Best Anthologies Poems
We never met, although we planned
to make our dream come true;
the will was strong, the body weak…
and then you bid adieu
when angels came and took your hand
(I called your name in vain).
You left this vale for pastures new
where peace replaced your pain.
Carolyn passed away, but her unconditional friendship and kindness,
together with her gift of words will never be forgotten. She was one
of the first to welcome me to Soup, and we bonded from the start.
We co-wrote several poems, some of which were published in
various anthologies. She will forever hold a special place in my heart.
Awarded POTD 5th August 2021
I listen to the sighing
of the wind, as I sit
in the cool shade
of a sprawling carob tree,
wondering if Basho,
in heavenly abode,
next to Elysian Fields,
is mumbling agitatedly
under his breath – possibly
grimaces, wrings his hands
as he flips the pages of
vain anthologies where
writers sell their wares…
Stuck in comfort zone
deprived of achievement,
wary of new horizons,
surprise ends and twists…
they cling to restrictions
and Mother Nature’s skirt.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Pareidolia Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Craig Cornish
© 24th August 2020
Look as far and as wide as you can, my friend,
Turn your eyes towards the sky and try to pierce infinity-
This vast unknown-
Ponder about its existence
Let not a single thing unexamined
Any stunning flower untouched
Any majestic bird unobserved
Any magnificent fish unnoticed
And tell me
Isn't life a miracle?
An unbelievable story?
An inconceivable design?
Yet
A mesmerizing reality?
Look how heaven and earth are put together:
A harmonious whole operating with such precision and
With a single purpose in mind- LIFE!
Tell me, could this great design be the outcome of chance?
Of a hazardous consequence?
Or
The work of blind forces?
Look closer my friend, once again,
Pay attention to the details of this incredible miracle of life
Look how things are so wisely operating
Observe the relationship between a flower and a bee
How they are interrelated,
Interconnected and
Interdependent
Marvel how, although they both are so transient,
They maintain eternity
Note the way they obey the cosmic laws
Thus
Enacting the choreography of life and death that divinity has conceived
And by doing so they become divine themselves and their art holy
Let us, my friend,
Be inspired by them and let us create our own
Harmonious coexistence
Our own choreography, inspired by God,
For
To incarnate His will in reality
So as to glorify His creation
And us to live in peace as He meant us to live!
© Demetrios Trifiatis
06 August 2019
* This is my 2400th poem.
Thank all those who have commented on my poems since 2012! I also thank PoetrySoup because they have helped my poems become known thus they were published in books and anthologies. Soon, I think to stop posting. God bless you all my friends.
"The Arabian Nights"
Underneath the oceans' veil.
A mystery lies within.
Beyond Orion's belt, I shift my mind to sail.
Within, every constellation hides the secrets of sin.
Allowing me, to the time frame the world of yesterday.
I found portals with no way out.
Covering every bruise that my body had on display.
Drawing along the mist of no doubt!
I tie eternity into loopholes with no end.
Singing a song that lacks the strength to be strong.
Trying hard to swallow words that have no end.
Babbling at my tongue, when one's heart is wrong.
I hide in the light, away from the darker mist.
A sprint sensation lurking down-under.
Anthologies wrote only to exist.
A place that strikes louder than thunder.
Eyes that port and slow everything down.
Mysteries behind, a deadly desert storm.
Slaving under the 3rd crown.
Candlelight's guiding a new wedding form.
Executed in a thousand tales, of romance.
Knocking at my door ending another dream.
A sensual marriage with regrets, and loss of chance.
Dancing streams with no means.
Avalon, closing over an Arabic Night.
A story cradling me in bed.
By morning dawn, I will no longer see the light.
Waking up to another Arabian Night.
. by;p.d.
NOTE~ I read the book 5 years ago.
"ARABIAN NIGHTS."
Somehow in the late of nighttime,
a wooden door's front lantern brings
me to a table where strangers
from a distant tavern grow more animated
with a litany of stories
and ramblings inscribed on their life’s hinges.
Varied tones reminisce detailed inlays
of personal anthologies framing their eyes
with joy or regret, etched by languid memories
as I listen to orations of wise men and laborers
where intimacies are safe inside a door...
each one relating a brew of sentiments
over mugs of ale and wine.
Just then, I hear my own man’s language
reflected through the crowd’s noises,
piercing my flesh with a tinge of awareness...
while opening the doorknob, I begin to search
for him under a vault of moonbeam,
reminded now of the times I forget
to understand his longing to connect
with me ,to embrace his thoughts deeply
in silence...without question or restraint.
---------
6/21/2015
rob carmack's Screwed V
Theme: door
A Letter to Myself
Should I give up writing
Seems all this bleating and wailing
Bemoaning this lot of love
I am allocated to feel
But never touch
Should I stop showing the world
Such a pitiful and pathetic face
As it twists and grapples
Dug in my heart
With its suffocating blade
Of aloneness
Where I am lost
When are the fluorescing lines
Of my gratitude
What are my words praises to love
With this eternal gift
Floating me in the fires
Of hot air balloons
But still gut wrenches out my soul
In this separation
“Come on,” I tell myself
What wrapped delight have I known more
I should be proud of my hunger
Feed it with all the imagined embraces
Just for her
More a rock I should
Than this wet dripping weak kneed flannel be
More colourful and joyous
In my need
In deliverance believes
Faith it should be
For the ever bonded
To such a fate
Allows my love to consume me
Her heart so tender
Must needs better of me
Than this whimpering sop
Who’s begging and pleading
Has no real foundation in my bones
More eloquent is she
More rapturous
Than the blazing anthologies of Isis
The hymn and rhythm of her
Calls to me
Shout of exultant
Piercing forever’s follicle
Permeable
She saturates
More a kin to glory I should be
More humbled
And less bent to paupers knee
To lift her ankle
And kiss her feet
Rather I should not
Die so
But
Live
Deep rooted symbol in the Inuit culture, the inukshuk is rudimentary, primitive but effective communication. Through centuries, it is still a practical directional marker used as vital hunting and navigation aids, coordination points, indicators, and message centers.
remote voice
shattering the silence
of hesitation
Published in my photo/haibun anthologies ~PRIMITIVE~ 2019 and ~ANCESTRAL VOICES~ 2019
AP: Honorable Mention 2020
Posted on July 29, 2019
The piggy's in the truffle bucket
Eating all the truffles
I kick 'im in 'is snuffle-snucket,
I beat 'im with me buckles
But nothing ruffles piggy's knuckles
'e 'as to 'ave them truffles.
I write a lot of horror poems but those aren't what I've been posting at Poetry Soup (the horrors and fantasies appear in magazines and anthologies). Light verse such as "Snuffle" undoubtedly gives people a mistaken impression of what I write most, if this is all they see.
But I have always been especially fond of "Snuffle," originally written in honor of folklore author and Buddhist Darroll Pardoe, who included it in an issue of his letter substitute Pig on the Wall decades anon, and much later included in my collection Lake of the Devil: Poems of Morosity and Jest (Duck's-Foot Tree Productions, 1995) limited to 75 copies.
Suspense is a thing worth not knowing
Dying for the knowledge of the mystery
From novice to brainiac ever flowing,
Slipping into the dark annals of history.
Shudders at the noise of victims’ crying
Suspense is a thing worth not knowing,
Keeping chilblains on the skin denying
Revealing information ne’er extolling.
Red herrings by the hundreds growing
In long heralded stories not so mastered
Suspense is a thing worth not knowing,
Fabled tales of untamed roguish bastards.
Best sellers from all leather anthologies
With black ravens and murderous crowing,
Translated to filmdom with no apologies
Suspense is a thing worth not knowing.
Written June 1, 2022
i read indulgence mid scripted words
breaking all the rules and then some,
what be greater than gutting & swallowing
uttermost concentration of language
critically consummated or otherwise,
communing within written ideologies
something profoundly reverent or
perhaps deliberate liberating nonsense,
nonetheless commonsensical compunction to
the discerning foresightedness of poets
& enduring escape artists 'tween psyche's
hallucinations & declarations
about analytically anomalous analgesics
and mellisonant melancholy metonymy,
rising above the fray of brutally alliterated
annotations fragmenting & fracturing dimensions,
steel blades sharpening anthologies' imperfect isms
inferring resoluteness 'tween deductive reasoning,
willing exposure imparting quintessential bollocks
literally grasping mercilessly melded metaphors
courageous enough to virtually be aptly bled,
plunged beneath swords' inky touchstones
JAMES ANDREW FRASER
J...uly 2014 when our lives began to meld
a...way we are but the eight thousand distance
m...otion hungry hearts during dolesome hours,
e...yes openned, we cushioned empathic euphony
s...inging canorous chorus fertilizing our lonesome air.
A...mbulance sent by Father God arrived
n...udging anthologies, streaming prismatic colors to our pen
d...rawing us closer and closer than ever before. Sad
r...umblings from yesterday
e...rupt, shuddering our reveries;
w...eakening our pulse, quickening our nerves.
F...rom Bonnie Highlands of Scotland, there my love grew
r...amping around with eyes of blue and a height six feet two
a...rmed with dashing looks, good attitude,
s...ummer-kind of heart, he always shines through, TRUE!
e...nthusiast to music and the art too. I pray
r...hymes he scribbles may never ever run few!
____________________________________________________________________
*+*Dedicated to James Andrew Fraser
HaPpY HaPPy HApPy BirThday!!!*+*
__Olive Eloisa D. Guillermo__
7:00 am ; January 04, 2015
Surely, Sherlock was rooted in the home.
But his ruby slippers
Had worn-out souls
So the jaded detective
Followed Fitzgerald and the lost generation.
But somewhere in between chapters
And the thicket of printed syllables,
He took a wrong turn
And found himself in neverland.
The lost generation
Morphed into barbaric
Lost boys
And though the Englishman
Aged like the mulberry wine
Drowning his consciousness,
Literature never grew up.
And so,
The stories remained:
Timeless.
While in the lagoon
Of a dead poet’s society,
The poems still exhale.
Engulfed pages of pulp fiction,
The rind,
Binding the vitamins of knowledge
To the seeds of ruminations,
Still blossom, fruitfully.
And though Holmes’ words now crawl,
Pathetically,
From his tongue--
Their decibels still caress my skin.
Insignificant filaments
Stand erect
Upon my forearm.
As misinterpreted anthologies
Hold their compasses to the North Star,
Their melancholy is lifted,
And literature can be reborn--
Free.
Tonight,
Sherlock lights his briar pipe,
And gives one last request.
To Peter Pan,
The feeble man purses his lips:
Read me a bedtime story.
And with that,
The mystery is dead.
Damned to eternal sleep.
The last page,
Still yet to turn.
I really believe poetry contests are beneficial
But I find myself writing lines so artificial
Trying to win a fleeting notice or score a trophy
That I lose sight of writing good, quality poetry.
Various requirements sometimes put me off
I think I’d rather be on the links playing golf
Instead of spending hours cramping my style
Writing a poem that might only bring a smile.
I desire to write some memorable, quality lines
Not limited to theme, or odd-prompt, confines
And think I’ve written something that will last
Even coveting a rare place with greats of the past.
Of course, I know the best wrote some apologies
That only a few of their poems made anthologies
Many never read until the poet was long gone
We never saw those poems meriting only a yawn.
So, I’m going to turn over a new leaf and see
If writing poems I like makes for a happier me
Entering only contests accepting the poems I write
Instead of writing poems a “sponsor” will cite.
written October 29, 2021
A certain poet said she was thrilled, sitting down
Viewing world of us, mounting PS's platform
yes, she was ecstatic, maneuvering keys
On borrowed time and gadget, she wouldn't leave
A day of family gathering, she stole moments alone
Twiddled with words that led her on and on
Thoughts and smiles were shared, on sheets of white
I was in awe, poetry soup to her was such delight
Coy lioness with Jamaican warmth in her eyes
Her poems found spot in anthologies, undisguised
I Hope she's cooking up her best, sans stress
She would laced exotic smells to Soup fixings, no less
Poets arrive then disappear; but some we worry about
Some refresh our taste buds; so what do we do when they're out?
*
Entry for Tony T. Curtis's, 'Where Do Poets Go' contest
A book is the beginning of a prayer born of hope, faith and love discovered within the pages of some writer’s glistening ink - quote by poet
Dust piled in layers
On books and anthologies, laying
Silently along the shelves
Where my thoughts would reveal
Endless moments spent traveling
Through page after page
Of poetry and promises
Pure, potent prayers
Praising with ink
Reading like an embrace
To the heart and the soul
Of one who knows that life
Lived on the ragged edges
Of a paperback dream
Is a life lived in light, laughter
Love that grows wilder
With each passing prayer
Yearning for a chance to whisper
Thank you in God’s ear
For the music of mystery
The longing in literature
The friend in fiction
The praise in poetic prose
The rushing winds beneath
A romance beckoning for joy
Found within the creased pages
Of history and happiness
A book is a brilliant blaze
Of inspiration and hope
A colorful creation crafted
On the empty page
As it’s filled with delight
Insight, a stirring of faith
Falling across the spirit in waves
Of grace and inspirational
Musings to reach out to the one
Who knows that a book holds the key
To creativity in tears of
Sensitivity and soothing solace
Awakening the mind to knowledge
The heart to feelings fully alive
And the spirit to the warmth
Of a soft, gentle affection