Best Careworn Poems
He tills within the buzzard's flight
this cruel land he calls his home,
ewe and wether, milk and bucket,
broken spirit, ne'er to roam.
He's stuck for good, the laws of nature
guide him, be they right or wrong,
gone his hopes and his compassion,
save for the curlew's mournful song.
Courted by the country lasses,
love can't penetrate this soul,
pain and grief his only help meets,
daily toil his only goal.
Mother, father, gone to dust now,
confidants who'd calm his fears,
struggling with a heavy heart,
internalizing all his tears.
It's back to digging, discompacting
stones and boulders from the earth,
working 'til there's no more sun
in Wales, the cradle of his birth.
Striving against the elements
he stretches every nerve and bone,
every muscle, every sinew,
'til exhaustion brings him home.
Ne'er a smile adorns his visage,
there simply is no time for this,
haggard, careworn, slave to nature,
racked by weather's wantonness.
Two weeks gone, and there they find him,
chided by the wind and rain,
cadavered and condemned to fester,
never to be sad again.
*******
...dedicated to the Welsh poet R.S. Thomas
and his book, 'Song At The Year's Turning.'
Categories:
careworn, nature,
Form:
Verse
Broken, this aged vessel
fractured by fate in matter and mind
careworn and cracked like creeping veins of window frost ...
(but colder in my solitude, I surmise)
Oh, but wholly blessed on the surface, really
no furrows or folds or wrinkly crows
hardly a dozen gray hairs, but for goatee' ...
(winter taking hold there, evidently
the once fiery and fervently experienced lips
put to the frigid air of the disinterested and forsaken)
Too proud, really, that I look twenty years my lesser
for it reaps naught but envy ...
(when I yearn for naught but love)
Yes, the porcelain facade still reflects the sun
but ONLY that, then back to whence it came
the warmth seeps not, and oh the splintered shell within
shards as sharp and crimped as British wit
whether by bent or happenstance or horrid folly ...
(they are as defined as they are hidden
as black as they are white
as cursed as they are blessed)
A hundred and more, they are a memory, each
a pain, a tragedy, a misstep, a ravaged heart given fully
returned with but a wish and a wave
but you see, those cracks and breaks and chips
all carefully mended ... with gold ...
(caring friends, exquisite joys, profound experience, loving family
hope, faith, renewed self-respect, and a million little things
that may pass others unnoticed
but to me, are the lifeblood of existence)
They fill the seams with the most wonderful precious metal
and that broken, shattered soul is healed
made whole by what is truly valuable and lasting
far more formidable and beautiful and priceless ...
(with the wisdom of breakage and healing
and all the myriad lessons learned in the process)
Than it ever was ...
(than I ever was)
Before.
Submitted on April 4, 2020
To the "Strand Choice Z, Any Form, Any Theme" Poetry Contest
Brian Strand, Sponsor.
( For those not familiar with the ancient Art of Kintsugi, please take a moment to check it out - it represents a model for life that is very special - strengthening through adversity. Here's a link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kintsugi )
Categories:
careworn, analogy, appreciation, beauty, life,
Form:
Free verse
~ for Mom ~
you …
kiss my hand three times
as tender as a thistle, borne
‘my angel’ you whisper, as I kiss yours -
skin as thin as paper
careworn by the million things you
have done for me, but warm …
I turn at the door to
shut the light -
just in time to snatch your
sweetened kiss from the air
I return the same …
hugging it to your chest like
a child’s doll,
you smile, eyes closed -
‘I love you’ we exchange softly …
such a silly little ritual
among a thousand others we have
yielded over the years …
but none as precious
none as dear to my being
none that I now miss as terribly
for the sadly sobering fact
that we will never, ever … ever
share it …
again.
Categories:
careworn, analogy, death, loss, mom,
Form:
Free verse
moon …
beams that burn -
that turn my surgings to slag
my teeth to serrations,
hungering …
can those silly sentients not see the
verity in my veneration, you?
do they truly think it’s only art,
only … verse?
that my blood runs in
these inky scratchings alone?
‘why pen these dark tales with such legitimacy -
such … clear scope?’
oh … why, indeed!
for were they but tales, they would
hold their own undoing -
such silly stories spatter the centuries,
but my secrets speak from the dark
of nightmares, whispered
they move with the muscle of truth
and bear witness to
the fiery curse …
I wonder, is my affliction as
ancient as your mares and mounts?
do those careworn crinkles hint of
a lifeblood unseen
that drips its poison to my arteries at
each milky plenilune?
with a single ruddy lesion you
tore the sun from my sky -
drove my days to the shadows,
the beast, blossoming …
did you entrance her, too, the one who
broke my skin to weeping -
who lit this pyre?
am I now but another minion of
your pale presidium,
bound by iniquitous urge to sever other
souls from the daylight?
if only that laughing lad I was
could’ve known why you tugged so
hard, his verdant heart …
why your shimmer ‘pon the sea
timed its cadence,
out-dazzling the sunrise …
why every kiss - every lass’ fair dermis
required your blue baptism to persuade -
to pique my passions …
perhaps then, with such portent,
I might have learned to silence your
alluring murmur in my ear,
and hardened my marrow to
your warm, wicked drug …
but the truth hid from me in the shards of
your strangling shadows
until your diabolical delirium flooded my
blood, thick as mud
brought by a human far too
exquisite to spurn -
a warm wound, opened in burgeoned intimacy
your scourge, igniting my veins -
mixing serum with torment
and ripping, like unfettered flesh,
the bright-born sun …
from my days.
Categories:
careworn, analogy, fantasy, horror,
Form:
Free verse
The Minstrel
In a doorway, squatting, strumming out of tune
There sits a minstrel, gazing whilst he plays
A string of chords, discordant in their mix
Combining all his thoughts of better days.
Unshaven, threadbare, clothed as once he did
Before some unexpected fall from grace,
So now he plays life’s thoughts for all to hear
As passers-by avoid his careworn face.
A flat cap holds a few small copper coins
Reflecting those who understand his plight
And so I cross and place a token too
Acknowledged only by a nod so slight.
His eyes look through me, seemingly to say,
This could be you who's sitting here today.
Categories:
careworn, people,
Form:
Sonnet
Let the evils of the day suffice to themselves,
Let not the dark descend to deeper depths.
Let our better angels draw their subtle breaths,
To softly sing of virtue 'round our souls' deep wells
As the nightfrost bears the spectral knells
From distant, dreaming, timeworn towers
Slowly marking magical hours,
Casting secret shadowspells.
Let slip our barges on the sea of dreams,
Above those deeps where memory sleeps.
Smooth down the furrowed, careworn brow
As our ship above soft wavelets streams,
Unheedful of the kelpy deeps
Beneath the brightness we call Now.
Categories:
careworn, introspection, life, peace, psychological,
Form:
Italian Sonnet
Fawning and falling, there goes your heart butting
in again. faded careworn jean jacket's pockets frayed
no longer the deep indigo to match her eyes,
daring me to swing higher than she rocketing skyward
instinct failing me., how I want it to kick in..
nothing left to say, as the day wore thin, only she knew why..
go away with me in her eyes, please stay with me in mine.
Cunning cheeks proud, tho' gaunt.., how poor she must be.
asked her when she last had something to eat
restless heart hers.., so different than any I'd ever known
only a small handbag that looked once to've been mauve
lean lesson in friendship's hardest won friend..
'cause I need her to know someone cares if only this once,
so sad to see society steal her smile away.
She'll find it again, I always hoped this for Carol..
messy bun lip glossed lips whistle at a plateless car
in yet another restless turn of the sun..
lovely loveless one that learned so much from the street
endless search for you, virtue's never ending trap for me..
Categories:
careworn, cheer up, girl, innocence,
Form:
Acrostic
With glorious primordial certainty
the sun will rise, the sun will set;
likewise you languish knowing what you're about,
you know what is and isn’t so;
yet, ultimately, you don’t.
Chained to the chromium railings of
a sterile value system,
some terminal, addled suffragette,
hollow to the very core, quintessentially
punch-drunk by the ghost fists
of what you do not know;
sometimes you can dream, more often you won’t.
This is all you wanted, surely,
way back when Homer was a pup;
this thing you worked for, this cold material cocoon,
this anaesthetic cult to which you belong;
then again, maybe not.
All your wild beasts are chained and in cages
you painstakingly banged them up;
now you act surprised in a wrung-out
monochrome way
at the quiet death of your protest song
with the former self you have forgot.
Just as a virus will seek out a host,
just as water will find it’s own level;
you’re a schizoid, new age, careworn dolt
with no limits to how far your mind will sink
in unfathomable depths of self delusion.
Wrenched this way and that, going with the flow,
serving both God and the Devil;
but where now is the rebel heart,
the hedonistic happy fool,
the keeper of the demon drink?
no more than a crumbling memory,
the feeblest illusion.
Once burning with such crucial fire,
a quiver full of arrows shot with telescopic vision;
now all that burns no more, doubted by the rain
spat from black clouds of self denial;
no remnant traces of an ex-antihero.
Servile to the whims of children,
and an emasculating harpy
who regards you with derision;
you are alone your own executioner
self judge and juror at the kangaroo trial
self sentenced to figure less than zero.
Categories:
careworn, life, philosophy, sad, social,
Form:
Verse
The Allegory of the Cage
I have not written much of late;
I toil in my hamster wheel.
While ev'ry sage of ev'ry age
Will gape with wonder at my cage,
And speak in voices small and still
About my stilted, careworn gait.
Yet when I do find time to write,
I'll leave my cage, in mind alone.
But if I'm sad and terror-clad,
You'll know how deeply I've gone mad,
When slashing sinew, skin and bone
To cleave a thought on pages white.
Now writ with expurgated bile,
My caustic words are dark and spare.
I've filled the pages with my rages
Over others' self-made cages.
As they trudge without a care
And bear it all with practiced smile.
For, I know what they don't see;
Our hamster wheels are hooked to naught.
With blinded sight, and faces tight,
They churn and burn their wheels with might,
And not a lone, insightful thought
Will loose their bonds and set them free.
I cry out loud, an anguished howl,
Still knowing I will join back in.
Yet all the tears from lengths of years
While fleeing from our deepest fears,
Can never heal a single sin,
Nor soothe away a single scowl.
So, in I go to man my post.
I coax my wheel back up to speed.
I'm better now. I know not how,
But sidle up beside my trough
And eat the slop I do not need,
Because I'm better off than most.
I have not written much but this,
My musings on a ghastly fate:
We turn our wheels and chase our heels
Forgetting how it truly feels
To live and die, to love and hate;
Our ignorance indeed is bliss.
© Copyright 2007 Shawn H. Hall - All Rights Reserved
Categories:
careworn, allegory, angst, dark,
Form:
Dramatic Verse
Ardent galleon cutting foamy high tide
Each sliver born to venture yet farther
Captain and lady, stout crew by their side,
Still hailed by stalled gray frigate in harbor
You’re bailing water again, foundering
Says the unsubtle, frantic semaphore
Wan efforts to stay afloat floundering
Desperate colors, guilt cannot ignore
Ours not the only ship with billowed sails
Sure hands ride in closer proximity
Yet only our craft you insist to hail
Another failure for your litany
Ere, as your crew, began my sailing craft
On fair seas, through inky nights’ frozen rain
How could I surmise, you color me daft,
My apprenticeship owes eternal chains?
Leaks in careworn hull not of our making
A Dramamine rerun, your sophistry
To sail in your wake, sadly mistaken
Your dry dock is not our trajectory
5/9/16
© Thomas W. Quigley
Categories:
careworn, allegory, boat, sea,
Form:
Quatrain
He tills within the buzzard's flight
this cruel land he calls his home,
ewe and wether, milk and bucket,
broken spirit, ne'er to roam.
He's stuck for good, the laws of nature
guide him, be they right or wrong,
gone his hopes and his compassion,
save for the curlew's mournful song.
Courted by the country lasses,
love can't penetrate this soul,
pain and grief his only help meets,
daily toil his only goal.
Mother, father, gone to dust now,
confidants who'd calm his fears,
struggling with a heavy heart,
internalizing all his tears.
It's back to digging, discompacting
stones and boulders from the earth,
working 'til there's no more sun
in Wales, the cradle of his birth.
Striving against the elements
he stretches every nerve and bone,
every muscle, every sinew,
'til exhaustion brings him home.
Ne'er a smile adorns his visage,
there simply is no time for this,
haggard, careworn, slave to nature,
racked by weather's wantonness.
Two weeks gone, and there they find him,
chided by the wind and rain,
cadavered and condemned to fester,
never to be sad again.
*******
...dedicated to the Welsh poet R.S. Thomas
and his book, 'Song At The Year's Turning.'
Categories:
careworn, dedication, writing,
Form:
Verse
broken, this aged vessel
fractured by fate in matter and mind
careworn and cracked like creeping veins of window frost ...
(but colder in my solitude, I surmise)
oh, but wholly blessed on the surface, really
no furrows or folds or wrinkly crows
hardly a dozen gray hairs, but for goatee' ...
(winter taking hold there, evidently
the once fiery and fervently experienced lips
put to the frigid air of the disinterested and forsaken)
too proud, really, that I look twenty years my lesser
for it reaps naught but envy ...
(when I yearn for naught but love)
yes, the porcelain facade still reflects the sun
but ONLY that, then back to whence it came
the warmth seeps not, and oh the splintered shell within
shards as sharp and crimped as British wit
whether by bent or happenstance or horrid folly ...
(they are as defined as they are hidden
as black as they are white
as cursed as they are blessed)
a hundred and more, they are a memory, each
a pain, a tragedy, a misstep, a ravaged heart given fully
returned with but a wish and a wave
but you see, those cracks and breaks and chips
all carefully mended ... with gold ...
(caring friends, exquisite joys, profound experience, loving family
hope, faith, renewed self-respect, and a million little things
that may pass others unnoticed
but to me, are the lifeblood of existence)
they fill the seams with the most wonderful precious metal
and that broken, shattered soul is healed
made whole by what is truly valuable and lasting
far more formidable and beautiful and priceless ...
(with the wisdom of breakage and healing
and all the myriad lessons learned in the process)
than it ever was ...
(than I ever was)
before.
Categories:
careworn, appreciation, heartbreak, introspection, life,
Form:
Free verse
Requiescat in Pace
Written: by Tom Wright
February 2015
At the outset,
Tears start like dew from a tender leaf,
Then transcend into a torrent;
A mind is a library of thoughts,
Neatly categorized,
Until this contrary wind blew;
Rummaging through past thoughts,
Has left me feeling careworn,
Without experience or wisdom;
As I drift betwixt illusion and realism.
Confusion is cursing my mind,
Leaving pools of passion that sting.
My innermost thoughts are pillaged
As if dementedly abducted;
A short time of elation,
Fails to rid me of a lifetime of sorrow;
If something is truly irrecoverable did it ever exist?
While seeking transition to an amended life,
I realize, that pardon sits roadside,
Going nowhere,
As long as resentment drives the car;
Categories:
careworn, death of a friend,
Form:
Free verse
He tills within the buzzard's flight
this cruel land he calls his home,
ewe and wether, milk and bucket,
broken spirit, ne'er to roam.
He's stuck for good, the laws of nature
guide him, be they right or wrong,
gone his hopes and his compassion,
save for the curlew's mournful song.
Courted by the country lasses,
love can't penetrate this soul,
pain and grief his only helpmeets,
daily toil his only goal.
Mother, father, gone to dust now,
confidants who'd calm his fears,
struggling with a heavy heart,
internalizing all his tears.
It's back to digging, discompacting
stones and boulders from the earth,
working 'til there's no more sun
in Wales, the cradle of his birth.
Striving 'gainst the elements
he stretches every nerve and bone,
every muscle, every sinew,
'til exhaustion brings him home.
Ne'er a smile adorns his visage,
there simply is no time for this,
haggard, careworn, slave to nature,
racked by weather's wantonness.
Two weeks gone, and there they find him,
chided by the wind and rain,
cadavered and condemned to fester,
never to be sad again.
Categories:
careworn, nature, tribute,
Form:
Verse
Tranquil day, Spring on the flood,
birds busy with their careworn caution
just see how their skills unite to feed
and stay the course of life as plants
via for so successful photosynthesis
as we garden out of delightful duty,
amateur to our joy in the carefree sun
and quiet times in mid week as even
the traffic is sunny side up as most
neighbours at work and children at
school, so a rare tranquil state to dig
delightfully the postage stamp kitchen
garden and mow the lawn post noon
as the dew departs and the sward though
winning no awards except mine for not being
too wet or too dry, just right to walk, run, sit
on with the curtain wall of beach with barbican
trees of defence to keep us safe from cars and trucks
and soak any surface water underneath this green
copper beauty beach hedge, the envy of the neighbours.
Cutting out dead plants in serious style and pleasantly potting
assorted plants for a bounty of baskets that defy weeds to do
their worst as ours is a garden of England, so weeds warn that
flowers, vegetables and fruit will fructify successfully if we do not
take it too seriously for you know what they say, a perfect garden
predicates a lack of a love life, but she or he who loves a garden
cannot surely be loveless in their own life now that Spring has sprung.
Categories:
careworn, garden,
Form:
Free verse