Best Arbitrarily Poems
As dark canvas unfurls bit by bit
Randomly gulping down acrylic paints of dusk
To satisfy his own thirst, not for long, to sprawl
Into a magical cosmos - flapping his dark wings atop
Swirling soft fair clouds that rock and roll
Through gray-black, myriad dazzling stars so
Idyllic, and artistically spilt sparkling stardust
Charm the sky as if shiny pompoms and buttons;
Night sky lights up my gloomy mind:
In its artsy glory, I savour a tick of tranquil clock;
Glowing bright, stars and moon transmit rays of
Harmony. Aw! tiny drops of opals and diamonds
Thrown arbitrarily at pitch-dark canvas as if
Showcasing splash liquid art - so bright and brilliant;
Knitting a charcoal-black fabric of captivating stars and moon,
Yay! our night sky is shining, inspiring my bardic pupils.
Date: 01/13/2023
Lipogram Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Emile Pinet
Cast thy stone, like a fire climbing a tree,
highly strung, its fuel you need,
powerful, can carry a heavy load,
no question, a Fire Horse you be!
Inconsistent by nature, procrastinate but not in love,
your alluring beauty defined by a coat,
to cover with lust and a heart of gold,
fire burning inside, unbridled and afloat.
Motivated by a strength of will,
like the painter, color shining,
to create a picture from canvas,
it comes alive, the masterpiece is never blinding.
Fire Horse, free-willed, extraordinary,
an independent soul, sometimes forgetful are you,
your loathe of waste, drives you arbitrarily,
unwinding beauty, unenvious, you're never ice blue.
Oh ye Fire Horse, searing smoke in isle atoll,
galloping across the sea of life, fire heating the shore,
flames of love rising, burning within your soul,
a tsunami of devotion, your mane ablaze evermore!
Arbitrarily
Apologetically
Apathetic
We're playing a gift exchange and playing it twice
Going to find out who’s naughty or nice”
Santa once could arbitrarily decide
Who to praise and who to deride
But tonight dirty dice gift grabs
Let see who will have the most dabs
We won’t be able tell at a glance
Choose well or consider the circumstance
Nothing is classified as right or wrong
There’s no need to sing an old xmas song
Once the naughty were as guilty as can be
Now they are merely victims of this xmas party
Dirty Dice is not fair
Just Roll them, they don’t care
It’s not about Naughty
It’s not about Nice
It’s just about rolling
the same number twice.
Where it gets crazy
is in the second half - then we see who gets dirty.
Listen and follow the rules
And see who ends up with all the jewels.
That were kept hidden for many years
A stocking full of coal no one need fear.
For this game will bring joy and cheers.
Let the game begin ---- and let not forget the beers.
They always made me happy,
The camels of the wise men,
The slowness of their footsteps,
Their self-sufficient ben.
Camels meant there was time,
For the three wise men to think,
To ponder upon their task,
To review their role as a link.
They were required to assess,
The child to be called god’s son,
To see if he could be a doctor,
To the poor, and to be the action.
Mary and Joseph were important,
To their question of universal worth,
So they prepared themselves well,
With questions surrounding his birth.
They understood that environment,
Is a factor in child development,
So endeavoured to contextualise,
The place of the baby’s commencement.
They predicted they’d be rejected,
By townsmen all along the way,
Spat at, maybe jousted with,
By loitering agitators arbitrarily.
Especially at the door of the inn,
There’d be jesters and jostlers alike,
People shouting “Don’t go there!
Avoid them, and get on another bike!”
And equally importantly, with respect,
They thought of their theology,
That their own actions may be vital,
To improving others’ sociology.
They considered their belief,
In an immanently coming messiah,
And renewed their vow to choose,
A protege who would take us higher.
So by the time they reached the inn,
They were very much prepared,
They could talk to each other freely,
About the saviour that’d been blared.
And the camels facilitated all this,
Preparation and consideration,
And gave the magi their pondering,
Upon seeing the configuration.
They enabled this baby to thrive,
Gave his family his manifestation,
And felt spent entirely at their visit,
Worn out by careful deliberation.
What good is the confession
of a compelling woman of deceit
if devoid of remorse and consequence?
Karma has a greedy reach
annoyed by clergymen
arbitrarily marketing divine amnesty
like some bulk commodity
they can't give away.
The unpredictable yaw of rolling seas,
as in life, pummels us from one side to the other
randomly dictating capricious ways
arbitrarily gripping our lives
Life, like the ghost of Christmas past,
comes at night, tells its tale and is gone
but the dues it extracts keep mounting
like wrinkles on our faces the years pile on
The uncertainty of pandemics sends people into despair
mental frenzy abounds,
they wring their hands and worry
what happens if I get sick and lose my job?
At night I hear the sound of eighteen wheeler trucks rumbling
toward companies that make copious profits
past the foothills where coyotes cry nature's lament
exacerbating my precarious and worrisome future
Sometimes, I feel like a piece of watermelon
exposed to the desert heat slowly drying up
or a taco at Christmas time or a paraplegic in a footrace
exposed in those places where I don’t belong
Leisure time when needed is so elusive
yet now all I’ve got is time and plenty of it,
but there’s no leisure in it only worry
and does not give me needed rest
The yaws of life
seldom deviate from its variant course
but like ships at sea rising and falling in a tempest
they proceed at full speed
Our Ship of Life moves predictably toward an unknown horizon
unsteadily shaking us from side to side, up and down
like loose apples bobbing in an ocean
with our paths of uncertainty unfolding as we hold on
With our hearts frozen in a delirium of past disappointments
they vanish the happy times into the ether of regrets
still we cling to those cherished memories
when Life was more accepting of our youthful indiscretions
maybe, but Life being what it is, we cling to the good feelings experienced
that we come to accept as the ebb and flow of life evolves
and pushes us toward a far horizon
one we shall never know.
Santa’s Naughty List
By Elton Camp
“He’s making a list, checking it twice
Going to find out who’s naughty or nice”
Santa once could arbitrarily decide
Who to praise and who to deride
Then, toward him, people felt sentimental
Now he is being condemned as judgmental
Where he once could tell at a glance
Now he must consider the circumstance
Nothing now is classified as right or wrong
There’s no further need to sing that old song
Once the naughty were as guilty as can be
Now them are merely victims of society
So Santa gave up keeping a list last year
A stocking full of coal no kid need fear
How can we take pride in a country
that is sliding into dissolution and chaos?
We praise ourselves for ending slavery.
yet racial prejudice is still much with us.
We pay slave wages and refuse to change
the minimum wage to a living wage.
We call all people equal under the law,
yet privilege and money or the lack of it
make legal decisions unequal every day.
We have liars, cheats and criminals in
our supposedly democratic government,
chosen primarily by a voting system
that is funded by moneyed corporations
with a vested interest and the wealthy.
Goal: to remain in power.
We declare all are entitled to liberty,
justice and the pursuit of happiness,
yet how can a people be happy without
security that they will not go bankrupt
because of hospital and medical bills?
How can we be proud of a country
where the supreme justices of the land
arbitrarily take away our rights
to make decisions about our sex lives
and personal decisions about our bodies?
Who choose to exercise the power of a
ruling class against the will of the people?
In a country founded on freedom of religion
we are more and more governed by those
who propound a certain religious mindset.
We are not yet living under a dictator,
and have freedoms not dreamed of in
dictatorships, but for how much longer?
Our freedoms are being taken away,
unilaterally, without recourse.
Our democracy is in mortal danger,
not from enemies abroad, but from within.
Ants, from Valley of Babylon
The gourds that made up the abdomen
Are crying, crying for the delicious city of wolf
And the tower of Babel by many demolishing grind,
Gnashing and swallowing into lungs,
Wisdom is heartless, never mind,
Possessing soul to soul is life,
Almighty long limbs like thread,
Stretched like recherché,
Macho double pear seeds chest link the faculty
And the mandibles rabble out weakly: Prepared!
Prepared for battles of the minute!
Prepared for war the chosen geniuses!
O! Enormous container enlarge collectibles,
Manufactured with succulent clauses of papyrus
Delayed a bit, so that loads of hallucination,
Will float unhindered, arbitrarily inside
The belly of faculty,
Until the bard go aloft to hibernate.
Life has surely broken me.
I’ve flunked out at Everything.
Why consider equally
When Options just desert Me?
Too grimed up, I cannot see
A single reason surfacing,
Hiding Places changing,
Constantly and arbitrarily,
Disappoint inevitably.
It only ends up baffle-ing
That the Ones who stuck by Me
Were No One and Nobody.
The Needed ones Abandoned me,
Never even wanted me.
Been let down by EveryOne
And 100% of Practically
All and and Every Single Thing,
Left for dead and wasting
To a husk of Me.
So what's the point,
Quite pointlessly,
When you will only
Start new things?
Old ones failing,
Interest lost and dropping,
Forcing hands repeatedly.
Home to pack a bag and leave,
All doors slammed resoundingly,
Locks all changed and shut to me.
Happy Endings Abruptly.
Don't care what you do to me.
Lost my sensitivity:
Burning hurts so painfully.
Once Angry scars
Protect My Heart
From all Hope,
Now lost to me.
It doesn’t hurt, just disappoints.
I have no mass, I’ve been disjoined,
Won’t shatter when you drop me.
All do eventually;
A mere eventuality,
Forgone Conclusively.
We sat down as poets
Arbitrarily pushing buttons
To spark, NO, to Ignite the fire
in our bellies to spew from one mouth.
The words of which i lost
Riding on the train
while knowing the brakes were out,
a skid, a stop, NO, a Slam
into Reason.
Not a poet, mere mencer of words
A derelict in duct-taped shoes
Just us two on the back stoop
Discussing the Cellar Door.
Sadness is a malfunction of the body.
Arbitrarily inactive, indifferent, indecent.
Under the layers. Find the light. The darkness is out of order
Saying love is like asking a random person
What happens after death?
Every theory is different, as well as the experiences.
Check in. You're not truly afraid.
A culture steeped in retribution
becomes blind to freedom's contributions
accessed best through healing restorations,
trust,
virtual stuff
for democracies most resilient.
A society resisting love's innovative brilliance
comic and jazzy improvising resonance
healing ecosystemic egos dissonant
from aquatic wombs of patient advent,
Adventuring winter's iceflows of stark stuckness,
as impatient as a tongueless mess
stuck to a frozen metallic national goalpost
just as bells and climate whistles end recess
sound a new tune of chaotic harvest.
National prison lobbies
would lock up tongues and time
arbitrarily confining unconverted inmates lying
behind naked bars of self-isolation
and electric waves of competing institutions,
Walls against multiculturing opportunity,
defensive moats with hungry crocodiles,
black and white defenses against sinful lazy aliens,
and aggressive ballistic lobbyists
addicted to non-conversations
of fear and self-righteous anger,
marketing everyday all-white lies
of capital-hoarding omission.
Collective fears of punishing reparations
for sins against past and future poor regenerations
expands like melting ice-slow crystals
freezing fear escapes so many freedom wronged,
confined by greed against imprisoned selves
against relentlessly orthodox "Other."
Multihappy revolutions of 2020 vision,
listening to prison's sad social addictions
powering over
to rediscover yin-power with prisoners
together decriminalizing
desecularizing
retenderizing
pardoning humane nature
for past angry RedState patriarchal crimes
against Earth's cooperative matriarchal freedom
green inspiring Spirit.
All of which causal root to reflective branches came,
then took off again,
to show
One WhiteHouse addiction
to a HillHell of competing prison power
is another's enchantment
and/or disenchantment.
Somewhere in the 21st century
we find our backs arched, heavy
bent, doubled over, crooked spines
with the weight of the modern world
Nobody seems to know how
to grow up, to live, to die
We're post-industrial, dying of cancer
dying for unknown reasons
Engines rev, spinning
There's still smoke in the air
We're fighting gravity
now everything's in the air
Post-modern thought and minds
We're moving past ourselves
"Today's the only on that counts"
we'll say today and tomorrow
Without knowing the modern face
we greet this ambiguous dawn
sure of our uncertainty, arbitrarily
a mon avis, from where I stand
I see you from here
that's the you i see
We speak in dialogue
lost in our own bodies
The structure of the human face
line, form, weighted eyelids
lips like things that hold us
to another source of heat
in beds we share alone together
through REM cycles broken
up like scratches on the
records we won't use anymore
This is why we are alone
in the space between ourselves
In the shadow of love, you and i
are two different ideas at once
(being stretched out like canvas
on two halves of the bed)
lying together in one space
watching the spheres collide
It's okay to be alone
we are alone together
[end].