Best Augur Poems
HE WAS AN AUGUR,
SHE WAS A SIGN,
OF HOW THINGS WOULD BE
IN A MATTER OF TIME.
WITHOUT SAYING A WORD,
SHE DREW HIS ATTENTION.
TO GODS GIVEN GIFTS
WHICH ARE OFTEN NOT MENTIONED.
PEACE AND TRANQUILITY
OR JUST A REFLECTION
OF THE SPIRITUALLY ENLIGHTENED
AS SHE FACED HIS DIRECTION.
DEEP IN THOUGHT
HE HEARD HIMSELF SAY.
HOW CAN I TOO
BECOME ONE OF THIS WAY.
UNEXPECTED RESPONSE
WAS CLEARLY PROJECTED.
YOU'RE A CREATURE OF GOD
AND NEVER REJECTED.
OPEN YOUR MIND.
SET YOURSELF FREE.
SURROUND YOURSELF
WITH TRANQUILITY.
HE TURNED HIS HEAD,
TO LOOK AROUND.
NEVER BEFORE
A THOUGHT SO PROFOUND.
HE TOOK A DEEP BREATH.
THAN SET IT FREE.
THE GOAL IN MIND.
PUT THE MIND AT EASE.
IT WASN'T THAT EASY.
IT WAS MORE LIKE A TEST.
TO REACH HIS GOAL.
HE WOULD GIVE IT HIS BEST.
HE THOUGHT OF THE SIGN.
HE SAW ONCE BEFORE.
HE SAT HIMSELF DOWN.
DOWN ON THE FLOOR.
HE FOCUSED ON BREATHING.
TO SLOW DOWN THE HART.
IT ALL CAME TOGETHER,
BECAUSE THIS WAS AN ART.
STILL SITTING THERE,
AFTER DAY TURNED TO NIGHT.
HE FINALLY STOOD UP
AT THE SIGN OF SUN LIGHT.
HE STOOD ON HIS FEET.
IT WAS THEN HE REALIZED.
WHAT GOES ON IN MY HEAD.
IS SEEN THROUGH YOUR EYES
Driving home from work, I watch the darkening sky and the trees along the streets bending in the wind. Big drops of rain begin to splatter against my windshield until suddenly, my entire car is being bombarded. As the moaning wind picks up, the downpour increases and I adjust my windshield wipers accordingly. Nearing my neighborhood, I glimpse a foretoken of spring.
behind their mother
young quail scurry in a row. . .
March winds scatter rain
Soon I am pulling into my driveway, wondering vaguely where the baby quail were bound for and relieved to be escaping the onslaught of cold wind-tossed rain. My spirit has been lifted by the sighting of the quail family, for I know better days are ahead. . .
A few weeks pass, and I find myself becoming excited as I always do after April has arrived. I begin noticing the various plants and trees of my small city, in particular, the burgeoning buds of my own front yard pear tree, and then at last it happens; I awake one fine morning to my favorite augur of the season:
outside my window
myriads of white blossoms. . .
the trill of birds
For the Spring Haibun Poetry Contest of Debbie Guzzi
Now for Brian Strand's 'ALL YOURS (Mar 14)' Poetry Contest
We are all improbable in our own way,
and who can augur the future?
I never could have laid out my course in advance,
though in looking back it all makes sense,
even if it was me flipping a coin (or if somebody flipped it for me).
Hindsight smooths the probabilistic waves,
and here I sit, having cast the coin,
having had the coin in pocket,
having gotten change at an early age,
the cashier having had a drawerful of metal,
the mint having stamped to its heart's content,
the metallurgists having had their smiles,
the miners having ground fault wiles,
the cosmos having performed admirably, elementally.
Here I sit, tonight's chautauqua taking place in a goblet of garnet, yea - a very phrontistery of fuchsia. Far be it from me to understate the euphonious manner in which the cork leapt from the bottle, the Olympian olfactory embrace, the bathykolpian brand of this elixir. The wind outside the window - what is it telling me? Am I entangled, unawares, in my ebullience, a ptarmic influence in the decoction escaping my notice? Am I blind to the greater reality, my words falling like amaurotic husks to the ground? Or, that given ground, does it emit the mephitic essence? Is this the supernatural revenge of some aspect of the wine's terroir, rendering the drinker typhlotic to the usufruct of this very forum, to an iatrogenic principle at work? Are we held at bay by external sternutatory Influence, all our self-reliant suppositions trumped by errhine externals?
Here I sit, wondering if 'tis no more than the contest of the Ego, Superego, and Id, grinding against one another in tribologic sculpting. Or is a spiteful, chthonian influence at work, stemming from that same terroir? Can the wine be blamed? Can we cry out, apotropaically, to rescue ourselves? Are conscious forces arrayed against us, or are we our own worst enemy? Is there a soil/soul for a wine? And is it only a fancy of Fortuna that I sit here tonight, deterministic tendrils floating around me in a manner that threaten my assumptions? Am I free of myself, or is there no such thing as such freedom? In the end, do all things come to one? Obfuscatory clarity - yes, I know, and peace won't sleep in the transparent bottom of my glass.
a tender voice recites, muse’s lyrics flow
non-believers have poisoned Earth Mother's waterways
She unleashes winds blown hotter and dryer
perennial white blossoms swoon midst zephyrs
dangle from sterling chaste trees
twisted maple bark echo braids sacred hair unscathed
gold filters branches
thousand-year rooted Algonquin memories
elders and granddaughters amble amongst crackling twigs
streams pristine align to augur a promising path
within a bison pelt tepee awaits the knowledge keepers embrace
fire and smoke dense and opaque
evoking a bittersweet melancholy
broadleaves tremble breathe and sway
hymn chants of traditional wisdom expel
severed is the braid as is the child from the woman
her nascent efflorescence
transition is significant as we are wedded
and bound to nature’s perennial sentient
let the path before us grow wider and brighter for future generations
Rondel Pain
Poetry can inflict pain like a sharp rondel dagger,
Encircling each word with bigoted judgments on hand.
Down a spiral staircase a poet’s thoughts may stagger.
Semi-circular fashioned, ideas traverse memories’ span.
Hysterical, political…subject does not matter.
Orderliness and cleverness mete out the author’s plan.
Poetry can inflict pain like a sharp rondel dagger,
Encircling each word with bigoted judgments on hand.
Banter securely bound, released by creative augur.
Can choose many words found in vocabulary land.
Lexis gone thrilling can kill the heart of an iceman –
Stop, please! Choose kindly words; become a pain free enabler.
Poetry can inflict pain like a sharp rondel dagger.
© Dane Ann Smith-Johnsen
June 2, 2010
Poetic form: Rondel (Rondel Rhyming Pattern: ABab, abAB, aabbA)
Thanks Jared for making us think!
LEARN MORE:
1. POETRY: http://www.ehow.com/how_16711_write-rondel.html
2. DAGGAR http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rondel_dagger
3. STAINED GLASS http://www.anythinginstainedglass.com/glass/Rondels/rondels.html
Freedom asserted, freedom elevated
At the price of abandoning trivia
Jettisoning frills in the context of flights coveted
When whites and nights turn cold and Sylvia
Despite her brown complexion tolerates ebony skin
Rating it high, far above the artificial allure
Derived from immersion in complexion creams locked up in a bin
Sylvia suggests promotes the lure
Freedom denies to plastic surgery
That disfigures natural beauty ensnaring it into a belief
That brown skin defeats dark skin although beauty forgery
Elevates creepy kingship of mischief
Meant to deny dark beauty its place under the sun
Where African men and women turn away from their nature
To adopt and coopt artificial beauty not just for fun
But also for keeps and the contemporary culture
That invades and pervades Africa from rejection of traditional meals
Traditional attire, primacy of the mother tongue
To the adoption of intrusive Western languages and frills
Which rob Africans of their identity and slang
Until Africans know not where they belong
Being neither fully westernized nor fully Africanized
Like when expectant mothers deem it wrong to don oblong
Maternity dresses in favour of balkanized
Fashion whose promotion and commotion don’t augur
Well for the short term, midterm and long term
Plunging Africans into a perennial quandary and conundrum which figure
High among inconsistencies that squirm in an African misculture worm.
What Fallen Apple Dare One Take Sweet Bite
What value an oracle that denies
Time and Fate both join to join, to create
rich dessert with man's miserable lies
and dish it all up on a dirty plate.
What steady course to set sail on if known
one that in the calm harbor remains safe
Or through stormy skies, there gaily blown
like upward drawn dregs of useless wheat chaff.
What fallen apple dare one take sweet bite
as if sweet happiness would thus be found
for nowhere in mankind's long, futile flight
is paradise sold by penny or pound.
What hope rewards seekers that blessed key
What Light shines, for any and all to see
Robert J. Lindley, 10-18-2016
Poem Syllable Counter Results
Syllables Per Line: 10 10 10 10 0 10 10 10 10 0 10 10 10 10 0 10 10
Total # Syllables: 140
Total # Lines: 17 (Including empty lines)
Words with (syllables) counted programmatically: N/A
Total # Words: 108
NOTE
or·a·cle
'ôr?k(?)l/
noun
noun: oracle; plural noun: oracles
1.
a priest or priestess acting as a medium through whom advice or prophecy was sought from the gods in classical antiquity.
a place at which divine advice or prophecy was sought.
synonyms: prophet, prophetess, sibyl, seer, augur, prognosticator, diviner, soothsayer, fortune teller, sage
"the oracle of Apollo"
a person or thing regarded as an infallible authority or guide on something.
"casting the attorney general as the oracle for and guardian of the public interest is simply impossible"
synonyms: authority, expert, specialist, pundit, mentor, adviser, guru
"our oracle on Africa"
2.
a response or message given by an oracle, typically one that is ambiguous or obscure.
Walking on my own
The future unknown
Where do I go now?
I wish it was shown...
Thinking figurine
My future unseen
Which door will open?
Stranded in between...
Unsettled ambler
The future a blur
When will dreams come true?
No one can augur...
Confused and crazy
The future hazy
What will happen next?
Life can be mazy...
Corridors all blear
The future unclear
Who will walk with me?
I wish you were here...
Pathways untrodden
The future hidden
How long must I wait?
I'm still uncertain...
11/20/17
Contest: Empty Your Soul With Words
Sponsor: Broken Wings
Apart in one body
Confused and defiled
Without the primal glory
Of infants purified
In bits and pieces
My whole life flies
An unsolved puzzle
An augur sigh
Would you help me?
Or pauperize
This poverty
Don’t close your eyes
Speak with your hands
Not with your tongues
Or stay still; blank
Savour my hurt.
They said I'm a chip off the old block, but I'd never budge an inch
For it is of nature to bear the semblance of the one from whom you proceed
For it is blood to blood, nothing escaping
For that's nature's will
All we can do is to chop off the externals that does not augur well with the times we are
And that's if that semblance is an Ogre to modernity
~ semblance
Retreated in the darkness
Of broken fears,
Your palace found broken
At the bottom of a well.
Well,
What good is it anyhow?
To allow the sweet surge
Of electricity and sweat
After decades of anticipation.
Anticipating the unknown.
The most anticipated
That has ever been known.
Known amidst the leaves
Who thrive on sunlight
And daily worship
When we're worshiping
Ourselves.
Ourselves,
Beneath the shelves
Of humanity.
Beneath the shells
Of humility.
Humiliation,
Our comfort zone,
And every in between.
Every twisted, sticky
Dream.
That serves as a theme
For a bloodied torn scene.
Torn amidst the reoccurance
Of worship.
Worship in a million ways.
Only to make one stay.
A stay that last just a moment,
Moments in a second.
Seconding the notion of staying
At the bottom of a well,
In darkness we shall dwell,
Our courses turning synchronal
And yet again so odd.
Audited by a final
Augur
In cases of lamentation.
To tame the lame
And lambasted.
Upsetting the apple cart.
Upsetting the veiled figures
In sheer obsidian.
Obscene that they too dwell in darkness.
Never entering sunlight
Or fluorescent tissuelike light.
In the limelight of the limited,
Of the disabled
And the poor.
Only to be pitied
By the pitiful.
Do you wonder why
The pilgrims bleed for you?
Not because you are
Incapable of worshiping
The house of the light
Or the sick and unwell
But because you choose not to.
In discretion,
You bleed for them too.
For when you observe them in praise
Not in houses of light do they pray,
Not in houses of the omniscient
Or rapturous
But in houses of the ravens.
In houses of the dead
And engravened.
In houses of the damned
Mutilations
Of depth and devastation
Where putrid, public lynching
Still occurs and endures.
In houses of ebony.
Germ of essence.
Human blob.
Shattered eggshell to the chicklet hatched.
Interlocking family of a kingdom.
Beget or begone? Antigone!
Pouch bearing mammal with no issue for her milk a plenty.
Enlightened species on
a zodiac sign.
Propagating genus wild and free yet stillborn.
Wet nurse in a pregnant phase but still a child at hearth or so it seems.
Meadow grazing Macropod fazes antipodean observer all the while.
New arrival signage whose laboured footprint chills on every impact.
Courier from catacombs, fateful torch aloft, flambeau at a glance where toddlers cheer, sonnet form heraldry ablaze with kindling verse.
Human destination thread that spins a hopeful tale.
Cave of legends halting site persevered by household zeal.
Stalagmite, stalactite, granite grey day gulag’s natal spasm.
Troglodyte who once did tramp upon a uterine tunnel trading in survival for relief.
Embryonic creeper stuck on dry wall canvas.
Border crossing cradle cordons off a check point, never mind the cost or inconvenience.
Acorn random toss, mighty oak seed trap between a leaf and fallen log.
Flower pollen stigma,
never seen as shameful to the fertile mind.
Tree of life penumbra casts a limelight shade.
Concepts pulse the mind like nascent parabolic kites that stymie outcome.
Genesis of brainwave.....
nurtured by insightful minds and marble carver tomes.
Olympic status offspring, budding Einstein player on the ball.
Thought, the inner urchin magnet probing deep inside magenta labyrinths.
Wheel of fortune‘s mumsy shadow
ova.
Masterful philosophy storing foetal logic on some growth cell’s wellspring fountain.
Infant augur embers fan their winter flame regardless.
Birthright , birthstone,
birth pang, the reproductive organs of infinity whose algebraic series has no final chapter scheduled.
All Malaysians, young and old, we all cheer and even the old folks they proudly profess...
The names of outstanding sporting sons and daughters of Malaysia put to the tests......
With the passage of time, there comes a time for the changing of the guards....
In Malaysia squash, it looks like the incoming young 'uns form a very capable squad...
Highly touted in the female squad are some names worth highlighting...
Such as Sivasangari, Andrea Lee, Bukit Jalil girls and the Azman siblings....
Plenty others are bidding time and opportunity to gatecrash and herald their comings....
Girls like Wen Li, Ma Siyi, even Jessica, Kiroshanna and numerous others up and coming..
These all augur well and good for Malaysian woman squash for the immediate future....
Every victory achieved and celebrated promises of emerging champions in the near future..
Bear in mind these young 'uns who win now are being groomed into world champions...
They carry the hopes of a small nation boasting of a 9 times woman world champion..
Go, Malaysia, go... Malaysia Boleh simply says it all ....
Malaysian women squash looks and can conquer all...
Go, girls,go... go for it, go for the gold, go for the honour and pride...
For the Malaysian public always they stand, applaud and take immense pride...
Girls, strut your stuff and may your victories help rebuild Malaysian pride...
Malaysian junior squash girls, go, go for gold and conquer the world with pride...
February and its much-vaunted chill
comes down with vengeance, and does what it will,
this lake that in summer jams full with boats
is now frozen over, nothing can float.
Most people stay home at this time of year,
and a whole new set of sportsmen appear,
seeing as I walk, the snowmobile tracks,
patterns in the snow, absent where it lacks.
There are lots of trails in the nearby woods,
lots say the sledding around here is good,
I see them out there, riding towards the sun,
a pack of black wolves, having lots of fun,
still here the hum of engines blaring far off,
I think I’d try it, if not for the cost…
A few yards ahead sit a small shanty,
a man drills the ice so vigorously,
uses a hand-augur, this guy’s old school,
looking to find fish in waters so cool…
he has three lines out, now it’s time to wait,
drink beer with his friends, shoot bull half the day,
hoping to see what his efforts will bring,
only the steadfast go for ice-fishing.
Beyond that are tracks, coyote from the looks
the lake now a highway, free of the woods,
you see where they loped, crossing back and forth,
to field and forest, always seeking more...
more rodents hiding beneath the white snow,
the ice makes it much easier to go.
In the distance a town, by the lakeside
blocks of ice formed in a castle do rise,
cut from this same lake, for the festival,
the kids run around it, so life’s not dull,
and by that rises the toboggan chute,
its outrun is the plain of icy blue,
every year folks go down, sometimes quite far,
then walked back, amazed, by just where they are.
I can understand that, making my trek,
as I walk along, I must crane my neck
to take in the mountains, brilliant and clear,
unobscured because no trees grow out here,
the broad, sweeping vistas that we all love,
for me the feeling of that is enough,
most folks stay inside, but I love to take
long walks out upon a well-frozen lake.
I know languages count by silent lexicons
I know oceans measure by waving hands
I know serpents poison by miseries
I know clouds mould by whispers
I know rivers clutter by sediments
I know oaks augur by heights
I know blood oils by fossils
I know epics endure by echoes
I know ashes wither by winds
I know castles coil by curls
I know hells hasten hubris
I know I know, my ignorance by ignorance