Best Contends Poems
...dedicated to W.B. Yeats, in response
to his poem 'When You Are Old'
When you are young sweet innocence abounds,
your step is gentle, all your dreams are free
of grim disquietude, such joy you see
as gaily you discharge your daily rounds.
Your heart is light, bereft of grave concern
that troubles him whose purity is lost,
who argues and contends at any cost,
who complicates and twists at every turn.
Simplicity must be your cornerstone,
strengthen your heart against all sorts of strife
that undermine a childlike view of life,
strive and prevail, lest innocence be gone!
There's a lost little girl
Roaming this world
Searching for truth and for love
Aimlessly seeking
Never reaping
All she is deserving of
There's a lost little girl
Giving life a whirl
While living her life all alone
Hidden inside
Is where she resides
Ever since she's been on her own
The little girl's life
Has been about strife
But now she tries to mend
Still lost and confused
She's easily bruised
For love she still contends
Her acceptance is grief
Her guilt has no relief
When her past comes chasing her down
Still she holds on to her rope
With a glimmer of hope
That her life will soon turn around
The struggle for America’s soul
now almost 250 years old
Shoulder-to-shoulder at her border
freedom contends with law’n’order
From ‘Give me liberty or give me death’
to defenders of slavery’s last breath
From ‘In order to form a perfect union’
to ‘The buck stops here’ of Harry Truman
From Chicago’s Haymarket Massacre in 1886
to the violence of this century’s politics
Tempers flare, the gloves come off, and ~ no surprise
~ Our unsure Republic’s been Monarchized
Since remarks from the T.V, and a stocking of my soul to breathe...
I relax eagerly when I await the heat and see that nothing come's out of me unless I can be free-
now they said in many many books that this is how we plead,
the defiance of a boarder stronger and foreigner as the hoarder from outer space descends,
but like my mentor contends with me as I ease into the heavenly shrine above mine,
I allow for only a sanctimony of time,
like I would wonder if my gun no longer shined-
and my face only ate pine,
and my body enveloped love of binds rather than the free floating chime...
I was a walker and yet no more than the other stalker a boat bought in a saunter.
Entered in “relevance”
Exit by consequence….
To the measure of temporary.. and unequal flaws,
While passions “unknown” court an unseizeable throne,
Ignite the cerebral and insight in emerging stages,
As the “wise” of life contends and contests,
Amid turbulent changes and far ranging rage!
On such signs ends an age...
©Joe Maverick 31-7-2011 copyright:)
Keats’ Nightingale
The romantic poets were too early to postulate total atheism,
And so freshened up the church by aligning god with nature,
And I believe they had a preference for nature over god or theism,
Because they never posit him as social with high, tall stature.
Keats says that the nightingale exemplifies nature as active,
As bestowing upon all human beings meaning, sense and worth,
Since the bird’s song objectifies how nature truly is effective,
Fulfilled by happiness, and aimed at contentment and rebirth.
Nature triggers in us thoughts and words to settle and allure,
Offers us our language to dispel pain and find the cure,
And Keats contends that poetry, the credibility of its form,
Epitomises what nature proffers, a receptacle rather warm.
When you feel awkwardly suicidal with nowhere else to turn,
Nature lullabies you into your own sense, one you can rip and burn;
No controlled access freeways, no road signs for your safety,
Only soft, quiet communication that's never guilty of brevity.
Just as nature is beautiful, so Keats claims people as beautiful too,
As he uses the word beauty right in the middle of his nature exposé;
He referred to flora, the moon, the stars, the forest and what seems true,
Tnat song of the nightingale that's for anyone, as this bird is not choosey.
He suggests that light or positivity in nature means movement,
That the soft breeze dispels the gloom and mossy pavement;
Quantum physics does reduce matter back down to interactive particles,
In which kinetic energy can be mistaken for minuscule, motionless articles.
His mentor is the nightingale as part of nature’s whole,
No minister or clergyman to advise him on his soul,
Stillness and bird song scent his poisoned air surrounding,
And it is all but for the silence of that beauteous music, astounding.
Nature does not irritate him when he surmises and introspects,
But upholds itself in majestic grandeur with unquestionable prospects;
It speaks about life, your life, your daily happenings and exotic dreams,
And forever exists for us when sense is just not within our means.
*Image of Little Boy Fishing by Mutual Art
Cape Cod Boy
A warring feat
expands beneath
petite and huge contends,
a unique line
tugging the brine
taunting as it suspends,
a juvenile
bear naught a smile
a glimpse enigma lends,
too close to shore
new hopes implore
that cod and haddock wends,
true tasty meats
fresh scene unseats
entreaties pleased extends,
aspect well made
fulfilled persuade
the wait, the catch godsends.
I am
I am the eagle that nests its thoughts in the wild
Crawling
Creeping
And craving for purpose
I am
The star that contends with the storms
Maneuvering its way
Through the jungle of weights
Embittered by the tongues of mortals
Souls who could not comprehend my composition and position
I am
A reflection of many shapes
Casting my imaginations on sheets
Heads
To think
And drink
My ink
Of creativity
The lessons buried in the mud of art
I am
Me
He
The tea
Traveling through your intestines
And veins
Awakening your senses
To think through your actions
I am
That naughty pencil that mirrors
Lives
Of mortals
Reminding them of their arrival before the KING of lives
The I am
That I am
Blossoming
flowers
growth.
Growth
contends and assures
life.
Life
via water and sun is
nurtured.
Orchard
acts
likewise.
Allies
like forests and all living
things.
Things
that nature supports like other
species.
Entities
from sea and land, like a woman and
man.
Human
life, like all others, is blessed with its
beginning.
If you haven't yet met mister All,
he's a renowned world traveler.
He's in every port,
postulates for sport;
a self-proclaimed mysteries unraveler.
Doubtless you know mister All,
any space becomes his dominion.
His view never bends,
as he loudly contends,
everyone must accept his opinion.
Surely you've suffered mister All,
he's every man's familiar relation.
He's anxious to show it,
his first name is Know-it;
he dominates every conversation.
Xiou Xue
‘Little Snow’ her story. ( my son's family 'home helper)
Ma wars, with earth to conjure a meal, Made in a kitchen which all pests have vacated.
Weariness blinkered, Pa contends, In a haze for contentment, in tobacco & drink.
A vision become probable, neon signs wink to her, Negative gains still seem to offer fulfilment of dreams.
Desolate in the dark room, prospects evaporate. Scenes of homely environments bridge bitter memories.
Jesus answers, She phones, They touch, Tobacco fades, Hopes rise, Christ lives.
Beijing Hutongs.
(Old alleys & narrow streets.)
Grey dust over all the piles of food waste, Snow Bikes & barrows. No flies no smell!
Wind chills’ no deterrent to sellers or window gazers. The tourist shivers alienated by culture.
Shoes happily shinned, smiles warm. The barterers laugh. Do half-hidden homes reflect the same?
The Peacemaker
Your innocent eyes
Mask the wisdom behind them
Sweet tenderness
Layered by bricks
You never falter
Your longing heart
Contends with a bridled spirit
Innocent dreams
Thickened by fog
You never know freedom
Your never-ending patience
Shields the frustration within
Calm acceptance
Surrounded by thorns
You never judge
Your unfailing kindness
Cascades over rocks and stones
Pure loyalty
Encompassed by bitter truth
You never forsake us
My heart has dreamed
through eyes of youth
the living for which I longed
Yet the journey weaved another truth
And found me singing a foreign song
Upon the hills and heading down
the path marked out for me
I find myself with another go round
Yet the song of my dreams
Lies barren of sound
There's a loss that cuts by jagged edge
Like dreams of a child at pregnancies end
Then the cradle lies empty instead
It's for longing this real my heart contends
for a dream resurrected from the dead
Two paths that promise more than plenty
each incomplete to meet the need
The glass half full the other half empty
as time compels me to concede
for life and love are never guaranteed
Yet I stand here frozen unable to choose
between half of a dream with each of you
For fear my song will never be sung
and to my own heart be untrue
If only I had a crystal ball to tell me what to do!
The etiquette of the night stands by the curtain with contentment
Picture of crawling crickets hectic body of voters colored
The darkness of imagination manipulates to dark our constitution to
constituency zone
The constant condemnation is an umbrella shared values and norms to the
nomadic.
The beauty of the night capsule of wants design to distract us from total
focus to guilty vocalist
The color of the house depicted in my imagination to beach goers like
garland escalation
Invitation of writers to describe the time of inspiration in their billions
of years of thinking
He never promised to witness the nasty sound of owl's cry as the village
hope hurt the messiah of serenity to conch sound
The tone of choir band collapsing to entertains the onlookers that never
involved in evolution epithet morning
Despite diction are sweet, but they never describe my pain as much as they
fulfilled the desires of your organs that whet my appetite to the smells of
an apple
Bend before your wife to appreciate her apple smile with broken grin to the
aggrandizement to the scent of your taste
My diary dramatize the pompous idea where conviction contends to
convulsion and it dash to my border of thinking.
“That dream only needs a speech to bring about the change the world has been waiting for,
never be speechless no matter what; you have something to say...”
Felix Joseph.o
SPEECHLESS!
A feeling contends to conquer me
Perhaps, I wanting to defeat it
Indeed, my irritability of the obvious
My contest to make it plain, baffles me
My best try,
Fry me to cry
Helpless my mouth
It cries echoes is speechless
When truth mutates to odium
Falsehood applauded as in a stadium
Avalanche of wrongs
Beaten into a compendium
Corruption celebrated in ovation
Justice, yet foreign in a nation
In reckless abandon,
The games rule is impunity
Flaunting absurd rights as immunity
Shame like a name
Honored as fame
Speaking the more
They have colonized the peak
Your audio, print and visual ranting
Concludes you an ant
A pens ink, as tears
Their brick hearts, quickly ignores
What then unlocks their hearts mystery?
Power emitting from the army’s canon?
Perhaps, the pens might
May cause a rethink
Yes a reflection amidst the stink
Confronts all loudly
Speechless is the act of the feel
Yet, still I dare to make a speech
A speech for my compatriots
A speech desiring a change
Yes! A speech to propel the speechless
Am speechless, yet not lacking in speech
Speechless is all it makes me feel
A speech can break the chains
Being speechless is not a gain
It germinates pain, like rain
Speak and rule the peak
Roar to unseat the freak
Shout and alarm the weak
Sing a tune, their hearts will break
Cry, your tears may cajole compassion
Yes! A speech ushers the change
The villains abhor a change
Truly, a speech moulds them speechless
A speech a world desire
Lacking in speak, all backfire
yet a speech will save the day?
Why speechless?
Just a speech of change will unveil the dream
yes! A dream for real change.
Author: Felix Joseph Osaeghemede
[email protected] ;+2348037825027.
Written:1-05pm-1-25pm: 10th-06-2008.