Best Canker Poems
Line of inquiry:
“since thoughts speak in past tenses,
drop mind, rely on senses,
embracing and releasing,
pain pangs and pleasure pleasing”
____________________________
I will turn away from the shadows
of what once I knew,
mirroring the past
carrying a c h e s
of battles fought
and dreams that n e v e r came true
instead search for love
flickering within,
never before fanned,
but may blaze and blossom.
it will script new stories
breathe fresh life into me.
it will come in the form of quieting peace
like a hand holding me, never letting go
never again I shall chase
the phantoms of the past.
I ‘ll not cry on flowers wilted,
count on buds that canker might blight,
but marvel over beauty blossomed!
find joy in giving up a plan that went futile
take one day at a time and live now
steal the moment like a thief
and enjoy the beauty the senses give.
extinct are our Yesterdays,
illusory are our Tomorrows,
today is all that exists,
what there is and all there is.
today is our way up hill
the arena for action decreed
the stage set for the show
the tool and trade for life.
today well lived leaves -
every yesterday
a reminiscence - sweet to relish!
every tomorrow
a vision glorious to chase!
drool not, over yester years,
rant not on chances missed
greet Today, right in front!
l i v e Now.
render it your respiration and perspiration
strive,
find,
and reap
rewards
galore!
FALSE PROPHETS
They have the word of God as their encyclopedia
They refer and come out to deceive the myopia
They are quick to inform like Wikipedia
Their actions premeditated like the media
About people they always see vision
But their flaws they fail to acknowledge
They come into the field with a weird mission
Therefore always speaking out of knowledge
They don't have an emblem
But by their deeds we know them
They are infected with a germ
Searching to destroy the worm
On scene they help us genuflect
We scream crazily to pay respect
Behind scene they have their own dialect
Communicating with structures they erect
They consult at midnight while mining
They always see our problems from afar
Nothing not even our prayers except their ways can solve that canker
Men in black, all they do is cunning..
FALSE PROPHETS THAT'S WHAT YOU ARE
"For those who love with heart and soul, there is no such thing as separation"
~By Rumi
Decked in floral wreaths and crown
as I lay in state among family and friends
with my spirit wading through strands forlorn
where lamps shone bright in celestial gleam
bordering a land of bliss out of mortal reach
where neither canker blights, nor flowers wilt
where sorrow never enters and all shall be blest
where each head like the sun aureoled
where God in all His glory doth reign
I saw through my slumber deep, as through a veil
my loved ones grieving great, my journey
unreturned to an untravelled land.
There was crying and whining, sighing and sobbing
in stirring memory of days in all goodness spent
and of bonds stretching beyond life's rim
which set me feel sick of where I was and where I wasn't
so fain to go, so fain to stay,
like a spinning midge,
my spirit veered high and low
between Heaven and Earth
between Mortality and Immortality.
a helium balloon buoyant in the air.
What's the espresso this evening, Rubicam?
My random access memory will light upon it
As I riffle the files of my brain.
Pulling out something fresh,
I burst out with words to cover the enigma.
Bones
Bones are the fare--
Stewed bones with marrow deep inside.
Cracking the bones of the chicken leg,
I find essence,
Everlasting purity so well stored and tucked away,
Like a savings account or DNA.
The vapor of mud rises fleet and narrow.
This is the conduit of the inner sanctum,
The railroad across Canada in the snow.
Red vertigo covers the wheels as they turn,
Rolling asunder like a sky.
We eat and gorge on the beauty of it--
The holy thing--
Sent all holy and shiny new.
We split the marrow with a scalpel,
All sharply tooled and honed.
The operation is a success at last--
Liberation is at hand surely.
The vice has fallen away,
And the orange center is revealed.
My word-center is on autopilot;
I am still, silent, patient.
Then the marrow grows overabundant,
Needing quick hands to capture the thief,
Lest escape be granted.
The expository hose is drawn up.
The bare leg is covered and modesty satisfied.
There is no canker in this truth,
Being pure to the core,
Pure as blood-marrow.
The stigma is gone out of it.
Holy is the anthem and the chorus
Sings a greeting to the little people
Who stand waiting in line.
They watch for some illumination
Of the dark letters written on their souls
Bandits would not deride them
in such an instance.
Horses in a fever will trample words,
But words re-form; they cannot die.
You who bear the mystery,
Who cannot die,
You have palpated my heart
And signified a vast reference point,
Pleading to me with a sad song.
My turbulence is all inside me,
A stormy affair,
Always sorting and reeling back with shock
As the ivy vine climbs the ancient wall.
If you had no device,
Would you not read more books?
The man dignified in the third person
Will ask the questions here, mind you.
Return to me again loon of the wide lake,
Loon hiding in the reeds.
Show me your face before you fly,
And sound your voice in the evening.
An alter ego of ours
A humble church mate
Waked up an kneel down for hours
To everybody, its a checkmate
He was diagnosed a disease canker
Oh no to live impossible
Everybody concluded it's cancer
To his prayers life was possible
He felt the pain of the wound
To be healed,only prayers in supplication
He knelt down in the wind
The Almighty hears his prayer application
Its not a checkmate, everybody elate
Oh yes,it's not a mate lets celebrate
African Pride
Our people are not a folk who bow down their heads,
Hide their hands in between their laps,
Or turn their backs to their foes in the day of battle
We must in this light rise up and fight against
The misfortunes of Africa
Since the ancient times
We all lived in peace, harmony and in unity
We drunk from the same calabash and
Ate from the same china
We thus enjoyed the rich bounty of the Almighty
Until the old diabolical serpent came in with his deceptive,
Cunning counterfeit medicines and
Trouble became our lot
Our fathers have long sought for a lasting cure to this canker,
A solution to the ills of corruption, acrimony and animosity
Bedeviling this African continent.
A philosopher once says of Africans that
Our people do not think with their feet but
With their heads
We do not walk with our heads but
With our feet
The earth we all know belongs to the Almighty
And He sits mightily upon the rivers
May we then bathe away the uncleanness of our hands,
Purify our polluted hearts that we
May reap the Most High’s special blessings
That we may see the true beauty of the hibiscus
We have within our vicinity and inhale
The genuine scent of the African perfume…
The pride of Africa....
It hurts if canker cuts a rose
Or the moon behind cloud's kerchief goes'
We are that sensitive.
Therefore o God why give
Any pretty girl a runny nose?
It hurts if canker cuts a rose
Or the moon behind cloud's kerchief goes'
We are that sensitive.
Therefore o God why give
Any pretty girl a runny nose?
When across the land, water
flowed
And on top of the hut, the cock
crowed
When under the moon, dreams
were hope
And in pursuit of good, they
never stop....,
There, was a country
When cries heard, were of
sucking babies
And the speech of our lords
were glad tidings
When man of the cloth, search
of God wisdom
And those we crowned, toiled
to feed our kingdom....,
There, was a country
When plough shares, worked
the ground
And in sweat, fists were never
clinched
When the land to the nation
brought forth grain
And the fists of fathers, never
caused pain....,
There, was a country
When drums were of dance and
praise of gods
And voices of mothers were
sounds that soothe our souls
When in dark night, the land
was with light
And in day, evil was never hid
from nature's bright....,
There was a country
When the wind blew our flag
high with pride
And the death of our heroes
would bring grief countrywide
When those of the east would
long to meet our king
And of the west, would feed
from our pastures green....,
There, was a country
But now here we stand...,
Without a vesture of covering
Our streams, crimson and our
streets, a chotic tide
Youths fighting
Fathers toiling
Mothers wailing
Politics, a canker to our
economy
The Moby Dick Reunion
One hundred fifty nine years have passed
Since Melville published his novel.
Seven hundred twenty pages in length
Some say it was much too nautical.
All of the characters have gathered.
They’re going to have a reunion.
Rumor has it, they say, that Herman himself
Is making a huge revelation.
Ishmael is the first to arrive,
And it’s he who was telling the story.
That’s only right, in the book he survived,
He deserves to get all the glory.
Fedallah and Moby were next in line,
Just in from the Dr. Phil Show.
Their friendship had grown a lot lately.
The harpooner was psychic you know!
When he and Phil studied the big fishes mind,
They found out his reason for anger.
The fact that he was albino
Had burned in his mind like a canker.
Ahab, it seems, was equally mean,
And caused a lot of his stress.
He’d cornered the whale with harpoon boats,
And offered no way for egress.
Moby’s life has been changed forever.
He’s hitched to a really cute killer.
She’s working part time at Sea World,
Seems they needed a sub for their “killer”.
The pub where they met was named Starbucks,
In honor of the owner.
The first mate was rich as a pirate.
He could even afford to buy toner.
Then through the door entered Ahab,
With a prosthesis and brand new pipe.
He finally learned to be happy,
And enjoyed a simpler life.
With him was Herman Melville,
A screenplay under his arm.
One thousand pages he’d written,
About whalers who lived on a farm?
The crew didn’t give their attention.
By now, they were tanked up on rum.
He said he was going to Hollywood,
And if they were smart they would come.
But Ahab and Moby were sobbing.
Tears falling into their mugs.
After all of their trials they found friendship
In the bottom of a jug.
Herman begged them to go make the movie.
But, their lives were happier now.
They all had families to care for,
And no urge for taking a bow.
It seems that while Melville was groveling,
Pip and Ishmael had stolen the play.
They put it in Queequey’s coffin,
And watched it float slowly away.
That was the end of the reunion.
They all went home that night,
Happy with the realization,
That their lives were all just right!
Poets plunged in primate pain
Hear my rustic roar resounding
Tattle at the table again
Joy from justice shambles rebounding
Weld here the way to whole us
Out of the fragments of our distrust.
This gender war must end
Self must relent and pride must bend.
Too many are meandering in mettle broken self
Children like lost sheep bleating
I cannot keep the canker on the shelf
The strong the weak is strangling and beating
The blood is on our hands
O we with wealth of voice must proclaim
A new effort to heal the broken bands,
Let us for love and joy wing now the flame.
Where are the homes where flowers bloom
And conversations can agree
The hurt of love is the bridge of gloom
In surrender I walk free.
We are complements and not opposites
The challenge can wring us dry
O let each at the devil spits
Happiness is the courage to defy.
Hypochondrial Delusion
A mind corrupted canker
Of cystic self failure
Even gastric anorexia
And fluttery throb to alight the fear
An adrenaline generated tachycardia
That matches respiration
And causes hyperventilation
With invasive pacy rhythm
And palpitating violation
To anxious infarction
In schizoid arrest
A hepatic paranoia
of dermal yellow
And lily liver assault
That feeds a life non start
Of malignant low self esteem
A delusional malaise
Of apoplectic panic
And stressful apoplexy
A localized dorsal twinge
To further worry
Lumbar or thoracic or
Renal calculi or a case of
Bulimic nausea and peptic ulcer
To stoke the festering psyche
Of somatic obsession
Embolic anguish that leads to
A hypertensive strain
With muscular tremor and distorted vision
And a full blown occulogyric crisis
Ensued by catatonia
Comatosed by
Psychotic breakdown and
Inactive body systems
A perusal of the medical book
Confirms the diagnosis of
Life threatening
Hypochondria
Rickshaw |abia
punish my honey
drink my creamy dream
eat my children between fat-bread
Stulted pedantic canker-bloom
Your bird-plucked eyes
will gas-up and advertise
We’ve come from far away
Like all the others.
A morning spent on lonesome dirt roads
Searching for the blueberry farm;
Endless acres of hazy blue groves.
The pickers trickle in.
We step out of our cars
Into the dust with straw hats
To block the blistering sun.
The owner sits on her porch
With stacks of clean buckets
And a chest of cold bottled water.
It is the hottest day of the year.
Dirt and sweat gather on our necks
As we hurry to the shady rows.
It is on sad occasion that we come
To pick the wonderful berries,
Disturbing them from their thickets,
Taking them before their end is due.
The sweetest ones taunt us
Just out of arm’s reach.
We are no better than the canker
And worms that kill.
The owner graciously snaps a photo
To mark the day.
We huddle close in goofy grins,
Sun burnt with buckets teaming.
Archangel that sways upon my peripheral pedestal,
Your eyes flutter gaunt pernickety,
An anachronistic presumption that does not grant fastidious rebuttal,
A perennial anathema that balances on a threshold so rickety,
Your scruples warrant the acceptance of abeyance,
Disguised muse, Incitor of Loath, your canker manifests itself,
Your sophistry is deflected in one single moment of sense,
Then emerge fettered wings and claws of malign wealth.
Bleeding thorn rose,
Personification of deception,
The resonance of your nefarious heartbeat breeds in my woes,
Beauty is just an artful perception,
Prevarications that even fool chicanery,
A ruse that compelled the fatal touch,
Oh white rose, now a blood red filled prism of rivalry,
A slight prick, poisoned my heart as such.
A circus of freaks dancing upon my intoxication,
Sober Liquid that mock my hallucinations,
Life,like the glass of the night, breaks at the light of dawn.