
Pill flat on their tongues.
But such is the bare truth
Of warfare, and such is
The coming of wisdom ...
For without that sour taste
And constricting swallow,
We have no estimation
Of the finer, sweeter things
That the battlements of
Life hold within their walls.
Gold knows no favorite,
Nor does it gleam in the
Eyes of the fortunate only.
Momentum true is the key
And this night it flowed
For the sake of those
Whose feet knew this
Beach as their own ...
Who felt their home and
Peoples and affinities all
In the grainy coursing of
Cold granules underfoot,
And sometimes, when
The heart has the peace
Of its OWN around it, that's
All the difference needed.
But character outshines
The most precious ores,
And in that bold and true
Respect, our wonderfully
Beautiful and courageous
Girls of Stars and Stripes,
Shall ALWAYS stand at
The top of the podium,
And the anthem of our
Appreciation and pride
Will always play in their
Ears ...
We love you, Kerri
Walsh Jennings and April
Ross, and you are, without
Question or argument,
The very BEST.
Categories:
affinities, america, beach, courage, patriotic,
Form:
Free verse
COPLA 78 INVOCATION: This Bad Guy World
Recruit killers from the cradle
“Touches pas à mon Dieu! S’il te plaît!”
Crazed Pavlov mice
Curious holy books lie idle
Bits and pieces froth in mouths lay:
Rest lice in rice
Even if faiths feed best within ethnies
Holy writs and laws best divide them:
Make each Other
Some faiths lay claim to affinities
Yet each other slaughter and condemn:
Curse their mother
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2014
Categories:
affinities, conflict, creation, god,
Form:
Dramatic Monologue
What are we? you may ask,
While looking into the mirror of life
Reflecting all people having the same blood
Running into their similarly shaped bodies
What are we, if only for a difference in
Personality, name, mindset, affinities, and lifestyle
What are we, mere consciousness inhabiting bodies
We call human and thinking of ourselves
As being the apex of all lifeforms revolving along with
A silent and unexplained world?
Well, we are the magic sparkles of the divine's breath
As it has been pushed into us,
So as to have us toil for a purpose
We are interconnected galaxies who have forgotten
How to raise up to that level of vibration
Which would allow us to communicate through telepathy
We are the mystery of thunderstorms as they roar
Through cloud hidden skies
We are slaves of our fates,
Spirits entranced to such an extent by the light of the mystical
That we only care to live up to our duties
So as to open our eyes someday,
To our truth!
For Contest Sans mind-body who are we
Sponsored by: Unseeking Seeker
Written on 15th September 2022
Categories:
affinities, spiritual,
Form:
Free verse
Villanelle: The Dilemma of the Non-Violent – 17
Real power lies not in the ranks of the parties
Nor in heads of governments parties elect
Puppet-strings in hands of secret societies
Those whose claws pierce guts through nationalities
The bankers investors owners who select
Real power lies not in the ranks of parties
But in hereditary lords ethnic cronies
Those who speak for gods with violent effect
Puppet-strings in hands of secret societies
Those who allegiance owe through club affinities
Across borders oceans or lands derelict
Real power lies not in the ranks of parties
In lodges temples private media companies
Bound by rituals rites oaths sworn dead secret
Puppet-strings in hands of secret societies
For whom even to write quote such verities
Clamour of rage pounces on the hapless poet
Real power lies not in the ranks of parties
Puppet-strings in the hands of secret societies
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2015
Categories:
affinities, corruption, international, leadership, political,
Form:
Villanelle
Almighty God* I adore
Author of faith, approved by Your atonement
Accept my acknowledgment and admiration of Your anointing.
Awed by and adorned with Your advice
Abiding am I in Your avouching assurance
Apprehended against abominations, arrayed with holiness’ attire.
Away from adversary’s affliction
Alertly, I advance toward Your accommodating arms
Allowed to ascend to approach You, appeased with Your admonition.
Abhorring accusers’ affinities
Attentively, I avoid their artillery
Abstaining to adapt abusive attitudes, actually awful.
Awakened from arrogance
Apprehended along my adversities’ anguish
Available am I to advertise heavenly affairs for hell-acquittal’s advantage.
Attended to by Your amazing abundance
Appointed am I as ambassador of adoption with access to Your altar
Always assisted amiably to accomplish assignment around Alleluia-adventure.
*Revelation 1:8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.”
January 23, 2019
2nd place, "Alliteration - Old or New" Poetry Writing Contest
Sponsored by Joseph May; judged on 9/2/2022.
Categories:
affinities, appreciation, christian, confidence, faith,
Form:
Alliteration
Almighty God, the supreme Father above
assures me, through Scriptures’ precepts, His divine affection
affirming His marvelous vibrant love’s abundance
always at work to grant pardon absolutely
and assuage my guilt-caused anguish*
as I confess my iniquities, spiritually atrocious…
along my heart’s repentant acquiescence.
Asserting His grace, at all times amazing
Author of my faith awakens me against arrogance-attack
accommodating me around His fellowship’s altar
auspicious --- according to sovereign mercy’s assistance
available to absolve my sin-wages’ affliction
already paid by Christ’s blood of efficacious atonement...
…acquitting me from eternal condemnation toward heavenly abode.
Alertly apprehended against selfish appetency
admonished soul of mine, accepting adversities' alarms
asks forgiveness after ardent admission
aware of worldly enticements that grievously allure
amidst appeasing ephemeral affinities, carnally awry;
abiding now in His will, I adore God, appreciating Him, gratefully awed…
…ascending toward blissful service of faith-altitude.
*Psalm119:143 Trouble and anguish have taken hold on me: yet thy (LORD’s) commandments are my delights.
Free verse with alliteration
October 26, 2019
3rd place, "Crazy A's" Poetry Contest
Sponsored by John Hamilton; judged on 11/3/2019.
Categories:
affinities, appreciation, christian, devotion, faith,
Form:
Free verse
How people across the globe travel in droves
like in springtime, a wonderful time for everyone;
as this year holds so many promises to fulfill
with countless chances and opportunities as well.
Families and personal affinities both young and old alike;
with their shared vision, trends of a common past,
they give reason to move around and stay where they’re;
it’s a call of reconnecting, a heartstring of cordial relations.
While struggles shape us to be firm and strong,
our cultures blend in every fiber of human behavior
with peculiarities drawn from diverse causes and reasons,
described as the distillation of one’s self being an individual person.
Such is the reality that’s pretty evident among our people;
with their priorities at hand and aspirations that signify,
they’re wrapped up within and reflective of what’s ideal,
Christ is still the center – the reason and purpose of our survival.
Categories:
affinities, faith, introspection, life, people,
Form:
Rhyme
How to Feel When Your House Burns Down
The home you are raised in is a mother tongue.
I was four when it was built, an age when innocence
turns river water and all that lives within to blood.
First birthdays and first dances fortify the mantel.
This home transports milestones, our own vessel
to move us from sidewalk chalk to the attempt to outrun
the stagnancy found only in the debilitation of the long run.
At seven, I held him in my arms and love upon my tongue.
Promises danced on my lips and ran rampant on my vessels.
College funds started in a baby bottle, tiny wishes held in a cent.
I remember grappling with his growth, attempting to mantle
the affinity we pinky promised deep into our own blood.
At twelve, my father taught me to dance in the blood
and glass on the hardwood. Still, I watch his fingers run
to sow flowers in my mother's hair, her back, mantling,
the image of infatuation, true love, in our minds. A tongue
of tenderness has our childlike innocence
giggling and shouting at the inamoratas and the vessel
of devotion in which each of us was vesselled
into this life. Each of us was born in the fervor of blood,
so sweet. My mother threaded honey, burned incense,
and chewed lemon slices whole to hold us near. She ran
baths of salts and oils, to cleanse the ever growing tongue
of infernos that caressed, more captivated, our mantel
of consciousness. For many years, we tied sheets to mantels.
With pillows and blankets, we’d build ourselves a vessel
to a land of fairies and warriors who shared the same tongue.
Pool noodles became swords. Here we spilled blood,
convincing ourselves if we were to sprint, leap, run
fast enough we too could fly amongst the rest, innocent
to the world around us. At nineteen, I watch the innocence
leave our home. Adolescent memories that kiss the mantel
turn to sharp licks in the wild fire that is running
through the bones of our sweltering home, the vessel
of affinities, dances, compassion, imagination, and the blood
that connects it all, now lapped up with tongues,
too heavy for the innocent, a cancerous burn in our vessels.
The mantle of snow is no relief to the flames that drip like blood.
And still, we do not run, we wait for the final lick of a mother's tongue.
Categories:
affinities, fear, fire, longing, loss,
Form:
Sestina
Take joy in all childhood affinities
for they are the makings of you my son.
I am a witness to boyish sallies
and, you child, its face to always gladden.
That in some small measure you become me
so your beginnings shine in countless ways,
and in my image mine own eyes do see
a candle lit that brightens all my days.
So permit me my quatrains and couplings,
forgive my rapture and quixotic state -
mine is the lexicon of beloved things
and yours the idioms that resonate.
Now blow your candles and cut your iced cake
and close your eyes and all your wishes make.
Written: March 2007
Categories:
affinities, birthday, son,
Form:
Sonnet
WordScape Triptych #1
Coming from the Underworld as a ghost, just sauntering out of the depths like you did;
With all the rest of us just watching and wondering what you were going to say;
Tell us young Beatrice what shavings you encountered in your intrepid sojourns;
Regale us with splendid tales, and grand dishes with squid meat and fried barnacles;
Intrigue us with your newly-learned dances taught by dead men beneath the grasses.
Manipulate us with your pouting grimaces when sad phrases turn inward the head screws;
Sweet Beatrice, there is no relief or recourse from these exacting heart exercises;
These time-stopping surrenders to the moist touches of absolute skin arousals.
Please lovely Dulcinea, guide us to the far-away stones piled atop the ancient green expanses;
Where screaming armies once pondered mortality amidst the spreading proliferating weeds;
Soothe us with your tender eye gazes which shoot through the airy spaces with calm affinities;
Made immaculate with silent prayers and lifted legs around the shoulders of the nobilities.
Create us for your strange mansions and your strange universes made of chalk, and fingering fears;
These soothing squanderings of doubting time, and the strange splashings of forgetful mercies,
Made manifest with the urgings of the stones, and the apex gods with the sharp plastic crowns;
Please Dulcinea, sing to us with your tenor gyrations made of pickled stardust and squid meat.
And proffer for us, sweet sweet Laura, your lilting songs celebrating the recurring exhalations;
From the lips of bearded nomads coming like leopards across the squared-faced, death vistas;
Expose to us your battle-scarred appendages where bleeding arrows found the stringed lattices;
Reveal to us your arched spinal bridges which flatten and turn with the seeking wind shears;
Gather us, lovely Laura, to your immense home hidden in the spiral ferns for tea and secret games;
Teach us how to be present and aware of the artifices, as rendered woodenly by the blind gropers;
Yes, sweet sweet Laura, we are at your service, but finally, kill us, destroy and annihilate us,
With your slithering clandestine movements behind dripping tombstones in the snoring graveyards.
Categories:
affinities, poetry,
Form:
Free verse
Money name fame
take it all
and buy me peace
save me from my fall
I ran on easy street
like a deranged man
but when i looked back
chilling winter wind palpitated my heart
Some are born with silver spoon
i arrived with a wounded fate
and i ride success hill by a crazy train
but this eclat will fade to black
Sometimes i fall in love
but everytime i endure pain
yet i want to burn in this sweet flame
like a sapless man in the rain.
People love me, people hate me
i do not care much
once fell from you
oh' tree , fruit is not yours.
Where do i go now
i have house but not a home
my dream castle is falling
and affinities are burning to coal
Now i am sitting here
with corrupt heart and rusted mind
dark lord is devouring my soul
i do not wish to live anymore.
This worriment is not only mine
masses are suffering
dwelling in the land of commotion
waiting for cessation, asking the solution.
The answer is
Life is beautiful, ocean is more blue
trees are greener and beauties are true
love is so real, so is harmony and peace
you can feel it if heart is open and vision is not blur.
Categories:
affinities, emotions, feelings, grief, imagery,
Form:
Verse
SPECIFIC MOMENTS
visual language
inspiration
in
retrospective
contemporary
dreams
of an alternative
future
a moment
of
reckoning
flooded
into
the eye
once moribund
now
captivated
encountering
the beauty
of refinement
to establish
affinities
between
the sensitive
& the
non-comprehensive
a turning point
a narrative
of the a romantic
constantly
renewed
in
the mind
a battleground
& clashing
of styles
a sign
of prescience
& genius
an indicator
of dialogue
in rethought
figuration
of
the
absurd
NOTE:THIS IS AN OPEN(organic) FORM VERSE using spaces&breaks without grammatical symbols ,the ' open' relies upon 'the one breath limitation' & so inherently requires the 'reader' (reciter) to input and responds thus making this enigmatic form a two way interplay & interpretatIon unique to the moment& changing according to mood is inherently variable.
Copyright © Brian Strand
Categories:
affinities, poetry,
Form:
Other
being adventurous mammalians
we seek to avoid the repetition of pain
and encounter the repetition of pleasure
which might be why the ones who have everything
take from those who have nothing
just to get a little bit more
in a retroactive stylistic tendency
which has survived from the dark centuries
as annotated in the severe prognostications
from eminent gargoyle collector J. B. Hoopersnacky
of the ill fated Ulysses lately posted to the tropics
diplomatic gesture of listless conciliation
Hoop's biting satire of unresisted passions
is yet another voice of no particular merit
rightfully ignored by a sky full of arguing deities
batting their pig bladders into each others' faces
at great cost of charm and dignity
to the fluffy sheep braying tenderly below
discovery of other preceding discovery of self
an every time axiom sung by every mother
whose manifold component itchy attributes
a zig zag sequence of intriguing sentiments
about cleanliness and obedience
necessarily providing inadequate protection
against the wolfish the blatantly expressed
dominion of unzipped sorcery
inviting hard times upon the land
who do you blame who do you trust
when the entrancing commercial breaks
outnumber the direct affinities for truth
by a grand historic factor of gross multiplication
and here we are back to repetition
and the many depictions of common vanity
mercilessly unchained filling the readout screens
eternal enemy of *****publius
as old J.B. liked to call himself on a good day
when the publisher's check arrived
and another bottle of Mermaid's Breath
graced the banded navigator chest
docked at his fireside rocker
as he brooded
Categories:
affinities, how i feel,
Form:
Free verse
There are two kinds of cultures
- Defined in different ways
In different countries and lifestyles,
Valley vs Mountain, Settled vs Nomadic
Or in modern America, City vs Country -
With their two opposing attitudes,
“Let us tell you what to do!”, and
“Just leave me alone…”
It’s a simple dichotomy really
Of a group and collective orientation,
And a more individualist and self-reliant one
Based on the reality of survival
Each different lifestyle requires.
Different people have different affinities
And many self-select to live around similar types,
But there are plenty who find themselves living,
Out of family or work or relationship needs,
As a minority, a stranger in a strange land
Like that little contrasting dot within
The swirling drops of yin/yang’s polarity.
But these two cultures, as complimentary
As they are, also divide the nation
Not just geographically;
East and West, North and South
But politically;
Left and Right, Socialist and Conservative
To some extend sexually;
Female and Male
And generationally;
Parents and Child.
It’s a conflict of cultures we all experience
But sometimes never grow out of
Or find the freedom from, and peace with.
The two after all are opposites
And the one wanting to tell you what to do
Is by definition more motivated to find the other
And tell them what to do…
It’s the world we live in,
But at some point it seems
It’s just not sustainable.
Things fall apart
When they aren’t maintained and kept organized,
Oh, and here come those who have volunteered
For that job!
Now order rules the day, and chaos
Is always better kept way over there.
There are no frontiers left to explore
And escape into anymore
Other than the inner realm of mind
Imagination, dreams and fantasies
Or an addiction, dysfunction and disease
- Plenty of chaos available in those -
Or better yet, a good book in the man cave,
A quiet sit on the cushion
Or walk in the woods…
Something, anything to give us the peace
We all need
From that nagging persistent voice,
Outside and within,
Telling us what it thinks we should do
While we just want to be left alone
To discover it on our own.
(3/8/25)
Categories:
affinities, allegory, culture, introspection, perspective,
Form:
Narrative
IDEAS
so
profound
distinct
&
imposing
an idea
made visual
rendered
specific
modern
&contemporary
extroverted
spontaneous
yet
intense
&
irregular
encountered
immediately
in
the unknown
yet
prolific
utopia
of
yesterday's
visual
affinities
NOTE:THIS IS AN OPEN(organic) FORM VERSE using spaces&breaks without grammatical symbols ,the ' open' relies upon 'the one breath limitation' & so inherently requires the 'reader' (reciter) to input and responds thus making this enigmatic form a two way interplay & interpretatIon unique to the moment& changing according to mood is inherently variable.
Copyright © Brian Strand
Categories:
affinities, poetry,
Form:
Other