Best Agonizingly Poems
when the coolness of spring
begins to fade,
in the wake of rising heat
in early April in north Indian plains,
and the golden wheat crops
shimmer in glade,
flowers of different hues
begin to lose their bright sharp sheen.
the dry, pale yellow and brown
dead leaves of most trees,
shed themselves off one by one
exposing the bare branches,
ahoy!! soon thereafter
the nature’s miracle can be witnessed,
if one looks at the bare dry branches
a bit more closely.
suddenly they seem to be covered
with growing tender green leaf-shoots ‘n buds,
and slowly begin to swing
in the gentle breeze like coy maidens,
taking cover behind each other
they nervously glance around to check,
they have not been seen naked
in their act of changing their attire
by any stranger.
when the flower-laden branches
of mango and other fruit trees
gently dance in the air,
to sweet notes of the cuckoo’s song
attracting butterflies ‘n insects
to their flowers,
and what a surprise to see
not so long after
the sudden evolution of flowers
into small unripe green fruits,
which promise to become
sweet ‘n juicy
in the growing heat of
the engulfing summer.
the morning cool and gentle breeze
rapidly starts to convert itself into,
a hot, biting, dry, strong westerly wind
as the sun simmers
agonizingly close ‘n longer,
everyone gets nature’s signal
to search for shade and cool greens
for solace, before the heat saps up
whatever energy is left in the living beings.
27.5.2014
Wedding wines - rather champagne shines
and bubbly breakout of blushing bride.
Groom with giant heart, gracious, grateful - grips
her hand with his handsome wholeness. Helps
his lovely lady into limousine, longing for her lips.
Laps leaping, longing, leaving the crowd’s “so long!”
Cans chiming cheers. Crowd chuckles at car’s rear.
“Honeymoon here we come!” Coreen casts a shameless
glance at Glen. His green anticipation, Gable-debonair.
Goosebumps and gorgeous view - grand peaks
of her bosom buddies, brimming with lace and brouhaha.
His eyes - riveting, reveling, robust, ruddy and willing.
~
Throbbing thirst, thistles ‘neath terrycloth, while he waits.
Anticipation hurts - artfully, agonizingly. Her appearance
in nascent negligée, nearly naughty, nearly a no-no,
but not, for they’ve tied the knot and into a knot they go.
Get’m tiger! Tongues tangoed, trip to Timbuktu, tipsy
and top-see and no toodaloo - a forever frou-frou.
Silk surrender, sliding, suspend her, satisfaction in space.
Stirring, sipping, inhabiting each other, sensational and sweet.
9/2/2022
Anniversary Contest
Sponsor: Sara Kendrick
Sirens wailing like the world had ended
In the streets an eerie calm that day
The heartbeat of our country'd been suspended
Kennedy's been shot! My God! No way!
Youthful vigor, smile inviting and appealing
Camelot! -- He and Jackie'd ushered in
America, the news had sent a-reeling
Lined our faces, tears instead of grins
Woe! The shock wore off, reality set in
Agonizingly, did we return to form
Drank our morning coffee, tasted thin
Sometimes wished we never had been born
Death, unwelcome, always begs a reason
This death torments our souls these many seasons
Trochaic tetrameter/pentameter
Daddy's specter plectrums mercilessly
Fraying my nerves raw
with oxidized guitar strings.
my thoughts relentlessly hemorrhage
onto clay vinyl grooves
s p i n n i n g
endless nights
of
suffocation.
a midnight jazz wail
lacerates
the void of your absence.
notes gnaw through bone marrow
ravenous maggots
in the corpse
of our love.
Chords violently crash
splintering my fractured vertebrae
a car wreck
in slow motion.
plucking
the frayed synapses
of my misfiring
modal limbic brain.
feel the searing electric distortion
static fuzz of madness
surge through
morrow's marrow
my moanin'
a primal scream
at the Eve of Destruction
trapped in a skipping groove
of creation
shattering guitars
and blasting kneecaps
in an empty cathedral
of resounding sound
Our touch
a violent crescendo
of needles and poisoned honey
pain swollen sweet
as a mother's milk
laced with a junkie's fix
on a stillborn birthday morn
each note
a razor-sharp reflection
etched in stretch-marked
scar tissue
of the agony that throbs
within this moog menagerie
of fractured femininity
set
Between the sets
of our shattered chords
a single note lingers- soft
almost tender-
like a child's last breath
before the
final
f i n a l e
Silence crawls
a venomous asp
a deafening absence
louder than stacked amps
of patriarchy
reverberating in the hollow spaces
between drumming heartbeats
where your persecuting promises
used to nest and breed
I am the discarded B-side
of the one-hit wonder
rising from dumpster-filled
lungs of domesticity
reborn
in the Electric Avenue
of my own making
singing
Billie's bruises
Muddy's floods and
Johnson's hellhounds
to the ghosts
of futures stillborn
in this Rhapsody
of beautiful
destruction
Moon-faced and sickle-smiled
I conduct this orchestrated
Savage band of ruin
my voiceless voice
a lightning rod
splitting the sky
of expectations
as I agonizingly birth myself anew
in the RCA Victor Rhapsody of Blue
of Beautiful
reconstruction
P e r h a p s…
a new refrain
I, cold ... cold as stone ...
But is that not befitting such as I?
Once, merely common, hidden deep in the earth,
Still, my quality made itself known ... my porcelain perfection
Shone in the sun, and I was freed from Terra's grasp ...
Across a great sea I was rocked, carried in care
To finally, joyfully, go under The Master's hand.
I slowly, agonizingly, emerged from the cloud-white slab, pure ...
Brought forth into all glory and consummation!
Stone saw, chisel, rasp, cloth, and paper ... I stretched my limbs, reached my
Fingers and toes to the ether ... arched my back in a repose of death,
Laid upon an altar of mocked coral, draped only in my net -
The Pearl Diver's repository of all things glistening and wondrous!
Oh, what exquisite orbs, those that grace the net's seam!
White, pink, and black opaline gems - iridescent ocean treasures!
Miraculous drops of milky, nacreous moonlight, hidden in Neptune's gullet,
Awaiting their emancipation ... finally freed at the edge of the diver's blade!
But that, for me, is yet a dream ... I am but stone, after all ...
Be content, instead, to gaze upon my keen beauty,
I, the polished progeny of a sculptor's acumen,
I, the refined, glorious bloom of stone,
I, the ivory issue of marble elegance,
I, the bairn of a master ...
The Dead Pearl Diver.
~ 2nd Place ~ in the " ... And Now For Something Completely Different" Poetry Contest, John Lawless, Judge & Sponsor.
~ Honorable Mention ~ in the "Brian's Choice Q, Any Form, Any Theme" Poetry Contest, Brian Strand, Judge & Sponsor.
( This is about the sculpture "The Dead Pearl Diver" by Benjamin Paul Akers 1858, currently on display at The Portland Museum of Fine Art in Portland, ME ... this was a personal favorite of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and he wrote about it more than once. This is an incredible sculpture, especially in person )
Tinnitus tinnitus, innocuous by name,
invisible tasteless, sounds pretty lame,
Ears hissing, snakes inside my head,
Growing louder, causing turmoil in bed,
Room’s spinning, feel like getting sick,
Banging kicks off, rhythmically quick.
Tinnitus tinnitus, pneumatic drillers,
incessant maniacal machine gun killers,
Thumping smashing, trash metal band,
Like rock music, but this I cannot stand,
Eyes are bloodshot, severe lack of sleep,
cacophonous noise, then marching feet.
Tinnitus tinnitus, chainsaws a cutting,
No trees or lumberjacks, I see nothing,
Put on the radio, try drown out noise,
overwhelmed, lose rationale and poise,
Church bells peeling, ringing perhaps,
overloaded, mind spirals into collapse.
Tinnitus tinnitus, curse this living hell,
hammering my face, eyes begin to swell,
Delirious sweating, sheets soaking wet,
overcome in confusion, desperate upset,
Pray to god make the torment go away
release me from this Kafkaesque array.
Tinnitus tinnitus, eardrums explode,
Brain is shattered, as decibels grow,
Can’t take anymore, at my wits end,
On slugs of whiskey, sanity depends,
One after the other, knock them back,
Throbbing numbing starting to relax.
Tinnitus tinnitus, drink myself unconscious,
Wake up next day, agonizingly nauseous,
My ear is on the pillow, bottle’s in pieces,
covered with blood, trembling increases,
Look in the mirror, No no this cannot be,
Vincent Van Gough’s, staring back at me.
By
David Kavanagh
Sleepless, the body becomes
a mind map strung out on a bed,
color coded in degrees of pain.
Each movement sends an update,
a glowing patch of deepening red
or a lava line of heat solidifying
into a poker branding plunge
with a white hot X.
Staying still is only a temporary
reprieve, a lull for nerves to reset
and crank up for the next assault.
Inhabited space pressurizes
to send throbs pounding
on the walls of each weary cell
accompanied by waves
of relentless ache.
Thoughts clamber upwards
looking for a way out
but fall back into a dark
gravity, consumed by
that agonizingly slow countdown
when the next dose of oblivion
can be dribbled out of a pill
which, with any luck,
should get you through
until morning creeps across
your bed
with another installment.
I saw a big bird today at a local zoo.
Its habitat is akin to that of a kangaroo.
It was glaring at all as if to say,
"Okay! I saw all, now go away!"
Its digits can agonizingly kick,
As if hit by a ton of brick!
It is not a darling bird at all,
And I cannot stand its blaring call!
I know nothing of its ornithological stock.
I do know it's too big to fry in an Asian wok!
I was at a loss as I stood stroking jaw.
Was it an ostrich or a cassowary that I saw?
I can't think of anything worthy for that bird to say,
So I shall lay down ballpoint and call it a day!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
(© All Rights Reserved)
First Place In Nikko Palmario's "Without U & ME" Contest' - July 2010
PS: This was a contest where the use of the letters E, M & U was prohibited.
The bird I spoke of was the EMU!
She was agonizingly close
To winning the race when
Things started going haywire
They really played games on her
Some said her game was up
Many had written her off
Others said she was history
But they had to swallow their
Spoken-too soon convictions
She turned the tables on
Those sticky things and at the
End hers was not only history
But also a simple sweet victory
Penelope Alecknavage nee perskin whose death aye assay
to comprehend, this son of the late Harriet Harris -
November thirteenth 2016 marked her eighty first birthday
if she still lived these last eleven years - instead met crossway
where grim reaper awaited - though my mum sought to delay
futility to accept Pyrrhic outcome - homage pep rally
thru poetry n essay
writing, and finding cadence of words
helps me (with powder milk biscuits)
gather courageous foray
and means to grapple with demise
of a loved one, and hence my gray
matter sifts thru childhoods' end,
where remembrance of hooray
amidst claque of chattering aunts, cousins, and uncles
the fuzzy interplay
of Penny racing at dog speed across lawn of family home
cordoned off via a jackstay
looms in forefront of my mind,
vulnerable to grief most people sad - me, oh kay,
reckons cessation of life = equalizer of sorts
when significant person without breath doth lay
Tom foolery deft hands of motley crue prestidigitation
playing game versus sobbing as corpse
driven to graveside viz motorway,
where belief at such stark catastrophe - nay
numbness pervades next of kin survivors
especially when passing occurs pre-holiday,
yet no matter whence one departs
bobbing along River Styx to unreachable quay
mourning iz broken with nary sunny and Cher full ray
to warm earth, wind and fire - seeking soul asylum,
trying to blink away ill logic cheap trick re: acceptance,
but inxs of tears for fears begs scene 2b screenplay
not hard rocking coldplay accursed reality
terminal illness ushers helplessness cuz part of ourselves
agonizingly rent asunder, which psychic tearaway
far exceeds any physical pain, and will underlay
the immediate future, which bodes hollow
with the sounds of silence
despite informing musicians or veejay
to lighten moody blue -
boot invariably bono fide, green day,
Lady gaga emitting beat,
per the human league (plus the culture club
of heart felt village people affiliated with goo goo doll
traversing into nirvana)
creates clangorous discordant ringing
increasing nostalgia for loved one lost before yesterday!
The Lost Girl ...
Through the eyes of a little girl she watches you and sheds a tear as she stares
Her little fingers reaching out yearning for someone to care
Her minute heart shaking beneath her undeveloped chest
As she waddles down the streets of loneliness in her tattered forgotten vest
Dreaming of the times that her feet were warm
She rubs her tiny knuckles against her blood shot eyes as her smile turns into scorn
She flicks the gravel from the newly grazed skin on her broken knees
Her voice stolen in the ice cold chill of the world as her composure she fights to keep
I am the lost girl she whispers as she quivers trying desperately to breath
Hopelessly searching for belonging as the wolves soundly sleeps
Can you see me for who I truly am …..?Can you see the beauty of my scars?
Can you see me drowning …? Would you reach out and touch the girl going insane behind her own bars?
I am the lost girl …. Now a women in a broken world
And I have watched my life slowly agonizingly out the window being hurled
Through the eyes of the little girl I sit and stare
Of all strangers I will always be perpetually aware
Unable to conceive.
The theme had not arrived-
near the mouth.
It was agonizingly close,
Before and after the storm.
A dharma had failed.
Law of the land:
first a sprint,
then a strained voice.
You lend your voice to
a surrogate throat.
The audience roared.
Star by star, you walk
in dust. The search goes to
find the unknown, who takes
a big stride and leaves
gaint foot-prints
in dark.
Satish Verma
It was a midsummer night; heat pervaded the season;
Mosquitoes and flies moved around as though hatching treason;
Cool breeze verily tried to pierce through the humidity,
Failed; as it was like hearts of humans with rigidity...!
It took hours of turning and churning before sleep entered,
Mosquitoes tried to for a few drops of blood, self-centered;
Dreams! Nay, nightmares I'd say, hovered over my empty mind,
Bringing in devils, phantoms and fiends of every kind...!
It's toward morning, like an angel opening the door,
Entered a dream, may not be magical, like a rain-pour;
I witnessed my intimate friend's newly built house sinking,
Like the Titanic, gradually, its whole shape shrinking...!
Merry crows, eagles and vultures were flying all around,
As though, as on an earthquake, mountains of carcasses found;
Noises, cries, screams and screeches filled the entire atmosphere,
Like which I had never heard during my long yester-year...!
I couldn't wait for the morning; Before dawn I set out,
What could be? How? And why? Filled in my mind many a doubt;
I found his house (newly built) standing firm and unshaken,
Relieved, yet, wanted to find what misery has broken...!
Debts, he said; ashamed of telling you; loans of construction!
I might need to sell-out the house; or find my destruction;
I was perplexed as I was not very rich person too,
As friend true, I must reach out to him at his time of woe...!
Other friends and companions I instantly collected,
To him, like heart-beats, each one's compassion got connected;
We soon sold out, whatever is sellable, for his sake,
Saved him, forthwith, from his agonizingly cancerous ache...!
26 September 2022
The Mystical Dream Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Anoucheka Gangabissoon
This generic creek king mortal mwm
(who generally river ears the bay sea gully feels ire ate
asper propensity plundering positive human qualities
tested to the max), bait
ting virtue with rapacious opprobrious
malicious lugubriousness, and hatred create
head via the violent wickedness yawping zealously
oceans of tears that in un date
every nook and cranny of society, wrenching,
whip-sawing, and hammering extirpate
ting, the delicate nuances that anthropological fate
bequeathed to *****sapiens
species and genus undermining great
ness brought forth by artistic, democratic,
and graphic accomplishments with HATE
diluting the virtuous unification treatises
agonizingly tried to insulate
basic rights, whence erosion, corrosion,
and abrasion with goliath gangrenous monstrosities of late
subtract at frightful pace, the very survival of mankind and doth mate
absolute evil that percolates into the body electric,
where bloody fiendish genies prosper upending immunity
fostering broods that deign devious strategies in Nate
to destroy any salient sliver via BuzzFeed ding fifty shades of a gray pate
outwitting tentative grasp upon survival
barely fending off lashing off faux kings who e quate
might with right, and bring out the big guns
which blitzkrieg magazines fire at greased lightening speed rate
this battle whereby competing credos, ethos,
and grand Poobah grinds by force state
mints that all most obey lest Das Capital life will not tolerate
nasty, short and brutish torture engendering wailing ululate
diminish in a vain attempt to escape the maws of madness
where the grim reaper doth patiently wait.
Painstakingly
He gives to you His all
Agonizingly
He has over eons of years
Because He loves you so.
Unceasingly
He gives to you and me His all
So heavenly
Is His vision He aims to unfurl
Because He loves us so.
Unconditionally
I give to Him all I can
So willingly
He crossed painful ways and I yearn
To bring Him comfort, because I love Him so.
Sincerely
I care for you for if I didn't
Unworthy
I would be to receive His love
I honor your soul, because as I do,
I honor Him also.
By CarolineCecile
Copyright - Nov. 2011