Best Brayed Poems
Strong Coffee Ate A Silver Spoon
Strong coffee ate a silver spoon
Blind feline lapped up the spilled milk
Sweet relief cannot come too soon
I slept on sheets of finest silk
Gone such dreams with vanishing moon
Dry toast from molded bread was made
Served with the world's gold gilded lies
Sides of temptations, well displayed
Seeds of regrets in cherry pies
I, a blind jackass, sorely brayed
Eggs were scrambled while feeling pain
Table sighed, "Why am I left bare?"
Except for heartache's tenured stain
and foolish pride that placed it there
I hear cries in horrid nightmares
Plum jam scooped from a broken jar
Morn's mirror showed my old hurts
bludgeoned by love's iron bar
Stove hissed at me, "Your just desserts!"
I deserved each deeply etched scar
Robert J. Lindley, April 2nd, 2002
Rhyme, (Early dawn, Breakfast speaks, Life's foibles)...
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Shadow to shadow, shade to shade
In youth the Eden where you played
was left bereft, destroyed, decayed,
by trusts malignant masquerade
Shadow to shadow, shade to shade
No grass survives your fallow glade,
when opportunist needs invade
and bleed the lives from every blade
Shadow to shadow, shade to shade
First, victims surging song is brayed
but dirges of the wronged soon fade
and urges pant their serenade
Shadow to shadow, shade to shade
Agendas you arrange cascade
to keep your motives undisplayed
and cover cracks in your charade
Shadow to shadow, shade to shade
You planted with your soiled spade
these spoiled seeds in hopes that they'd
advance the rancid plots you'd laid
Shadow to shadow, shade to shade
In kind, your ruined past replayed
will find each bloom on whom you've preyed
entombed in blighted beds you've made
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
=======================
Shadow to shadow, shade to shade
In youth the Eden where I played
was left bereft, destroyed, decayed,
by trusts malignant masquerade
Shadow to shadow, shade to shade
Sweet grass dies in my fallow glade
as opportunist needs invade
and bleed the life from every blade
Shadow to shadow, shade to shade
First, victims surging song is brayed,
then dirges of the helpless fade
and urges pant their serenade
Shadow to shadow, shade to shade
Agendas I've arranged cascade
to keep my motives undisplayed
and cover cracks in my charade
Shadow to shadow, shade to shade
I've planted with my soiled spade
slick seeds of doubt in hopes that they'd
conceal the putrid plots I've laid
Shadow to shadow, shade to shade
My blighted past will be replayed
and every bloom on whom I've preyed
must lie now in the beds I've made
=======================
The old black man came riding up
On a wagon pulled by a mule
In the wagon he had a plough
And some other old rusty tools
As best I recall it was late in the fall
Of nineteen sixty two
He said hello and told my dad
He was looking for something to do
And for a fee would unhitch Ol' B
They'd plow up the garden out back
The old man smiled as they dickered awhile
Then began to unpack
Ol' B wore blinders as he walked behind her
It only took them a bit
With all of the kids from the neighborhood
The pair had made quite a hit
Put the cash in his pocket gave her a carrot
Hooked up and went on their way
As the old man whistled to the clippity-clop
The old mule loudly brayed
an original poem by the "poemdog" Daniel Turner
The puppet pranced
The strings frayed
A jackass brayed
As poppin’ hoppys
Sat and rose
In ballet dance
Of well browned nose
Applause and “clapture”
of Stockholm rapture
A mocking strut
Of failing stature
Overseers jaundiced eyes
Pundits seeking pulitz prize
Dissect the metaphoric frog
Wash it down with pints of grog
Amidst the spin of liars din
They shout pick me let’s ride again
Update quickly twitter feeds
Sating lustful twitter needs
Condense a two hour monologue
Into a twenty-five word blog
Check the facts, don’t be a chump
It’s just another “word soup” dump
John G. Lawless
©2/8/2023
as the hen settled down on her eggs
and the burro brayed his last bray
the moon slowly rose in the sky
fulsome and round to the eye
sated calves nuzzled up against udders
while fillies snuggled into their mothers
lambs curled up beside sheep
the world had plunged into sleep
yet denizens of the dark kept on going
internal time clocks never slowing
night crawlers dancing 'til dawn
miles from the doe and her fawn
Continued from Part 2
Beyond the suburbs, farmers’ fields (where donkeys often brayed)
inhale gray gusts of barren dust where living seed once laid
and in the haze a scarecrow sways, impaled upon a spade.
Green trees gone dark in palace parks (where kids once paused to play),
watch lifeless things on phantom swings (like statues made of clay)
guard marbled tombs in graveyards groomed for grievers bent to pray.
And castle clocks, unwound, defrock with speechless spinning spokes,
unfurling blight of reigning Night by sweeping off her cloaks,
and flaunting dun oblivion, her Baroness evokes.
The sun-bleached bones of those who'd flown lie scattered down the lanes
while other souls who’d hid in holes left bones with yellow stains
of plaintive tears (shed insincere, for no one felt the pains).
The wraiths that scream in sleepless dreams have ceased to terrify
though terrors wrought by conscience fraught now stalk and lurk nearby
within the shrouds of curtained clouds, frail fabrics on the sky.
And fog no longer seeps beyond the edge of doom’s café,
for when she trails her mourning veils, she fills the cabaret
with sallow smears of misty tears in sheets of shallow gray.
The City’s still, like hollowed quill with ravished feathered vane,
baptized in floods of spattered blood, once flowing through a vein.
The fruits of life, destroyed in strife... ’twas truly all in vain.
No umbras hum with jagged tongues nor sing a silent psalm
nor lade pale lips with languid quips to pierce the deathly calm –
they've seen, you see, life’s brevity, beneath a neutron bomb.
EPILOGUE
Beyond the Silent City’s walls, the victors laugh and play
while celebrating PEACE ON EARTH, the devil’s sobriquet
for neutron radiation death in places far away.
End
The farmer's wife and milkman played seesaw
Their sighs weren't heard as two donkeys brayed He-Haw
Inspired by Silent One's contest ( not for contest )
The cow was playing cowbells,
Giddy Goat joined in on his guitar,
The horse was hoofing bongo drums.
Animals started coming from afar.
The chicken clucked an egg out,
Pig was oinking right in time,
Duck was tinkling on her triangle
While dog was hammering on his chime.
Pussy picked up her piccolo,
Goose was flapping on his flute,
Donkey brayed on a big trombone,
It really was a farmyard hoot!
-more poems like this can be found at:
kidscomedypoetry.com.au
Skagway, Alaska in the late 1890s was sure a rowdy place alright!
It was seethin' with humanity a-raisin' hell all through the day and night!
'Twas the gateway to Chilkoot Pass beyond which lay Klondike gold!
Why! You could scoop up nuggets by the bushel, or so it was told!
Jefferson Randolph 'Soapy' Smith 'owned' the town and was so very brash.
He came up with nefarious schemes to relieve newcomers of their cash!
Madame Gertie arrived with her soiled doves and set up houses of ill repute.
Among the ladies were Ethel the Moose, Mollie Fewclothes and Maude the Mute!
Tinklin' pianos and screechin' fiddles played in saloons invitin' boozers in.
Hordes of horses whinnied, dogs howled and mules brayed addin' to the din!
The Home of Hooch, Red Onion and Mangy Dog saloons flung open their doors,
To sate the thirsty sots before they tried their luck at diggin' by the scores!
Hawkeye Blevins, notorious gambler, grabbed a table at the Hungry Pub Saloon,
And with slight of hand relieved many gullible rubes of their moolah all too soon!
Even preachers tossed aside Bibles and grabbed shovels to join the endless queue,
To foolishly struggle up Chilkoot Pass in the dead of winter with that motley crew!
A few hardy stampeders found their Eldorado but many more came to naught!
Death, disillusionment and starvation stymied the quest for which they sought.
Many a hapless feller lies beneath that frigid land never more to roam.
Infamous Soapy Smith lies at rest in Skagway Cemetery, there, his final home!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
(c) All Rights Reserved
HOMOPHONE RHYME STYLE TRIAL
In shining armor I am here, YES, your hero knight
Rushing to your rescue anon, day or night
With my mighty steed, Henry, I’ll come crash down the gate
Watch it when you mount him, he’s got a funny gait
I’ll save you from the tower living on a tiny little cot
Jump into my arms and I by my troth you will be caught
I know last time I tried to catch you I may have missed
But alas, it was so foggy, I could not see past the mist
I’ll do better next time, or mayhaps I’ll bring a ladder
You can trust the former, even if you choose the latter
You needn’t be so offended to make me and Henry wait
I only asked for his sake if you’d gained a little weight
I snuck past enemy lines to find you, slid down the castle chute
Sorry if I got a little nervous when the guards began to shoot
It was only a potato gun, I still should not have ducked
Or pushed you backwards onto Henry waiting underneath the duct
I’ll free you always, whether from monsters or an evil reign
As long as it’s nice weather, Henry doesn’t like the rain
That dragon doesn’t stand a chance, through the air I flew
Well, I was going to… but I threw up, I had the flu
I was going to bellow, “Beshrew thee!” but my voice was a bit hoarse
I really am Prince Charming, just with a temperamental horse
My apologies he ate your hair, he thought it was hay in your braid
It’s possible he’s an ass, as nay, he doesn’t neigh, but hey, he brayed?
"...Dominus orationem meam suscepit."
Burning his little jelly bottom raw,
He blisters in his liquid greenish poop.
He has no means to summon us at all
To drain the acid swamp of split pea soup.
Except to scream, a peevish infant yawp,
And so he screams, until we take his goop.
We modestly subserve our son's ejecta.
Clean, dry and warm: his everyday trifecta.
He's not alone. I've had my days of burning.
Blistered and raw, to salve my hurt I prayed
for balm from God, ultimately learning
His summit lay on far too steep a grade.
Footless in His scree, inflamed with yearning,
My wounds combusted into wrath. I brayed
My blasphemies, then heard the Logoi fall.
I had no means to summon Him at all.
Which births a trailing thought about the sainted:
Their whispered prayers, their worshipful reclusion,
Which all the hagiographers have painted.
Don't buy it. Souls corroded with confusion,
Their love of God with hatred wholly tainted,
And Doubt the only friend to their seclusion,
With blasphemies they burnt the fetid air.
Profanation is the purest form of prayer.
The Donkey of Destiny
The party was set, the guests were invited,
The adults were happy, the kids all excited.
All going to plan; the hosts were delighted,
Then the Donkey of Destiny brayed – he-haw!
The Donkey of Destiny brayed.
The Board of Directors set forth their campaign,
To conquer their industry, supremely reign,
To guarantee ultimate financial gain,
Til the Donkey of Destiny brayed – he-haw!
The Donkey of Destiny brayed.
Military leaders made their decision,
Troops were deployed with painstaking precision.
Soon they would realise their tactical vision,
Then the Donkey of Destiny brayed – he-haw!
The Donkey of Destiny brayed.
To amuse the young children, a day out was planned,
Buckets and spades and sunshine and sand.
Ice-cream and fish-and-chips; seaside brass band,
But the Donkey of Destiny brayed – he-haw!
The Donkey of Destiny brayed.
There’s nothing as fickle as Destiny’s Donkey,
Capricious as weather, and sly as a monkey,
Be certain that everyone’s hopes will turn funky,
When the Donkey of Destiny brays – he-haw!
When the Donkey of Destiny brays.
In days of old, when nights grew cold,
men told a dreadful tale
of Trapper Jim—how they buried him
on a night the wolves did wail.
It seems at the time, Jim was checking his line,
and stopped to camp for the night—
He heard a sound as wolves gathered round
which gave him an awful fright.
His horse and mule were no one’s fool—
they whinnied and brayed at the moon
for they knew their fate, it was much too late,
they would all be devoured soon.
There was nowhere to run in the midnight sun,
escape was the man’s one desire—
Like ghosts in the night, wolves sprang and took flight
as their shadows danced in the fire.
He pulled up his rifle, but nary a trifle
would be left of him there alone—
His friends would find him, the man they called Jim,
just a hank of hair and a bone.
Now, no one can say what happened that day
as the trapper knelt there in the dark,
but men say today, it happened that way,
and the tale is true—not a lark.
And they tell of wolves with cloven hooves
that prowl and chase in a pack,
of forbidden grounds where devilish sounds
are heard if you turn your back.
The story is clear if you’ll just lend an ear
to the tale of Trapper Jim’s fate—
Don’t tramp on his grave, nor pretend to be brave,
or you’ll find it might be too late.
Tamara Hillman
©2007
A barn on a hill.
Beside was a wheat mill.
Corn grew in tall stalks.
"Ding, Dong!" said the clocks.
Early morning sunshine.
Finally 'twas feeding time!
Grass was the main course.
Hay for the horse.
I fed seed to the hens.
Jersey Cows in their pens.
Kid goats brayed.
Llamas strayed.
My kitten was purring.
Nobody was listening.
Oh, the pigs are squeeling.
Piggies, I'm coming!
Quickly, I ran to the shed.
Roosters, waiting to be fed.
Sheep with their fuzzy wool.
Turkeys want a handful.
Under the warm sun’s heat.
Vegetables, washed and ready to eat.
Watered the lawn early today.
Xeriscaping now takes place.
Y’all would’ve loved this day.
Zip-dee-doo-da-yay!