Best Apprehending Poems
The endgame
And the cemetery was
nowhere to be found
yet was so present
in the shallow depth
the graveyard of the mind
No tombstone unturned
fragmented torn and twisted
sorrow flowing down
encrypted alleyways
and Thanatos’ call
Searching to imprint
coffin’s nails on seams
of muddy icy prison
hammered chiselled avenues
creeping through and in
Dead alive and collocated
hell firing place and time
scorching cementing
looming crossing overs
to where and when to how
No monument just
monumental nothing
void oppression
endless loop’s demise
thoughts emotions dragging
Torrential thunders
roping in electrocuted lightning
nooses from the tree of
living emptied darkness
flowing rapids standing still
The cemetery awaiting
ashes urns and vultures
presiding over Ganges Styx
Caron caring like a
lifeless Buddha saddened
Giving taking suffering
unthreading tapestry graffiti
splashing on the canvass
sombre art in progress
oscillating back and forth
The reaper harvests harshly
the mindless soul and body
crumbling bones infested
carbons desiccation apathy
hedonistic pleasures dull extinct
Gravitation nudges wild
and gently roaring
culling sculls foreclosing scooping
offerings burthens memories
premature un-furbished epitaphs
Silent roaring rampant syncopal
admonished synergetic resolution
teasing fool and morbid jester
luring loosening resolve
apprehending lithographic scribes
And the cemetery blinding
obvious and for the taking
present not yet for embrace
remains a silhouette on the horizon
and life for now is stronger
May 18th 2016
Contest entered:
And the cemetery was... Broken Wings
Cessation of life yon mortality~~~
death of reality's enigma reigns
haunting minds for answers against "why?"
confronting hearts along queries of "where?"
Baby's only-one-second breath on earth~~~
bursts with survival agonizing cry
lingering midst glow for existence-hope
apprehending womb around love's fortress...
Child's departure toward what's eternal~~~
leaves gloom seeing gift that can never bloom
or guilt beholding loss despite nurture
and feeling of doom for hurt, tears can't heal...
Young lassie's sudden demise inflicts angst~~~
while lad's accident brings panic attack
with prevailing sighs for early exits
inviting skeptical thoughts to rise...
Dressing up my Mother in her casket~~~
I knew that I would miss her warm embrace
but such should be faced with glad acceptance
along memories, always to prevail...
Clasping Dad's hand while at his death bed
letting go was what I did, letting God
not being religious, but feeling blest
that I was there when he gave his last breath...
Unfathomable, yet death* is so real~~~
poetry can explore with depth and sense
and here am I, grateful for wondrous chance
to write about it, while enjoying life.
*Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
February 3, 2026
2nd place, "Cosmic Death" Blank Verse Poetry Writing Premiere Contest
Sponsored by Seth Pina; judged on 2/23/2026
You are More than a Friend!
From the first time I knew you - From the first time I met you
Your words, joy, laughter, and peace, were so factual beyond my apprehending
Your inner man, inner beauty and placidness are always out spoken
Your friendship over the years enlighten up my soul, heart and life
Each jiffy I have an opportunity to be in your presence, talk to you, touch your hands
I often do not leave your presence the same-your tender heart often embraces my sorrows
Truly and honestly-You are More than a Friend
People say, friends come and go-For me, true friendship is forever
You have shared your mutual and frank friendship in my life
Despite the distance, silence and absence of your physical being or presences
Your voice and words always whispers in my inner most being
Deeds and words we shared, have built inside our subconscious as eternal memories
Although phantoms self-insecurities have kept us apart all this well,
Just Remember that-You are More than a Friend
Allow me to confess, acknowledge and admit-that fear and doubt
Often hinders us to express our feelings and to share our interior gifts with people we love
But I also highly appreciate your genuineness-your true nature and expression of love
Loving you, being by side and receiving form your deepest inner being is my utmost delight
I will always treasure and cherish our friendship-Because You are More than a Friend
I could not find appropriate way to articulate and convey my feelings and gratitude
But rather than speaking from my heart and through this medium
From my heart-through my talent-means using everything from within
Dearest Friend, I mean everything I said-And said what I mean
Frankly and candidly-You are More than a Friend
Bearing a European polymorphism, I should be branded by shame.
I am the White Devil as they claim.
The Ciakara, a bipedal reptilian that fades in and out of gamma rays.
The Ivory Dragon with razor fangs.
He who breathes flames of artillery; consuming the indigenous cultures of men.
I who supposedly slaughtered, raped, and evangelized my own fen.
A Caucasian falsely accused, I must defend.
I sigh with Celtic lungs.
Long ago in antiquity, they cut my foreskin and Gaelic tongue.
Apprehending my crown and bride while the rebels hung.
Enslaved and hate I have not done, but due to this achromatic shell, their numbers I am among.
But I am the blank hero who is sullied and unsung, for an enemy of all is an enemy of mine
Yet compassion’s tide is on the rise, I am consumed by love for all races and all colors of hides.
Reds, blacks, browns, yellows, blancos and pinks.
An alabaster bastard I may seem to be, but in the utmost totatality, I am proud I am me.
Despite my lack of melanin; my reverence and acceptance of self sets all others free.
So I will slay the Neo-Nazi supremacists and ethnocentrisms, by nationalist and patriotic decree.
To reorient this cumbersome narrative; as such that I see fit in my mind’s eye.
The Maverick Abolitionist of Light, I let my skin audaciously shine.
So yet again, the fierce Anglo Saxon attacks; swiftly and valiantly one more time.
Only to redefine the phrase “White Pride” so I may make it mine.
My Apology
At times we run out of words
Sorry may never be enough in -
Acknowledging our faults
Our shortcomings covers us with fear
So we hide in caves-covered in wounds of failure
Today I have strength to say sorry
Hoping to obtain mercy
Hoping to be forgiven for all our and my shortcomings
We are Folks with faults
Life is faultless but folks who live that life are not flawless
Dig deeper into my soul and spirit-you still find iniquities
I can speak right but spit self-righteousness
Even the truth I am telling you-
Is just a lie that is engraved beneath my skin
My actions are often just a reaction to my dysfunctional
The battle of mind between apprehending and application
Hoping to obtain mercy
Hoping to be forgiven for all our and my shortcomings
At times the bed I sleep on was just created for me
But they say as you prepare a bed-so shall you lay on it
I was taught a perpetual lie as the truth-born in error
Raised from dysfunction environment-trying to be functional –
In my words and actions – often come short
I have been drinking from my ancestral calabash before conception
So I perpetually walk in error-because I always look back
I speak with sincerity hoping to rise into perfection
My ability and disability are at war
Hoping to obtain mercy
Hoping to be forgiven for all our and my shortcomings
cops
undercover, officers
chasing, apprehending, shooting
arrest, paddy wagon, notorious, lawless
stealing, fleeing, plundering
masked, armed
robbers
Date written: 04/17/2022
Obviously positively negative or negatively positive...going through pros and cons in my daily routine as time flies by oh so swift
Painstaking tears are like waterfalls...tasting the different and diverse coping mechanisms of life as a whole...chaos and peace takes its toll
Isolating myself from the loud crowd...introvert and extrovert time and time again and on beat on fleek on the drums of my numbing noggin
Neglected, rejected, accepted, fascinated...odd, but true, having no clue what to do
Invigorated by opinions, pure or impure, that are 8 shades of grey...but hey, let's be redeemed and esteemed by God Most High, a God of truth we can't deny...so, evaporate the fear and lies in your mind's eye
Oblivious to the dilemmas that were aiming my way, but I'll bite the bullet all night and day...awfully offended, maxed out like an overused credit card that's been spent on and now jaded; somewhat apprehending this personal apprehension, hoping you can emphasize this envy I hold with me in my woes and worthless wallet
Nothing much on my mind, but never denying the power of God's hope and faith...gracious evermore in the sight of my Priceless Father, unlike any other
Shame on me for being a rude dude or an insecure individual; I must have that oh so familiar, yet unpredictable attitude of optimistic aptitude...graze in your own maze, heart that is a numb drum in my chest, thumping with anger still unknown to me...but an anger that's self - absorbent and self - opinionated...sophiscated and arrogant - instead, I should be simply humble and undoubtably confident
I can only be sad when you are not,
I can only miss you when you are not,
My heart can simply grunt in long deep sighs --
When you are not here.
In those university days when I used to melt in nature
For long hours, and your worries are prominent on your forehead:
Apprehending that I got in unknown troubles;
Apprehending my whims of uncertain nature,
You waited for my return.
I still kept that memory fresh --
Your beautiful brown eyes, flash of that undiminishing glow of smile,
That innocent care, that unpretentious services
That you rendered in my mealtime;
When I was there in "Ramu Rubber Garden"--
That is still fresh like patel
That is still sticking to the rose.
What should I call you then? -- my 'rose',
That glows in the first light of slenting sunrays:
You are ever glowing like that sunrise;
You are more than a glow --
You are the round ball, the source of that glow.
I learnt to enjoy the beauty of the sunrise and sunset,
Over the melting profusion of colours,
Over the crests of the dicudious trees,
Over the valleys of crimson shades--
Because you were that "round ball";
You were the source of life and light in those days.
On your death, I blow bcak and forth like
A restless gale of wind.
You are, to me, a world of recognitions from the
Transition of the childhood simplicity into aestehtic eternity.
You are to me, a pure piece of art, an unending tune
Stretched on the unending timeline.
I miss you now as you are not;
I miss you because I love you --
Love that graces mankind in beautifully molten sadness.
As I age
I hope to become increasingly difficult
to extract from flow of Presence
apprehending EarthMother focus
through holistic reflections
within Now
Without targeting Others
over There
lacking CoPresence.
I hope ego-awareness shrinks
within aging
cranial carrying
mindbodies
To swell without
toward ecstatic soul
comprehensive understanding,
co-infested stand-and-grabbing
To more easily let go
of my now eldering past events
yellowing oranged brown falling away leaves
of absent grace
To grab ahold
of bold winter's regenerations
of green-full hope,.
Prehensive linking
syncing resonant peace
engaging Earth JustUs
rooted ancient systems
Free-flowing through boundaried paradigms
dividing seasons
into tipping pointed reasons
for circling
deepening peak
yet widening spectral valleys
echoing Other's resounding exclamations
Fading
failing bipolarized dissonance
becoming dipolar co-arising
resonance
Confident this curious TaoWay
through resiliently polycultured Midway
seasons and surfs
at last expounding
plantings and pullings
rebirthing our final say
Fusing octaves of sight and sound
fizzing fractal note conduction
musing slow-grown co-redeemers
Risking final opportunity
to refill treasured seeds
sown and reaped
Cherished bodymind's rich pot
ential,
outial
post-axial cross
Over space
and under time's harvest
reimagining memory's branching place
for rooted earnest fortune
Racing thoughts
increasingly aged difficult
To extract from co-presents
of EarthJustUs time
sufficient for grace
repurposed peaceful space.
A flame of enigma bellowed in the pit of his belly,
its' seraphic luster so stout.
It peered through the windows of his body,
through dark stagnant eyes that rest mounted on his face,
so carved and clencted.
I blanched in its' brillance.
That flame so haunting,
it raptured the faint walls that buckled my heart,
making it whole.
So cold in stanse.
But now its' pulsing lay intweened with another outcasted heart.
One that had been expelled from the keen and glaciared persons,
whom walked down the breech streets of a banning commonalty.
My arms knew exactly how to clutch him,
wrap him in a pillowed comfort that masked my flesh.
For my arms,
what rest in them was a soul whom alike was overcomed and mangled.
He rested in them,
so alive in fresh freedom of an apprehending paramour whom could nod and weep to the
consternated apologues of his youth and future comings of a man.
And that's what traced the adulation in his blood.
Giving him the daring attuide to oust me bare,
broadcasting the truth that barked and howled behind false inhibitions,
a veal of empathy,
And if you're alone
and I'm alone
lets be alone
together
A Statistic
Sometimes I feel tired of being in my own skin....feeling overwhelmed with sin that’s not my own...sorrow overbearing with thoughts of black teenagers that will never be grown...men, and woman dying as children...because they were shot by cops that are the same color of my skin....so now I am another statistic...reason being...is from what I’m seeing...my skin is seen with privilege...because I’m not black I lack the same disrespect from cops that Tyrone might get...and yet I feel tired of being in my own skin...feeling responsible for the many wrongful deaths....in all depths...from wanted to be a cop...wearing a badge of a cop...to holding the gun of a cop...when will it stop...the motto is “him or me”....them or we...shoot to kill...not disable...because you leave him or her able to come back the next day to bring more to the table....apprehending is now becoming a fable...or turned into one...it’s easier to do damage with a taser or take a life solving problems permanently with a gun...than it is to disable make unable to run...no lesson to learn from...I might be white as so that’s the color they call my skin...but I’m from the same east New York Brooklyn city line shopping neighborhood black kids grew up in...as I grow older I grow colder to what police officers are trained to do...”Shoot to kill...not disable to make unable...to come back the next day to bring more to the table”.....as much as I would refuse to be a bullet ballistic...I am just like everyone else who is the color of my skin A statistic...
I am in the world of judgement
Where you had lost thousand battles
I am the king of king
Where your emotionic home rattles
I freed my army of soul,
From your unstructured condemned kingdom,
I have reached the utmost level of insight,
Enjoying the bliss of freedom.
You tried to thrash my integrity,
With your devilish charm and enthralling beauty,
But I unbelievably controlled my destiny,
thru my fortitude and self efficacy.
And now I am pleased to find who I am,
Away from your atrocious slavious realm,
Realizing a sense of truth with touch of supreme,
Walking into the spiritual and scientific seam.
Humanly desires are shrouded off,
A smile apprehending the purpose of existence ,
I left you way behind unknowingly “my love”,
Now my soul is freely swimming in perseverance
Geared by God, greeting gracious glow
Ready is my spirit for rejuvenation revival
Empowered to exalt Him with praise ecstasy
Ascending against apprehending arrogance
Triumphant toward thanksgiving trust.
Extricated from exhausting selfish expedition
Settled is my soul, secured by the Saviour
Chained and clasped around His clemency
Attaining faith-affirmed service approval
Pursuing heavenly profits, perfectly precious
Exchanging the ephemeral for the eternal*.
1Peter 5:10 But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.
January 12, 2020
2nd place, "Great Escape" Poetry Contest
Sponsored by John Hamilton; judged on 1/15/2020.
Life unkind, cracked in mind, sailing my boat.
Sorrows abundant but flakes of joy few.
Grief locked in alcove of heart, me to float.
Scar in heart suffused by dry tears and rue.
Self consolation and isolation.
Life unkind, cracked in mind, sailing my boat.
Apprehending spectre, no solution.
Pretending to be happy: Smothered throat.
Playing fair game yet ball is on other’s court.
Heart weeps, face resplendent in fake rapture.
Life unkind, cracked in mind, sailing my boat.
Past passed, unpleasant present, furtive Future.
Emotive urge not to surge, on suppression.
Love letter in my mind, never I wrote.
Dwelling in deplorable depression.
Life unkind, cracked in mind, sailing my boat.
03/08/23
A CONVERSATION
I rushed to attend the call “Hi! Who is there?”
“How are you going on My Dear!”
“In which respect do you expect
my response? Let me hear.
Regarding my health, you caress?
Or my mental restlessness!
Or about any
domestic monotony?
Or apprehending disturbances
in my circumstances?
Or disinterested totally!
Call is mere a courtesy.”
“Why do you enjoy just
to hurt me. I am introvert.
You know, I can’t help
to express myself.
But you are aware
of my passion, Dear.”
“No. You are passive.
Emotion may be massive,
but hidden in core of heart
Dear, you are so inert!”
“Since last week
I could not speak.
I am eager to listen
about your weekly bulletin.”
“Cover story of my news letter
shows till you are not intimate
to me, you know that better.”
09/ 01/16
Second Place
'STRAND SELECT B' Contest by Brian Strand