Best Congeal Poems
Mastered Puppets
Of the voices thrown and never shown their cries travel well
A starving sewn with a bitter bone of their life a quiet quell
With larval lips that are losing grips where echoes only dwell
Their smile drips as they use their fingertips in a yielding yell
Left alone with a grunting groan their silence slaved to seal
Ruling the hunger zone a thirst on throne with a musty meal
Voices held captive and anguish adaptive with souls of steal
Their reality refractive with dreams inactive they still congeal
Mastered and strung with a tangled tongue they begin to pray
A heart hung and death unsung, wounded words they convey
With tears they wash as the sorrows squash their moral display
The sounds that swash in their postured posh soon fade away.
June.18.2018
Ventriloquist Poetry
Sponsored by: Anthony Slausen
When you said to me,
"Climb up here, It's pollution free."
Sacred. Safe.
Your rarefied air.
Calculating, you seemed so free.
Safeguard. Sage.
I said I could breathe...
Underrated your density.
Saintly. Sane.
High-minded insight.
When anticipated terror
denuded me,
cool rarefied air
regulated insanity,
far gone fear.
I will breathe
in your rarefied air.
Let it burn brisk
in brittle, brave lungs.
Gasp and grasp
life's flame, full flare.
Lunge for high notions,
those far-flung schemes.
I will breathe in
High mind's smoke,
hung in air-
that ghostly stroke of genius,
rare token in disguise
Well spoken word flurries
whipping away thin guise.
Floating crown
adrift on high.
I will breathe in
Your rarefied air,
because I listened to you.
"Clamber up, high!
Unfazed view will circle you,
miles on end surround you.
No going around the bend.
Nowhere else to go.
No zig zag escape.
No spike in pressure.
No deep depression.
No bad atmosphere.
No stabbing shove.
No push or pull on edge.
Just your pledge to breathe.
To move in one direction.
Forever. Mentally "together."
Stay in good shape."
I will breathe out.
Your rarefied thoughts
congeal life's force,
slows down blood flow.
Till body gloved heart
faintly, faintly glows...
Concealed fire's torch,
caved embers die down.
Stripped artfully apart,
Your rarefied airs
blanket my mind in snow.
13/10/2018. Purely fiction. On the pros and cons of mentorship. "Higher" education is not necessarily a good thing. Learning lessons are.
I wrote a great book, part memoir, part novel
Shopped it around, I ain’t too proud to grovel
Got kicked upstairs to a big publishing head
He invited me in, and here's what was said:
This screed you call Crack House of the 13 Gables
Is one long rant mixed with recycled fables
It wanders aimlessly, but never resolves
Characters pop out of nowhere, then simply dissolve
But the symbolism, sir, allow me to explain
The Victorian parlor represents pathos and pain
In the attic are mothballed broken dreams and betrayals
It's gonna shift your paradigm right off its rails
It’s a thousand-page odyssey into the surreal
The hedge maze is where all 14 sub-plots congeal
Enough! The only reason I called you in, punk
Is to meet the lunatic who scribbled this junk
So I slunk away, not a little dejected
Ain’t much fun being literarily rejected
Trudged back to my grueling, stale coffee grind
Working 15-hour days, going out of my mind
Then one day I met an old pal for some beers
Hadn't seen him in quite a few years
I told him about my rejection slip wrangle
He said buck up, you just need the right angle
I like reading novels, now don’t get me wrong
But writin' 'em, man, that just takes too damn long
And what a huge risk, 16 years you devoted
For no payday at all, just your ego imploded
There's no need to pen the next Moby Dick
Try something short, now that is the trick!
So, I thanked my friend for his most sage advice
And took it to heart without thinkin' thrice
And now I am back as a voice for the ages
Except I'm makin' my mark in far fewer pages
I write sound bites and maxims and pithy remarks
T-shirt slogans and jokes, I just do on a lark
I bang out poems and lyrics at the drop of a hat
Dash off 17 syllables in ten seconds flat
Haikus by the bunch
Cook up a batch before lunch
Put that in your pipe
____________________________
For Humor Contest
Sponsored by: Carol Eastman
My personal physician
says I’m the picture of perfect health
Then he hands me the pharmaceutic scripts
Dr. Miyagi
makes me wonder sometimes,
if he’s a paid health insurance company shill
Seeing how there’s fifty bottles of medicine
on my monthly HMO bill
Metformin
Deseryl
Glyburide
Lisinopril
Every day the bottles say,
I gotta take fifty pills
But the side effects will give you deadly cold chills
Nausea,
diarrhea
Constipation,
insomnia
Me keeping well
is profitable to somebody I can tell
Just pop open the caps,
and watch your thoughts congeal
Bactrim
Gabapentin
Amneal
Indomethacin
Taking fifty pills is waking zombie time
My staying well feels like being sentenced
to a life imprisonment crime
Always feeling sick just to stay healthy,
going to sleep is the only time I feel good
So, I bequeath this advice in my will:
if you wanna die painfully slow, then take fifty pills
Too shy to speak; to say all that I feel,
my mind subjected to thinking things through,
and 'what if' factors mock and cloud my view,
no longer knowing what is fake or real,
emotions sprawl and mentally congeal,
until I hide inside my shell and rue
the things I never said and didn't do,
because my thinking made them all surreal.
I think I need to stop this thinking soon
and say the things I feel, then hope and pray,
that you will understand, I'm not a goon,
but want to love you in every way,
beneath the sun and under silver moon,
as heart begins to rule the head today.
The aria of the sunburst slivers of the sky,
entwined with the cadence of your ivory feet,
winding on the pearl-rolled silver sea shore,
carves the rhythm of your footprint sculpture,
only for a beguiling while,
until scraped by the surge of time tide in spate,
stowed in the depth of the stratified memory,
they are all fossilized since.
I’ll make a sapphire sea of desire in my heart,
its golden beach, a shimmering crystalline face
will radiate the dissolved patina of yearning.
From the mystique mist of azure
the rise of an angel I’ll see astounded,
walking drenched in the crimson aura,
the twilight sky drizzling.
I’ll congeal my racing surf of heart beats,
the aching waves will return unbroken,
your footprints will remain engraved unwashed
on the silent sands of the stalled time,
until I reach you, enthralled,
following the mirage of the tantalizing trail,
the lure of your attraction.
Written : January 19, 2020
Contest : Favourite Poem From January 2020
Sponsor : Julia ward
Quiet! Quiet!
No distraction or reaction
to the situation
of creation
unfolding syncopation ...
a blues distillation.
As the sax-o-phone
does groan into a tirade
the parade of ticks and tocks
licks and knocks
reverberate from the drummer,
bass strummer and pi-an-o
to congeal into real
high fueled blues.
Up and down the scales
the moan wails
a lascivious groan
lusty riffs thrown
by metal and ivory
into the ether to
sway with a sashay
under a blue moon.
Continued from Part 1
The Beggars ’neath the balustrades,
and broken Children, Chambermaids,
are running wild from wraiths, afraid
of dreams where death redoubles.
They fritter time with tattered threads
(from ragged clothes they’ve left in shreds),
crocheting hoods to hide their heads
and faces, full of rubble.
But many things will not remain
the Morning of the Hurricanes,
when goblets filled with cool champagne
evaporate in bubbles.
The White-Robed Maid adorns the trash
with charnel urns awash in ash,
then fumbles with an untied sash
while pacing in the Palace.
Her hopes congeal in coffee spoons
with memories adrift in dunes;
yet, still she smiles with teeth like prunes
and lips of painted callus.
And long before the midnight drains,
the Saviour wakes, the Loser gains,
the waters of the Hurricanes
will fill her empty chalice.
The storm (behind the clarinets,
the silver flutes, the castanets,
the foghorns belching in quartets,
the bagpipes, puffed and swollen)
is keeping time to tambourines
while Tom Thumb and the Four-Inch Queen,
pick up the shards and smithereens
of moments lost or stolen.
They’re trekking through the Dim Domains
(where fountains weep, the mountain wanes),
yet can’t escape the Hurricanes
with trundling eyes patrollin’.
The Crowds (arrayed in jewels) in jails,
stoop, peering through a fence of nails
while light behind their eyeballs pales
with plastic flame that sputters.
They huddle there because they must
(with eyelids hung like peeling rust,
their tears, palled pellets in the dust),
behind the bolted shutters.
They’ll reawake without their pains
the Morning of the Hurricanes,
without their sores, without their stains,
their agonies will fill the drains
and overflow the gutters.
End
Mere bits these bullets, so cold and gray
poison piercing's which the jaded heart conceals,
in the heady light of day good men reel
recalling these morbid missiles played.
Blood which hotly runs leads weaklings astray
bringing uncalled for blackness to congeal
oft in coddled, crimson, rivers most surreal
on pathways and walls, red ricochets.
Call back those loosed demons, wants, desires ...
become a brighter bit of coal transformed
a flaming diamond full of holy light,
'fore the bullets tear and youth expires,
praise not the bigot, brash and uninformed.
Be the truth which knows no ending, defy ...
for foul anger, hatred, violence, all underlie,
the crumpled wall, the tattered form, the child's sigh,
all poison piercing's guns and bullets buy.
Play not the shill for evil men who lie.
Let youth and fire... form facets.. for the right
and strengthen all that's growing in the light.
Caudate Sonnet
abba abba cdecde efffgg
volta line 9
*Inspired by "Scared Bullet" by The Scribe (Marlon Linton)
I smile at you when you aren’t looking.
The set of your mouth, as it furrows irresistibly
Commandeering your face into the desired degree
Of aloof concentration. Chin in hands, you rove about
A world I catch only in glimpses,
As it scintillates through the reflection in your incessant clarity.
I can see the glaze slipping as you fight your way
Through the glossy clouds that feather in overlapping layers
On your perception –I can see the radiance begin to focus
From the lucid orbs that center your face -unclenching as it emerges
Reluctantly from where it had seeped its inspiration –penetrated
To the profundity of your being.
I strain to catch that first flicker of warmth –the spellbound rebirth
Of the halcyon element I scorch myself with
Beyond the beyond the beyond –
But never scar.
It’s rending the fetters that closed behind it,
I can feel the crisp distance congeal
As it prepares to receive a dawn –
My face blazes with a sudden knowledge:
For one frozen moment, sluggish rays already frothing
Just beneath the surface, my breath petrifies as I
Inhale a fear that I will desecrate this magic –
That your perfection –exquisite to the point of pain –
Will dissipate –marred by an irreverent worth.
An emblem of stillness, I rasp over edges of milliseconds
-the tingling plunge that precedes all fall or flight-
Your eyelids lift, echoes of recognition bouncing
As I leadenly raise answering gaze to hem in selfish supplication.
Locked, your icy awe exults without breaking –
You answer my smile, as I gasp through gritted teeth.
We laugh about anything and nothing, I catch hold of my shreds again.
-inconsequential exhilaration-
His memories congeal and
crucify him to the wall
So he fashions wooden wings,
carving bone from his shoulder blades
soaring hollow through her fingertips.
*Written in exactly 25 words*
Actual title below, but I guess this database isn't ()-friendly
(Love)
I remember when I was thirteen,
And I met this girl Nicole,
And I thought I was in love.
My buddies asked me how did I know,
I replied,
She's such a fox,
She's got a great ass,
And she writes me notes in class,
We rolled together during couples' skate,
I walked her home, held her books,
God, I loved her looks.
I remember when I was seventeen,
And I met this girl Linda,
And I thought I was in love.
My clique asked me how did I know,
I replied,
She's such a beauty,
She's won't play dead,
And she won't throw me out of bed,
We drive around from beach to beach,
I drive her home, to see what's next,
God, I loved the sex.
I remember when I was twenty-one,
And I met this girl Livi,
And I thought I was in love.
My frat bros asked me how did I know,
I replied,
She's cute,
She's showers me,
And she calls me all day until 3,
We commute in order to satisfy needs,
I phone her home, and she seems pleased,
God, I loved the skiis.
I remember when I was twenty-four,
And I met this woman Lisa,
And I thought I was in love.
My friends asked me how did I know,
I replied,
She's magnificent,
She inspires me,
And I feel her deep inside of me,
We think and banter in parallel jest,
I set aside at times what I must feel,
In order for our paths to congeal.
(3/9/91)
A day comes with a
morning dew,
For the words, less
to cope all few,
The breezy wave and
tweeting eyes,
Of rising sun, view
the Himalaya highs,
The trancing
eclipses and
faltering trees,
Held me there,
caught me freeze,
And the prevailing
dusky downy haze,
To falling cascade
of ivory rays,
Where I hied to let
it chase,
This beautiful
bounty widespread
haze,
I look & look, with
a glance and gaze,
With winking eyes
with hot cap,
I observed their
silent nap,
And whence the sun
rise and set,
Sparrow and humming
beak to get,
Food to survive and
maintain life,
And live on sharp
edgy curvy stemy
knife,
Above the grove and
in dense forest,
Where harmonious
peace dwells in the
nest,
Where leaves
levitate and birds
hove,
And oscillate with
desire, solidarity
in love,
A bird in this
hustle bustle,
Jingle jangle and
trilling rustle,
Are not base
generations, it’s
true so,
They rise through
reincarnation, and
grow,
Up to our believe
and reckon,
They are alive and
born,
I ask my conscience
where to hike,
Stood here and there
or by riding bike,
To feel the scent of
this rainy December,
Over my worries and
lethargy to
remember,
His never-ending
silence to end
daylight,
Made one statue,
stunned one bright,
And I put my towel
to have a shower,
This congeal water
pierces me by power,
Oh ablution is
enough for adequacy,
Count on, fend off
with sufficiency,
And when I walk on
flossy meadow,
The emerald tint
fell a shadow,
Upon my eyes to
sensory nerves,
Where the earth,
laid with several
curves,
The invigoration of
spirit rises up
more,
On rambling off and
on, this grassy
floor,
Over this belt with
buoying ways,
No alternate of this
land, O nays,
Where I felt about
flying upon,
Falling, right left,
up and down,
Then I move here and
there, up-to sun
height,
To meet buoyantly
this sunny light,
The sun with
magnetic warm and
beguile,
This morning with
candelabra wile,
Cause a man to wake
and woke,
Sing a flute while
sitting under an
oak,
How this mean, a
life less of
leisure,
Won’t you thrill
this grudgingly by
measure,
A world, an
embarrassment of
riches,
And a life with
plenty of beach’s.
Shahid Hussain
Chouhdry
Unfettered passions congeal with confusion
each night as in darkness, my mind's journey roams
depths of desire, deviant and untrusting
leaving me despair.
Twisting tourniquets ever-tightening grip
as urges of fantasy relieve torment
in tranquil pools of obsession, life falters
yet intensely grows.
Weeping rivers cast onto downy cushions
meet their demise in sonant voiced billowed plumes
that cosset my fatigued head with caresses
of indulgent dreams.
JF March 16, 2009
Put forth, in some array, to just regroup
the Senior's left, advantages the soup,
that healing art, asunder, wages loop
sits idly by, while effort leads the coup!
Not merely mass destruction, pieces youth
some beauty, just assumption, wrath's uncouth
the topping of life's gumption, stilled to view
as war less, time is drifting, in a groove!
A court of trial, as often times the tread
is just a nod away, a smiled imbed
that recognition's foundling, further read
the stupor of forgetting, files with fret!
Is aging the encumbrance, or faith's dread
to see the children, numbered to exceed
and then the effort, slumbered to recede
some patronizing's drummer that repeats!
Our countryside a wonder, Spring's reprieve
as effort left to nature feels the beat
my soul's encounter jumbled by retreat
the golden years, so compromised to meet?
Would march my errors dunder to the street
in trust's consideration of my years,
the stumble, now the victor, if be sweet
the victories confirm, fear obsolete!
Ne'er ending, the encounter of entreat
what Kingly entourage, I would entail
the nourishment of fondness, so completes
my resolute encounters not assail!
O'er love, the vestige flounders with repeal
swear not the victim, scoundrel's filing scorn
to overcome the sound rolls not congeal
and liven beauties heart skoal . . . . moments stored!