Best Beggared Poems
I hear them on the television,
like I have a choice,
that's flat-out all they show these days:
Politicians
with their elucidations
tangled as Grandma's yarn.
Honest Joe, explicating why I'm beggared;
"It's your own fault, my good friends,
frankly, we need bold solutions"
they boom;
then hike the price of gas.
And the voices of we, the people;
lost
like violins in a marching band.
Simile Poetry Contest placed 10th
Sponsored by: Hilo Poet
Date wrote: 6th August 2022
And ever above,
clouds of sorrow
assemble in thunderous ranks:
a surfeit of threat
and gloom.
And ever below,
unhappy footsteps
surrender rhythm
to unyielding pavement—
against a gray and endless plain.
Who but a fool
dreams that sorrow
can be bartered
for kindness and love?
The beggared soul abides.
And, in his eyes,
the ashen world
grows, blurs and overflows
to run down his cheeks.
And it rains.
MAKING HIM JEALOUS
Five lovers have I, nimble servants each
One comes to me in ardour where I teach
One comes in curiosity attired
And only leaves when senses all are fired
One comes in blossom with fidelity
He leaves behind a bird’s nest in my tree
One comes to worship at my body’s shrine
Leaves me devotion and a glass of wine
One comes to me without being capricious
Of all his charms I’m the most suspicious
Five faithful servants all do me adore
Until I am their servant, asking more –
I’m beggared but so rich in sex and sentiment
I’ll tax them all for this faithful flower meant.
published IN MEMORY OF HER Dublin 2008
Janet went down to the honky-tonk
for some line-dancing and some beer,
down to a joint called ‘Edna Mae’s,’
she always had a good time here.
Old Edna, tattooed, worked the bar,
three bikers player pool, one guy scarred,
a country band played Hank up front,
soon her first beer Janet had drunk.
She joined in with all the dancers
and did soon find herself besides
a blond-haired cowboy who moved well,
with such deep, haunting, grey eyes.
After working a sweat both took leave,
at the bar he said,”Hi, I’m Steve.”
Up and down Janet’s eyes did roam,
he was the type she could take home.
They both did shots, rot-gut whiskey,
then made their way back to the floor,
there they both kept up the hot moves,
for another full hour more.
In a corner the two made out,
she took his hand and led him down
the front steps towards her small car,
for adult fun, they would go park.
But Steve froze at the sight of it,
then ripped his hand clean from her grasp.
he turned and sprinted for the bar,
she’d never seen a man move so fast.
Confused, she followed him back in,
could not find Steve, started looking,
half-hour passed, he was not found,
she went to the bar, and sat down.
Janet told Edna about it,
who listened to what Janet did say.
Edna smiled, and asked softly:
“Did this man have deep eyes of grey?”
Janet confirmed the truth of this,
Edna said,”Come to my office.”
She took down a picture, carefully,
said,”Took this back in ’eighty-three.”
Janet gasped at the image there,
what she saw then beggared belief,
where, dressed in nineteen eighties clothes,
was the young, grinning face of Steve!
“He was my partner’s son, you know.
He rode the local rodeos.
But then in eighty-three he died,
murdered, in the lot outside.”
CONCLUDES IN PART II
Sandburg saw you
more than a century ago
in prairie-town Galesburg -
an old lady on the porch -
unbothered by the whooping cries
of ball-playing boys.
Strangely, you had become a missing piece
in the jigsaw puzzle of my life
and I found myself on a quest to find you.
A caption to a missing image alerted me -
followed by a tale
of deleted files and
hard drive crashes
until a reply
from a Knoxville college -
they had a picture of you!
A beggared five dollars later
your image arrived,
and I shared you with the world-
so that everyone may know
the face of the woman who taught us
the importance of little things.
____________________________________________________
Julia Carney (1823-1908) is the author of "Little drops of Water".
(Author's note: It has come to my attention that the U.K. has decided to eliminate Holocaust
education from its curricula, on the grounds it may "offend" some groups)
So, for fear it may offend,
The truth is to be turned without the door
Beggared for its embarrassments,
By force forgotten, evermore.
The ghostly pasts to which we choose to blind ourselves
Will not, for that, pass on and disappear.
Each unremembered victim bides and waits
For fresh companions year to year.
A death denied is no less true.
The twice-wronged dead are owed their due.
So are we now, for comfort's sake
Never to remember the strange hot snow
That once was people, blown wide below
Poland's leaden skies,
The murder born of casual lies -
Steal from the dead all final dignity
Because we lack the will or strength to see
The open catalogue of Man's mad mistakes?
The road away from truth is dark and long,
Wrong forgot breeds greater wrong.
One hundred times one hundred centuries
Should bear the memory of our darkest deeds.
Denial sweeps the slate as we forget,
Then plant tomorrow's evil seeds.
I read the lies upon the page
As inwardly I rage, and rage.
Never remember - yet again the cycle starts:
Sand Creek, Sarajevo, Nanking, Rwanda all repeat
With all their gathering ghosts replete
With all the sly excuses as to cause;
Humanity subsumed within the legal clause.
Never remember - and arm the State that separates
The "Us" from "Them", that sanctions hate.
We close our minds, we seal our hearts.
I sit and rage and move my pen, but shall I yet pretend
My wearied words will take effect? After all, they may offend.
‘One more job and then I am going to Panama and watch the canal in the sun’
John’s trust funds had not done so well lately and pension age approached fast
‘They ripped me off once more and I need my share of well-deserved freedom’
Justice beggared belief but redistribution of wealth was in the tools of his trade
He looked back on a distinguished career of many fine decades of occupation
Had proceeded from nicking wine gums and marbles at the local corner shop
Always quick on his feet and with nimble hands picking distinguished pockets
His first armed robbery succeeded with a toy gun filled with peas in the shooter
Fraud had not worked well that was for the learned and dyslexia had not helped
No Grammar School for him more like learning by doing and days on the streets
Short docket though for a man of his position so one final swoop for his nest egg
He neared the marble mansion torch and pass key in hand and lions on the gate
Gone with the times had an app on his watch to defeat cameras of surveillance
He could smell prawn cocktails roast ducks cranberry sauce and aged caviar had
Booked a false passport and first class flight and now he was over the high wall
Dreamt of high balls and Tequila safe in the faith that the safe could be cracked
Past the burglar alarm silencer on the barrel he encountered some hindrance
A flock of black swans started a racket and snapped at his trousers and ankles
'No more chains nor shackles' he prayed but had come prepared with some weed
Sharing is caring and the birds suddenly docile in swan song very kindly agreed
18th April 2019
She, there drawn, but not for sleep
Daubed in guile, the heartless weep
Cold, the secrets sheets thus keep
Peeking, stained in deeds that creep
Through the burning keyhole ...
Burning, jealous eyes ...
Bodies scorched with flames to fan
Limbs entwined in breadths to span
Dreaming does what dreaming can
Peeking blessed me, the "other man"
Through the callow keyhole ...
Callow, spotless eyes ...
Once, she spilled her passions, freed
Crimped from time and shallow need
Perfecting spawn with faultless seed
Peeking, searched to stem the bleed
Through the nascent keyhole ...
Nascent, beggared eyes ...
Now, the years force hearts to stray
In careless arms, the dreams decay
One whose blistered hands will pray
Peeking, danced in lust's ballet
Through the rusted keyhole ...
Rusted, weeping eyes ...
Weeping ... trust's demise.
On a windy rain-swept day
When a murder of crows I see,
Their ruffled feathers ragged
Sorrowful as they can be.
Huddled they perch on roof-tops
Gazing mournfully at the sky,
No ray of hope the day gives
Neither crumbs of morsels dry.
They remind me of poets
Singed by the rigours of their fate,
Peddling hopes for the living
Their lives a pitiful wait.
That heavens would pour mercy
On their weary crucified souls,
That fate pen a reversal
Of their oft mistaken roles.
Decried as stray vagabonds
Beseeching alms at corners dark,
They are monarchs in disguise
Beggared mortals fail to mark.
***********
Steel kiss from phantom blades abounding,
Adagios anguished, lick, resounding,
Fierce hammers rage, in Darkness pounding-
In the hour of my night.
My beggared soul to grim remand,
Nestles deep 'neath an ebon sand,
Where gaunt and ghostly jackals stand-
In the hour of my night.
With chaliced draught of Desolation,
Toasting Twilight's coronation,
Embraced! Poor heart's disconsolation-
In the hour of my night.
Gone, frailest hope to shadows tame,
When murmurs soft, this beast its name!
Fair Dawn droops spent, and mute, and lame-
In the hour of my night.
Unscrewed
She led me upstairs where I’d sample her wares
For a fee we had negotiated
She looked pretty stunning, my heart it was gunning
I longed for my lust to be sated
She sat on her bed and she patted her head
And that’s when she took off her wig
Still she looked glam with her head bald as spam
Though her forehead was really quite big
I wasn’t recoiling, my ardour was boiling
And this girl would not make me beg
The saucy young flirt then slipped off her skirt
I gasped when she whipped off a leg
It beggared belief when she took out her teeth
And then un-clipped her rubberised breast
She popped out an eye and she laid it to dry
With her ear in a purpose made rest
I got a bit spooked, it was like she’d been nuked
And I felt like I might come to harm
I know that’s outrageous, she wasn’t contagious
But then she unscrewed her left arm
I sped from the room like a witch on a broom
And I made a bee-line for the gate
Upstairs a sound made me swivel around
And I saw what was left of my date
Monocular glares from her window upstairs
She yelled, ‘There are more girls in town,’
‘But you haven’t had yet, what you came here to get.’
I said, ‘No problem, just chuck it down.’
I lie awake, head crammed with doubts and fear,
Will I be ok or will people laugh and jeer.
I struggle to rest but sleep evades me,
The phantoms of my mind control me,
Leading me onwards to darkness and despondency.
Will my words flow like soft waves upon the sea,
Or will the words I utter reek of insanity.
Will I be doomed and be remembered,
For the vehement words that I dismembered,
That beggared belief from those attended.
I try and quell my turbulent thoughts,
By soothing my dread with this shrewd recourse.
That whatever happens it's just meant to be,
As long as I perform my part valiantly,
And to the best of my ability,
People can say what they want about me.
Thrash without mercy or conscious intent
the torrent rages past consciousness
streaming debris beggared by the breeze
moving life’s with fullness and ease
Governing the listless, the lingerers lost
moving the precious along with the dross
hammering the fragile
soothing the source
profoundly
continuing
an
unending course.
Broken...
Eagerly Erased
Vaguely Visiting Vitality
Encouraged Earlier Evenings End
Remained Ravishing Reality
Lifelessly Lurking
Yearning...
Beggared
Excessively,
Varied
Extensively;
Reasons?
Loving/Losing
You
At Nearabouts Now
Jokingly Obtain Neglect;
Expurgating Self
...breathless
elatedness,
—VANISHING—
—ESCAPING—
...resoundingly
lovable
yore.
Been catching myself, staring off in distance;
Engulfed by the sorrow—forever haunted...
Validate; all my failures and flaws again—
Eerily similar to who came before—
Reflect upon little girl's frivolousness...
Largely too intangible for you to grasp...
Years—Perhaps your best ones, were already gone—
I think they doth protest too much
Though they say nothing
For fear the noxious, noisy wind
Will leave its fetid stench on them
For perfume is but a piglet’s bath
A cloak o’er bloodied flags
That bid them “go and do your worst”
Your life is over, you are cursed
They protest those that protest them
A beggared chant verse sainted hymn
Defend the throne of gods unknown
That somehow they have voted in
For truth is hard and lies defile
The sweetest talk the demon’s guile
That leads us to the tipping point
Of corpses marching single file
Yet still they doth protest too much
With blue-lit, cardboard voices
Unable to accept the fact
Somehow these were their choices