Best Citadel Poems
CITADEL AND CONSTELLATIONS
The green leaves in rugged moans;
The tall bushes in rumbling groans;
The roofs train creaks-- their fugue
blow cobwebs hugging branches below,
such are precursors inviting darkness lair
for stormy clouds before crowd the days.
Yellow horizon seem unreachable honey
as in my life's ocean, balloon billows I bear.
I-- surged in every swell to skirt yet still
lashing waves dashed pushing me sometimes to despair.
Again, cataclysm walk unheralded casting loose
my arms lift upon the glimmer of silver lining from afar
somber shadows enshrouded me in a mist of struggles.
Ounce of strength I have, I try to juggle and juggle
yet, curses fell from hearts and lips parched of love.
All these came, one and all --
the flowing light has flickered flash and gone
but beyond all these you stood -- my sentinel...
You hushed the bad constellations hanging 'round my world
like a lighthouse guiding a lost ship to his home.
Yes! You are my beacon, a promontory amidst
cyclic onslaught brambles and chameleons,
a rock to cling in the wind's creeping fury,
Staunch and firm, my ñhero fighting the torrential
cascade of tirades and reproaches: MY CITADEL. . .
_____________________________________________________________________
***Sponsor Shadow Hamilton
Contest Name Your Favourite Old Poem #2
++Placed 2nd++
***Sponsor Justin Bordner
Contest Name How You Make The Stars Hush
++Placed2nd++
©O.E. Guillermo
06:37 pm, February 24, 2015
I will not run from fear. Its torment I must shun,
when it threatens with distress and intimidation.
No song of despair will I sing when day is done,
nor will I cower, cringing with grim trepidation.
Though calamity assails me, I will not be alarmed.
Courage and faith will justly serve as my citadel
until the menacing enemies have been disarmed.
Then, in serene existence, once more will I dwell.
I will not burden my heart by anchoring it in grief.
Life should be a celebration, a mirthful affair,
but everything I fear will steal my joy like a thief.
I choose not to squander a minute in dire despair.
Death will not find me trembling on my knees,
for it's the dreaded price I must pay for mortality.
I will not plea with the Reaper, only to appease
him in granting me one more day before finality.
I will tend my garden on these hot Summer days,
and rejoice in knowing Autumn's chill draws near.
I will welcome Winter snows with words of praise,
and await Spring's arrival without anguish or fear.
August 12, 2022
Strong Emotions Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Emile Pinet
Emotions highlighted are fear and despair
I am just a beating heart
red from the start and damned with a dream
a spiking scream upon the Hope and Hell seam,
the world passes through me, revealing suffering and the heavenly,
I make a scene, as I put together my pump, thump and bump melody
a feather on fire for the fortune of creativity, for you, my vicious vitality,
Just a beating heart I am
bleached bright by the balm of calm kisses,
quickened by the kick of Passion's lick, thick on the senses,
I get fattened on fast lust, valves bulging, arteries divulging my truest wishes
drenched I am in cherry jam, as Love's current cracks the dam
the gush and rush, pooling plushly, a sweet span
learn to share I know I can,
Just a beating heart I am
wrenched by the warfare of savage offenses, demonic curses,
a pillar of flame in the face of Hate's hurricane, avenging abuses,
of lies and lynchings I have no use, with a Rebel beat I use no ruses,
for all I've done no sham excuses, totally loyal to my Divine Muses,
I have survived artful assassins and the gravest depressions, felt how anger bemuses,
of others' I have punctured and captured without desire to harm,
and I have been ruptured, fluttered and raptured by the sexiest charm,
I am a beating heart, like you,
wet and red, defying dread, blessed with you, Beauty full fed -
J.A.B.
Villanelle: Dare you stain the portals of your deity’s sacrosanct citadel
Dare you stain the portals of your deity’s sacrosanct citadel
Which mortal mammal’s primal address the rapists desecrate
Be not taken aback the yoni passage leads astray linga infidel
Seeds of life ever come tumbling from out the sacred temple
There to greet in meiosis and in secret reverence gestate
Dare you stain the portals of your deity’s sacrosanct citadel
Do heathen women toiling in the dark draw the blinds on hell
And Gorgon heads of demons deep in them shudder vibrate
Be not taken aback the yoni passage leads astray linga infidel
Yet deafening tunnel shrieks of the human species’ s carousel
Re-winds obsessive tinnitus ear-pounding thuds to celebrate
Dare you stain the portals of your deity’s sacrosanct citadel
Who keeps the sanctum sanctorum well-cleansed spiritual
But the defiant procreator linga tireless distending inebriate
Be not taken aback the yoni passage leads astray linga infidel
He who bestial disembowels the temple in a frenzied spell
His own mother disowns and hysteric squats on life’s dictates
Dare you stain the portals of your deity’s sacrosanct citadel
Be not taken aback the yoni passage leads astray linga infidel
© T. Wignesan – Pars, 2014
she build the walls much higher than before
for she remembered well the sting of pain
her citadel of heart could not take more
the weakened roof let in the acid rain
she fortified the structure with her fears
a mortar of regret on every wall
the open spaces filled with hardened tears
this edifice of strength would never fall
the work complete, she looked with searching eyes
to find a place where one could enter in
should this be found, it would be her demise
she'd fall to Hades from her paradise
The walls all fixed, her heart in good repair
though haunted it would be; no soul lived there
Eileen Manassian
Filter through barrage...
Drawer bridge select...
Silent comment...
Complainers (common denominator)
Quantrum retreat...
Climb into the mind unaccompanied...
Delve the walls fortress...
Quiet Solice Serene...
For the time inside my citadel...
Quiet Solice Serene...
Wet furrows slowly churn,
his plough horse snorts,
a farmer walks,
lost to his morning world.
Clay sticks yellow to the disc,
he kicks at it,
the dawn sky is his citadel.
Harsh days, like summer,
blaze in his memory;
confined to this land,
his earthly flesh has made a pact.
His arms are held like tree boughs.
A citadel of secrets on a dry and dusty plain
As I journey on always protecting the flame
What do I talk about to fan the dying ember
Of times when I was happy and want to always remember
Time is such a fleeting thing
So the poets want to bring
But what does it say to you
When you think it through
So here I am as the citadel
And wondering what the hell
Do I start again even though it is so late
As all things inside of me are left to contemplate.
© Paul Warren Poetry
“There,” said he,
“Observe the rat —
It makes its nest within the shell
of this, the ancient Citadel.
“Note that many greater souls
who once did walk these gath’ring grounds
have died, and are again born, and
that very rat now hears their sounds!”
I asked “What sounds?”
He cackled, “These:
On the rat, a thousand fleas.”
(Dedicated to Edgar A. Poe)
So what's the running hubbub--hot-toot's Shangri-la?
Our fear of death's gone wacko. It’s crowding up the bar.
Let's drink to obfuscation. Annihilation’s hip.
Roll out the tequila sunrise.
Go down with the black-sail ship.
But could it be, O, could it be
that we had just forgot,
or we'd missed that day of Bio
in high school's tommyrot?
At work and seeming happy,
our cells in superb supply--
exist but a day, others for a week
or more, then die.
Perpetual dying and birthing
is the body’s oldest art.
And so--which you is the
You of you?
Conglomerations of cells a-croaking
in requiem symphonies of death?
Or halleluiah songs of the lively new?
Neither or both?
Then there's considering the case of old Bob Kelly
who, in his downward slide, one brilliant morning
awoke to exclaim: I myself can never die!
I just change and I fly!
So when we're saddled up with terrors,
believing love is far behind, or the Blues
is all we're singing, and our watches
won't tell time--we might recall
that magical Kelly, busting the walls
of citadel. And we could believe it true.
Is fear of death and dying
the most complete of any hell
we can make?
Now, enough with these concerns!
Shall we take the drink?
The forces of self destruction wax in their strength.
Virus of creation that goes to every length
to snuff out the dancing lights coloring our soul,
making soft oblivion preferred to control.
From what wellspring comes this sour, blackened madness?
Foulest demon shrouded - sowing seeds of sadness?
Perhaps it is intrinsic to created things;
the sight of our limits may falter one who sings.
But behold the wonders within your pulsing hearts!
Dreams, love, curiosity, and other upstarts
who see the race of time and somehow still rejoice,
knowing that to be has e'er been the noble choice.
So cling to art, romance, and all may still be well -
Withstanding death's sneer in your neon citadel.
Written 24 April 2022
Beautiful, tall clouds hidden behind lower lying drizzle-makers;
Grand, expansive spires of nature's great conveyer;
hidden behind a mist of weary half-carriers.
Great pillars of the sky looking down;
the view lost, thwarted by aborted weather-child.
These majestic lakes of the sky;
hidden by the puddles from earth bound eye.
Drowned out by;
And then one...two,
drops;
as even the heavens cry.
In knowledge they weep, in puzzlement keep:
searching for that spire...
When the Citadel doorway opened its jaws in October 1898
And its grand three stories loomed above the urban prairie landscape
Eighty men shoulder to shoulder at the longest bar in town
Guzzled beer and spirits, while the gas lamps shone around
Pissing in the porcelain trough installed beneath their feet
Which glowed ethereal as yellow rivers ran into the street
And a piano played the first bars of Beautiful Dreamer.
Men Only, yet the ladies leaned lascivious past the parlour mark
And boys with crates of whisky bottles winced at the barman’s bark
While drunks toppled backwards, saturated, crack’d on heartless tiles
Dragged away like sides of beef by hotel staff with sated smiles
Who mopped patrons’ blood into a pail of pink soup that darkened to red
Drinkers filled the gaps at the bar like teeth flying into a toothless head
And the whores’ heels tapped up the stairs with their Gentlemen.
Crowed to the morning exercise
Faces, bringing life to the citadel.
Whilst some witness the morning rise,
Its quick birth some would repel.
Serenity, traded for daylight rhythm
Freedom, chirping songs from solitude.
Skirts and trousers quaking the earth beneath them
Sharing glances and attitudes too.
Some, to the knowledge cubicle
A race for seats at its feet
Some, planning a tyrant's coup,
Grace to the nature's treat.
For learning and culture.
A tyrant's bloat, the struggles puncture.
Mayhem
Reigns above hills,
Behind city wall lies
Fortified dreams in chaotic
Order.
Languish
In confusion
Of emperor’s torment
Levy madness, out of control
Refrains.