Best Avoidable Poems
Anxiety
There is a stress that is brought upon a person from a source not of his own making. Also, there is a different self-born/inflicted type, though unplanned, yet avoidable. Since becoming an adult and finishing college, I have been jobless at least four times. Each period of unemployment caused stress, discomfort, and some anxiety.
In the Spring of 1974, after resigning a position with a drug rehabilitation program, I had no idea what I would be doing next. I had been married less than two years, with a baby less than one year old. As I recall, the Lord being merciful to me, I was able to find employment in a relatively short period of time.
In the Fall of 1974, I quit my job as a baker and moved some 600 miles to another state. The move became a source of anxiety. Nevertheless, I began to grow as a person and a christian. I have heard it said, "Nothing ventured; Nothing gained." In my early years, it seems that I was programed to take giant leaps of faith; but currently, not so much. Rain usually comes with a storm; and roses are surrounded by thorns.
In Fall of 1978, yet again, I resigned a social program and moved to another state 2000 miles away. I have learned that adversity is good for me; and also that it is not good to drive while looking through the rear view mirror.
In 2003, the company for which I worked for 25 years went out of business. It was not easy starting over at 54 years of age in an economy recovering from the pain of "911". In my view, anxiety does not have to be a death warrant, nor does stress signal a terminal illness. On the contrary, they may well be a warning for us to 'kick it' into another gear.
02242017 PS Contest, Anxiety, Lewis Raynes
Categories:
avoidable, adventure, anxiety, change, christian,
Form:
Prose
A deep, dark kindred spider looms to proffer the sentiment,
That abuse just objectifies the long persistent winter:
Scouring around playfully, but embedded in the night -
Two way of seeing it but only one plight.
That black body, its piercing eyes drive acutely,
In the lengthy web that’s receptive but selfish with quirk,
With thin, spindly legs which effect to mobilise,
The creature only some befriend to glamourise.
We hold to the summer, autumn and spring as the norm,
Not winter’s harrowing chill which makes us so often ill;
The act of telling someone you've been raped, abused,
Should not be a sick kick or a jester’s a thrill.
If you don't give us our minds, stance and chirps,
You'll just be cushioning that admiring psychologist,
Who asks us about physical abuse, sexual, and rape,
But who we hate to have as we’ve no trait.
Give us our spirits, intellect and powers:
Don't glare, glance and glower at our ordinary activities;
Equality only exists when you feel it and can tower,
In the informal social networks of civil conviviality.
And of course, nasty small talk itself causes rape,
Violence and abuse which derides and can shape,
The heart that reaches out to befriend and welcome,
The fence-sitter, the open mind who quietly relates.
But if you say physical abuse just objectifies other lesser evils,
Like criticising needlessly, cutting us off, and gloating,
Then your sick in the head and unforgivable,
Because all discrimination is unnecessary and avoidable.
Categories:
avoidable, abuse, anti bullying, discrimination,
Form:
Rhyme
We were made to live life out-loud;
We were made to survive the pain, and the conflicts.
We were made to overcome evil.
Destined to endure.
Live despite obstacles and roadblocks.
Yes, we feel our pain: We learn; We pray, we cry.
We turn our face toward our creator.
Sometimes the lesson learned seems an
unbearable price to pay;
We feel in hindsight this thing that has
happened was avoidable;
Yet now there is nothing we can do about it.
Certain life altering circumstances choke us.
But we must forgive ourselves,
Though it is easier done than said. Say it anyway.
Don't continue condemning yourself with curses.
Begin to live with it,
use it as a milestone for correction.
How well we have learned
our lessons, and able are
To be prepared for the next phase;
Be our only answer to the questions.
We must love fully,
redemption is in
Forgiving ourselves and others.
Be thankful for what we have left.
Protect what we have left.
Above all do not ignore those we have left;
For they are suffering too.
We must live out-loud, speak out-loud;
Love out-loud, and give all of ourselves;
To those that we cherish.
As a new day begins,
Love has not perished.
A new chapter is written:
A new lesson is learned,
or a former test reappears;
We have no reason to repeat
it a second time.
For we have learned well.
Knowing our living, and in our loving
Has not been in vain.
Neither will our dying, be for naught.
With a new Attitude.
We journey forward
as we begin to Live out-loud-
For those whom death has silenced.
As we begin to love out-loud-
For those who are still
Thrive among us humans, for those
Left in our care. and...
Whose hearts have;
Been also entrusted to us.
Categories:
avoidable, death,
Form:
Prose Poetry
Lie low when convenience calls
Stick out your neck at optimum moments
To climb and scale high social walls
As you swerve away from avoidable torments
To shunt aside a servile lifestyle
Predicated on premises so thin
You risk to frisk and whisk green bile
If you hobnob with characters so mean
They drive you into a ditch
Where awash with confusion and indecision
You struggle to make a switch in the stitch
That misses the fabric from which a fusion
Mixes and waxes fact and fiction to forget
Why for a while you chose to lie low
How you determined it wasn’t worth pursuing the target
You once thought you knew lay in row
Number one at the behest of fairness
Until you perceived much water under the bridge
Had gone by to cede room to meekness
Grown more significant outside the fridge
Where belief in necromancy
Blew a hole in the knowledge base
That inadvertently fed sycophancy
Deemed significant in the case
You strove to consider for possible inclusion in the novel
You contemplated writing
But gave up when it became clear your sleep in a Kafue National Park rondavel
Lit up and rekindled your fighting
Spirit to reject out of hand
The notion that social associations grow cold
When you openly take a stand
Against attitudes that strike the prude as too bold
To contemplate
Too weak to make a lasting impression
Too forward to merit a serving of caviar on a silver plate
And too silly to warrant a mention in a poetry recital session.
Categories:
avoidable, poems,
Form:
Free verse
There are some colours
that can never be repainted,
marks that can never be removed
and stains that can never be covered.
Move on!
My past loved one,
don't hold unto my shoulders
as though nature formed us together.
We've once crossed that bridge
but even before reaching its middle
we had crashed into the river
and were swallowed
by the rocks of its depth.
Do you remember,
at first we built a garden
coloured in trust
and grassed with unbelievable care?
But we converted it
into an Oven
where love and hate mix
and our problems;
I'm the only one trying to fix.
Unfortunate episodes
of our heated drama
was already counting at thirty and six.
The beautiful songs of our hearts
we remix
as sadness and anger feasts.
Why shouldn't I leave
and prevent my heart
from an avoidable accident?
But you stick around
only to suffer from self torture.
My new and bright countenance
makes you wanna have sex
with other male colleagues, I flex.
It's barely two weeks
that makes you perplexed
well; it's your problem
b'cos I'm not bothered
if you're vexed.
Are you the first
to be an ex?
Just move on, my dear past lover!
It will be the height of folly
and the worship of loneliness
if you visit our world again.
Categories:
avoidable, break up, relationship, sad,
Form:
Prose Poetry
Here we are
a title of a song, a transitional statement with no meaning
does it really serve a purpose
delaying the inevitable train-wreck these words will incur
I concur
words are meaningless, disastrous
If they were of any help
citizens would clean every bit of earwax building in their ears
to make waves in lines to city halls
for the hammer of justice to...
I have no manner of speaking for this
my chest can be ripped bare with insufferable pain
to describe all the things I wish to say
but with my voice and lack of utter talent
I can only whisper blanks for modesty betrays me
Believe me I want to scream
scream at men and women in blue
who swear by the law and citizens to keep us safe from harm
do right by society
scream how they are the stars of their own TV show
scream how we've glorified these acts without really realizing it
scream at the government for making "getting away with murder"
a nationwide trend
I want to scream
but my voice would be deafened by the millions of others
out in the streets, protesting, standing for something
my voice would be deafened, put in handcuffs, silenced for all to see
I want to scream
but there's enough people doing that for me
I want to bolster myself up like a bear
stand tall above all
to scream, to shout in defiance of people praising murder upon families
to scream, to shout in defiance of people praising revenge
praising physical retaliation like it ever solved anything
We have enough wars to fight, we have enough everyday worries
this avoidable conflict doesn't need to continue to escalate so rapidly
so tragically
but I'm just a muted voice behind a desk
attempting to fill a quota for a day
to just not be seen as lazy today
I'm just a muted voice, listening to Volbeat
pretending like I'm shouting this rhetoric in front of a crowd
but that very crowd would just pull out their smart phones
run my name through the ground
and I will be trending worldwide as one more person
shoved under the rug as non important
Why am I even still typing I've said nothing, am nothing
I'm alone
and with the world so quick to rip itself apart
I can't tell if that's a good thing anymore
Categories:
avoidable, violence, words, world, write,
Form:
Free verse
CLOSED EYES
For a false peace of mind, to what degree,
will closed eyes spare oneself to see?
A desperate man breaking in,
Doors are closed in his face,
Qualified but denied, for his ethnic race.
Silent cries of little victims secretly abused,
Ashamed for the ways they are quietly used.
The uninvolved in self-inhibited stalls,
Hearing a woman's beating behind the walls.
Victims of burn for desperation of heat,
just trying to warm their hands and feet.
A student being bullied, disgruntled employee,
an outcome much different if closed eyes would just see.
The warnings of an avoidable obvious fate,
are now losses because of an imploded hate.
A people dumbed by racism, and hatred within,
A political extermination of real women and men.
Pile it on without conscience, just live and let be.
For there’s none so blind, as closed that won’t see.
Can’t wake the sleeping giant, for her trans is too deep,
take away her innocent children during the hypnotic sleep.
Until blindsided by a missile marked with her name,
The power struggles that be, are to no one's gain.
We need God in America, may our prayers be heard,
May the Lord bring revival through His powerful Word.
Leave moral teachings for the parents and churches,
Basic education in schools,
Parents and teachers not working together, a failing brew.
You can’t teach morale when the parents are gone,
Working two jobs for a living, trying to have a home.
Misbehaving for attention is the child left alone,
Parents jailed, or just missing, it is the system gone wrong.
We were dying from the masking,
and walking six feet apart,
Vaccinated for a pandemic, that still had it’s mark.
Closed the churches, even forbidden, to gather in our homes,
Removed our praying, and our singing, made us cold to the bones.
When will we just realize, that it’s the Savior we need
The only realistic hope for the human seed.
Father open our eyes, let us not live and let be.
Help us be brave to change the things, closed eyes can’t see.
Categories:
avoidable, america, patriotic, political,
Form:
Political Verse
Depression hits hard like a tsunami wave,
threatening my house, welcoming the grave.
Should I thrive on my daily medication,
or survive, unaided, gravitation?
Should I deny myself of natural lows,
because they're so intense, like violent fist blows?
Should I be an altered version of me,
one sedated, less complicated, carefree?
Is this an effective alleviation,
or is there a possible toleration?
Would pills create chemical fences
that weaken my natural defenses?
Can I still empathize if I don't feel pain?
What lasting effect will this have on my brain?
Should I forfeit assistance from an upward shelf,
to be my indifferent, bipolar self?
Should I let my known weakness sometimes reign,
or spare myself of avoidable pain?
Should I grieve joy's seasonal cessation,
as my heart freezes from sun deprivation?
Should I undulate to the beat of the moon,
eagerly awaiting its fullness' resume?
To medicate or not medicate? ---
the question of old, the question of late.
The question begs like dessert on a plate.
Is it devil's food or angel cake?
Categories:
avoidable, addiction, depression, health, natural
Form:
Rhyme
Jinxed jesting jejune junior jobber...
just jabbering gibberish (A - I)
Again, another awkward ambitious
arduous attempt at alphabetically
arranging atrociously ambiguously
absolutely asinine avoidable alliteration.
Because...? Basically bonafide belching,
bobbing, bumbling, bohemian beastie boy,
bereft bummer, bleeds blasé blues, begetting
bloviated boilerplate bildungsroman,
boasting bougainvillea background.
Civil, clever clover chomping, cheap
chipper cool cutthroat clueless clodhopper,
chafed centenary, codifies communication
cryptically, challenging capable, certifiably
cheerful college coed.
Divine dapper daredevil, deft, destitute,
doddering, dorky dude, dummkopf Dagwood
descendent, dagnabbit, demands daring
dedicated doodling, dubious, dynamite,
deaf dwarf, diehard doppelganger, Doctor
Demento double, declaring depraved
daffy dis(pense)able dufus Donald Duck
derailed democracy devastatingly defunct.
Eccentric, edified English exile,
effervescent, elementary, echinoderm
eating egghead, Earthling, excretes,
etches, ejaculates, effortless exceptional
emphatic effluvium enraging eminent,
eschatologically entranced, elongated
elasmobranchii, emerald eyed Ebenezer,
effectively experiments, emulates epochal
eczema epidemic, elevating, escalating,
exaggerating enmity, enduring exhausting
emphysema.
Freed fentanyl fueled, fickle figurative
flippant fiddler, fiendishly filmy, fishy,
fluke, flamboyantly frivolous, fictitious,
felonious, fallacious, fabulously fatalistic,
flabbergasted, fettered, flustered, facile,
faceless, feckless, financially forked,
foregone, forlorn futile fulsome, freckled
feverish, foo fighting, faulty, freezing,
fleeting famously failing forecaster, flubs
"FAKE" fundamental fibber fiat, fabricating
fiery fissile fractured fios faculties.
Categories:
avoidable, dance, hello, imagery, motivation,
Form:
Alliteration
Cruelest thoughts overwhelm
beyond the patrol
beyond the drowning sunlight
firelight creeping up my back,
grab your camera and attack
a moment that doesn't hear
the glowing blue
I should have kept in a faerie jar
ajar is my mind,
hinges broken, hinges built
100 years ago, the repairman's dead
like the postcard I still cherish
oh it has arrived uninvited again, this pain
this favorite feeling flowers
when the spoken dagger
lathered
in poisonous affection
takes the habitual plunge
into pulsing core, and oh
she cannot feel the swirling madness fought
no, that is the worst of it all, she knows not of this
chest clutched, scream schooner, a whirlwind
through every room
each white convulsing
red cherries in time
after Euphrates dries
and Hyde's head screws back on.
I am fine. Everything smiles.
Oozing cryptically, cryptic cryptic don't let them know
that beyond a year ago,
Into slow void, I challenge Time,
I challenge
the non-existent;
I challenge
myself,
and discover...
Don't go back to the fireless rooms?
The fireless rooms
were never places.
The fireless rooms
were never avoidable.
Forlorn freedoms flung farthest
feasting from fear-falling
feint faithfully; fictitiously.
In a lone, innocent desire, the perfect jazz song is playing
it is her favorite song
her unavoidable song on every playlist
as a hallow briar floats by,
knows why
and where
and who I truly am,
knows the buried youth,
and the noxious adult of hap.
I am swinging again. He is swinging again.
That youth,
that whippersnapper.
That fool.
Going too fast. Too fast for his Truth to catch up.
Agony! Laugh at me!
Dig those heals in, heels into the ground, digging
into that old world
of a hosted carnival
that kept the best parts of our personalities. Kept the parts
everyone loved the most
at the top of that ferris wheel,
ecstasy eyes embracing the stars
that would later become supernovas inside
black fire death-in-life,
a death of slow pain would be lovely
masochist!
if only I could hold death as a moment,
death it and then command death
sic death upon evil
and witness true happiness
for the entire world.
Death...
and slow will be...
my descent once again...
Inebriation.
To Sleep. To Machination. Avoid the void...
A love for the forbidden fruit.
Categories:
avoidable, addiction, death, grief,
Form:
Free verse
THIS HOME OF HORRIBLE HATE
Voices of doom fanned by ugly hate
Our doom Echo in shattered boom
Voices of penury and avoidable hate
Clutched vehemently in tall viral gloom
Amidst squabbles of unequal and mates
Like the cash in the domain of true boom
Spread in the faces of embattled States
Lurking our boom and sailing our doom
This Nasty home of avoidable hate
The Gulf your main host of doom
Alike tortured the almighty States
The West and terror marry in doom
Black species endangered in hate
Asia lay in hot wait of avoidable doom
Tangled and ruffled this ugly world hate
Wearing a face of very twisted boom
This Nasty home of acute doom-filled hate
Smashing our treasure tearing our boom
Lives lay waste in the grip of cruel haste
Properties shed tears in nasty gloom
Growth’s menu of nasty tasteless taste
All in penury in acute clutches of doom
Our future a waste in random haste
This world of tales and gloomy boom
Fair play and justice banes of this hate
Equity and dialogue the apostles of boom
Selfless service the banes of this hate
Eviction of rancor the apostles of boom
Equality and unity the banes of this hate
Morality and sober the apostles of boom
Round page round hole bane of this hate
Sacredness of life an apostle of boom
This Nasty home of acute doom-filled hate
Free your hands off our enviable room
Or we set you ablaze the fans of hate
To set your cruelty a shameful gloom
No more wars and embers of this hate
That our gloom in doom may turn a boom
We in this home are weary of this hate
Save our souls and return us to our boom
Categories:
avoidable, abuse, africa, analogy, anger,
Form:
Again these men comes to mind,
Paid to say yes and nay,
Lame duck,
Canker, ***** rapscallion minds
Incorrigible,
Political impostors detached from the humdrum of street cries
Maggots in honor
Damp squib temples of legislators
Dishonorable honorable,
Rotund circles of rascals
Fellows fit for the gallows
Clamping on huge figures,
While masses groan in penury and misery
These men,
Myopic spendthrift
Guilty of our nation’s scraggy state
Yet so confused to order the path of the clueless dummy
Who imposed tax on all, by military orders
Ignoring the pleas, and rightful protesters
Turned tyrannical with marching murderer on Lagos Street
Their gains is from the pain of myriads of unemployed
The beggars,
The homeless,
Hungering and the dying,
Yet, these,
Profligate band of quipster
Queasy brains,
Feigning parliamentary proceedings,
Though,
Benighted of procedural skills,
Bootleg insane scoundrels
Go to now, you dunce,
Senators are no thief
Legislators are honorable men
Your reputation!
Mud eaten,
Ask the people, they know so well,
Your inscriptions are carved on the web
The insignia of corrupt men
You pride faded,
Honor, a high price you must pay to regain,
Not with money
You banter and wade it off,
Glory in these,
Your temporal pride,
Your mansions outlive you,
Your coffins called cars
Your billions in Zurich,
Your fears to face the people
And the mockery of Truth
When your time is over,
Time shall mock your reigns of folly,
With sicknesses of nameless brand,
Retrospectively,
Sufferers will call to mind, the avoidable denials,
Their pains, their poverty in your pride against your master- THE PEOPLE,
Welcome to your misery
as the masses will watch you die
rascal of usurps seats of honor, don’t call them fools.
Categories:
avoidable, africa, analogy, corruption, freedom,
Form:
Free verse
Walking through the desert
A genre-less beast of burden
The flaming orb in the sky
A brutal master so true
She trudges with drooped head
With feet like lead
Moving involuntarily
Towards the bleak unknown
Hark! What do I see?
A great body of water
Inevitably doomed
Soles bruising Earth
In a for-ward movement
To-wards un-avoidable destruction
Eyes scanning the horizon
Doom is definitely the solution
This great body of doom
Lapping at the toes
She'd rather take the plunge
Than turn her back on it
She'd rather swim across
Than wait for her salvation....
The Egyptians are coming
Categories:
avoidable, art, imagination, introspection, lifebody,
Form:
(Thy lovely lasses unwittingly
unstintingly unexpectedly
taught me selflessness)
Every Holiday time each year,
a rocketing increase asper
doling out Uriah Heap ping
largesse imposed upon each
citizen banker (coerced, forced,
induced to buy baubles,
bibelot, curios, et cetera striving
to outspend a competing
shopper, which faux grand
handedness, and crass exhibition
generating mega sales (as Tale
of Two Cities, or more)
earns management stripes viz
embracing the Christmas spirit
(via blithely deftly, frenziedly,
et cetera) per avidly boasting,
coarsely displaying, eagerly
flaunting, et cetera prices paid
for the latest curiosity, doodad,
gewgaws (whereby un
avoidable advertisements), flood
mass communication airways,
causeways, driveways, et cetera
to plug reduced priceline sans
gaud dee, knickknacks, gimcracks,
encompass companies blitzkrieg
for those, who disparage being
labeled Scrooge plunk down
every red cent, and empty
their pockets, purses, wallets
to snag the title of topnotch spender
no matter no need exists to snatch
every last kickshaw, novelty ornamental
tchotchkes, (which modus operandi,
(visited upon the populace, a tidal wave
vis a vis figurative manifestation,
laceration, inundation, whereby tenet,
maxim, credo, et cetera broadcast
to general public amply expending
fistfuls of dollars fulfilling
Great Expectations
(for family, friends, relatives)
buy giving liberally,
Categories:
avoidable, appreciation, creation, dedication, encouraging,
Form:
Ballad
A precipice not of change but of acknowledgement
a chasm of which seemed bottomless and timeless to one's fall
Sometimes a burden, trapped beneath this fallen treant.
Finding yourself here from nothing but pride and gall.
When sure of success, arrogance sprouts forth unkind.
Taking all that is certain in one's future mind.
It sneaks upon thus quickly and silent, a spider in the night
sinking fangs deep, an ache upon morning light.
Damage beyond repair and a fate left shattered,
A future certain now reflected with self-loathing, a reward that is just.
Drunk on praise and by all means flattered,
Denying all that is safe for what you think you deserve despite trust.
Now you fall into the depths of failure, cruel talons descend.
Earning shame absolute beneath Pride's cruel veil.
Yet reach out you may, take control and transcend.
Avoid this hell of which meets you at ends trail.
A prison of thought that takes all hope and strength.
Avoidable and escapable, keeping purgatory at arm's length.
A failure perhaps one must experience from myself
but a life not ended in the face of conviction
A willing soul to experience failure in order to shatter
Pieces coming together, stronger and with purpose.
Prideful is the fall and painful is the impact
Time moves slowly in the moment of realization
But stronger a resurgence and a forged hope intact.
Kneel up from beneath your burdened oak
climb over the edge of this pit
stand into the light over conquered failures and renounce your defeat
Time to step forward unto a new life, commit.
Categories:
avoidable, vanity,
Form:
Free verse