Best Conforming Poems
A cousin named Chaos have I (he’s not actually my cousin. He’s like my aunt’s stepson, but I guess I can still call him a cousin, right?)
There’s nothing that he will not try (like the day he let all the chickens loose from the coop and they were running like chickens with their heads cut off. Isn’t that an expression or something? Chaos is crazy like those chickens were)
Since he follows no rule (He laughs at me because I try to write perfectly metered limericks and he thinks everyone should just write free and BE free in all they do.)
He got kicked out of school (it was so funny. He set off the fire alarm and all the kids were running every which way, much like those chickens he let loose in his barnyard. Now he is saying he wants to become an anarchist.)
So to anarchy school he’ll apply!
Gosh, he’s right. This limerick sucks. It’s much more fun having no restrictions, just letting my thoughts go anywhere I want them to take me, kind of like stream of consciousness writing or something. Too bad I can’t be all surreal-like, then I might make it into the newfangled modern poetry magazines. Most people don’t even consider limericks to be real poems. DANG it, I feel another one coming on.
Cousin Chaos, I now do hear tell
That you’ve found a new school, so learn well
Your anarchy ways.
In limerick phase
I’ll be stuck while you give people hell.
Crap. Even trying to write like Chaos, I just can’t do it. I just keep conforming to rules of poetry forms like limerick. I just know my cousin will be laughing his chicken head off when he reads this. Yeah, the old chicken motif again. Always relating things together. So much for Chaos! I’m outta here.
Written chaotically last week sometime for contest of same name
Dance Of The Night Sky
Full luminescent Moon
Wears a rainbow crown
Of red, orange, yellow, green, and blue
Reflecting the dancing stars of wonder
In the middle of an ocean gown
Of panes gray
As the fast moving,
Bending white fluffy clouds drown
Pass by veiling it for moments
Breaking down to spellbind
Bright puffs of clouds
Conforming to different shapes
That drape the night sky
© 4/3/2015
Contest Name: Your Favourite Old Poem #3
Sponsor: Shadow Hamilton
Many are the miles you snake along the hillsides, through the valleys,
conforming to the highways, partitioning pasture from pasture
neighbour from neighbour, friend from foe, son from father.
a face unperturbed…
one inhaling scenic grace
spring chattering birth
Sanctuary to winter flock shelter for the beast,
many characteristics embraced within your tenacity,
while countless shapes formulate your strength,
crag face monument a testament to this place, stone the essence.
breaking dawn’s sunrise …
golden threads breaking the mist
surfing nether clouds
Many years you’ve stood against sweeping rain, hoarfrost nights,
the heat of summer, the inane rambler that mounts your very strength
rests wearily for a while, never a thought for whom created
you, from out of the very ground you now preside over.
there are no concepts…
only seasons to embrace
and generations
© Harry J Horsman 2022
In grimed secluded alleyway’s it’s his key into the divine,
Believing deliverance has arrived while he walks this narrow line,
Those eyes begin seeing reality his mind now lucid has cleared,
The truth’s of his past now a cacophony welling up within perfect ears,
Numbing out his nervous system a blind faith blanketed brain,
Sporadic lighting of violent flashes lost within his mind deranged,
Everything once believed assured now snippets of a life long elapsed,
Consigning his soul to valueless spirits his self worth allowed to collapse,
Without destination a wandering shell conforming to push through the days,
Ignoring the voices of pleas and salvation sinking farther within mired haze,
Memories taunting of mandible grasps devouring slowly his will to survive,
Nightmares convulsing those hideous features transforming beauty into
despised,
Shrinking in angst from real vindication devolving back where the journey began,
He ties off his arm inserting the needle releasing the demons inside once again.
Those eyes of yours
Holding a bunch of blue sky
Have been inspiring me lifelong
To seek rhyme and song
In turbulence
A Buddha like balance
Then you, the sceptic
Always asking
'What is your view?'
Almost like Socrates
Never readily conforming to
Any set thesis
Would open a sky
Asking why this
Why not that
To discover a new door to stand at
Thus you wanted to groom us:
'Cogito ergo sum'
I think, therefore I am
Relaxing my diaphragm
And now in the twilight I look at
My too many windows to look out
For a new sprout
I thank you there
Among the twinkling stars
And you young girl
How soft suave but yet straight
Is your speech
While we screech at a little conflict
Raising ugly forms
Ignoring norms of civilization
You are always low but firm
Polite but powerful
I try to be like you
In my communications
In interrelations
A grandfather trying to emulate a granddaughter
Life is a great assorter
And there you
The oranges in the tree
The beauty spree
The life and lyre free
Have inspired me
To stay happy
Even in despondency
Then you
The beggar in the street
A lesson for survival
Never say yes to defeat
You have to first sleep and eat
Then towards other vitals
You the whore
Drifting from shore to shore
Embracing sort of death
For the sake of life
Tiny shines of strife
Where ever you look at life
With a childlike interrogation
With a touch of admiration
Will come across
In a session
Diamonds of inspiration
___________________________________________________
3/1/2017 : Contest: Who has inspired you most in your life
Sponsor: Brenda Chiri-Carroll
Scrambling over each other, trying hard to be heard, interrupting, yelling out, being yourself.
We knew how to do this when we were two, and three, and four, but they socialized it out of us.
So we grew up un-learning our naturalness, un-learning our playfulness, unlearning our potential.
Sure, they say, we are going to help you with your potential, but as we fit into the lines, conforming,
Winding our real selves into the pretenders others accept, we lose our potential, because it is
Not ours anymore, it is your idea of what ours should be. When we break ranks, and run for it,
You lament that you cannot control us. Thank goodness you cannot, for the leaders, the ones who have
Stood for hundreds and thousands of others have learned to scream their truth from the roof tops,
Challenging those who think controlling others is normal. There is nothing more abnormal than that.
The sage green wall had worn a blank look
until, slightly askew, with a tilt to the left
dangling helplessly, without a complaint
is the pride of an artist, who lacked all constraints.
He dipped into his paints with no sense of restriction
hung it in place without hesitation
giving the viewer a crick of the neck.
It hangs precariously, for an eager assessment
without circumspection, neither yes's or no's...
No hemming or hawing just helter and skelter
Instead, a take me or leave me,... is the quick estimation
Conforming was no issue, just pure bold assumption
Excitement exploded from two eager hands
that thrust it in place, with assured restless haste,
hammered a nail with pride and conviction
and planted it there, with pure ardent fervor
Sharing a warmth of a seasonal decade....
this amateurish, yet delightful landscaped intrusion
sings in the sunshine, and smelling of springtime
shouting with color, and sprinkled with lavender
flavored with turpentine, and oil-painted rainbows
In the lower left corner, is an array of dahlias,
bursting with crimson, never changing or fading
never thirsty for water,
barren of a single, silent, dried up weed
and free of decay, dismay or mold
The amber was gold, the umber was bold,
rust to rust, dust to dust......ash to ash
With him he took all the pride that he found
...still holding the brush stroke of a satisfied smile
___________________________________
For Anthony's Contest: Favorite Artist
Dedicated to someone special in my life R.I.P.
4/16/14 Revised for Anthony's Contest
Many a mile you snake,
along the hillsides, through the valleys,
conforming to the highway,
partition pasture from pasture
neighbour from neighbour,
friend from foe
son from father.
Sanctuary to winter’s flock
shelter to the beast,
these many characteristics embraced
within your tenacity,
while countless shapes
formulate your strength.
Sweeping rain, hoarfrost nights,
the heat of summer the inane rambler,
yes I share your sufferance.
Yet! Many years you’ve stood
in testament of this place,
a monument to my forefathers, who
created you from out of the
very ground you now
preside over.
© Harry J Horsman 2000
Spectacular! Nature’s decoration
Perfect art work demands admiration.
Void vacuum framing firmament
as skillful goldsmith making ornament.
Galaxies are set in cosmic align.
Sparkling stars embroidering design.
Charming cerulean sky: A surprise.
Great wonderful art to visualize.
Mother Earth paints peerless panorama
in series without full stop or comma.
Flora-fauna flourishing on lively sketch
Sun rays brushing artistic touch to fetch.
UNIVERSE! Artist Nature’s creation
conforming progress of evolution.
Imagine that there is something beyond imagination
an oxymoron of course but a real task nevertheless
There may be no God not even spirituality suffices
but the whole is much greater than the sum of all parts
The Universe grants freedom from self-righteousness
offers me to let go off megalomanic delusions of grandeur
makes my light shine in illumination and its shadows
paints a picture with no centre other than kindness and love
Unorthodox and conforming to nothing but compassion
the tiny wee little Me takes its right place in the crowd
at liberty to breathe feel think and reason for meaning
to resonate reflect condense for a moment in infinite time
Like a novel it reaches out from beginning to the end
states a point here and there and connects small dots
that swell into an epic and ephemeral narration to tell
soon forgotten but a blob on the pages as good as it can
Another book will take its place on the library shelf
liberated from its companions to start a new venture
to reconstruct and make its mark on literal essence
Fly free my soul and expound my purpose for free
20th February 2021
Not Vaccinated?
Tony the spider is out to bite you!
Or, then again.. he may also cite you.
He knows if you have been hiding
and exercising your free rights!
And if you have, dear Patriot, he
will inflict a nasty, Marxist bite!
So get thee to a doctor, and be a
humble sheep!
I, the whispering leader of the nation,
have spoken.
The Commander who respects only the
conforming sheep?
7/23/2021
~2~
Everything we experience in life
shows in our poetry -- both shallow
and deep – weeds and blossoms~
words come forth oscillating bitter/sweet
harvest, from, hopefully, an honest
sowing --
Honest words speak louder...quieter...
even silence between far more
emotive than a blaring trumpeter --
Poems affix in creative silence – before
the birthing, spirit’s cradle of incubation,
adjusting, conforming to individual rhythms
of harmonic space and time --
Individual...singular, yet cooperative --
part of the universal whole – the lightness
we experience along with overwhelming pressures
core-felt while remaining utterly unexplainable --
Consciousness, is the trickle and flood of God --
Without fiery passion,
there is no poetry – Oh,
there are jingles of sorts!
jingles of naughts –
Limericks so on, and on
and on – Rhymes two
three and four, or as many
more; but, for a lyric to
soar, or heavily sink to
depths fond hearts dip
and taste-tally together
explore...there must be
great passion, smothering
smoking, burning passion
or nothing at all:
passion above, passion below
as well as within – to the core
of earth-center while breaching
sky tall...or the poet's words,
the vehicles of his being
the reasons for his feeling
the scopes of his seeing
without such divine-juice
his soul-output sputters
and stalls – spent projectiles
from
conforming
passionless
balls –
Be utterly wild and flamboyant.
Live every minute like there's no tomorrow.
~ Forget about conforming to norms.
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
Through the hourglass,
I watch the sand -
grainy, smooth
dull, polished,
none the same -
intricately created
yet with simplicity…
Through the hourglass,
observing motion,
becoming more aware
of days and nights weaved.
Like a looking glass,
reflections of my finite time,
I watch the sands,
the sands watch me -
flowing ever faster,
falling gracefully.
All things come and go
as time passes by,
a choir of many songs
ever changing choreography,
spiraling to what seems like an end
but only coming to new beginnings.
Through the hourglass,
I witness the unseen,
crystal clear glass pristine -
sparkling, ageless, distinctive,
and the beauty of the shape
filling out in curves
like life itself
like love…
Through the hourglass,
my eyes widen
to take a closer look
at single grains of sand,
blended shapes and sizes
conforming…
miniscule differences,
colors and textures,
each grain a small treasure.
I cannot help finding parallels between
the grains of sand and human kind
All created in God’s image yet
unique, seemingly compatible,
complex and beautiful,
even more so when together.