Best Awfulness Poems
I think feel a breeze
A breeze and a touch of horror
Something makes my breath seize
The stings of inner torture
The beast of the dark just passes
I hear the pings of its awfulness
Horrible snuffs complementing terrible masses
Something grip me here – oh fearfulness!
Now what – silence…
The quietness of the graveyard
I sense trouble in disguise
Only that worse turns bad
Oh wait, I can see
Slow approaches of eye balls
The burning eyes of the black beast
Monster, you, coming for me or my pulse
This is it my adventure fiasco
In the ever-dark ghost room
I would rather die like a hero
Behind this locked door with my rheum
As I’ll lay my back on this door
Oh beast feast, on me feast
I can hear quacks as I fall
…the door open at least
Massacre! Oh massacre of the beast
Sun ray-the enemy of the dark monster
Came in for its burnt feast
Because the door opened
With a silence that cut through the laughter
She entered the room, bitterness
Edged around her features, portraying
Cruelty with an unfeeling sword of darkest
Gloom, dread so dismal it feels, almost,
Like grief sinking into the bones
Sullenness coughing up phlegm that rots
In the heart, the soul, the mind
Where there is a penetrating hostility
Her eyes glared at the laughing children
Echoed cynicism through the air
Like a poison dart piercing the heart
Her hatred tasted of a sourness
Only the very truthful could attest to
She was hard and her icy stares forced lovers
To pull away from one another, chastised
By the coldness that left chills on the mind
Resentment fell from her pores, sweating acidity
Imploring hope to be cast aside for disaster
Calamity so dreadful it was as fatal as a stab wound
A trepidation so repulsive with its awfulness
It feels like being in a nightmare,
Terrifying
When she looked at me, though…
I saw through the cool, calculating gaze
Into the heart where there had once lived
A child of five, all giggles and smiles
Alive with the joy of silliness, …
I saw, beneath the ice in the veins
The warmth of a heart who was living
… with excruciating pain
Pick-A-Title, Vol 30 - Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Edward Ibeh
1.) Ice In the Veins
April 24, 2022
There is a woodpile in my in-laws’ cellar, and some coal, but other rumored things also.
And it has been there a long time since anyone tripped down these broken concrete steps.
Maybe twenty or thirty years; we inherited this home a long time ago.
We have sold it four times on contract,
which has fallen through again.
My husband is not here,
He cannot take it.
But I can, so I take a couple of steps,
Until I get within a foot, when I stop dead as
I can smell the mold through the three-inch door.
The rumor is that there are treasures down there.
I do not know. We were never allowed near this cellar door.
Now I am sixty-six, so technically old enough to go down into this cobwebby den,
But I can smell the mold through the door.
So I back up and rest in an old lawn chair, left by one of the people who thought they
were buying the house before they decided to desert it.
I can still smell the mold, so I back up a bit further, the sun on my face, my feet leaning against a gentle lavender clover.
I am terrified of mold, as I am an asthmatic, and mold could trigger some awfulness in me.
So here I sit, staring as others wander in and out, poking among dusty things
That are disintegrating as they are being brought out into the sun.
Other relatives are coughing; trying to breathe as they haul green and brown stuff out,
Most indistinguishable as real things at first or second glance.
Most needing a power washing, that would completely decimate it.
Maybe she had the right idea, one says, pointing at me, as I lie here, soaking
Up the sun rays. I take off my shoes and push my toes into the clover.
Then I turn my face up, letting the sun hit my nose.
Are you kidding? A teenager yells. This treasure hunt is great!
She runs back down the steps to haul out more loot that her prissy mother
Will never let her take in the car, let alone in the house.
I know because I am prissy girl’s mother.
So here I sit, in a falling-apart green lawn chair, watching the show.
Thinking how my mother-in-law is probably up in heaven laughing, as she too
Smells the mold through that cellar door.
She is odd, they said.
She won’t talk to you.
She is stuck up.
She is mean.
He did not believe them.
Them who had lied about him also when he was the new kid.
He sat with her during lunch.
They laughed like hyenas; he found her refreshing and delightful.
After school they cornered him.
They accused him of being disloyal to the pack.
They were angry that he did not take their word about her awfulness.
They were incensed that he had a mind of his own.
She is depressed, they said. She is a downer. She is bad news. Stay away or we will not be your friends.
He saw her sad, and soothed it.
He understood her downs, she had reasons for them.
So he sat with her at lunch, and he walked her home, and they used their sense of humors and they laughed.
Being with her felt wonderful, being with her was cathartic, being with her was love.
They were angry now. They surrounded him with baseball bats and bully clubs.
If you insist on following your heart and being nice to her, we will hit you, they told him.
We will hurt you.
We will kill you.
She is different, they told him. She is odd. One of them spit on his arm to prove his rightness.
He threw back his head and laughed at them and he did not stop laughing. He laughed for hours.
Their faces were mad. They were upset. They were so angry. They ran away, because they could not change him.
She came out of her house, ready to be walked to school.
What was that? She asked him.
A bunch of silliness, he told her.
They got married, and made friends all around the world.
Friends who liked them for having a sense of humor and minds of their own
And they lived happily ever after.
feathers twirled,
long into the night.
ebonic ink,
splotched and saturated,
with the heart’s content.
t
e
a
r
s
created the first draft
of watercolors,
s
e
a
r
i
n
g
of the candlelight vigil,
long forgotten grief,
h
o
w
e
v
e
r
God never
f
o
r
g
e
t
s
He bottles up the flagrant fluid
of our awfulness, kept for
the day of wrath. Careless,
never; He eyes antiquity.
Thank you – Zamreen Zarook
Thank you is a sweet word in the nature,
You may be a guy of adventure,
May be you are a person of agriculture,
What matters is your architecture.
Never forget the people, who guided you,
In no degree neglect who were with you,
Don’t ever overlook a creature, who gave a smile to you,
Because, you will meet them above you.
People forget the past due to selfishness,
They have no time to remember their unawareness,
Society, most of the times behave in awfulness,
They will understand when their lives come in to bitterness.
Be a person to thank and remember,
Don’t consider them as December,
Because, you might need them in November,
So, always be as a good subscriber.
What was going through your head
When you decided to end your life
Did you consider your love ones at all
Leaving behind your sons and wife
Failing to show up for work on Monday
Not calling or coming home that night
Leaving your family frantic and scared
So cruel of you to leave them in this plight
You were reported missing to the police
Your car found on Tuesday near Niagara Falls
Witnesses seen you jump in the icy waters
Just thinking about it.....my skin crawls
Three weeks later, your body still not found
Your wife is still struggling to stay strong
Posting pictures of you in happier times
Sorrow you left behind will be lifelong
Now your boys will grow up fatherless
Never understanding the reason why
Damage done to them emotionally
Tears of confusion and anguish as they cry
A small community remains shell shocked
The awfulness of it all is so hard to digest
The reasons why we'll never truly know
May your tormented soul now be at rest
12/ 09/ 2013
*A sad and true story, his children are in my son's school.
You indicated I don’t listen.
I respectfully disagree.
I hear you.
I just don’t like what you have to say.
Pretending to ignore you takes tremendous effort.
Quick to dismiss
that which emanates from a source
other than your own lips –
and it’s not like you’re the only one who likes to hear himself talk.
Trying to sleep
never should be undertaken.
That’s why we fall asleep.
There’s no effort.
Fall’s inevitable.
There’s a season for everything.
But this one’s
short lived
and seemingly doesn’t come as often as it used to
before global warming and other major concerns
evidently.
… thinking about our earlier discussion
makes me wish I lacked lips
and that the cliché about going in
one ear and out the other was more
literal than figurative.
I figure eventually this noise will
QUIET DOWN!
so that trying morphs
to falling
and dreamless sleep supplants
the constant drone of something
terribly wrong.
Panic attacks that
neverend
or seemingly seem so
prior to this pillow talk –
a case for a better
container:
containment is key.
It turns out
that my point of entry
always my biggest nightmare.
Big is such a small word.
I wish it was more attentive
of its status as an anomaly –
just a monosyllabic
monstrosity of awfulness.
B-I-G
A word so tiny
even toddlers
master its annunciation.
BIG!
From that which is so small.
If I said I forgave you
it would be nothing but a lie
but you would not apologize
anyway.
So all this talk is trash.
Be the big one.
Say you’re sorry.
Just refuse for another
Pronouncement
of lackluster
underachievement.
My comfort zone.
I’m sorry.
Yet again.
This is poetry for us all when you can’t find the words.
Acerbic, angry, awful is this poems dream.
Bad, boring, balderdash are its major themes.
Childish, contemptuous, cynical to the last;
Daft, dizzy, desultory meanings that are vast.
Egregious, extemporaneous and extra bad,
Foolish, futile, fantasy, that's pretty sad.
Garish, grotty, ghastly that’s the score,
Hogwash, horrible, haunted what a bore.
Idiotic innuendos of the lowest kind,
Jumping jeering, jesters come to mind.
Kinky, kooky killjoys everywhere,
Lamentable lamebrains, all without a care.
Muddled, mindless mutterings in the night,
Nutty, neurotic nuances come to light.
Obtruding oafs with highly opaque lenses,
Permeate our all pervading senses.
When I was younger so much younger than today, I used to go to lots of poetry events. There was something called Red Sky that was every week, people were so very serious about it. Then one day I had an epiphany, "My god. I'm at a poetry event," and stopped going.
Later it all became poetry slams. Went to a few of those, too, in awe of the awfulness. People with neither talent for acting, for reciting, for rapping, and certainly not for writing poems, put all these lack of talents together and had total support from audiences that consisted in the main of people only waiting for their turn.
Once when I'd blessedly escaped from a typical slam, there was a homeless drunk across the street from the noisy venue. He was having his own private poetry slam.
He kicked a telephone pole and screamed "Hello telephone pole!" stomped on the concrete and screamed, "Hello sidewalk!" then peered into a garbage can with "Hello garbage!" and shook the hell out of a newspaper vending machine, "Phuck you news!" It was a better poem than any that was being screamed inside at the slam.
August 15 Scripture Meditations Based on Daniel 4-6
Key Verse – Daniel 4:2 I thought it good to shew the signs and wonders that the high God hath wrought toward me.
MY GOD, THANK YOU FOR WHAT YOU’VE WROUGHT TOWARD ME
Thank You for what You’ve wrought toward me in terms of my salvation
From a sinner, slain in iniquities’ destruction...
So wonderful it is for my redemption
Together with my eternal adoption.
Thank You for what You’ve wrought toward me in terms of my forgiveness
From a rebel, condemned to hell’s awfulness...
So gracious it is for my righteousness
Together with my divine blessedness.
Thank You for what You’ve wrought toward me in terms of my spirituality
Though a transgressor, devoid of holiness’ purity…
So powerful it is for my Christianity
Together with my assured security.
Thank You for what You’ve wrought toward me in terms of my development
Though a fool, in need of wisdom’s fulfillment…
So helpful it is for my faith-advancement
Together with my heavenly involvement.
Thank You for what You’ve wrought toward me in terms of my testimony-light
Though a skeptic, blinded against spiritual sight…
So enriching it is for my conversion delight
Together with my supplication-plight.
Thank You for what You’ve wrought toward me in terms of my perspective
Though a humanist, sensitive against Scriptures’ imperative…
So transforming it is for my sanctification, surely positive
Together with my biblical directive.
Thank You for what You’ve wrought toward me in terms of my victory
Though a nobody, worthy of fury’s misery…
So triumphant it is since I put my faith in the Gospel story
Together with my service, advancing righteousness’ territory.
August 15, 2022
THE FOIL BETWEEN LOVE AND LUST
Who dares me; I lust, to hold utter sway over the flesh!
I love, but can at least assume claim upon the heart.
Well, I swore that from the flesh comes the sweetest to be mesh.
Nonetheless I affirm, the happiest, that from the heart in part.
Know not yet, I lust, cares for the “Now” to satisfy the immediate need?
Cherished thee lust, thy exigency, but I love do care beyond the “Now”.
Thou slow worm! I have thus made all desires temporal by its greed.
But I love, made all desires long lasting, that shallow hearts may bow.
Reckon not yet, I lust, is fraught with wanton desires never satisfied?
Rather would I love, exude patience and curtail my longings by compos mentis.
But I imbued my root and values on this earthly shore to get my jollies wide.
Not I, genuine love, hope to transcend to the reality of the land of promise.
I lust, pride to nourish on the choicest products to make the flesh priceless.
I love, hinges on the gifts of humility, modesty and genuineness of the heart.
Acquaint thee then, with my impatience and desperation to yield awfulness.
I relent not in perseverance, but away the route of disgrace and death would chart.
Let known then, when sex precedes love is all about lust.
Likewise then, when love precedes lust brings about sex.
Wherefore i say, lust cannot be love and love can be a lust.
And therefore said i, sex brings not about love, but love sex.
By libidinous mien, even heavenly beings descend below, my influence awe!
Hail the throne of love, and all earthly beings who ascend up to see!
Away love, I detest to be thy offspring, no affinity with thee i bore!
But certainly lust, I thy mother, bore an outward semblance as thee.
Itsoghole O. Solomon
She gave me an angry look.
Neither her face or eyes were familiar.
The hope I had been counting on for three days, dissipated.
This mean-looking eleven-year-old child had been through more
awfulness in her life, than I could imagine. She was unrecognizable
as my stolen 4-year-old child. I doubted she could be my child.
It had been eleven years since I saw Cassie. I had held out
hope for nine of those years. Collecting birthday presents
and Christmas presents for a 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 year old
girl, a child who might not even be alive.
DNA said she was mine, but is this proof enough?
Cassie Lynne had been joyful, and fun, and funny. Her laugh
had lit up the yard full-tilt. Her daddy was gone now, or he
might have been able to point out something about her that
was ours. I could not see it.
This girl, the one they brought back to me, to show me,
to get my approval for, this girl did not look at all like my
child. I could not imagine that she was my little darling Cassie.
This girl was angry and sullen, and suspicious. Hyper-vigilant,
she jumped at every sound. Her siblings did not know her,
because we only had Bobbie when she was taken, and he was a baby.
Lost time, never to be retrieved, never to be understood. Years and
years of lost time, I looked at this child, with eyes of a mother,
who has lost now not once, but twice.
Wondering if there is any way to salvage any of the 4-year-old child
I remember. I am afraid to go to sleep with this girl in my house.
fearful of her, and fearful of how she will change my family.
Lost time, lost girl, lost me.
I’ve behaved poorly every winter
I can remember, my awfulness in each
separated only by degrees,
secrets piled like snowdrifts at the corners
of rooms I wouldn’t stay in.
Hiding was easier.
I stuffed myself in the closet
of our pit-city apartment—
walls infested with neighbors
tiptoeing through roach powder
caked like salt-circle prayers—
my sister above me, her small body
throwing up what little warmth
our family offered—a recipe of lemons
and gelled mentholyptus to keep us quiet.
Her vomit running from the top bunk
down to me smelled warm and too green.
I had to get out of there.
I disappeared
because the air outside was too full
of breaking—
vows shattering; locks snapping
too loud for lungs that barely held.
The familiar sound of domestic violence
brings a comfort
of knowing
what’s next.
Embracing the facts early and often
can help you put at least the length
of a teddy bear’s arm
between its sound and yourself.
Later, these winters of paying the cold
forward, before it reached me, translated:
stealing partners, and partners’ passwords,
eating nine boxes of pizza rolls to swallow
my sexuality, never finding the end
of a bottle, arguing against the brittle logic
of my own survival—
because proving I mattered felt better
than knowing I might not.
But let me rewrite these winters:
I pull my sister from the bunk,
our laughter is what breaks open the dark,
we are cherry blossoms bursting
through an imminent thaw,
we lie in peace across our bedroom sheets,
left to mature in a natural sun.
We remake the closet into a fort,
walls drawn tighter not to trap us
but to keep us safe.
My sister’s eyes aren’t buttons anymore,
she isn’t puking synthetic cotton,
I don’t use her small body as armor.
Outside, the snowlight waits,
soft as her hand in mine.
We step into the cold and make it ours,
reaching for the frostbitten branches
and claiming them as swords.
No harsh realities or words can follow here—
and if they try,
we let them land,
then split their heads like seeds in the muck,
each fracturing skull
a shot at a promise of something
that finally grows.
Easily are fires put out by tears and fears
There is a heaviness I feel in the darkness
It was once all lit up all around me—
I was so prideful, so immersed in it
I felt so safe and warm, and happy
Who was I really fooling?
I instead wander my miserable dreams
I write to you desperately
And can barely form the words
Just write it, write it,
I need to know the truth:
“What did I do wrong?”
I only tried to salvage us
In this futile vision
I tried to save this world
As the rest of life was crumbling
Who am I but this lost little girl,
Trapped by my own swallowed shame?
Who am I but this mess I made?
These words—these words I have formed
Have broken us
No—
Have broken me
The familiarity of awfulness pervades
I want to crawl into some form of purpose
Because all I can really do is crawl—
But where can any light be found?
Because I cannot face yours
I need one that cannot be put out
By these sobs of remorse
Whatever can I say,
To make this desolation go away?
Whatever can I do,
Whatever can I hope?
I heard in my dreams—
The hollowness,
I heard the word “empty” being repeated,
Being buried into my skin
Becoming a part of me
You say “live”
To fill myself with courage
And confidence that I lack
You say “face it”
While I am staring at what you left behind
All of my emptiness and nothing more
You say “nothing is stopping you”
But oh how you are wrong
Everything about this life is stopping me
My very mind is stopping me
How can you know how that feels?
How can I stand up and face another day?
Without even understanding why I even wake up?
I would much rather wander my dreams,
Waiting for your answer,
Facing the emptiness
That familiar tingle of despair
Than to face reality—
Your cruel silence
My soundless, soulless roar
May 1, 2018