Best Characterised Poems
Rapid urbanisation of the last century
causes more slums to mushroom
in the major cities of the world
particularly in developing countries.
Unplanned townships make it difficult
for government to plan for better
service delivery such as roads,
electricity,health,water and sanitation.
Local planning authorities should halt
illeagal allocation of land which leads
to the proliferation of slums.
Government should keep planning
for the poor;and must find better
solutions of phasing out slums
which have characterised many
towns and cities of the world.
And slums lie on a GOLDMINE
(PRIME LAND)which can
generate great wealthy
for poorer communities.
chipepo lwele
29/01/2013
Categories:
characterised, courage, urban, work,
Form:
Blank verse
Potholes
The joy of riding
where the small ones
have gone away
turns into nothing
at the big one
minutes away.
* This is about the joy of riding on the highway which has been recently repaired and re-laid, ridding it of its pits and potholes and the mortification of subsequently getting stopped by the traffic police or by the less-than-civil contract labor manning toll gates.
05 mar 13
Form: Grook ( A short aphoristic poem characterised by irony, paradox, brevity, sophisticated rhyme and often satiric in nature)
Contest: A Grook for all occasions
Categories:
characterised, depression, joy,
Form:
Grook
So many people in this modern world lost souls testing our faith
pretending to have virtues locked inside a shell hallowed
Their moral rights have become so twisted with hidden lies
they have lost all values when it comes to highlighting the truth
trying to justify their own hidden weakness
The false appearance of love and caring has a deluded vision
creatures of habit attack religious beliefs
creating division condemning them unholy
characterised by delusional ideas of judgement
falling down tortured by sin craving attention
There is a price to be paid one way or the other
blindsided by the deceiver they are the tool
Destroying principles believing something that is untrue
misery always loves company punishing the good
wickedness has no mercy when it comes to the suffering innocent
The price of such a shame will come with chaos and discomfort
in the end we all know who wins
Categories:
characterised, betrayal, conflict, faith, hope,
Form:
Free verse
Villanelle: Nothing so upturns creative cauldrons as retching up art
Nothing so upturns creative cauldrons as retching up art
As the craft not art of constructing poetry for expediency
Does the poet’s art lie in not collocating words set apart
Isn’t each word a brick a stone a rock in the poet’s craft
That simple folk through the ages filed sans hypocrisy
Nothing so upturns creative cauldrons as retching up art
What representation of experience can by craft be wrought
To distill meanings imbricated in sensuous mosaic artistry
Does the poet’s art lie in not collocating words set apart
Do English words sound the same in a loud Indlish mart
Or evoke the connotations of a Shakespearean century
Nothing so upturns creative cauldrons as retching up art
A South Asian voice reading Pope must sound like fart*
To a Dryden stunned by a Malawian’s Jacobean poesy
Does the poet’s art lie in not collocating words set apart
The sense of sound divides Indlish poems from English craft
As galactic spaces loom in between Indlish pen and literacy
Nothing so upturns creative cauldrons as retching up art
Does the poet’s art lie in not collocating words set apart
* A reference to Eric Mottram’s comment on hearing Dom Moraes reading his poems on the BBC’s Third Programme
in the fifties, characterised as an imitation of an Oxford don farting…. Cf. Alive in Parts of this Century: Eric Mottram
at 70. Twickenham & Wakefield: North and South, 1994, p. 17.
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2014
Categories:
characterised, england, poetry, poets,
Form:
Villanelle
Where am I from? A mulatto.
Is there a place to call my home?
“Hey piggy!!” the blacks say to me
"You monkey", words of the white.
If the velvety black skies
give room for stars to bloom,
Why am I not worth your love?
If behind the white expanse
charcoal clouds can loom,
Why do I not deserve a brotherhood?
Unbar your wounds and mine,
do they not spill the same crimson waters?
Oh, Why call me a stranger?
When we just are different lights
from a common spectrum?
Be silent about where I come from,
because I want to live like you.
Look not at my colour,
to attribute me to a nationality
Be me not characterised into a race
Just make me one of your own.
Whether Black or white,
American or Asian,
European or from Africa.
We are one people.
©Stranja_depeot
Categories:
characterised, racism,
Form:
Free verse
Telephones are a useless reflection of communication as forms of forks do not require such modernity to talk. When planning waltzing with 89 peas for a show that has been advertised globally always be mindful of pods. Pods are anarchical and can cause the peas to wish to jump back into bed. Such a luxury of a green shroud. No sheets necessary in a shell. The wandering significance of a beetroot is characterised always by the remaining stain. Yet whilst clearing this essence it is wise to chant to the plant and dance in a semi circular motion. Beads baked brought baths. And bathing in reed encrusted streams can deliver a view of an alternate skyline deemed very secret. Great isn't it. The introduction of waddling pink animals equals the eradication of crop. No food. Nothing. Yet it can be ascertained that when the smoke was sailing up to the blue moon the ancestral wisdoms would allow for defences and ideas steaming from plants can be very useful. The huge bowl with a diameter of over 5000 feet now caters not for wild but for trotting uniforms. Crater cantering carnage. And carriages carry ornately dressed ladies with parasols. Wow. One cannot tame such an expanse? Put inhabitants into caged areas? Bang bang then gone. Misted views sold. Tailoring a society to adhere to a rule book dominated by two legged earth dwellers. Yet, it is with correction the problem is seen. And much land cries with the entrance of the feathered helmets and the exit of the caretakers of the mother. Sit then many caves. Many caves stood. Digging dwellings decidedly difficult. No ha to this. And no x today nor tomorrow. Subsidence silent. C s b q y colonisation *
Categories:
characterised, anger, angst,
Form:
There's a vast bare land afar
Blanketed with dry brown sand-dunes.
A brown ocean with no moisture in its heart
A land bereft of rivers and streams.
The home of dorcas gazelles, blind skink,
Camels and chuckwallas.
A pool of sand characterised by meagreness precipitation,
Maximal drought and intense solar radiation.
A land clothed in simmering pools of mirage.
Yes! it might be barren, yet it's not devoid of life.
The saguaro cactus, Mexican poppies
And the wild flowers are all a part of the beautiful life
hidden in the desert.
...Stranja...
Categories:
characterised, earth day,
Form:
Free verse
Seafarers shall be saved, though waves may
deem them dead, lost in the ocean's fray
they shall not perish, nor shall they be afraid
nor falter, though their earthly woes be done.
They shall tame the deep, brave the mighty Charybdis*
and win release to heaven's blessed throne.
Nor shall the poor be stilled in death's dark tomb;
they shall enjoy the fruits their earthly span denied
and reap full harvest as they rule the Pleiades!**
The lame will mark their years well spent
in painful suffering at the world's behest,
for they will revel with the wild Eumenides!***
The realm of death is nothing to be feared,
though sting of loss shall curdle in the breasts
of the deserted they will finally comprehend
true love's eternal message in their hearts;
the special blessing of the ones who heed the call,
the realm of heaven draws all the faithful home.
* Charybdis a mythical sea monster characterised as a whirlpool.
** Pleiades an open star cluster among those closest to Earth.
*** Eumenides the Greek deities of Vengeance.
Categories:
characterised, fantasy,
Form:
Verse
PERFECTIONS
seamless
movement
fine
& applied
characterised
by
recognition
rooted
in
meticulous
relief
striking
& beautiful
vital
to conviction
distinctively
assured
continued
unabated
NOTE:THIS IS AN OPEN(organic) FORM VERSE using spaces&breaks without grammatical symbols ,the ' open' relies upon 'the one breath limitation' & so inherently requires the 'reader' (reciter) to input and responds thus making this enigmatic form a two way interplay & interpretatIon unique to the moment& changing according to mood is inherently variable.
Categories:
characterised, poetry,
Form:
Other
Heads...
The days of yore
Were characterised with:
Pizza and pop sodas
It was enjoyment galore
All the way through
It was good mood and sweet music
Wining and dining
Hosting and feasting
Pictures and picnics
Clothes and confetti
It was scarlet roses and scarves
Blue champagne and blue skies
Bubbles and bottles
It was luxury and laughter
Versace shoes and Armani bags
Diners and dinners.
...tails
Sour faces with broken countenances
It was hungered and starved
Sudden and painful
Pawpaws and bananas
Lux and Vaseline
Coca-cola and black skies
Phone calls and job hunting
Yaba clothes and Oshodi bags
Favoured and favours
Above all these...
Fasting and prayers
I pray the LORD turns things round!
Categories:
characterised, change, poverty,
Form:
Lyric
Partly an explanation of why I've not been on here since the fall of Rome. I've been involved in other things instead. Also, I read a lot of my old poems and I hate half of them so it's me coming to terms with that. Of course, it is indeed a poem about why I've not written poems. Awkwardly enough.
On with the show!
_____
I have written centuries worth
Paper piles high in a skyline of its own
Mainly characterised by its quality.
Largely unreadable.
I have been published
In compilation. Bit part writer.
I barely write at all. I have turned
On myself in a phoenix rising
Lazily. I illustrate in awkward romances
Of dieselpunk and theremin.
I disown large swathes of my canon
It has chased up on me. Looming jungle dances.
However, I shall return in
A phoenix rising
Lazily.
Perhaps.
Categories:
characterised, art, life,
Form:
Free verse
Heads...
The days of yore
Were characterised with:
Pizza and pop sodas
It was enjoyment galore
All the way through
It was good mood and sweet music
Wining and dining
Hosting and feasting
Pictures and picnics
Clothes and confetti
It was scarlet roses and scarves
Blue champagne and blue skies
Bubbles and bottles
It was luxury and laughter
Versace shoes and Armani bags
Diners and dinners.
...tails
Sour faces with broken countenances
It was hungered and starved
Sudden and painful
Pawpaws and bananas
Lux and Vaseline
Coca-cola and black skies
Phone calls and job hunting
Yaba clothes and Oshodi bags
Favoured and favours
Above all these...
Fasting and prayers
I pray the LORD turns things round!
Categories:
characterised, change, poverty,
Form:
Lyric
Stand for your beliefs
Despite tribulations and blues
Worry not about physical, psychological or metabolic reliefs
But defend to the hilt the values
Defining, refining and buttressing your personality and character
From infancy to adulthood
Where values and beliefs are a factor
In enhancing the attitude, habitude and altitude
You deserve and preserve in the rat race
Characterised by confusion, contusion, corruption, compromise
That deface, efface, demean, displace, denigrate the value and belief face
For the sake of access to a temporary prize
Fleeting in value and bleating in worth
Glittering in the short term, debilitating in the long term
That snatches, scratches, slashes and slays the ultimate berth and mirth
You deserve to stand firm, confirm and reconfirm
The cardinal role values and beliefs play
In leading your life to the destination
Meant for you without undue delay
As you march determinedly to the station
Destined to reward principle
Perseverance , persistence and sagacity
As the pupil and disciple whose scruples quadruple
In worth when you galumph in triumph to your salvation city
To earn at the end of your race the reward
For which you’ve striven
Despite suffering stabs from pricks of a compromise sword
Cos in God’s eyes plenty you’ve given and plenty you’re forgiven.
Categories:
characterised, poems,
Form:
Free verse
I can feel the sweat drops forming on my skin
Like morning dew
I can hear my blood ticking
My heart beating
My breath passes my lips
Like a tropical storm
Battering the defences of some third world country
My waking life is characterised by emotional dullness
My nerves offer nothing
I glide through the days
Waiting for a god I dont believe in
Hypersensitivity
Now even sleep offers no respite
From the ceaseless roar
Categories:
characterised, absence,
Form:
Free verse
ATMOSPHERES
ambient
installation
in
communal cipherss
transitioned
then
transcended
appropriated
with symbolic
affectation
of
attitudes
characterised
by
circles
simple
&positive
yet
marginal
merging
with
modernity
when
flourishing&
profound
&all around
is
decline
of the
premodern
replacing
the
rational with
harmonious
hubris
of
circular time
in
mystical
views
so intertwined
with
the
contemporary
NOTE:THIS IS AN OPEN(organic) FORM VERSE using spaces&breaks without grammatical symbols ,the ' open' relies upon 'the one breath limitation' & so inherently requires the 'reader' (reciter) to input and responds thus making this enigmatic form a two way interplay & interpretatIon unique to the moment& changing according to mood is inherently variable.
Categories:
characterised, poetry,
Form:
Other