Best Aftermath Poems
AFTERMATH
War is final but incomplete,
bodies littered like spent ammunition
along the ravaged bloody street.
But who hears the voices of condemnation
on profit-only Wall Street?
In the dirt they make their plans
to strike again at life and limb
but ghostly cries fall on deaf ears.
Who, alive, could be so bold
to find in such a loss a gain?
Better drunk with glory and feel the pain
than live a sober life in vain.
With rigid form and empty hands
the scripted epitaph of modern man
lies for all to see in the deeds
of young men, yet most turn away
ashamed of the savage reality.
To a different god they pray
but everyone just wants to live free.
To those brave warriors downed
no small measure of honour found.
War is final but incomplete,
the aftermath lives on in the faces,
the fears and in the broken street;
a boil in the hot sun of scrutiny
and the children dance in bare feet.
Conflict is old and certainly cold,
survivors return with stories untold.
The epic struggle continues between
man’s heart and his powerful greed
leaving a wasteland out of Eden.
With inner struggles the scars are hidden.
War is conflict with no remedy,
turns trusted friends into bitter enemies.
The dead have one wish, to be alive,
to be with loved ones who survive.
The aftermath, the chaos, it never ends,
on and on the sorrow and grief,
these broken lives will never mend.
Only death or peace will bring relief.
You walk through the metal detector
You look at me with a deep seated scorn
You loath that I made you remove your stuff
You had to take off your shoes belt and jewelry
You’re thinking “I’m no criminal or terrorist so why me”
I am only doing the job the government requires of me
I am not the reason you are harassed and had to partially strip
I do empathize with you seeing I have to do the same thing too
No one cares that I am a Screening Officer I am searched when I travel
The government says what’s good for the goose is good for the gander
You want to get mad at someone then look in the right direction
The ones who blatantly took the lives of our families and friends
Who took the choice of traveling to most places away forever
Who took the privilege of carrying most things on board away
The freedom to travel with our liquids and gels peanut butter and jam
Don’t blame me because I am risking my life to keep you safe
Don’t blame me for someone not caring about your fate
Don’t blame me for what Mr. Harper and Mr. Obama says
Or for what the UK says is their Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)
Don’t blame me I am just the messenger that holds many lives in my hand
Like winds incessant through the night
and torrents dumped from darkened clouds,
the storm raged on without contrite
my anguish hid ‘neath subtle shrouds.
A storm like this I’ve never seen
in my whole lifetime to be sure
when hot converging airs convene;
‘tis more than one should e’er endure.
But now at dawn an eerie calm
as sun peeks out and shadows cast,
and nature sings its Sunday psalm;
the mayhem seeming to have passed.
Yet as I look around the room
belongings scattered everywhere;
my treasures past have met their doom,
been tossed about without a care.
My heart is crushed, left in a void,
its pieces scattered on the floor;
like trees blown down, my life destroyed
as she walked out and slammed the door.
October 26, 2020
"Then there is no more left but this, that
in our doom the sorrow yet to come shall be no less
than the love we two have already known"
(Words of Heloise to Abelard after her pregnancy)
Like moon on nights of skies un-starred
she lived without her Abelard.
A parched still plain was Heloise -
like moon on nights of skies un-starred.
In death she would not lose regard
for him who’d been her rain and breeze.
Like moon on nights of skies un-starred,
she lived without her Abelard.
When Abelard put love away,
with Church he mightily aligned.
The world was not like ours today
when Abelard put love away.
Not even Heloise could say
were she to often cross his mind.
When Abelard put love away,
with Church he mightily aligned.
By Andrea Dietrich
For the Famous Couples/DuosPoetry Contest
of Heather Ober
(based on one of the most interesting love stories
I have ever read: Abelard & Heloise)
our laughter
on the beach. . .
the darkening sky
One day our boat was demolished in a storm that came up suddenly on what had begun as a sunny July day. My husband had recently recovered from a nervous breakdown. Our boat had been his main means of escape on summer weekends, so this event, which would merely have saddened the ordinary guy, totally devastated him.
I could liken this calamitous day to the worst part of living with a person who suffers from “managed” depression/anxiety. Days can be sunny, but when the storms strike, even the best pharmaceuticals can curtail neither the sometimes disastrous effects on the mind of one who suffers depression nor the entire family’s feelings of isolation and debilitating despair. That day at the lake would top my list of the many times in my life that I would choose never to have to relive.
the children’s cries
mingled with my helpless pleas. . .
his vacant stare
For the What I Wouldn't Want to Relive contest of Black Eyed Susan
(the actual story of this day at the beach was told with more details
in a past haibun of mine posted Oct. 1, 2013 and named Fickle Nature)
You have sacrificed yourself sweet Jesus for our redemption
Yet we celebrated Hare's Day instead of Your holy Resurrection!
© Demetrios Trifiatis
17 April 2017
* Although the poem that was chosen as POTD on Easter Sunday is a fine one as a poem, I find it most inappropriate to celebrate our Lord's Resurrection. We have to remember that Easter Sunday has to do with our Lord's victory over Death and not with a hare's sweet eggs.
It is not the case that I do not love the poet or the poem but I love Jesus more!
PS: I know this might cost me dearly but I must defend our Lord's Passion.
Calm appears following a ferocious storm
As clouds turn marshmallow white again,
In the stillness, nature returns to a norm.
Drifting across patches of deep blue sky
The clouds resume their cottony shapes
As we observe them lazily passing by.
Our souls are soothed by the silence,
Following the loud thunder and lightning,
As clouds take up a slow, steady cadence.
POEM OF THE DAY
Poetry Soup, August 15, 2021
written August 14, 2021
#60 on Best 100 Poems for August, 2021
Poetry Soup
#57 on Best 100 Poems for September, 2021
Damaging winds whip and slash, whirling wild, drenching rain,
Roads decimated come to standstill, as gushing floods reign,
Inundating swollen terrains, roiling deluge of a tenebrous day,
As trees bowing to gusting storms; erratically waltz and sway.
Houses naked with roofs blown, now ache, mangled and worn,
Where loss of life, in makeshift shelter, neighbors sadly mourn;
Sharing stories of a sudden event, rushing through the town,
Disheartened life, since torn-down, anguishing in wistful frown.
Danger lurks, where flood waters submerge fallen power lines,
As rivers and tributaries of muddy-flows, float uprooted vines,
What once was a harmonic rhythm, now perturbs pulse of life,
Dawn that rose on a lambent arc, now shudders in sullen strife.
People stranded, anxious for rescue, assess the damage done,
Cars are destroyed, fires are burning, recovery has just begun;
Sirens blaring of dire emergencies, are chasing to plug gas-leaks,
Searching for victims of drowning, scouting the rivers and creeks.
Swindlers are hovering, ripping-off elderly, exacting heavy price,
Hit by the tragedy first, then by the cruelty of defrauding vice;
Some now blame callous humanity, some name it~ an act of fate,
Mired in untold challenges, as remnants-torrent start to abate.
dreamland paved with
moonstones, reflecting
within themselves the dark light of
my nightmares, shelters in
its core the essence of
fear, sweetened only
by some amber-
like glow of the passing of
a summer storm…you see,
lightning isn’t meant
to live forever…and while
i endow the sky with the
ashes left behind by the
touch of your soul on mine,
summoning for a phoenix seems
to be the darkest magic my words
ever did…
It was the selfish men who tore the country apart,
For they had no love for Lincoln nor people at heart.
A line called Mason Dixon was keeping both sides apart,
And in 1861, the Civil War battles began to start.
In 1865, a peace mandate was finally brought in,
But Black's down in the South had not forgotten.
It was the end of slavery and elite slave trade plottin',
When former slaves told their masters, "Go pick your own damn cotton".
Written: November 13, 2023
____________________________________________
The exhausted soul's speech is faint.
In response to the voice of dream.
When faith lends its way to conflate
The exhausted soul's speech is faint.
Where the bloom faded with berate
lack of mind and frame as soul screams
The exhausted soul's speech is faint.
In response to the voice of dream.
There’s a nip in the wind,
so into warmer clothes, I’ll change
the coming storm, they say, is a beast,
but rain won’t start, till after light;
all night, the rain will pour;
I must bring in the cat.
Storms terrorize my cat,
so do rattling windows, in the wind.
Around here, rains that pour,
nring drastic temperature changes
and the raging lightening,
is a formidable beast.
Though the beast
terrorized my cat,
I await the daylight,
to view the damage from the storm’s winds
and lightening that change
Our ground, with the deluges that pour.
As it storms, I will pour
over my utility bill-beasts.
I must also change
the litter box, for the cat.
The raging, lightening and wind
sends her streaking, like greased lightening.
In the morning light,
orange juice, I pour.
I’ve lost another tree, to the wind;
the storm did beastly
damage and not just, to my cat;
the landscape of my town, has changed!
I will change
Into clothing that’s light.
I’ll go outside with my cat
And begin to pour
Over the debris, from the beastly
Storm and its tempestuous winds.
They say that, change, is good, but they haven’t see a frenzied cat.
By morning’s sunlight she’s a fur-blown beast.
Still, she’s survived the pouring Rain and the terrors brought,
by unforgiving winds.
The wind dies down
People peek out their windows
To see the damage done
And damage has been done indeed
Branches strewn everywhere
Small fires
Power lines knocked down
Leaves and petals all over the streets
Garbage cans a few houses over from where they reside
Eventually, people start picking up the wreckage
Branches are thrown back in the woods
Fires are put out
Power lines fixed
Leaves and petals swept up
Garbage cans put back in people's garages
The sun shines
And all is well in the world again
I remember now. Something was heavy, a winged
dragon that refused to fly from my chest
My eyes were secret mirrors, or a doomsday judge.
I remember morning as a flighty horse,
or like a new school year,
that first careful sentence written on a page.
Time became a sequel. Roads were rootless trees
racing by - Fog an x-ray – the night, annoying as a fly.
I had a misconception and her assumptions followed
every stray dog. I quivered hollow with a frantic yellow zest.
I ate from a dish of nutmeg.
I woke to the sound of dying frogs, impossible spiders
trapping rainbows in their webs, the nebulous orbit
of knick knacks in the room, my reach
too small for a mother’s heart.
Her seeds had such an element of surprise, her
plum lipstick, the zing of frayed nerves
she mocked death with a cup of sunshine
she kept an artist’s palette - adding
color to existence
Too late, the impossible demand on angels
Each bitter thought the baroque decomposing
of an empty optimism
My keyless lock - emotion
Premiere Contest number 12
Contest Judged: 9/24/2016 12:01:00 AM
Sponsored by: SKAT A
Placed 9out of 10
Entered in the Best Poem worthy of a Trophy
I have entered this poem because it came from
out of the ether. Some poems just do.
Deeply felt almost not understood but felt on a visceral level.
N/A’d
The wind is now a soughing sigh,
Smoke is slowly drifting.
Devastation meets the eye.
Home burned down,
Chimney standing.
Possums gone, fate unknown,
Snakes are dead, birds have flown.
Bush destroyed, and trees, devoid
of green leaves, bare.
While all around, the empty sound
of nothing living there.
Within the heat of raging flame
gumnut shells have broken.
The fire did its worst, yet best,
the nuts will grow and so attest
that nature's voice has spoken.
Beneath the layer of fertile ash
Those hardy seeds remain.
Until one day they surge and push
and green once more will clothe the bush,
as growth begins again.