Best Bleakly Poems

Why does the voiceless canary stare so bleakly?
Why do the sullen grey clouds desert a sombre sky?
As the ugly black smog blots out the valiant sun’s rays
The honey less flowers kiss the dying bees’ goodbye
Never Enough

Blinded are the eyes to threatened extinctions
On deaf ears the...

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Earth
(an acrostic Tanka)

Emeralds, rubies,
And sapphires once buried in
Rocky crevices
Thanklessly ripped from Mother -
Her trampled heart beats bleakly.

Written March 11, 2016 for the Contest of Brian Davey...

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what is that ... there ... in the darkness?

what is that hollow creature, cold and callous
that shrouds its image in the deep, remorseless black?
careless, the coal-red glint in its eye ...
ragged-edged teeth to tear truth and sensibilities -
to rip the flesh of loving and kind...

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The ancient anguish of a hurting heart
Bequeaths no beauteous scene to me today.
It’s just a jagged chasm gashed apart,
A stream with boulders strewn in disarray.
Like rusted leaves that bleakly canvas fall
Or barren trees that bear the winter snow,
Its listlessness conceals a stonework wall
That bars the...

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it glistens …
can you see?
do you see that little drop -
the tiny streak that
writes your name upon my visage -
that etches it’s damp and
dour reality onto what the mirror
shines back at me each day?
do you grasp all the
wonder and regret that floats there?
do you know...

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You were a hot little Hispanic man.
And I was your infatuated fan.
Your love for me was cheeky,
Dreams ended very bleakly.
Now, I’m happy ever after, God’s plan.

© January 28, 2012
Dane Ann Smith-Johnsen

Written for Poetry Soup Member Contest: A valentine Limerick~ to your x-lover the heart-
breaker (...

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Let's imagine that you are, 
like Buckminster Fuller, 
karmically absorbed with Unitarian genes,
were there such a thing,
which of course there are not,
but perhaps something like an evolving Unitarian Universalist post-millennial teleology.
Basically, some shared sense of responsibility for,
and humility about,
our currently unraveling long-term thrival prospects,
as a...

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poor muck-covered duck
stares bleakly out to a sea -
no more safe haven 

For Raul Moreno's Tainted Feathers contest...

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A blood-red private view of morning
A second chance to climb the attic stairs.
The ceiling, ticking time, cascades
A thousand pricking darts, stampeding 
Purple chariots, blanketing the sky.
The zealot's blade, so swift to still
The heart that beats an alien rhythm,
No backward glance to desolation.
Within a vastness all-consuming,
The...

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why do I love you when all haste say's 
that I shouldn't first there was rome 
the way the sun danced behind me 
over venice canals then there 
was Kabul the hints 
of the infamous mauve sky catering 
to my thighs I could even see...

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The unwashed drain of 
semi-civil masses sits
bleakly in darkness...

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I planted my feet firmly today
Rooted deep in faith, never again to sway
So now the world will  scorn  hate and  despise
Dropping  ugly rumors and whispered lies
To paint me bleakly as a canvas stained 
 Judged and unforgiven and try to blind...

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Eagles stare bleakly
Icy, frozen lake hides food --
     Help from human hands


For the Bald Eagles contest -- an interpretation of the photograph...

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I dreamed I saw the grave of Ernest Dowson
Bleakly set
In some forgotten churchyard corner,
Lone and wet.

The spectral London fog descended cold on 
Sentry grass
Where seldom any visitors or pilgrims
Deign to pass.

And in my reverie I bravely scattered
Roses there, 
And felt a frail and wispy “Thank...

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Mine was a world without flowers
where nature had nothing to give.
Bleakly, a path stretched before me.
That life I was fearful to live.

In the desolate dust long I wandered
‘til oasis I found in your love.
A mercy directly from heaven;
hopeful, as rain from above.

Together in love long...

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