Best Back Pack Poems
The desert knows me well, the night, the mounted men,
The battle and the sword, the paper and the pen.
- Al-Mutanabbi to Sayf ad-Dawla
***
Sanddune ripples,
air tears through sand.
Paralyzed
desk waves in oak patterns
pen pierces swelled surface
in desperate hope for inspiration
Gallop resonates:
his court
his caravan
my pen his sword
my words not mine
I write his life
5, 6, 7, 8
lift, blow
scratch, tear
plié, fold
this empty paper in 4
The saddle bag
The back pack
Sails the desert through waves
too far to remember
or falsely related to distorted time dimensions,
simmered mirages
Reach up, make words
land on my hand
5, 6, 7, 8
jam...
(What is home anyway but a bunch of false memories)
***
June 26, 2017
Copyright © Darren White
Categories:
back pack, analogy, beautiful, words,
Form:
Free verse
"SWEET LITTLE HONEY"
My father had no respect for the world..
A big drug trafficker..
When I was just a little girl!
Living for the glory of money.
He smiled and looked down at me..
Sitting me on his lap he called me his, "Sweet little honey!"
And told me, " This job is going to bring him to his death."
Handing me a back pack.
My daddy send me to what I thought was a school in Texas.
Giving me a kiss and a pat on my back.
He held my hand while we crossed the, Rio Grand.
Carrying a 10 pound educational white brick book.
I walked with a smile beyond the border into another land.
Waving good-bye with his devilish look.
I thought of nothing and got on that bus.
5 years pass, I'm 15 living a life like a crook.
One day I asked my dad for some money.
He sat me down calling me his, "Sweet little honey."
And told me, "It's all his fault for leading me the wrong way!"
Denying me the needs for my addiction.
I got upset and aggravated by his reaction.
I pulled out a gun with out a word to say.
Pulling the trigger was my action.
With out feeling guilt, I looked back at that one day.
He called me his, "Sweet little honey."
Handing me a 10 pound educational white brick book.
Now I'm the one waving good-bye with the devilish look..
by;p.d.
** not my story**
Categories:
back pack, epicme, me, drug,
Form:
Narrative
A strange sight upon a lonely road.
A dream ripped in half.
Looking closer, I wonder what was the travail.
An old price tag attached, making me wonder at what price it was sold.
Along the edges, tattered and torn, it gave forth an evil laugh.
As if some sly devil concocted a way to turn someone pale.
Onward I traveled, with pack upon my back.
To the left and right of the road were littered with more broken dreams.
So many that one could not keep track.
Some having been blown into the parallel stream.
So, I checked the pack upon my back.
And, yep all my dreams were there in a stack.
Cold winds howl, trying to rip my back pack to shreds.
Freezing were the winds, but forward I march.
Never losing sight of my dreams in spite of many dreads.
They all hold up strong even though many times I'm in a lurch.
Suddenly I see people returning to the road.
Going back and picking up their dreams.
Dusting them off and restoring them to their pack.
Each and every one said to me, you are quite bold.
To go forth and not let the cold winds of fate not destroy your knack.
To face life as it comes and not give up even if offered gold.
Good, bad fortune, are likewise of no importance.
Put a failed dream back in your pack and maybe a new day will appear.
Where you can unpack that dream and give it another go.
But, for today, march forward, today's failure might tomorrow's dance.
You gave it your best, and win or lose, that game has ended with a spear.
Win or lose, that game is done so pack it's knowledge away in your pack and grow.
Suddenly down the road a new vista appears and a brand new game.
Left high and dry or victorious are the two possible ends of any venture.
But in truth, knowledge is all you will have, win or lose.
For tomorrows game is just around the bend, all the same.
Win or lose, the game of life only ends for the moment within sight of the new adventure.
So, to quit and call it the end, only makes you look like a goose.
Categories:
back pack, business, confusion, death, depression,
Form:
Rhyme
If one is hungry
And bored
Of watching over Mecca,
What better place
To steal an apple
Than from another country’s orchards,
With fighter jets
Twanged in the sky
Like flying bottle openers,
Diving down
And peeling back a tin can roof
Of a school bus
Loaded with 40 children,
Whose shoulders are all
Strapped
With blue and red back packs
That look like little lunch boxes,
One of them
Surely containing
The sweet temptation
Of the perfect apple.
Mistaken identity, can happen.
So, a few bombs,
True,
Have to remove
The dozens of windows
And deposit
The million shards like razors
To flay the skin of the girls and boys
And, in an attempt to remain civilized
About this,
First cook
With fire and oil
The cheekbones from the skulls
Of the five year olds
Who are still alive,
And it’s important to keep fresh
The liver, tongues and hearts
Shish-kebobbed
With splintered ribs, white as serpents,
And finally, then
There it is,
The well done slab of lamb’s meat
Still clung, red as a beet,
Limbs and noses,
To be stripped
From that one buried back pack
And within it, zipped,
The fine taste of a ripe apple
Polished by mom
As a snack that was packed,
That day,
For school.
Categories:
back pack, evil, grief, international, political,
Form:
Free verse
I hadn’t seen her in over twenty years,
but I knew her face on sight;
I should have asked her to the senior prom -
instead, we both stayed home that night.
High school friends who never went on a date
because I was too afraid to ask her out;
In retrospect, the signs were there,
but I harbored a young man’s doubt.
Now, with two decades left behind us,
in a foreign land far away,
I stumbled upon my old high school crush
not knowing just what to say.
She was quite surprised to see me -
coincidences had put us there.
She was a successful corporate lawyer;
I was travelling without a care.
We shared pictures of our children;
Told snippets about our life;
Her husband was back in America;
I had just divorced my wife.
The bartender made his last call;
Nostalgic smiles were on our face;
We kissed and hugged goodbye again
as I quickly got out of that place.
I was glad to have gotten to see her,
though it made me feel inept again;
I wondered if we would have made good lovers
or if it were best kept just as friends.
She was in my thoughts as I wandered
around Europe with my back pack;
I promised that I would look her up again
in three months when I got back.
I read about her on the Internet
and cried when I saw the story;
She had died in an auto accident -
leaving behind her girl and boy.
It happened one week after
our chance meeting in that bar;
They said an old high school year book
was found with her in the car.
Her letter was in the pile of mail
waiting for me when I got home;
She wrote she was glad to see me -
on that trip she felt so alone.
She admitted to having a crush on me
back in our high school days;
She kept waiting for me to ask her out
until we went our separate ways.
She thanked me for keeping it casual
in the bar that fateful night;
She probably would have gone back to my room
and she knew that wouldn’t be right.
She asked me to remember her
but not to try to get in touch;
She’d rather me stay a memory
than get to know me a little too much.
I visited her in the graveyard
one day in the early spring,
and left a prom corsage there
as my final offering.
A Fictional Tale
Categories:
back pack, life,
Form:
Ballad
Scene 2 - Easy Rest Adult Care Fascility, Doctor Mendelsohnn's office.
"Good Afternoon, Mr Potter, I am Doctor Eric Mendelsohnn. I have some
forms for you to sign. This is the payment arrangement to be electronically transferred
the first of each month" "Whoa, wait a minute, I want to know why Mr. Johnson was
sent here anyway" "He accosted 2 hikers in the woods" " In his woods, on his property,
200 feet from his home." " The lady and gentleman were afraid, his hair was flying everywhere His beard was unkept, and he wasn't dressed in hiking gear or carrying a back-pack" "He wasn't hiking he was out on a nature walk, Chef could walk that mountain blindfolded and never stumble"" Look all I know the police brought him here in cuffs. He was ranting and raving about his Rights. I felt compelled to admit him for observation and testing; which he failed; in my opinion as a physchologist." " You
know what you can do with your opinion" " Mr Potter calm down, we have Mr. Johnson sequestured in the adjoining room. His memory is failing, and He shouldn't be left alone on top of some mountain. I am going to give him some cognative thinking test now, your more than welcome to sit in on the interview""that's a good idea, I'm not signing anything until I see for myself that he's forgetful" " Please right through this door""What the F***, take that off of him right now" Mr Potter he is a danger to" "I said NOW!!
Chef are you ok" "Kenny are you taking me home: Please" "Look Doc, I'm getting a bit pissy with you right now. Get that Straight- jacket off of him right now. He recognized me right off, I don't see any signs of forgetfulness." "Ok the restraints are off can we get started now." "No, not here. let's go outside" "I don't think that is a good idea, there is too many people out there to do any responsible testing" " Ok, You said he
has a temporary room, Do it there" " Very well"
Scene 3 - Easy Rest Adult Care Fascility; Chef's room.
Categories:
back pack, family, friendship, love, care,
Form:
Narrative
I never knew the feeling hip hop gave her,
she was on the brink of death but it saved her.
80's baby this hip hop raised her
the art of expressing the mind that's what made her.
She wore a hat to the back baggy jeans
black back pack eyes like Isis soul priceless.
She inspired me and so I write this it might just
rise up her lifeless soul I'm just,
head over heels for this priceless diamond,
whenever she was down hip hop brought her mind up.
In an open mic club you might find her,
freestyles and spoken word poetry drives her.
She kept her hand in the air she was live plus
shy no man dedicated to the flow I,
knew she was gifted she lifted my pride
when she said her rhyme, it's what hip hop gave her.
I never knew the feeling hip hop gave her.
She's the type to cypher with 3 guys,
driven by the Queen Lah past molds a mean eye.
Father kept her down but her mother told her dream high
so she rocks a-di-da shell toes to be fly.
She's the one to get you up on Eric B. and Rah,
the only thing she knew was be an emcee or die.
On the phone tone speaking frequently till I
fell asleep in the morning I'm like, "lil G I tried"
She replies with a gleam in her eyes,
like I see you as the king in my life.
I'm like I'm like.....
girl you like a sister to me, a best friend I can kiss on the cheek.
Right then I think her heart took time out
to rewind my words then she cried her eyes out.
I never knew that hip hop gave her me
the same day I heard a dj break beats.
Since day 1 we grew on each other became a team,
last year cancer overcame and changed her.
Now she lives where the angels hang at,
she misses me when she cries,
she gives me Rain back.
Since then I haven't been the same cat,
now I know where hip hop's made at.
Now I know what hip hop gave her,
it gave her me, it gave her me.
Categories:
back pack, death, life, passion, song-uplifting,
Form:
Lyric
Westernizing Muhamad al-Abassi
She spread through our minds
In the chaos of Cairo backstreets.
And on this day
Oh how we loved that girl.
and we stopped our red Vespas at the red light
for her to cross.
We knew who she is,
In her tight jean cutoffs,
Western Wear designer jeans,
designed to change the world.
and her near waist yellow T
revealing all of the woman she had become.
And we knew we would see her again and again and again.
But we got her Message
and it is Holy.
All we could do is watch her
She knew.
But did she ever know we had our eyes on her.
When she reached the curb, she paused,
and she threw us a backward, over the shoulder smile.
Yes, she knew the revolution was overdue.
And suddenly you realized,
the virgins in Paradise would have to wait.
Frantically, hopefully, willingly,
you rejected all of the brainwashing
you had been going through for years,
and you looked for a trash depositry
to drop your back pack in.
You did not pull the pin.
And praise Allah, I did not have to take you down.
Ridden of your monstrously heavy load on your back,
you turned,
and she was gone.
I told you so.
Your girls are so beautiful
sans an abaya.
Suddenly your revolution was ended.
By only her smile.
Categories:
back pack, allah, arabic, conflict, freedom,
Form:
Free verse
Upon our roof top did he arrived, two reindeers short and blood shot eyes. With his gray
and black beard with bits of food inside…I thought it was suppose to be white? They also
told me he had a cute button nose…his nose was big and by no means cute. He attempted
to enter thru the chimney top, only to discover that it was a false smoke top. So he being
Old Nick, I could hear him as he fumbled with some keys as he did huff in discuss. His
belt did seem a little bit too big for his gut and his and butt was as big as my dad’s big old
butt. From behind the big chair were I did hide by the tree, I could smell the aroma of
cheap alcohol coming off his breath as he bent over by the Christmas tree to deposit our
gifts. To despite the fact that he had been to plenty of houses before ours that had real
chimneys, his red suit was not covered with one drop single drop of soot! No not even one
dirt spot and the boots that he had on look like my dad's old work boots! I chuckled to
myself… and said maybe it’s made of some special stuff? As I he place the last gift in
place up under the tree, he then reach his hands to the sky and then grabbed his lower
back, I thought he was suppose to be jolly and all that stuff? The whole time he was here,
I could almost be certain that I could hear him cursimg from up under his breath… but to
my surprise he eat the cookies and milk that my mom had left, but the damndest thing
happen as he flung his back pack over his back and proceed to leave, but instead of going
back out the front door, he made a sudden turn toward the stairs and went up and into my
parents room and never left? I final said I had seen enough, I just chucked it up to
another year in the Ghetto and my first real sighting of legendary Ghetto Santa and one
which I hope would be my last!
Categories:
back pack, funny, holiday, old, old,
Form:
Narrative
Back pack hangin' off my bony hips. . .
I'm off to see the world, on foot with thumb. . .
Gotta keep movin'. . . race track groovin',
You know the truth of my travels, (most think I'm a bum.)
Always that search for pie in the sky.
Let me burn my bridges my own way.
I can always dig under and out . . .
It's my f'riggin funeral, and I wanna pay.
Screamin' in the pourin’ rain . . .
Cryin’ the middle of the road . . .
Somebody get this damn monkey off my back!
Can't take no more, too heavy my load.
Funny how growin' older makes you grow up.
Never thought I'd wanna have roots and a wife.
She was small, dark haired and classy, actin' sassy;
I'm whipped man, now she's sharin' my life.
Note* I wrote this about my son who was a free spirit
in his youth.
Categories:
back pack, adventure, life
Form:
Quatrain
White capped peaks, set a calming essence's surroundings,
A hushed place of peaceful contemplation and serenity,
Time stands still here upon Peter's mountain.
In this isolation's retreat from the outside world,
A lone solitary soul, does lean onto his walking staff,
Pondering thoughts of life's past experiences, and
Remembering days, oh not so long ago.
Here this wilderness man, has a freedom that most
Men will never know, in his personal paradise
Of the forest wild.
Living off the land, did he so hack, and chop for himself,
Taking a small portions piece to live upon,
A rustic cabin built in a meadow's glen,
It's more than enough for him.
A trapper's trade, by God's promised blessing,
Does he make a small living's income,
But wealth's gold, lies in them there hills,
Liberation's breath, to be inhaled, day by
Day with no strings attached.
Outside stands one stone, carved by his
Own hand, here lies my wife beloved,
Spring violets lain in hearts respect, unto
Her memory are thus given, as he wipes a
Single tear away, soon dearest in softest tones,
Is spoken by this rugged soul.
The last is he of a dying breed of pioneers,
Those searching for the next grand adventure,
Just over yonder's distant horizon.
Daniel Boone's back pack fever, runs through
The mountain man's reins, and only death's
Blacken trail, can sever their need to roam.
Leaning against the fire place hearth,
Puffing on his corn-comb pipe, this dreamer
Makes peace within himself.
I've lived a good life, had myself a good wife,
Soon I'll join her, God be willing.
Slowly, he sits within the rocking chair,
And closes his eyes one last time,
Allowing his bones to relax once and for all.
White capped peaks, set a calming essence's surroundings,
A hushed place of peaceful contemplation and serenity,
Time stands still here upon Peter's mountain.
BY: CHERYL ANNA DUNN
Categories:
back pack, beauty, environment, history, imagination,
Form:
Free verse
P.S. the trick KEY to reading my style poetry is
normal voice / Mild Voice \ LOUD VOICE
a tap'in Clap'in SNAP"IN neat Beat my Treat
Hip Hop pop'in off VOODOO Poetry the other White MEET
As we travel the Ancient Sands oF Time to Land oF King Cyrus
the Nile River of Life & Ships oF the Desert with Land Pirates
thee Ocean oF Emotion gave to the Victor Chiba a Love Virus
He gave it to wife Essama Chiba 2 Lover Lovingly Loved Paris
walking a Dreamer Dreaming Dream Life comes to LIFE in ( i ) Iris
as 2/C SWEETEST Lovely Valley oF Purple Passion Flower Irises
in the compassion fragrant that Surprise-us
( I ) sat down under the Lone Cypress
me & Essama Chiba she my sister from Ancient Heart of a Lioness
Queen of the Jungle we reminiscing on past Life is priceless
( I ) opened my flat black back pack pulled out 3 purple papyrus
( i ) pulled out my Quill Pen ( i ) had Rhyme wanting to Write-this
But they've overcome their Shyness
Essama Chiba with her husband Slyness ,.,> UNSUPPORTED CODE ;;J
a Flower oF Wisdom
Bee Humming Wisdom
when given the chance to Breath air we need Wisdom
Life comes to LIFE in are Heart & Soul we store Wisdom
Got paper.,.Got Quill Pen,., Got time for Journalism
a poet Soul the Spark oF LIFE.,.But LOVE into the System
Author Notes
I talk to my sister from Ancient Times
she lives in Cairo Egypt one night we talked about her Husband Mr. Chiba R.I.P. then Life comes to LIFE
( I ),. had a DREAM ( i ) got to meet him
for my sweet sister from Ancient Times
Master Poet Essama Chiba we walked a
Dreamers Dreaming Dreams Guided by Mr.Chiba
25 Lines 233 words about LOVE that Last
Beyond the GRAVE into the SPIRIT WORLD
( i ).,.use ( I ).,. as the Magic oF the 3RD.(EYE)
Categories:
back pack, 9th grade, anniversary, arabic,
Form:
Rhyme
~/~THAT FORGOTTEN SCENT~/~
In the dim yellow light
I saw you heading towards me
With a back pack
But to ask for the reserved seat besides!
The modest approach
The way you sat aside without a wish even to touch
The way you cared each time I dozed on your shoulders
Taking care of me to notice not
Makes you man
That hidden forgotten scent of your perfume
I wish to leave me not
-puvi-
(12/04/2016)
Categories:
back pack, feelings, longing, love, travel,
Form:
Free verse
Dear mother
Why do you bother,
So much about us?
Why do you fuss?
I know I'm going somewhere
I know you're worried how I'll do there
But I assure you I'm coming back home
You're not getting rid of me that easily mom
You've taught me so much in so many years
You've watched me grow and led me through my fears
But always remember I'm ever so grateful
Ever so grateful for a mother so wonderful
So as I stand here all packed and ready to go
You cry as if there's no tomorrow
You keep my hand in a strong hold
You tell me to always be bold
Don't mother, don't cry
I promise you this isn't goodbye
I'm coming back
I'll come back with my back-pack on my back
So lovely mother,
Don't bother
Smile for me, just a bit
For I'll be back before you know it.
Categories:
back pack, faith, hope, mother, me,
Form:
Rhyme
Theme Hidden
My hidden life as a gypsy started the day I left home,
and hitched-hiked across a continent.The long hours
readily spent in wondrous times of searching for
amazing people from all walks of life and landscapes
that looked like paintings.The unfettered youthful
desire to see and explore the world.
horizon's splayed light
will spread like in coming tide
night covers the day
The enduring pain from the journey was a flame
to give strength to the fragile will.Lack of food
and nourishment was a constant friend as chilly
mornings lifted tired eyelids to hard ground and
burned out fires.The naked roads were nothing
more than long ribbons that stretched to the skyline
until a car would pass with drivers staring out empty
windows from mundane lives passing judgement
on a lonely traveler in worn clothes and a back pack.
And yet it was my freedom that frightened them most,
for I was doing what they dreamed of and never had
the courage to do.
days turn into night
life is a distance traveled
tomorrow is a thought
2/15/17
Contest Form H
theme hidden
Categories:
back pack, life, travel,
Form:
Haibun