Best Branching Poems
The mind is slowing
I can feel it every day
But I will go on
I go to the shops
What to have for our dinner?
Something will appear
My steps are steady
No one can see the shaking
I can still get by
Quietly, I seek
The comfort of solitude
I can still function
My eyes look ahead
My feet are numb, but grounded
I am still moving
My hands can still grasp
Balancing the heavy load
I glide down the street
The trees are budding
The road is not slippery
I am now on track
My gate is in view
The keys are in my pocket
I will be home soon
Branching out is good
Seeing the lime green buds of Spring
Restoring my heart
Someone perusing all the lines I penned
before this century would surely think
I must have signed a contract to produce
just poems with the strictest rhyming schemes!
It seemed my mind was programmed to create
rhymed couplets or a-b-c-b quatrains.
I asked myself then, “Must you always rhyme?
If so, you could at least try other styles.”
Because I’d always liked to read blank verse,
I vowed I’d take the plunge and write some too!
I love the partial freedom it affords.
While rhyming’s not included, meter is—
those five iambic feet I so adore.
April 5, 2023
for the Simply Poetry 2 Contest
Sponsor: John Lawless
The bark of my knowing
is rotting away
With grain left exposing
what memory betrays
Those things I pushed outward
root deeply within
As the oldest of wood
—makes the best violin
(Dreamsleep: December, 2021)
A more naked light filters through
branching nervous systems.
A fade and shade
seeps into dendritic pathways
shedding forever
falling leaves,
recollections of so many
dissolving
autumnal moments.
Love is a tree in Autumn,
Coloring a grey sky in magnificent shades
But like all trees,
Each one,
Each person’s tree, is unique
Some people branch out a lot, and their tree is filled with branches,
While others won’t, or can’t branch out
The vibrant colors of the leaves define their branch,
And each leaf is filled with an emotion that gives it its beautiful color.
Yellow leaves are the happiness that person brings to your life.
Red leaves represent the frustration one brings to you
These leaves should not be feared, nor ignored.
One cannot love without ever getting upset,
Yet one cannot love if always angry
Purple leaves are the sadness you feel when someone leaves.
People come and go,
So grow out their branch as much as you can,
Or one day you’ll live to regret it
Orange leaves are fear.
The fear of loss,
The fear that one day,
you may never see the person you love again
Everyone fears this,
Just don’t let that fear come to fruition,
By letting it turn your leaves orange
The trunk of the tree is the love one has for themself,
And small tree can only support so many branches,
So grow out your branches,
But never neglect the trunk,
As poison in the trunk,
Spreads to the leaves