Best Caveats Poems
When she walked by my side on a lonely road
And took me to the other side, much more verdant,
Through the barren lands of scorched desert,
Clueless I was about the paradigm of love.
If only had I asked, she would’ve taken me there
Into the sunshine from darkened shadows,
From the juncture of fears and saddened tears.
But I remained silent when it was time to speak
Choosing to not tell her how much I loved her
As I held the distance between bliss and sorrow,
When impulsively I veered in the wrong direction.
And I never saw the pastures beyond the hills
Or beauty of the terrain past the river bend.
Going where feckless ages have gone before
Embarking upon a path well-traveled
Ignoring pretty flowers in unkempt meadows.
Yet, she came to rescue at the edge of my angst
From caveats of today, cautions of tomorrow,
Standing with me in the midst of winter-storm
Promising spring flowers in colors of fall.
I saw the blossoms that were about to bloom
And blush on horizon hinting of the rising sun
And I heard the tempo of a concert on piano,
While roiled in turmoil of the unsaid, the unwritten,
Hidden within the depths of my vacant soul;
Incapable of voicing what the silence evoked.
September 18, 2019
Placed 1st: Crossroads poetry contest
Sponsor: Silent One
Placed 1st: Strand contest #710 by Brian Strand
Categories:
caveats, love hurts,
Form:
Free verse
Let’s take a ride, how about traveling, to outer space,
Just accept anything’s possible, it’s our cosmic chase,
Moving faster than light speed, in the blink of an eye,
Unleash your imagination, laws of physics, don’t apply,
Maybe stay closer to home, getting carried away,
Not that it’s impossible, Probably better this way,
I bid to free your mind, open up Pandora’s box,
Some controlling egotist, may be keeping locked.
Might think this is fantasy, I promise you not,
Keeps us unrestrained, from an imperious lot,
Rather we’d stay stupid, believe everything’s fine,
Brainwashed all our lives, left to tow the line.
Too many gaslighters, out for personal gain,
Call us troublemakers, having gall, to complain,
I am not preaching, just offering sound advice,
Keep your independence, for life’s full of choice.
Well thank God for google, if needing a little help,
Press a few touchscreens, a tonic within itself.
Always some caveats, beware of computer trolls,
Half decent firewall, should suffice on the whole.
Is too much knowledge, really a dangerous thing,
Worse than owning shotguns, barely aged sixteen,
I agree in some cases, ignorance truly is bliss,
Only if comforting, from the inevitable abyss.
Many poets shone light, on history’s darkest times,
Obscure aficionados, emancipating reality with rhyme,
Fighting nightmarish wars, writing obituaries home,
Bleeding ink upon paper, never flinching in their tone.
Others encapsulate landscape, frozen in winter snow,
How they portray nature, this rhymster will never know,
Beautiful form of art, smashing out from all restraints,
Poets you set me free, lest my tribute is mundane.
By
David Kavanagh
Categories:
caveats, appreciation, education, internet, meaningful,
Form:
Quintain (English)
OUR BOUNTIFUL GOD
Our God is bountiful because…
Eternal generosity never runs out of blessing remedies
They appear when least anticipated
Popping up – leaping out – capturing the unexpected
As lost pennies found with surprises bearing gifts
Trembling with anticipation of smiles and dancing laughter
Benediction of brightest benevolence
Love divine sent in daily, heavenly, valentines.
Valentine’s appear signed by love’s sweetest heart –
Hearts of God’s beatifying bounty not hidden
Found in clouds and rocks, in garden harvest consecrations
Beloved bliss overflowing –never empty - no refills needed –
Greeting cards of extravagant grace – no signature or postage due –
Bound in mercy’s lace impervious to time.
Love divine sent in daily, heavenly, valentines.
God’s bursting bounty of abundant grace filled with delights –
Warehouse shelves of mercy’s lavish greeting cards inexhaustible
Divinity’s heart throbs in love letters – no conditional caveats –
Always a dedication to beloved children even prodigals
With an everlasting toast of grace spoken over miracles
Postmarked invitations to jubilees sealed with eternity’s kiss
Love divine sent in daily, heavenly valentines
Tender devotion more enduring than resurrected bones once lost to time
Revelation’s paper hearts edged in fragrant incenses of filigree
Abounding generosity – uncontainable – exalting felicity
Written in messages of consecrated majesty
Surging elegance refined in the refiners purifying fire
Unfettered favor, the ever open hand, solace of the heart’s desire.
Love divine sent in daily, heavenly, valentines
God is bountiful because…
11-13-20
Contest: Our Bountiful God
Sponsor: Julia Ward
Categories:
caveats, blessing, day, god, heart,
Form:
Free verse
Dear dada
add an “ist”
to it all
I reject
in the face
of it all
Aestheticism
true beauty
is found in the
ugliness of it all
peaking out
under coverlets
of mud
throwing
spit balls
of pulchitrude
wrapped up
time bombs
that stick
to the banal
unexpected beauty …
of it all,
ambitious
edges and curves
open and inviting
accompanied by caveats
there will be
splendid over-ripe
gardens of Eden
followed teasingly
in close pursuit, by the
madhatters’ tea parties
and Hugos' balls
rooms too large,
and rooms too small
it’s all
rather
simple
underneath
the dirt
of it all
precious
and most expensive
jewels are found
smudged kisses
mascara stained
cheeks of Cinderellas
holding spaces
for roses are red
and violets are blue
daisy chains
of love me
love me knots
tightly
tied
small victories
virtues held
and lost, conquests
stroking glass slippers
drinking in the gins
and espousing
their 3 wishes
looking for
long lost Kings
failing that,
settling for
paupers, not
princes
their crystal balls
over brave and
missing the mark
shattering
then later
lying unclaimed
under the sun
melting
through the
flaws
Dear dada
add an “ist”
to it all
escapist
artist
tourist
minimalist
extremist
illusionist
fatalist
but never
realist
escape artist
mud wrestling naked
in poetic jello, at the
Cabaret Voltaire
Candide Diderot. ‘24
Dadaist.
Categories:
caveats, art, muse, poets, satire,
Form:
Free verse
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
Categories:
caveats, scary,
Form:
Vogon Poetry
The birds of pray are on their way, in every beak the Word
(of ptomaine tomes by gnarly gnomes) whose meaning is obscured;
they roost aloof on every roof, obscene but always herd,
to tell the tale of Jonah’s whale and other rhymes absurd -
with shifty eyes, they’re giving whys for living life deferred.
While jackals lean, hyenas mean, and hungry crocodiles
feast in the lounge and never scrounge, lambs languish in the aisle.
The naive dare to say “Unfair, let’s try to reconcile.
We’ll all relax and weigh the facts, let justice spin the dial.”
With jaundiced monks and minds pre-shrunk, the jury is compiled.
The Rulers meet, First Ladies greet, the Kings appear in style.
Before the Court, their sins are short, they’re swept into a pile;
with diatribes and petty bribes, the jurors are beguiled.
The Herd entreats, the Shepherd bleats the verdict of the trial:
“You have no face. Stay in your place, stay in the Rank and File.
And wait instead, for when you’re dead, for riches afterwhile”;
Aristocrats add caveats while sailing down the Nile:
“If Minds are mugged or simply drugged with philtres in a vial,
then few indeed will fail to feed the Pharaoh’s Crocodile.”
The wordsmiths spin, the bankers grin and politicians smile,
the riff and raff, they never laugh, they mark a martyred mile.
The rituals are finished, all, here comes the Reverent Priest.
He leads the crowds beneath the clouds, and there the flock is fleeced
with crossing signs and bloody wines and consecrated yeast,
“The last are first, the rich are cursed.” (The leached remain the least.)
His step is gay without dismay before his evening feast;
he thanks the Lord for room and board and bows to Eden East;
he doesn’t sigh or wonder why the sins have not decreased.
The sinking sun is now undone, the sky is fading red.
A spider black hides in a crack and spins a silken thread
and babes will soon collapse and swoon, on curbs they call a bed;
with vacant eyes they'll fantasize and dream of gingerbread,
and so be freed, though still in need, from anguish of the dead.
Continued
Categories:
caveats, drug, fantasy,
Form:
Rhyme
Erotic Mystery
poem
Lionel Derbyshire
The morning smells like roses
The night is left behind.
Two bodys rolling over organs
Waiting and slithering close
There are no walls
To divide kisses
Hearts are erotic
Love is rage.
The ecstasy starts
Bodys grow stiff
Parts are pouting.
Honey flowing streaming
Fearing no caveats.
The morning smells like roses.
The sheets they slip
Sharp nails etch
Every blue vein in ire
Crying deep.
The lips rapture
The seduction myteriously.
The eyes are close
Hearts are pounding ,
Cupid is in loving brace
such like Eros in blythe
And Aphrodite just lushes about.
Or am I just ..
Swirling bordeaux.
Categories:
caveats, allusion, cute love, desire,
Form:
ABC
The horsemen have arrived on their menacing mares,
Whose stiletto-hoofed horseshoes click-clack on an achromatic static;
Silent staccatos inside an ultraviolet light.
As vidalian-dampened eyes drip viridian veneers before the mounted steeds,
And embrocations of nuclear infernos' fumes simmer their cimmerian shades,
A penumbral eclipse gallops atop the sickened sky.
Diaries dug from the barren breasts of Chernobyl,
Inscribed with cautionary caveats of the terrace's truncation:
Of the kudzu and its vehicular veins sucking its captured prey,
Gobbled by mushroom sombreros with barbed electron brims.
No more shall zephyrs sing the azalea thistle.
No more shall blackened dahlias dance upon the dungeon drapes.
No more shall lightning lick the leathery land of ozone.
At last the poisoned atom's apple has been bitten.
Down it goes through the three mile throat that thickens with silica,
Oxidizing the once electric crepuscules with a toadish croak.
And at last, this system of solar spheres will be but a dream,
Hidden away in supernova starlight; locked with skeletal keys behind your mind.
Categories:
caveats, future, grave, holocaust, psychological,
Form:
Free verse
Tomorrow’s another day, when
this present is dead and done
In reality one rotation, on
earths path around the sun
The position can be calculated,
but what lies in store unknown
Our planet’s measurable, not
unpredictable like skin and bone
And what happened in the past,
ripples on through today
Unnoticed in black space,
random events still come our way
Set forth in motion, from an
indivisible speck of creation
Seeded is life, seeded is death,
seeded by quantum vibration
Does evolution even matter,
is what we see, what we get
A generation tries find purpose,
then hands over to the next
Accumulations of knowledge,
with caveats of past mistakes
Our monkey business perhaps,
one condition we cannot shake
Are we simply apex animals,
who developed higher brains
Beasts of untold genius, primal
instinct runs through our veins
Intelligence driving us mad,
at odds with ethics and morals
A fixation on mortality, conflicts
of minds causing quarrels
What is consciousness, from
which dimension do we view
Electric signals in our heads,
or cosmic portals seeping through
Wherever this source comes from,
and nobody knows for sure
So many gods and theories,
small wonder life’s obscure
Cryptic forces build reality,
but not readily understood
Dark energy, Higgs fields,
the shape of Genomes in our blood
Crucified by curiosity, because
of our advanced minds
Is the price of being too clever,
really just making us blind
What brings manifestation,
should we look for reason at all
Why not sheer oblivion, how
come an infinite large and small
Born to die is simple, living
forever way too complex
Does truth lie in the medium,
where chosen ones intersect
Where are you Jesus
Where are you Muhammad
Where are you God
Where are you Buddha
Where are you Allah
I’m wide awake,
in this land of nod
By
David Kavanagh
Categories:
caveats, allusion, creation, humanity, life,
Form:
Rhyme
Silence whispers
Softly murmuring out
Sweet essence breezes
That sighs through your hair
And susurrates the saplings
Taciturn memories
Moment of yesterdays…
Hushed hopes of tomorrow
Fragile reticent promises…
A phantom spectacle
Forever unattainable
Remote and distant
These frivolous voices
Softly murmuring out
Sweet essence breezes
Lost aspirations
Callously blown caveats…
Gently muted choices
Easy and idle thoughts…
Silence whispers
Categories:
caveats, imagination, introspection, life, mystery,
Form:
Free verse
The horsemen have arrived on their menacing
mares. Whose stiletto hoofed horseshoes click-clack on which
Achromatic static staccatos inside ultraviolet light. As vidalian dampened
eyes drip with verid veneers before the mounted steeds, embrocations of nuclear infernos' fumes simmer in cimmerian shades; A penumbral eclipse galloping atop the sickened sky. Diaries dug from the barren breasts of Chernobyl inscribed
cautionary caveats of the terrace's truncation, just as the kudzu
and its vehicular veins suck from its captured praying prey, the
mushroom's sombrero barb grabs in gross excess all around.
No more
shall the zephyr sing with azaelian thistles, No more shall the
blackened
dahlias dance in
this dungeon we've become.
No more shall lightening
lick the leathery lands of ozone.
At last the poisoned atom's
apple has been bitten. Down it goes
through the three mile throat that thickens with silica,
Oxidizing the once electric crepuscules of the
toad's croak. And at last this system of solar spheres will be but a dream, Hidden away and locked with skeletal keys behind the mind.
Categories:
caveats, dark, death, imagery, nature,
Form:
Shape
Tim is a thinker and operates within the logic of his brain
Reasonable thoughts solutions imperative webs rule
and divide analyses paradigms and guidance from hell
He googles and ogles centrifugal dispersion displayed
on the smoke screen of distracting internet searches
A seeker he is however the computer can think but not feel
He had encountered Dialectical Behaviour Therapy
with the message of emotions complementing his
cognitive certainties meant to assemble the wise mind
Zen it must be then but even the information highway
takes him to Zen Mate a platform for hyperspace security
He can’t even delete it once installed hook line and sinker
Zen Zero Engagement with Nonsense obfuscates imminent truth
looms large as he decides to simply be under a luscious fig tree
An orange loin cloth covers his modesty as he attempts humility
Yet meditation still takes him far away from Gautama Siddhartha
to associations of Gauntanamo Bay Cuba and Alejandro Fidel Castro
but what has Tao got to do with it anyway what about Mao Zedong
Tim’s soul drifts away from internal Peace he is not yet cut out
for relaxation and confuses and corrupts to settle in Nirvana
His begging bowl calls for saffron delight without caviar’s caveats
Descartes shouts 'Carpe Diem' Marx wants knowledge with action
Nietzsche implies Zarathustra but golden ‘zarat’ remains fool’s gold
and ‘ushtra’ the camel does not fit through the third inner eye
Why cannot simplicity be more simple when the here and now
drifts away towards where and when as Tim tries to capture
letting go and let God while enlightenment is clothed in darkness
Tim’s Nike trainers suggest he can do it and Greek philosophy
reminds him ‘Hic Rhodos Hic Salta’ to jump here and not anywhere
else but leaps and bounds refuse to reach outcome detachment
One day he dreams that he might reach what is so close but obscured
for now sandalwood fragrances incense his inabilities to achieve
the essential meaning of life without target driven performance
Categories:
caveats, philosophy,
Form:
Free verse
I allude subjects dressed as
black memorials. I hate attending
gray eulogized gatherings filled
with stereotypical colloquialisms
dressed in puke hued green.
Why? As a prose freak of lines,
I engender christianese choking
the very life out of hope. There aren’t
any reliable daydreams charismatically
afloat, just biding time until the next
dark cycle. I did however attend a
meeting of the minds as the sun rose
unimpressed with the vintage of earth.
Let me defer to yesteryears when
love was tender and life was aghast
with yucky booger eating boys and
their ghastly bugs and critters. And
dark thirty was the right time to steal
kisses, just inches shy of streetlight
shadows of the opera.
While harmless caveats of thick skinned
and doting elders dressed in shades of
white buckled shining armour, riddle us
life’s never promised thorn-free, hybrid,
organic food for thought.
Experience, however, promises fields
of sown seeds ripe with a harvest of
our good, bad and ugly. Look past gone,
accept now, and race to tomorrow.
Categories:
caveats, appreciation, life, , memorial,
Form:
Prose
Best man, maid of honor,
Father of the bride.
Toss the bouquet and the garter,
Groomsmen on the side.
In-laws, photographers, caterers…
Don’t forget to tip the waiters.
DJ stage, reception hall,
Gold bands, first dance, pillar to post….
And now a toast:
Here’s to prideful selfishness and petty vanities.
Those rocks and shoals can wreck your ship.
Suspicions will harbor resentment
And threaten your future contentment.
Be careful as you navigate your way.
Here’s to unresolved childhood issues
And deep-seated jealousies.
They can sabotage your happiness
And lead to endless miseries.
Beware these hidden dangers every day.
Here’s to poor communication
And a lack of empathy.
Emotional projections
That highlight imperfections…
The disrespect that only leads to tears.
Here’s to blissfulness and diligence,
Tolerance and vigilance,
Wedding rings and lovers’ knots,
Champagne and caveats.
Cheers!
Categories:
caveats, truth, wedding,
Form:
Lyric
BF’s Girl
Man is identified by behavior.
I say man and she demands an
Accounting. The definitive correlative
Can not be spoken. The constant common
Can not be held in union. I must discourse
All caveats else no communion, no love.
What of it? I can stick a thermometer
Up her ass and she registers normal.
All biology, chemical registry, hormone
Therapy, cat scan technology yield
No abrasion any unguent could quench.
I say what harm I live and chose, too?
She speaks of a box she wasn’t raised in,
Impacts everything. A falling body accelerates
Jubilant of nearing home. Childproof or regret it.
Categories:
caveats, conflict, corruption, love, power,
Form:
Sonnet