Best Belie Poems
A field afire
papery petals glow like ruby votive candles
a collection of cupped solar flames
vowed to shine despite the dew before dawn
evaporating any doubt the sun would rise
the mist would lift
consoling one in darkness
Rising up where wildflowers past have fallen
victim to soil fallow and shallow
your Spring growth resurrects my hope
as your resurgent blooms stretch to the heavens
I awaken thawed from the frost of loss
regenerated by dreams
of undying love sacrifice and joy
O poppy blood red
vast your bed a symbol of life and death
and imagination.. you inspire me with your irony
your roots belie a feathery foliage
anchored though airy
light and looking like you might take flight
but spirited blossoms stand an army of angels
earthbound and blushing
My breath stops when I gaze upon you — yet
when I walk among your thronging whorls
grazed by your grace
my chest rises and falls
my bloodstream set ablaze
by the grandeur of your inner light
my heart rejoices with the voices of breezes
aswirl with a swish through your scarlet banners of peace
We share a savor for new-day chardonnay skies
tender the warm tinge before summer’s singe
rhythmic air moves us with singsong sighs
a swaying dance of sepaled celebrants
with nary a fresh bud trod upon
crimson and sunrise spirit and flesh
raising palms and psalms in thanks and praise
festive in rebirth and remembrance
where tears fall not as rain but as
c o n f e t t i
as my heart carries the bouquet of your immortal beauty
like a bride on her May wedding day
Susan Ashley
March 11, 2022
*Dedicated to my father who gently passed on June 10, 2021.
You are loved and missed dearly, dad
~ First Place ~
Premiere Contest: Spring Showers or Spring Flowers
Sponsor: Regina McIntosh
*nary: not, or not any
(Image: Glow with pride: Express.co.uk)
In dream lone blackbird sits on telephone line,
pleading, what more do I have to give.
Wing once beat out a metronome in time..
leaving thoughts lost through a sieve.
I swore to rebuild our earthen dam,
and hold the waters at bay.
Your dream found a different plan,
left nothing more to say.
Race, now long finished, deemed total loss..,
left my prideful soul entreating.
Waste heart's song diminished, too high the cost,
ask why the day so fleeting.
Last candle's light gleamed in his glowering gaze,
Write journal'd fate, no answer would he belie,
September's temper teamed in shortened days,
to kiss late remember'd lips good-bye.
It might be called Electrifying Pink,
that color painted on her toes
for it glows amidst the grime of her feet
winding filth up around her ankles
as if dirt were the newest chain
to make a fashion statement.
Pink does move the eye away
from all the silver hanging off eyebrow,
nose, lip, ear and yes,
she speaks with a silver tongue ...
which has taken on a whole new meaning.
Or was that a fork-ed tongue?
Then there are the young blonde boys
standing around in jeans hung below their butt
to show somebody something ....
handsome, sweet faces belie their
lopsided macho swaggers
looking like marionettes from a rap video.
Where have all the flower folks gone?
Bring back beautiful bare breasts
and dancing bodies in tiedye to replace all these sad,
frozen faces covered from head to toe in black!!
Hasn't Goth yet runs its course ... ?
No, dark death hangs out at the mall
or, perhaps, I have just become
the judgmental old lady I used to resent
who gave my hot pants strange stares.
How quickly in this play of life the roles do change.
I seem to have forgotten my next line.
All across these scattered shining isles,
Framed inside a bright clasp of sapphire sea,
A softly persuasive wind that so beguiles,
Reaching gently out, thusly prevails unto me.
And in that wind that so insistently blows...
I hear tenderest words only my heart knows.
And high over, behind secluded wooded hills,
Beyond the cacophony of cascading falls
Where the crystalline stream steadily spills,
Rising up to meet the cloudless crumbling tors,
Are gathered the ghosts of the ancient tribes;
Here, secured in their breath...his resting sighs.
Far above, come the clearing velvet night,
Where wheeling Firmaments fiercely blaze,
I catch a glimpse, within those lights,
Of that patient, knowing, steadfast gaze;
The fleeting, glistening twinkle in the eye...
That loving glance that could not belie.
Now at every new dawn that quietly breaks,
Upon brushing wings of long-drawn geese,
Upon waking chorus-song of birds to mates,
My soaring Spirit bounds up -- and leaps!
An enduring love that keeps me whole....
An eternal love that binds my Soul.
And on the faces of our children's children,
I again see a likeness in their happy visage.
Amidst their laughter, as they play and run,
Counting my blessings as I can count the stars,
When holding close his memory all the while...
To find sweetest ALOHA! in joyful smiles.
Annotated Achilles amends fallen frame amputees
Bulimic Barbies browse media monkey banalities
Cameo clouds cling to beaded breath curios
Dopamine dreams delineate check cash desires
Echo endophfins eulogize bullet brain excrement
Fecal folly fantasies reveal relevant frivolities
Gonadal grownups gulp secret scrotal generosities
Helical hemorrhoids hinder senior stricken hemocraps
Idiotic ideals idioiosyncrate postpartum iconoclasts
Jack Jill juxtapositories seek sexestential jouveniers
Kryptic killer kisses ascot arrogant kingdumbs
Liquid lipid loiners fear frontline lucklullibies
Malevolent mommies masterbate rich reflective mommocules
Nevertheless nightingales nourish ruby rich noonbeams
Ovulatory occults outsource torrent tofu outrages
Pensive pisces picnics lovelorny passions
***** quiet quintensials release rancid quotients
Rape ripe residuals nullify nimble repercussions
Silky seafoam silhouettes fornicate frothy sandlets
Tepid torch trilogies belie belligerent tourniquets
Useless utterances utilize organize orgasmic utopias
Venomous vixens violate cruel.com visions
White willow wombs softly seed hospice hell winds
XX XY xfactors envision extracurricular xraydoms
Yearning yoyo yesterdays calculate clearcovert yields
Zen zealous zions mirror magnify Zoneotones
Personal Memories - Three Generations
Three generations in between them now so kindly lie;
sweet great granddaughter and great grand-papa can now belie
those years. She reads to him, and he so tenderly sits by...
two children now, they share these moments that now clarify
the bond of one on one where young and old does not apply.
Sandra M. Haight
~1st Place~
Contest: Personal Memories-Monorhyme Poetry
Sponsor: Laura Loo
Iambic Heptameter - 14 syllables and 7 feet per line
Judged: 03/30/2016
Used Photo #3 - Laura Loo's daughter Ella reading to her great grand-papa
Stiff pleated fronds in concert rise
to wax under the April sun
and trill their canticles begun
in verses jade that they comprise.
Chartreuse of thorny branches splay
a tumult to belie the grace
that on display they interlace
like rose stems on a breezeless day.
Atop the thatched denuded bole
gush fountains cast in cardamom,
an opalescent diadem
that glistens on the mossy knoll.
In thus exuberant array
do cloistered peacocks mime ballet.
1/20/18
After the reaper appears for us,
And our vital bodies rendered to ash...
What great proof will remain of our love?
Will the after years shed less light
On our breathless consuming passion?
Will our photographs that subtlety
Captured nuances of the love in our eyes
Stand clear enough for our descendants
To realize our profoundness shared?
I would go with you without trepidation
Knowing our ashes would not belie what
Once was felt for each other to be eternal.
I cling to thoughts that my words expressed
Through once valued prose not be forgotten
By our future generations who know of
Us only by our faded photographs.
© Connie Marcum Wong
Where the Unloved Go
On a Sunday afternoon, with skies so blue,
Sweet smell of flowers in the air, what do you do?
Your youth is behind you, your kids are all grown,
Your phone never rings, you just can't stand being alone.
The silence screams so loudly, the clean floors and counters belie,
What once was a busy household, is now just so still you could cry.
The floor in front of the sink is worn from all the dishes
You once washed after meals, the table now only holds your wishes.
Standing at the front door watching the long empty drive,
If only someone would come visit, you might once again feel alive.
Sometimes you pick up the phone, thinking a call you might make,
To talk to a son or a daughter, then just put it back down, and wait.
But the waiting, you know, is pointless, they can't be bothered with you,
Unless they need some money or to come stay a month or two.
You've kept the grandkids after school, but they are now in their teens.
So your services are no longer needed, or at least that's how it seems.
So what does one do with the loneliness when you've paced for hours on end?
You put on your face, grab your purse, and go where you might meet a friend.
You pull up in the parking lot, check your lipstick, hair and nails,
Go around back, 'cause you're a regular on another Sunday afternoon of fails.
The same old familiar faces greet you when you walk in,
We're all in this place together, we have no next of kin.
They're too busy living their lives, they've forgotten they, too, will grow old.
Then they, too, can sit on a barstool, where all the unloved go.
Encased in earthen form, I rise,
held chest-tight with fear my eyes belie.
Tumbled stone and ancient steps so steep,
lead to a mound and valley deep
where I let loose my song to sky.
The song resounds from crag to peak
a lonely echo blue on green.
The soulful song from quartz careens
and shames the hillside cold cheek
returning brazen, seldom meek.
For once sent forth, it must return,
its formless flight, a brief sojourn,
A repetition not unique,
a hollow copy which respeaks
of lovers lost and trust unearned.
Boomerrang Contest
The path was long and arduous
And night began to veer
O’er trees, and lanes and rusted gates
Its' shadows breeding fear
Unbridled Wind wisped ‘round
Tombstone crosses where
Hissing its’ frustration
Loudly in despair
It sought to nourish fears
The shadows did create
Searching everywhere to find
It’s soul-less night-time mate.
Moonbeam light kissed the Night
Claiming shadows as their child
Together then in lock-step
They bent on running wild
And there, where he awaited
Their cold inspiring touch
With doctrines of all Evils
Firmly in his clutch
The blackness in his heart,
Thumping ‘neath his frock
Soon it’s rancid maladies
The Wind would there unlock
Thoughts of what’s to come
Then twisted lips to smile
Revealing stained and yellowed teeth
Trapping breath so rank and vile
‘twas then The Prince of Avarice
Rose and stood erect
The world would soon be his
To ravage and infect
His eyes of snake, both bespake
Behind their reptile lids
The embrace of the doctrine
For no Evils it forbids
The Wind increased its’ howling
Icy fingers pushing fro
Arranging fallen hopes
Into a dead rouleau
And you and I so un-suspect
Of pending alchemy
Believing we were safe inside
Cocoons of normalcy.
Our naiveté so firmly grasped
Caused us to belie
The chaos we knew not …
‘twas there, and drawing nigh
As Wind fingers touched him
He yelled out his decree:
“ The Prince of Avarice shall reign
And destroy Democracy!”
His school of ghouls, dunce and fools
Clamored to his side
Greed having won the day
Was about to take It’s ride!
Greed, first blessed the banks
And Wall Street did rejoice
The Prince of Avarice then silenced
All protestor ‘s voice
With lies and propaganda
All fabricated well
Then all the bankers rang
The borrowers death knell
Morgan Stanley, AGI,
Then ‘twas Goldman-Sachs
Raking in what Greed gave out:
Billions in green-backs.
Glutted bankers,
Through laughter Greed had honed
Uncaringly showed the world
A prediction - their prodrome
Of broken dreams, foreclosure schemes
Insuring that which failed
But jobs the cost, as homes were lost
And not a banker jailed.
Dissonance is delegating the intensity in my eyes
Minor chords unveil the passion my body can’t belie
Eighth notes are lightning sparks that burn my finger tips
And when you play Fminor7 I tend to bite my lips.
I want you to scale my thighs
the way you play A minor harmonic
Deftly wrenching haunting moans
Experiences anything but platonic
Allegro Legato Crescendo Vibrato
Sing to me in Italian and tell me to hold my tongue
But if anyone interrupts the music …
a piano's lid comes crashing down--the last note never sung.
old saw
scissored shades of Betsycoed
taste of yester youth's sweet tones
splashing sound of forest water
kissing shining sacred stones
Dreams of swirling druids dancing
in the faery water's rill
flash reflective thoughts of flight
The dragon tears yet spill
The druid hymn of waiting
for greed to die of want
a constant scream of tortured winds
belie the curse of can't
What matters ought to those who fought
and died that I be here
to stand beneath a blazing sky
and gaze upon the Western sea
moments of reflective thought
pondered on expressed and caught
to feed an ever growing need
To dig and rap and plant a seed
That blossoms in another mind
Repeated as the finest kind
to be forever sowing seed
To seed
And time to spend with thee
Many years skies were generous with rain.
Cactus perfume infused with rain's soft scent.
Grey skies threatening, gleams in misty veins,
becoming lightning to prove their intent.
Streaks of fire racing across summer skies,
more magical than ever dreamed by man.
Music of dancing raindrops soon belie
storm's frenzied anger, its thunderous hand.
We evince rain as a gentle creature,
gracing rooftops, trees, dry wildflower beds.
Lulled to sleep, we forget its main feature:
without it all suffer, life becomes dead.
We thirst for rain in our over-parched lust,
lest greens turn to brown and living to dust.
The mind eternal lies before us always.
Less pure in tone, we come to it drenched with life;
Fearless companion in our hour of days.
A purity not withstanding breadth of knife.
Away! Away! succubus death,
much less a breach than I.
How many not mislaid in breath,
In priceless toll, said duty to be paid.
No field of honored memories
they preach without belie.
Captured each, and each with closed fist shouting;
Me or not, Cold or hot, we stand between as choice;
all for desperate screams grown silent.
Pastoral in the presence, of one solitary voice,
Whose form of words so hesitantly mouthing.
Whence came we witness to the stream.
Whose eyes are these that hold our field a-view?
Memories whose touch a solid scream;
Form ignored and glory gored of few.
We are not the man.
No animal or simple word defined.
We pause, we pleasure, we perform,
With speck, and all our mind deform;
Our fingers will one day unfold.
Our torrid tortured tale be told.
Yours, mine, ours,
Drumroll spam-like dance,
Become the gist of one more fist
To smash against the sand.