Best Bootless Poems


Premium Member Lonely Libraries

(English Sonnet Rhyme in Iambic Tetrameter)

What tomes in lonely corners dwell
where undisturbed and rimmed with dust,
forgotten tales that once were held
and stained with tears and love and lust -
now sit untouched like aging queens;
more interest in apparent heirs
like Kindle tablets - pageless screens,
dull bootless script where no one shares.
So empty when a page is turned,
no weight of paper in its place
and when it's done no conference yearned -
there is no book ... just empty space.
The halls where all the books are kept
will haunt until their dust is swept.

Premium Member - For Tom Cunningham and Jan Allison -

old man
                                             big plan

                                             ladies
                                             nineties

                                             big t*ts  (*i :)
                                             will fit

                                            toothless
                                            bootless

                                            his grief
                                            no kiss

                                            old date
                                            your fate

                                            time out
                                            he pouts





                                   Dedicated to Tom & Jan

                                          02.11.2020
                                   Sun :) - A-L Andresen :)
                            Copyright © All Rights Reserved

Premium Member To Hell and Back in the AM


When wracked with suff'ring even more,
     I all alone bemoan my fate,
as one who drowns in sorrows sore
     which harm, harass, and maul his state.

Aggrieved for what feels like forever,
     I trouble God with bootless cries
as I endure my manic fever
     with tearful, red, psychotic eyes.

The minute hand lands on midnight!
     I can't find clear words to express
feelings of falling a headlong height
     b'neath heaven's reach 'yond grief's excess. 

Inside, I feel the Reaper’s scythe
     as I think out my mordant plan:
razor, pills, or a kitchen knife,
     a way to end it by my hand!?

Like Sylvia Plath, if I can
     plant my head in a GE gas oven,
then it’d be painless!? (But why plan
     a death so cliche, and unproven?)

I think, too, of Virginia Woolf,
     how she drowned her life in a lake;
I, too, feel swallowed in a gulf
     of swirling misery that'd take

me to my death! Why do I feel
     forsak'n, and heavy as lead now? Am
I so hopeless? Why do I feel
     so worthless, and so so dead? How am

I to end my life (to kill myself)—
     if all loved ones were then to miss me?
“Help yourself!” I then heard. "Heal thyself!" 
    I hear aloud. As angels kiss me,

I thus then found comfort in this:
     that family and friends all care,
and if I'd died I would be missed;
     so, I war 'gainst profound despair.

And then, Hope dawns! And soon comes peace…
     And in the morn, I wake arising—
Joy breaks in, and I have new lease.
     And then my state I cease despising!


Blood In Stool

the old brick is dead
tuck the morkin, shoot the dog  
bootless memories

The Barghest's Monody

Therewithal, profluent life ettles it's while.
Thitherward, from Death's bleak campanile
Grim antiphonals serenade.

A capriccio, the slashing swipe of the reaper's scythe
 will serenade.
Stringent Death forthwith anoints the mithridate to
Life's cantankerous and rankling ado

Hither now come, anon recondite Azrael, neither protend
 nor annex this throttled contretemps.

The antiphonal of the reaper's cavalier scythe
Shall now serenade.
Awhirl, like kerfs demarcated
 Years, bollixed, muzzy and brattled
  shall holus-bolus expire.

No retaliation to death's gloomy surcease
No ingenious riposte to the reaper's final cleave.

Bootless now to don the amulets,
 squeeze the jujus,
Kiss the talismans,
 clutch the periapts or
Attire in steely cataphract.

The serenading of the reaper's scythe,
 it's efficacy shall blithely cleave.
Bedim mine eyes from life's assailing
Bedim mine eyes from life's poltroonery

Vocabulary:  barghest-a goblin fabled to portend misfortune;  monody-funeral song; 
antiphonal-chant;  protend-to protract in time/lengthen;  riposte-n. in fencing, a quick
return/thrust;  brattle-v.-to make rattling or clattering noises; 
cavalier-supercillious/disdainful/haughty;  muzzy-hazy;  attaint-v. to condemn;  rankle-to
give pain/nettle/gnaw;  contretemps-untoward accident/hitch;  throttle-v.to
choke/suffocate/strangle/stiffle;  bollix-v.-to bungle or botch;  holus-bolus-adv.-all at
once/altoghter;  mithridate-antidote against poison;  cataphract-suit of armor for the
whole body;  poltroonery-n. cowardice; a capriccio-musical piece characterized by
improvisation;  ettle-to intend/to prepare;  campanile-free standing bell tower;  kerf-a
groove or notch
Azrael-the angel that helps souls from living to enter the afterlife;  recondite-not
easily understood/abstruce;
periapt-a charm worn to ward of evil;  juju-object believed to contain magical powers;
contretemps-disruptive unforeseen event;  protend-to hold out or stretch forth
© David Hart  Create an image from this poem.

Map of Europe - 'Objectum Sexual'

MAP   OF   EUROPE    -   OBJECTUM  SEXUAL  *

O coastline with cool expanse of blue Atlantic
Your  curves and indentations drive me frantic.
Sometimes thrust out peninsularly;
Sometimes studied docilely and scholarly; 
Land stretching from  White sea  and  Iberia 
To  Black Sea  and Siberia.
O  Europe,  my  virgin  obsession  geographical
Is  verging  on  possession sexual.

Other continents are jealous - Africa is so island-poor, so peninsula-penniless,
And of  rivers, capes and bays it  has many less:
It would give a pretty penny to have just one  Iberia, Jutland, or Scandinavia 
To excite  its smooth coast and other geographic  behavior.
Australians would love  islands with  romantic names Capri Lesbos Rum Eig Frisian
Or an  archipelago-infested sea like the Aegean.
South  Americans  cry themselves to sleep at night because they lack
Such  Nordic  coastal  features as  Trondheim or Skaggerak
Beijing  would give all the tea in China because she must 
Satisfy her  desire for an Italian-shaped peninsula,  a  bootless lust.

Of course Asia feels no envy, for it has kukri-shaped Kamchatka
And the only  large island in  the world,  Sumatra,
Which rhymes with the best singer in the world,  Sinatra.

This  Map of Europe is something  I just have to possess.
My life is incomplete without its caress.
If I didn’t have it, my world  would be a mess.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………….

NOTES

1    *  “Objectum Sexual”   is  defined on  GOOGLE   as erotic 
love towards an object of any sort.

2     N. B.  This poem is purely fiction


The Immutable Plight of Mortals

Existence is jam-packed with such deadly traps,
You would wonder why its Author made it so;
You never are sure and ever live on borrowed time
For its turns may any time deal you a terminal blow.

You breathe when you find you can,
And will not be there to raise a query
Regarding your untimely and unfair decease,
When short it’s cut your mortal merry.

You suffer and cry when you have a tear,
And still get more of the dreaded stuff;
You make new resolves but your will is weak
And so you forget them all in a huff.

You know the way you should go
But your legs are light and easy to tempt,
So you end up taking the wrong course
And end up ruing the resolutions unkept.

If a believer, you increase your bootless prayers
And hope that someone up there will hear your cry,
But find your very woes increasing day after day
Till you accept your immutable plight and cease to try.


Whether blind rich or church-mouse poor, every man has his woes;
The poor man is ever crying over all the possible opportunities lost,
The young will always have to contend unfulfilled infatuations,
And the millionaire will ever bawl over a business deal unclosed.

So rather than file on through the shortened pages of time,
Men should spurn all the care and feel happy throughout;
In plenty and in dearth, in love and in hate – 
For why invest in care and still have to doubt?

Premium Member A Small Lament

Please...do not look away…
I am more than what you see… 
I have no claims or expectations.
I am more than innocence fleeing.. 
more than flesh and blood, but soul as well.

I am free of selfish wants, fear or greed …
I am like a fruit...on the fringe of fruition…
even though my skin is scared and dirty 
beneath this frayed and tag-rag dress.

I am the essence of this land and place….
yet placeless…the mirrored gaze 
of countless faces…reflecting the shine of my existence…
yet...I'm homeless in my home…without you today.

Can you say some words to me, 
words born from your heart…
that your lips can proclaim?

Today, I left a message for you 
inscribed within my eyes…the sweet of my smile.
and even though embosomed by despair…
these mere seconds of life... I celebrate…
no time to waste on bootless tears.

Oh how I long for the day when 
we'll transcend these mortal constraints.
Until then... I'm but a traceless, faceless gem...
waiting for you to turn and see me.

Premium Member Temporal Dilettante Journalist

Temporal Dilettante Journalist 
David J Walker

no-thing need not name the nameless 
breaks the morning in disguise 
shakes the shame and wakes the shameless 
quench tormented turbid eyes 
the bootless errand realized 

who shakes the hand but shuns the banquet 
a polymath of nullity
a picnic spread on follies blanket 
the argot of a fervent plea
omnifarious frivolity

dante sings symphonic anthems  
measured meters latin chants
pardons plied to paphian sanctions 
the queen retorts in satin rants 
a paupers portion the monarch grants 

bemoans the message minimalized

The Innocent Mafioso!

With a spine of steel
I walked down the lane,
The mortals lacked the pluck
to cross me in disdain!

To the trader i quizzed,
Buddy, 'Hows Business?'
Mum was the trader
With his lungs in distress!

Flummoxed was my mind,
To see the traders dread!
His Action made me wonder
"Did i ask him for his head?"

Shivering were the dames,
When i heard'em mumble!
He's the mafia who bashed,
the goons till they crumble!

Zapping in my mind were scenes,
when i beat the ugly teens!
N now i knew the reason why,
No one dared to cross me by!

Convicted- Guilty was I
in the people's dumb court.
Outcast was the name 
and seclusion what i got!

I tried to mix with people,
I tried to make'em laugh.
But in a world of hoax faiths,
My feelings were so dwarf!

As the winter came in
the birds set sail.
My comments lost worth,
My gags were old n stale!

As the trees dried
I failed to create dread,
Humans took me for granted
in my brawl for bread!

The drive-in was to glow,
when i came for rum!
Ignored by the crowd,
I felt like a bootless bum!

Smothered by this Scene,
I walked home in despair.
Baffled by the Question
"Why these jerks don't care?"
                                                                             TO BE
CONTINUED................

A Poet To His Beloved

All the praises you pick along the streets
Go confirm before a new-bought mirror,
And if those rare glories you all find true
Then know she’s near that beauty shearer.

Who’s time, the unerring author of loss and decay.
And so while you wait for she who must deprive
Learn your immortal splendor to wisely salt away
In shrewd acts that the lay waste of time survive.

Reincarnate in yourself some elegant luster
To represent you in the ageless posterity,
And water with care the shoots that germinate
In the fecund garden of your youthful fertility.

The sagacious mother leaving nothing to chance,
Invest in an eternity of prayer, for if bootless
There’s nothing of yours to lose to time-owned eons,
For this enterprise outlives all, and gives all for less.

With these desiderata carefully appropriated,
Now your chance to savor the trappings of luck and time
With vast unapologetic bites and greedy careless teeth
Till the bells of the end give their long-awaited chime.

Premium Member George Gordon, Lord Byron's Unlikely Lament

I longed for a love pure like driven snow,
     untouched and vestal in the spring years to come;
the years came, and were gone until my woe
     over love now lost filled my present autumn.

Virgin, and never a princess have I met,
     or rustic maid with whom to spend a night;
I dwelled in solitude with great regret,
     for Eros and young love were not my right.

Still young and fresh, and naïve and innocent,
     stained by concupiscence ever the least,
I cast'd aside my youth's indecent bent;
     and lived my life as if I were a priest.

Now old and bootless, without lust's searing fire, 
I've never pierced the tunnel of desire.

Silhouette of Life

A misty path all through ahead
Quite uncommon, quiet was the way
Moonshine, the guide to his dark forlorn destiny
Marionette played by an unseen unknown.
Enigmatic enjambment, enmeshed he was
Left in the middle of somewhere, alas
New faces, hard facers, these phases are great
His quest for the treasure with no knowledge begun.
All that is left now is a whorl of hope,
To get through the labyrinth, this misanthrope.
One day, the bootless might be well-heeled
The secret lies there he'll say Finally revealed.
Take a look at your past, your awry trail
You never get a second chance and thereby hangs a tale.

Premium Member ''George Gordon, Lord Byron's Improbable Lament,'' Rescripted


I longed for a love pure as driven snow
     and fresh as spring 'ere Youth's brief joys succumb;  
but a love never transpired; and, although  
     denied, I carried on to life's autumn.  
A maid, princess, or queen have I never  
     loved or with an ardent nymph passion-proved  
lust's all-consuming fire; deprived forever,  
     I disavowed former hopes for a beloved.     
So, thenceforth unblemished and innocent,
     without sin and virtuous from west to east,     
I surrendered my youth's prurient bent
     and forswore my lusts to dwell as a priest.
Now old and bootless, I ne'er knew desire;
or pierced the flower of a maid on fire.

Mental Captive

it hangs on your wall.
a faded black n white wooden photograph 
probably taken some time back in the 80s. 
It's one of those bootless thingies a new home owner would cast away, barely even noticing....

but you keep it.
like a lost wandering soul
ungodly hours find you on twos
mumbling ineligible things
to the ghost on the wall.

you stand there staring at the fading figure
it's reprimanding
at times it's happy. or annoyed.
but defiantly saying nothing.

it's in your house. on your wall.
it's vivid. alive. existent! 
but only you can see it.
it's draining you, 
slowly pulling you into it's ghostly world.

nobody else can see it 
nobody can understand
'it's in your mind', they say,
'..or you're just delusional'.
mad!!

so you steer clear from mortals
keeping only to yourself
screaming, shouting, weeping
wishing they could understand
or that someone could find you.
but you're just one of a kind,
a ghost, just like the one on your wall.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace