Best Central Poems
Written & Posted, 3rd January 2025
For the International Contest, CHOOSE A 2025 POSTED POEM
Sponsor, Brian Strand, Judged 4th January 2025 (Second Place)
Poem of the day - 5th January 2025
I checked my watch and checked my phone,
but everyone’s in a different zone,
Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific,
maybe I should be more specific,
the dollar says in god we trust,
but love thy neighbour bit the dust,
I wasn't feeling all too great,
after that late night altered state,
shining my leather mourning shoes,
watching weather and breakfast news,
a gunman shot the truth today,
the eagle had been blown away
so had the snow white turtle dove,
won’t somebody tell me, what time is love?
On this dreary winter morning I sit on a bench in Central Park. Lost in my own
thoughts of the conversation I had with my ex-wife and her last remarks. I keep asking
myself is it my fault? What did I do wrong? The chilly wind fills my ears with it's endless
song. I shiver slightly and goose bumps crawl along the back of my neck. Her words have
left me an emotional wreck. I pull my leather jacket tighter around my shoulders. I feel it in
my bones this day will get colder.
I've seen several joggers getting in their morning run. That just shows people will
continue their lives never mind the rays of the sun. So many thoughts running through my
head. And I hold the morning newspaper I still haven't read. I contemplate over my life, it's
not always easy, and so-called-friends can be the enemy. Even your spouse living in your
house can betray you with infidelity. That is why my heart is aching like a cavity. Right now
I'm doing my best to hang on to my sanity, but I really want to shout profanity.
I notice an attractive couple hand-n-hand laughing and enjoying a morning stroll; and
for some reason I can't control, I feel a sense of peace glow within my soul. My insecurities
diminish from their dark hellhole. I begin to feel "whole," and suddenly this morning doesn't
seem so cold.
I get up from the bench shaking off the numbness that has set in. A very pretty woman
walks by with her dog and I grin. She notices and smiles back. Wow! A kinda smile that is
only meant for kodak! I watch her walk past me with her dog leading the way. Something
tells me "you better not let this one get away." As I'm listening to my inner voice, she
glances back over her shoulder, and I knew that she too was giving me a choice. Amazing
how just several minutes ago my entire world seemed so dark. I now knew everything was
going to be okay because of this bench in Central Park......
* 10th Place win in "Anything Goes" Contest
sponsored by A Rambling Poet
Central Village, ah bitter-sweet your love
The golden sunset above
The black smoke of sugarcane burning
And the boy on Twickenham's mead yearning
Sometimes again like flocks of birds in flight
Across the evening sky
Memory comes winging at the edge of night
And old men only sigh
For all life treasures seem in the past, gone
And every new dawn
Is empty, but of the world's weariness. My pearl,
My diamond in the rough was she
The troubled, bright eye, beautiful girl
I did not know joy she brought to me
Despite your violent lanes, broken fences
You showed me life without gilt and pretenses
As he stood paper cup in hand by the drinking fountain on a train
somewhere south of Kankakee, miles from Chicago,
a quiet, pensive, older man was getting harangued by a loudmouthed,
blowsy, beer drinking, inconsiderate, disheveled and overweight woman.
Aka, his wife.
She finally shut her mouth after he exploded with,
“get your face out of mine, yo breath smells like
you been eatin camel dookey for a week!”
The laughter from the old men in the club car was deafening,
so she just sat down and cried all the way to New Orleans.
This narrative for the comma contest is a childhood memory I observed riding the Illinois Central’s “City of New Orleans.” Circa 1955.
The frog green lilies on the mud brown pond
Drift between the ducks and the trees.
Leaning willows look at their reflections
Passers by contemplate their defections
The murky mist rises from the freeze.
"Train Ride to Central"
After the performance,
opera
never tasted so good
kissing all the way
back to Central
the platform,
home base
if you will,
time to gather in
everything-in-between
the train ride
fast and smooth
but never clean
windows entranced
life lingers between
the touch of fingertips
on your surfaces
unpolished
secrets passed
between lips
all signals dripping
ultraviolet
(LadyLabyrinth / 2023)
Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt
raised you as a monument
to his empire, and why shouldn’t he.
From humble beginnings his art was
monopoly. He understood the art in craft,
it seems, for grand indeed you are. You
never belonged to him though, not
for a minute. You are touched by the handprints
of the thousands of souls who have built you:
ditch diggers and rock breakers, immigrants with picks,
sand-hogs and men off the reservation who walk in the wind.
Carpenters and engineers, plasterers and track men,
free men from the south and young men off farms
along the Erie Line from Chicago. You are oiled
with their sweat your memory holds their faces.
You have grown with progress, made adjustments.
In application you are a multi-chambered bellows,
you are the compressing and expanding cacophony of the accordionist,
you are the venturi effect. A pair of lungs. A beating heart;
pulling and pumping in all directions the flowing
blood-life of our nation. Beneath your dome of stars
you blanket the needy. Lovers rendezvous under your all-seeing
four-eyed clock: keeper of centuries with its secret
spiral staircase optical nerve. See’er of millions,
taking an imprint of each. Living. Breathing. Alive.
UNSUPPORTED CODE
Breathing and walking feels like a cursed nightmare in this land,
Daily murdering and violation of human rights as belief is a free floating balloon within this dust filled air
We long for peace and equality but in return we recieve encavement of the body, mind and soul
We miss the ability to roam without fear,
The ability and accessibility to recieve an education and a well paid job in which many righfully deserve,
You may see these as obscure demands,
But that's because you have them but lack the meaning of what having something means
Without a choice we are obligated to leave our lands in search of paradise but instead we find insecurity ,
Daily murdering and refusal of various positions had left us shattered , but then again, we cannot go back to our fine central African homes where we once had the opportunity to shine and grind in our floral dresses and shirts
Thinking of this brings us pain but grows our thoughts during the harvest of our deepest sufferings
Central Park looks Beautiful When you’re In Love
Central Park without the gates of heaven screens;
It’s heavenly, a poet daring to dream
Harps and golden crowns of evenly bliss paradise
Twilight, nylons and panels in the park;
Where Lover dreams come true with sparks;
Behold the beauty, behold a lover.
Poetic, artistic, romantic, trees and sky liners
Central Park the gates of heaven in clear view;
It’s heavenly yet powerful; Poets dreams
Cristal, Ruby, Diamond, Sapphire Pearl or gold
Or just chilling its tares amongst the weeds
Strolling or experiencing it’s where lovers meet;
Colorful hot air balloons circle the park
Bollywood again and again after dark
While watching the zookeeper feed
The penguins was pleasing, indeed.
A simple technique –
One fish for each beak
Seemed to work without witnessing greed.
The turtles and ducks were fed, too,
By a pond that’s a part of the zoo.
A big bowl filled with grain
Nestled on their terrain
But they weren’t the eaters on view.
For two pigeons were chomping away
And to add to that urban display
Into this habitat
Crawled the skeeviest rat
Who decided he might as well stay.
Just a typical day in the park
Where all creatures once housed in the ark
Coexist and live free
To a certain degree,
Though I wish some would stay in the dark!
CENTRAL PARK VAMPYRE
There fell the night, in Central Park,
to shroud the world within the dark,
and wanderin came the soul of me,
to find a place to leave my mark.
And there within the night there be,
a lonely heart, my eyes did see,
just walking down into the dark,
and tempting for a bite from me.
The gloom of life shone in her eyes
reflections from a love that dies,
but still is there within her heart;
she'd rather die, than realize --
that love has made its' last depart,
an ending borned right from the start,
and painful yet, her love still lies
right there within her failing heart!
Of all the joys in life I see,
there's not a one that pleases me
so much as bringing love anew,
where love has hurt so terribly!
And so I bade her "...how are you...?
to which she said, "Get lost! Adieu!"
But still I pressed relentlessly,
for giving up's not what I do!
Progressed the night just as I planned,
in little time she touched my hand,
and gave out just a little smile,
so I thought on, to make my stand;
a little full moon for a while
cannot but only help my style,
in this moon light her eyes were grand,
and so I kissed her growing smile!
Her lips were warm as they could be,
she soon gave in so willingly,
and in the dark she gave her soul
to soon embrace the soul of me!
Within the night her heart did toll,
as I pressed on to make her whole!
and swooned she, as the teeth of me
just bited to her very soul!
The love I gave so willingly
was but the very best of me,
and love we shared, there in the dark,
the greatest love to ever be!
And right there down within the dark
love boundeth all and made its mark,
upon her neck so lovingly,
when we made love in Central Park.
© Ron Wilson Arbuthnot
aka Vee Bdosa the Doylestown Poet
West has supported us
sinserely and honestly
planting seeds of democracy
and sustainable society
in our crude land,
but hearts of our people
still attached very strong
to old illusions,
and Kremlin genius
very artful and virtuoso
manipylated and played with our post-soviet nostalgias and syndromes,
pushing us back in USSR on and on.
We have hated our freedom, alas,
and greed for instant hot money along.
Humiliation not the word,
tell me, experts, how long
this tragicomedy in 1/7 part of world prolong?
In Central Park the crowds were out,
New York in all its glory,
With bikers, walkers, picnickers –
The same old weekend story.
The horses clip-clopped on the road,
With carriages of tourists
While singers sang with microphones
And bands without (the purists).
But always there is something new –
Today, some art creations,
Including projects for the kids
With paint or drawing stations.
What caught my eye, though, were two birds
Which shared a single goal –
To fly into a tree trunk
And to exit through a hole.
I guess there was a hidden nest
Tucked right inside the tree,
Another sighting in the park
To bring delight to me.
I miss Fall colors.
Monterey's only seasons:
Foggy and rainy.
Central Park's cool event in May
Brings the gigolos out to play
Ilene says, "Its true!
They're all over you!"
Its Banana Split & Run Day