Best Benumbed Poems
these petals unfold
like thoughts of mind
heavy as the weight they bear
this benumbed september day
in the crux beyond a seed's gather
viscid drops of crimson red
carried off by wings of time
now daffing in the cooler air
the hive of mind
through torturous stings of past
grounds me thickset
in honey coated memories
i still taste the poison
lingered from your lips
bitterness of venomous lies
through death's astringent kiss
my love for you, it tarries
no greater than the buzz
amidst these dandelions
stomped upon your grave
September 4, 2019
Where Bumbles Bounce Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Craig Cornish
Hope and
Hold the dream
Or you will die fast
Life is the name of-
struggling frantic procession, chaotic crowd,
lunatic tsunami of the ocean, scream on the
broken coast, scorching sunlight, ghostly
thunderstorm, corpse lines for covid-19,
war face of country to country, scenery of poverty,
where you can lose yourself unanimously
So, hold the dream fast or you will die easily
Life is the name of-
winter shawl of father, prayer-mat of mother,
morning tea time of spouse, child’s undue demands,
beautiful dawn of dewdrops, songs of flying birds,
autumnal sun, Buddhist full-moon, love at first sight,
elopement flight, honeymoon night, smiles in bridal bower,
where you can lose yourself without a true life’s fair
So, hold the dream fast or your will die with vanity care
Life is the name of-
a poetry, mixed up poetry morning, sipping tea through
the gap of poet’s eyeglass, benumbed body of the newspaper
on the corridor’s table, banded together bathing of ducks,
velvet touching of blooming flower, reddish sky canvas of twilight,
lights of the evening lamp, prayer of crickets in deserted room,
where you can lose yourself in self-indulgence dome
So, hold the dream fast or your will die without wisdom
They say, "poet lives in future, the reader in present and critic in past"
I say, "live in truth with hope, hold the dream and care the dream fast"
©Mahtab Bangalee
Chattogram
09/11/2022
Benumbed Jane!
"he'd never give a plain Jane like you a second's thought"
(but hellishly reign his godly wife)
O Jane!
Be little prettier
Be more wiser
Crucify your benumbed senses
Resurrect your eloquent vehement
Why she choose to be the godly wife?
Why he choose to be the beastful husband?
Let's not brawl and yawp
Let's not cuddlerape and strangled with a scarf
In unwieldy guilts and sins of the battlefields of the Great Marriage
Give up now
Or
Surrender to salvation
You are not owing to “Beauty and the Beast” - A French Fairy Tale
Time has no time
Be little prettier
Be more wiser
O Jane!
this cold blanket warms
my benumbed
feet
tired aluminum moon
has gone
to bed
drowsy dawn yawns
behind hilly
silhouettes
languid breeze is a spider's
web touching
my nape
smiling, i start dreaming,
it is once again,
morning!
Don't allow him to corner you, punch him hard on his face, kick him hard and make him cry, just one nice smack and the title is all yours.
These are some of the expressions which I keep on shouting on the top of my voice when I watch brutal combat sports like Muay Thai Kickboxing, Western Boxing (USA), wrestling etc. Unlike other combat sports like Boxing or martial art games such as Karate, Taekwondo ; these sports have much higher degree of violence, witness about 30 – 35 deaths every year and not to mention innumerable fatal injuries. I cannot help but wonder how these fighters feel after winning their respective matches and crushing their opponents to death, or leaving them in a handicapped state making sure they don't have enough guts to face them again.
In the poem below written by me, I have tried to capture the thoughts of a fighter from my own perspective.
. I punch you, you punch me,
I kick you, you kick me,
Driven by a frantic rush to kill each other,
Tell me something - O my opponent,
Do we know each other, you and me?
Couple of minutes since I first saw your face,
Glittering and shimmering, like a rainbow after a rainy day,
Now it is drenched in your own sweat and blood,
And I don’t know why I loathe you so much.
Was it just destiny – your end so near,
Or you were just a fool, for you had no fear,
Broken nose, bruised face – you gave me much pain
In return, I favor you by digging your grave.
Parents, in laws, wife and children – you had many mouths to feed
Fight against me!!!!
You should have thought about them before trying this remarkable feat.
No family, no friends, no money – I have nothing to lose,
Did you ever think about this, you benumbed fool.
. This remarkable piece of poetry, you won’t be able to read,
For you will be busy paying for your deeds,
Fractured arms and shattered spirit - you will suffer many injuries,
Because against me there is nothing but miseries.
. Every second spent against me you will beg for mercy,
You won’t get any, you can trust me on that.
No achievements under your belt, its time you make me proud
I will set an example for others, by gifting you a shroud.
Continued from Part 1
The trees, they hang in time and space around me –
trees, which in time before had swayed,
so gently tugged by ocean breezes,
trees, which in time before were lightly lit
with emerald tinted leaves,
trees, which in time before had reached to space above
with twisted tangled fingers,
grasping fingers,
fingers drenched with golden tears
shed by the Mighty Eye.
The trees, they hang in space and time,
benumbed and frozen motionless around me
chilled with rooted premonitions of the void,
their branches clutching darkness
and their leaves foreboding doom.
The muted winds begin to whisper tales
of many frightened things,
which, with mournful apprehension
have hunkered down behind the haze
and ceased their joyful play.
And all the while dank shadows gaily dance
a dismal dance,
for their time is soon to come.
The fitful shore lies suddenly still.
Unfeeling stones and hollow shells,
are paused a little,
stalled,
and dropped haphazardly,
midst their mindless random journey,
now abandoned by the sea,
for fickle waves have slipped away
to greet a falling prey.
And as the Mighty Eye droops lower,
laminated molten lips
are pursed and pucker higher,
sucking in the sky.
Within a trice the Mighty Eye
submits and squints, distended red,
perhaps tormented by fantastic thoughts
of imminent demise,
or else of being lashed beneath a lid
of distant faithless waves.
And as her dying flash dissolves,
two lurid lips arise,
three lusty lips -
a thousand parted limpid lips
which asudden,
though with little haste,
consume the Mighty Eye.
EPILOGUE
The trees are now but lurking shades
amongst the murky shadows.
Relentless fog slips slowly by -
her floating tongues drip silence
as they slink like snakes in stealth nearby.
The lacerated faithless lips have once again returned
to kiss the vacant vapid shores
in a brief eclipse of time.
END
Life,
Breath -
Taken
One leg gone
Perished in deathbed
Diabetes murdered Grandpa
Benumbed by ill - gash's agony perforating - dulled
Gold medal won after the day of his death reminds me of his only heart memoirs...
Floating in vacuum,
morphine intravenous supplied,
pain deadened,
she lies dormant, oblivious to all,
thoughts suppressed,
unfeeling and benumbed
in the emergency cubicle.
Her husband holds her hand,
icy, like winter at its worst.
She moans, eyes flutter,
only to fall asleep again.
Anesthetized she finds rest.
Monitors bleep to rhythm,
steady as she goes just like
a sailing boat on rough seas.
She will survive.
Husband bewildered.
A human vegetable?
Oh no the expert says.
She will be fine.
The husband dials a number,
talks softly not to disturb.
There will be no divorce,
it's best that they give up
and do not meet again.
The woman on the bed groans.
Is that a smile on her lips?
*Image of Pendulum by Pixabay.
Of Fatalism
'Tis past the eleventh hour,
As time ...,
Here in the bunker,
I walked away from the Atomic Clock whose pendulum terminated its sway,
Walked I, away from expressionless gazes of our hereafter,
Longings tethered to massive cement deterrents laden with steel rods that point every which way,
It encompasses us, hanging as fitting sheaths insulating our newly acquisitions -- swords of Damocles,
Each of us has someone whom we treasured still up there,
That would justify the emptiness I see,
They're benumbed by internal seething pain,
Tormented by their incapacities to help,
Haunted by incessant wailings,
And then, of course, the little ones,
Oh, my sweet Jesus!
What have I done, what have I done,
There were protection elements everywhere,
They were set up at every point,
Outside, beyond the perimeter,
Ubiquitously, near primary targets,
However, also, everywhere,
... was uncompromising resistance,
After the inevitable played out,
They, too, joined the vacant masses,
I guess that is how good old warriors just fade away,
A newly carped floor in the War Room where lies my rejected arguments,
it is under the dismissive course of action,
and that's shoved neath disappointing occurrences involving hypothetical possibilities,
How do I overcome these unforgivable mistakes and missed opportunities?
[He sees two-armed guards at their post]
He mumbles, "Coward!
Well, Mr. Speech Writer, since your first debate"
There is the disoriented,
the miss-connect,
the heartbroken
the lonely
and me,
I'm the one left holding a piece of thread,
Gentlemen,
Let them in,
for it is time for us to begin,
... Year One.
2022 August 08
The secrecy that ad-libbed by the muteness
Embraced fervency aroused by the speechless
The darkness that mildly faded by the moonshine night
He gently took hold of time
Holding her by his arm, softly he lauded
The moment with rhyme –
Three melodic words as he whispered
Broke through his heart and spoken by his eyes
An adorable smile shared by her
That touched his essence longed beyond time.
Soothingly he crossed his arms by her back
And slowly and slowly…
They adhered themselves nigher
No more words uttered and benumbed their breath
They stormily gazed themselves
Throbbing of the heart, the only fathom eared.
Blink of lashes felt upon by the adage intimacy
Bedewed by secretion when two lips sensed the legacy
They prolonged by the eroticism that shone,
He slowly and softly eased his hands
And allayed her by her dorsum, which upraised
Her desires with eternal dusk that kept on.
A kiss of betrothals on her forehead
Whispered by drops from her eyeses
And wordses were bespoken by the affair of silence,
He slowly and gently held her across her waist
By blink of an eye they fell upon abreast on the rose bed
Where the secrecy lingered by the comeuppance.
A kiss of attachment on her neck
Pulsed by innate reflex of her body
And tepidity elicited by the adhesion.
Longanimity of love felt upon by the quest for lust
Peeled by the vehemence when two body conjunct by their essence
They made love by the sound of their gratifying whispers
And sometimes a smile was shared
By the presence of affirmation and touch.
Wallow in their squeeze on the bask shed
They rollover dearly upon their ardent bed
The running away time failed to apprehend
They abstracted themselves
By the renascence of ignition with glows of love.
The secrecy then ad-libbed by the muteness
Embraced fervency aroused by the speechless
The darkness that mildly faded by the moonshine night
That actually met the dawn by the running away time
They were benumbed by the naive realism
And upheld their sensualism by the moonshine bright.
She came into my life like sunshine,
a whiff of scent, the bouquet of wine,
And turned my world upside down,
Smitten, I acted like a silly clown.
Love-struck I threw caution to the wind,
Set aside all counsels saying, ‘love’s blind’,
I fell head over heels benumbed by love,
deemed it a sublime blessing from above.
Oh, how I trusted her with all my heart
And loved her madly from the very start,
For me she was the hot one and cool
But ha! Wasn’t I then played for a fool?
While she was all so demure and coy,
She played with my heart like a toy,
As a Femme Fatale she was better known
Her skills were more hidden than shown.
She was wise in the ways of the world
And gave in more to her instincts than told,
Yet, I followed her like a poodle on a leash,
Be it a rose or a diamond, I fulfilled her wish.
But alas, I soon saw my grave folly,
Never again I’ll bite this bait, by golly,
Never shall a woman use me as a tool
aware of her designs - I am nobody’s fool!
~Love Story contest by Silent One.
~03/05/15
~"Love or Hate" contest by Shadow Hamilton
when scorpions crawling on the boiling sands
dance the dance of death with tail culled up
the gaudy toadstools grow in the dark and dampest spot
in the wasteland, and as day progresses the never-ending
merciless killing under the very same scorching sun that hangs high above
the wasteland drags on and on in the urban, areas where people carry out
the activities of daily routine to sustain ordinary lives.
on the street and alley the children’s corpses
though laying here and there
no one knows how to stop the deafening roar
that comes from the blasting bombs and the report of the guns
that take more innocent lives away from loved ones which do not allow
even a moment to the bereaved one to mourn with own accord, and when
the tears of a woman in black burqa slaps forehead and bangs her breast with palms and cries, her maternal affection benumbed and become stone as her tears coagulate and harden.
a small rough and simple wooden coffin goes
carried by the stern looking bearded men followed by not requiem
but the shout of the angry crowd brandishing empty fists that won’t do
anything in air the agony of the incompetent father who incapable of
keeping his dearest daughter’s life
nor able to provide a decent funeral and burial services
for the child’s last journey overlays the new-soil-covered little grave
as many layers of sigh after sighs.
when the tanks and armored vehicles sweep through the street
where many, many of those horrible stories rolling and flying
all over like autumn leaves, the soldiers with dust covered
combat boots dash into the street with unceasing gun shots
that hit the shadows because it moves, only because it breathes,
and therefore must be slaughtered. the fireballs hotter than boiling
sun shoot in the air with loud report on the other side of the street.
and between those ear-piercing roars
another angry wave marches on the street
carrying a small coffin, and in this chaos
eventide with no tomorrow dyes the corner of sky
above the faceless battlefield with the red of blood.
I walked up the rugged cliff for an overview
I was benumbed at the spectacular vista
Of the sunset dowsing out the fire
On the gorges of the grand canyon
I was benumbed at the spectacular vista
That was a delicious treat for my eyes
On the gorges of the grand canyon
The sun caressed the warm ranges
That was a delicious treat for my eyes
I treasured the kaleidoscopic moments
The sun caressed the warm ranges
Walled by the steeply layered rocky desert
I treasured the kaleidoscopic moments
An extravaganza of peaky rocks and plateaus
Stood firm gazing at the spectators gaze at them
The gushing ravines ravaged in the sun splashed gold
An extravaganza of peaky rocks and plateaus
Of the sunset dowsing out the fire
The gushing ravines ravaged in the sun splashed gold
I walked up to the rugged cliff for an overview
April 3, 2016
A Pantoum
For Eve Roper
Kajal* in her lids, circling her plastic eyes,
Doll eyes that seem unreal.
Single rose perched atop her bun.
The red matching her blouse and her lips.
Her beady purse dangling by,
Shimmering in the neon light.
The whore from Faridabad...
Men saunter by...
Watch her reflections.
Her bright silver necklace,
Her flowing ear drops.
Watch her with mocking eyes,
Her integrity ridiculed,
Her essence defamed.
The same men who subvert to her in the darkness.
Their stark souls, stark naked bodies exposed.
The beast in them clinging and clutching.
Embraces sans love.
Submissions sans redemption...
In the creaking red room, in the timber wood bed,
Her heart stays mute. Her stare stays cold.
As passion ploughs over her.
Again and again till her body is benumbed.
She has nothing to lose.
She had nothing to lose.
The cradle of lust.
The melting pot of all human desires.
The whore from Faridabad...
With doll eyes that seem unreal...
In the rain filled night,
Little Biju comes running.
His soiled brown shorts pinned up with a safety pin.
His nose catching a whiff of her perfume.
His monsoon catch fluttering,
Pining to fly away,
The dragon fly...
He sits on her lap.
She fiddles through his hair.
And together they steam off,
Paper boats off the puddle's coast.
And like a twin lightning ripping across
The strangeness of the night skies,
Two shrill laughters pervade the monsoon airs.
Full of love.
Full of mischief and sunshine.
Her eyes moistened with the laughter...
Her doll eyes that seem unreal...
The whore from Faridabad....
* A mixture made of coal......applied over the eyes to make them look attractive......
On the spike peak of the dark hill
there is no wall but the dim clouds
scream with the thunders; there is
no tears but the pale sky weeps
with the ruby dusk whispering I'm
Stranded cottage on the Sajek valley
coconut water in the wine bottle on
the tattered table confined with the
spider net and the kerosene lamp on
the falling way of dousing with my sigh
Crickets are busy with jazz sounds in
the deep solitary bush; no hiss, hiss
but the snake wandering beside the
window sill on the moonless ethereal
night where the benumbed veins reign
Lost I'm myself in the abyss lane of the
blind sky eyes where the lizard eyes are
the death angel and the dumb is burst
sounds of at hand death of brave sense,
where the thirst is quenched elixir of breath
No verse of beliefs, no holy verse came to
rescue the heartbeats, the gigantic teeth
of the silhouette stung the nerves of the
living dream and I'm carried by the sunny
bier where my awakens fired the nightmare
March 23, 2023
© Mahtab Bangalee