Best Brutes Poems
Should I enhance my recognition
by defiantly treading on an innocent heart?
Or perhaps mine is a sin of omission,
fleeing with fame a la carte,
while thoughtlessly tearing another soul apart.
What reward can be found
as I stomp on another’s dreams,
leaving them quaking on the ground
where incivility screams
and not one ray of light beams?
Perhaps there is more joy in obscurity
than in fame that grows from ill roots.
Before me is an angel basking in purity
besieged by destructive brutes –
wolves dressed in lambs’ suits.
My soul will not let me go there –
to that place where evils dwell.
Entrust my fate to a prayer
that self-promoting acts cannot dispel
the eternal fires of an infamous hell.
*Written April 12, 2015, for Sheri’s “I, Icon” challenge
Allow me to comb the anger from your hair my dear
with gentle strokes of my melodic care for you,
look at my glowing affection in the smooth mirror of love
as I move your soft mane to the side of your neck
and place my supple lips upon your lower throat with a firm kiss,
let the voice of my deep love reach into the sky of your soul tonight
I've come to explore the Petra of your body and mind
the richness of your color fills my skin
the sweet and natural smell of your longing
plays freely around my nose and tongue
as I enter the narrow passes of your hidden dreams
discovering the treasures that brutes know nothing about,
holding the secrets of your soul close to my chest
the sighs of your delicate heart land on my nerves like thick snowflakes
and they melt so slowly into my carnal desires,
I envelope the back of your hopes with my naked heat,
squeezing my arms around you as we rise to go further
and we join hip to hip
expressing the simmering movements we've felt all along our lips -
J.A.B.
Brutes, in name of God, to show their might,
fixed laws, that you’d succumb like measly sheep.
Womankind, kind woman, rise and fight.
Innocents of war with smiles once bright,
ravished; tossed like garbage in a heap,
angels hovering nigh have you in sight.
Faithful brides, for something less than trite,
set on fire in their beds as they sleep.
Kind woman, womankind, your soul‘s in flight.
Girls in huts, legs spread, cry out in fright.
A ritual to mutilate cuts deep.
Angels from on high do hear your plight.
Wives in their own homes (not all is right),
beaten, hush their children not to weep.
Womankind, kind woman, comes the night. . . .
Sisters, don’t be wearied by the blight.
For what they sow, God’s told us they shall reap.
Angels have prepared you robes of white.
Kind woman, womankind, hold tight your light.
For the 'TRIBUTE TO WOMEN' Poetry Contest
From sagging huts up in the hills,
We watched the tourists flash their bills.
They piled our harvest on their plates,
While soup and scraps were all we ate.
The flames lick up from garbage cans,
Burnt brown like every working man,
Who shouts or sings or mutters low
Of the calluses that come and go.
They toss in straw, more flames shoot up
To light the faces, hewn and rough,
that need a creed, some faith to hold;
to make their insides proud and bold.
Right then and there, I stand to speak.
I will not play the lamb so meek.
The time has come to take back ours
from the wealthy dogs with fat cigars.
First cans, then cars, we overturn.
Now the boulevard begins to burn..
The fools shoot back, forget the cost,
The naked rage must not be lost.
We win ourselves some new recruits,
Some young; some old; some simply brutes;
I do not care where they heard the call.
The revolution now will need them all.
Our cause will die if all stays calm,
So I send out Juan with sweaty palms.
He won't come back, farewell, my friend.
Your blood will flow for greater ends.
Worn out, weary, our morale grows thin.
The feeling grows that we can not win.
We need more guns than we can steal,
But we do have one crop we can deal.
The rifles have arrived now. Good!
Excited now, they crack the wood.
My loathing of red, white and blue,
is spreading like the jungle flu.
Their army scatters, their leaders flee.
We've brought the country to it's knees.
With the capitol dead in our sights,
We'll soon assert the people's rights.
The grainy film does not portray
That it was a picture perfect day.
My second stands there, smart and trim.
It might pay to keep an eye on him.
We march them out in single file.
No need to bother with a trial.
Their baggy shirts and peasant lies
Betray them all as filthy spies.
Yes, the people had decreed this so,
I speak for them so I should know.
Your crimes have brought you here to die.
The people speak through me. Goodbye!
Their bodies jump in crimson leaps,
then tumble down in tangled heaps.
Scarlet skulls and splintered chests,
They'll surely air this in the West.
Bulldoze the bones and spread the lime,
For we all are on the side of time.
And tonight, we gather in the square.
Their blood has paid my ruling fare.
REALLY
I ------JGL-------------- do solemnly swear
to tell you of all that I see and I hear,
invite you inside that dark space in my mind
allow you ten minutes to see what you find.
The errors of learning, childhood mistakes,
the stumbles, the falls, the failed “buckboard brakes”.
The cold teaching penguins, the hollowed out priests
the making of bread with - and without – yeast.
Fumbling of footballs and endless first dates
running for freedom through open church gates,
searching for meaning in life – or in death
discovering reasons – rekindling breath.
Disrobing a man - standing naked – and free
discarding the concepts that kept me – from me,
confronting the demons, denying the brutes
by feeding the bastards their own lying truths.
Standing atop bold towers of steel
alive in a breeze that makes everything real,
holding a love that awakened my passions
cradled inside a life that she fashioned.
Holding small hands, jellied and sweet
dancing with them perched atop my big feet,
Frisbee and soccer played in cold rains,
drying their tears in failure and gains.
Losing a step, no – the grandkids are quicker
or maybe my gut is a little bit thicker,
holding one hand as one left for battle
remembering both when they held baby rattle.
Embracing a soldier, a mother, my baby
filled with the questions of “if, when, and maybe”
Watching a brother and sister rejoice
at announcement that soon there will be a new voice
to carry the heart, the soul, and the wit
of a name, and a family, and what goes with it.
John G. Lawless
9/3/2014
For Skat A Keep It Real poetry contest
A silver shawl hangs heavy over the mountain
sky grey clouds shooting gun barrel smoke hiding sunlight
Looking out towards the ocean dreaming in wild north Atlantic waves
tides turn a little lamb suffering in the spring crouched cold
We all see visions of injustices flash before our eyes turn
for which no one is held responsible the standing joke of our century
So many people turn a blind eye as their souls have already been bought
children of this world have suffered at the hands of tyrant slave masters
Born free without chains attached what gives any race the God given right
killing innocent women and children destroying families unjust actions
Some of us on this planet are sick with an untrustworthy state of affairs
listening to what these monstrous brutes get away with
In the name of peace not twisted truths building bridges instead of walls
who ever sells arms are terrorists against the living
Democracy has no grounds only love the suffering because
behind the mask many in this world condemn us
Branded from birth marked as slaves unto a system each of us a number
piercing bullets flash before the eyes redemption knowing whats true
I
I am disinfected, sanitised from touch and eyes
Do not hold me. I am Bakelite and you smolder
Sat solid, the wall cold against my spine. A back-rest
To concrete electrocution.
I am distilled from Suburbia and Bohemian at Brandenberg
Rigid and saturnine. Heavy lidded Lichtenstein moons
And ruby lip and cheek.
Dumb-flustered and silent rictus
Nothing changes.
II
She edges closer with ostentatious mute steps. Like a bride
And thrice as white with crimson orb flowing underneath
Her caped wings and paper hat. Tiny dragging movements
As though her legs could snap
This marionette matchstick girl unfurls her bouquet of fingers intertwined
And ruffles from her drapes fragments of paper and a tiny plastic cup
I do not notice her. The bleach sticks heavy to the throat and
She envenoms me to the core stomach
She speaks. It is static heavy and foriegn, black-lipped vowels and dull
Continuations of barely literate sounds.
My words are daggered brutes, any poetry the less of my expectations
Is instantly meaningless, crass, common, nauseous and disgusting
Her flowing prose was illegible on those lips. Sounding almost spat
I could have silenced nine decades to my two and circled her in criticism
She would never understand with her barely-English cold translations of her
Own English mother-tongue.
III
People are fascinating
Occassionally
I find I look at them and linger, I study them and calculate their complex algebras
Undoubtedly we are products of our parents and the less of us by-products
We are strings and apples and figs
The woman with her ghost-white face and dress. Her parents were too strict
You can see it in her face, how if you even turn away her eyes circle with bags
And she feels lost, she could cry a thousand summers and undoubtedly should trade my place.
As of my own parents they probably loved me too much. Sheltered me and then
Stopped abrupt as death and cyanide fizzing
Suddenly trading my lineage into friendship and smiles and no, do silence yourselves
I am a maypole and the strings circle about me
Life and ambition they feed upon me, draining me in complex nervous disorder
I am a living question mark
I can feel it
Eating below my skin.
Red Queen Dethroned
Piteous, the limpid bloodstained rose
stunned by Winter’s violent pose
color draining onto hoar frost blade
Red Queen, dethroned, to decompose
beneath the howl of ice-bound serenade.
Conception’s threshold - trembling roots
nurturing the hope of fetal shoots
huddled from the dismal bite of frost
holding against the crush of heartless brutes
Knowing spring is not a “Paradise Lost”*
©9/25/2017
*vague reference to - *Paradise Lost by John Milton
submitted to – Rhyme Time with 5 – poetry contest
sponsor – Laura Loo
An exciting professional sport was brought forth.
It came to the states from Canada in the north.
Sports fans in big cities find this thing nice.
The game is played on a rink covered with ice.
Teams try to shoot a rubber puck into the goal.
Many games on the schedule really take their toll.
There is one thing that nobody will deny.
This sport can get rough, and the tempers will fly.
Most people do not care about the game each night.
Egoistic fans would rather see the players fight.
The swinging of fists proves to be a delight.
When these brutes on skates engage, and blood is spilled,
fans jump up and down, and are thoroughly thrilled.
Nevertheless, hockey is something held dearly.
This is all for a big silver cup awarded yearly.
Gargoyles of deepest night in an island strangest
Preys of mangled bodies they can't digest
Rounded, popping eyes craving with long nails
Caveats of animals eating their own flesh
Villains of Capeesh roaming as beasts
On tables and floors, scratched and feasts
Gobbling maudlin juices of live carmine
Spilling on throat and skins of grapevine
Brutes of cursed and mythical roots
Flutes of cold bodies tootling in boots
Carcasses of narcoleptic nerves in tears
Taunted and pierced by tusks and smears
Written By Gail DeBole
There once was an owl whose loud hoot
Could frighten the fiercest of brutes.
A "whoo-t" of renown
Sent birds circling the town
To find out who did what when to whoo-t!
Note: Illustrated in the following two coloring books available on Amazon.com and other retail websites: Coloring within the Limericks and Coloring within the Animal Limericks
The council meets, all hours, to hear old batty dames yell, what a *****,
we don't think she's a good person, because she doesn't look and act like us.
The soldier's hall considers, is it fair to wage war on a witch?
She isn't supposed to take up arms, isn't supposed to think about war.
But you, cry in my arms and say, "I wish to be loved, why won't some girl
like me? I'm too fat", you say, and all I can offer is take a walk, eat less.
The mother's brigade is unhappy they have their blessed babes pushed in carriages
and shun the woman unable to have children, just offering to baby sit.
The father's brigade is unhappy to be stuck with the bills or to have a walkout wife
and shun any woman who demands her rights to have opinions and money.
But you, tell me of your lack of money, to eat, to drive, to visit friends
so I send money and delight in the happy tales of movies and dining.
I look across the pattern of life and find the dips and downtrodden and say,
what about artificial families, people who sit with our kids and lunch and help homework?
Cursed be you, you say, you have no children, you offer no aid, and steal
this poem, passing it friend to friend and say, what do you think?
Will it help our children gain confidence to have another adult listen?
Will it help those with no parent to have and adult praise and question?
Is it my age I ask and the answer is yes, this is an age of all too opinionated
people failing to listen to the wind, to the silence, to the dreams, to the crying
taking asking looks at their neighbor saying am I keeping up, has that other
person got ahead? I'll not help them because they aren't needy enough
to offer guidance to those who have no time to look beneath beds, look
beneath the society, beneath the judge's bench and find the better way.
The silent one has taken away the light from your world, taken the song away
from the sorrowing, taken the whip from the brutes, and walked away.
She has a life, she has needs to find out more of the truth of reality
she doesn't like the people she sees always sitting in judgement and never listening
to the wind, the truth, to justice, to the downtrodden, to the lonely, to the unforgiven,
to the beaten, the one that finds her mind her best hidden asset you won't accept.
Never forget where you came from,
As you walk in chains,and whips rain on your backs,
As you drag the chains,like beasts and dogs,
As you lie in cages,when the night falls,
As you are fed with leftovers,even that you fight for,
But remember that your mother bore and gave you life,
Remember that your land and colour gave you identity,
Never forget where you came from.
Hold on to life,you'll need every breath,
As you walk the hills,rocky and thorny bushes,
As you go down on your knees,to carry brutes on your backs,
Hold on to dear life,every step shall count,
As you tread the darkest forests,and walk the steepest terrains,
As you act as sacrificial lambs,to protect your masters-
Hold on..
Never forget where you came from.
When they bury you alive,
Remember the earth is your mother;
When they molest those of your blood,
Or act animal on you,
Remember the earth shall swallow them;
When they batter you for fun,
When they use you to satisfy their 'hunting',
Remember the earth watches your tears,
Never forget where you came from.
So like animals you match forth,
Keep on going like you're paid to survive;
As you sweat that of blood and tears as well,
Wipe them off and keep on going;
As you get exhausted and feel like quitting,
Drag yourself like it's good to live like this:
For a day shall come,and your legs shall be free,
A day shall come,you'll head these people,
A day shall come,you'll save those of your kind,
A day shall come,you'll regain to your kind,the lost glory
Never forget where you came from
They walk on me with thumping shoes,
as if they were uncaring brutes.
But I am sure in my heart;
they're sad for their blows smart.
Bitter indeed are the cruel nails,
on my flesh with wounds that ail.
Reminding me of cruci-fixion;
repeatedly I suffer affliction.
Let's take the pains of today,
in hope of the Lord's day.
He surely will exact revenge:
for the devils' innu-merable offense.
The stripes of so many years,
is naught before eternal cheers.
The cool wind from far off heaven,
invites us into arms pleasant.
So walk on me O my dears:
but mourning, for my many tears.
Whether the shadow of your face
Or the stripes of grace on the leaves
Whether the water and soil
In turmoil to sprout and bloom out
Releasing the stress of the bones
Into the cones of the buds
All I collect
In the micro baskets
The moment I get a racket
And you gladly connect with me
The game starts with thrill
Smilingly cooperates the grist mill
Churning the colours
Burning the impurities
Unlocking the keys
Bending the journeys
Grinding the thesis
Breaking the antithesis
And look
Beautifully emerging
The subtle synthesis
From nowhere they appear
The humming bees
For the poetry
For example
Beneath my skull
Just the other day
The sun of Shillong
Its kisses on the hill slopes
Your mouth washing soap on the wash basin
The children
They run in the school playground
The astounding hill peaks
Seeking to pierce the swollen pink clouds
The tall trees like taller women
Shedding shadows on the tea garden
The day labourer clearing the tea roots
The plastics strewn thanks to the brutes
The grist mill felt aroused
Everything it espoused
And the processing started
The flour?
From the cuddling hills
Down to the green oak shadow
Life with peace and strife
______________________________________
June 5, 2018 For The Gristmill Poetry Contest sponsored by Craig Cornish
Note: Considering the short and shorter lines, the violation of 20 line limit
might be condoned. Submitted with this expectation.