Best Contort Poems
In emerald dreams of a romantic isle
Beholden to your signature smile
Kiss me tender in secrets of runes
Cuddled in arms of a sensuous moon
Attach a note to verses of love
Tell me once more--the song's forever
Align yourself in visions lavender
Surfing the winds on butterfly wings
Chasing blossoms of lilac flowers
Hugging the banks of a giggling river
Reject the confused subconscious vibes
That contort the truth dwelling in lies
Yearning to win your seal of acceptance
And, oh my dear, be forewarned
Of glittering metals--prone to corrosion
Imitating designs of genuine jewels
Befriended by unscrupulous people
Is it any surprise that the golden sun
Rises for you on the tangerine arc
And paints your hues in purple splendor
Inscribing there in colors of spectrum:
My love for you shall remain eternal
September 5, 2019
HM: Strand special 10 by Brian Strand
Ten word challenge 1 poetry contest
Sponsor: Kai Michael Neumann
Required words in order presented:
signature, cuddled, attach, align, confused,
subconscious, contort, seal, corrosion, surprise
Categories:
contort, love, romantic,
Form:
Verse
Caustic memories dissolve on my tongue
Lingering tastes of battery acid and nicotine
Cause me to choke on putrid saliva.
Staring at melting walls, clocks tick in unison.
Distorted birdsong hums outside of jagged windows
Under the warped sun, an unrepentant landscape blurs.
Freshly budding peonies liquefy;
Veils thin, evaporating the delusion of reality.
Why must I mould to the edges at your bidding,
Contort to the point of my own dysfunction?
For such fleeting worship, this devastation lingers -
Devours and disconnects my inner workings.
I lie highlighted in shadow, a beacon of quiet distress;
A dislodged scapula desperate to be labelled angelic.
Grounded, wingless, and forever out of time -
Wearing the last face you cared for as a comforter.
Neon venom warming twisted arteries,
Sinister patches stitched upon a breaking back.
A narcissist's crown digging into my head
Like rusted nails plunged into worm-infested wood—
Permanent disconnection, frayed cerebral cortex.
Blurred vision obscures insidious figures hiding in hushed corners,
Whispering in Babylonian tongue. Hallucinatory illusions haunt
What was a once-pristine sanctuary,
Now morphing into a surrealistic asylum.
Revelation exists above shadow in temporal machination,
I'm consciousness not yet swept up with sand;
Closed eyes cleanse my corneas - I rest in a balm of clarity.
Your power superficial, a cankerous cataract peeled clean off.
It is you who is bereft, washed up with the shell you created.
All the walls of your empty room fallen flat,
As I unfurl in the mirror beyond the shoreline,
I realise - it was never me you couldn't stomach.
Categories:
contort, art, deep, imagery, poetry,
Form:
Ekphrasis
You my love
Are perfect
You my love
Know how to make me wiggle
Moan, scream into silence
Arch my back and contort
Like I never knew I could
You my love leave me breathless
Speechless, thoughtless
Without capability to comprehend
Anything other than your touch
You my love are a master magician
An understanding lover with navigating hands
Categories:
contort, best friend, love, lust,
Form:
Free verse
Her face may show a rosy blush
Peering through a favorite bush.
Perhaps you'll greet with great delight
This newcomer dressed in purest white
Miss Morning Glory, sweet and lush.
Well known as bind-weed, Nature's thug.
She sidles up with gentle hug
Then follows with a deadly squeeze
And takes her neigbor's life with ease.
She is more evil than the slug.
So if you see a pretty vine,
With lovely blossom, so benign
Beware and with your garden knife
Take this imposter's wicked life.
Let greedy slugs upon her dine.
If you should choose to let her stay,
She will not ever go away.
She'll use your favorites for suppport
And bend them in a strange contort.
With their very lives they're forced to pay.
Your helpless beauties cannot shun
This grim tormentor and can't run.
As this anaconda steals their breath
They'll die a most distressful death.
Death by constriction isn't fun.
For "Flower" contest
Categories:
contort, nature
Form:
Personification
In novels, love is the obstacle overturned by the ardent swain
In song, love is a grandiose solo in melodic chains
In poetry, love is fervent rhyme in syncopated refrain
In movies, love is a monologue in the rain
In real life, love is made of little things
Of scraping burnt crust off the grilled cheese
Of putting his favorite soda in the fridge, to be cold when he gets home
Of giving up the comfy chair to his aching back
Of putting ice in plastic bags to sooth the shocking jolts of pain in his spine
Of slipping his shoes on and off because he can not bend to do it
Of sleeping alone in the king-size bed upstairs because climbing steps is too excruciating for his weakened legs
Of driving him through rainy rush-hour traffic for his physical therapy
Of watching his face contort when he walks and knowing there are no words of comfort to abate his agony
Of smiling at his goofy jokes, just to have an instant of relief
Of linking fingers while waiting for what the doctor will say
Little things are the cushion
When the world comes down.
2/7/19
Categories:
contort, caregiving, husband, pain, sick,
Form:
Implant within me a seed monthly, though the pulverization derides me. Let it conjure hope and solace to shatter my reality as venomous weeds entwine it, sickening me as I lay still in the liquid birthed from my own fruit. Implant within me a seed; let the feral roots ensnare it, suffocating my every breath and cell until it ruptures--obliterated within my frail and aching tree. It be destined to return but stripped of the avant-garde its predecessor once possessed. Implant within me a seed; it’ll part for months, leaving my psych mangled as blood seeps through trypophobic perforations crafted solely by its hand. The seed, thriving as I decay, renders its final blow the day we die. Implant within me a seed; force it into a sanctum where it does not belong, and let fate, warped and distorted, contort my marred soul. That which I once refused to acknowledge shall now delude my senses, forcing me to reach for those who feel not love but only pity for my aberrant roots. Implant within me a seed; let me perish within its absence, yet perpetually suffer under its presence. Wound me with my own creation.
Your end creates you
It will return to rip you
Plant it, watch it die
Categories:
contort, allegory, anger, angst, beautiful,
Form:
Haibun
I bent over to touch my toes
and the ground tore open like a backbone.
I tried to feed myself the sky;
to splice my tearducts into the universe
so that, when the pavement cried, it would mean something to me.
My fingernails punctured that slimy membrane
congealed with stars,
and I brought a slice of it to my lips,
hot and slippery like a jellyfish.
Peach juice, chalky-sweet, flowed,
fleshy particles snagged in my teeth,
and the colors erupted within my mouth.
Synthesia took over my lungs.
The hollows between my knuckles flooded with synovia
and all the ectoplasm threatened to separate from my cells
with a sound like thunder.
Diphthong tasted rusty like leukoplakia as it tiptoed across my tongue.
Tomorrow rose like the skeletons of trees,
groping for a feeling similar to catharsis
[catharsis tender as the broken wings of doves,
crunching underfoot like shattered glass.]
The clouds opened their thunderous maws
- teeth snicker-snacking, lamplight-eyes flaming the color of E#'s -
and consumed me.
I felt my skin turn to something other than skin:
thick and rough with scales,
my fingerprints melting into something waxen, smooth and opaque,
like pomegranate kisses on coffee mugs.
A feeling ignited deep in my structure;
cedillas blossoming like lilies from my lips,
fragmented sentences stretching taut as guitar strings
between my thumb and forefingers.
A flutter gentle and demonic as Calcifer erupted from my system
- splattering hot and frothing into my hand -
and fluid rushed in.
I dared to taste oblivion,
and the sky swallowed me.
My lungs failed to be lungs.
They flooded with caustic matter,
and I coughed up reflections sharp as fiberglass;
fighting with organs phthisical and sore.
I struggled to find a way to describe it:
the feeling of consuming something greater than yourself,
of opening your eyes and tasting the sound of rain.
It was like swimming,
but inside out.
I bent over to touch my toes,
and my spine tore open;
the loose laces unraveling, veterbrae poking out
like the tines of forks.
I tried to contort myself into the beginning,
but I only found where I end.
Categories:
contort, allegory, confusion, depression, fantasy,
Form:
Free verse
It began with a tiny black hole in my mind,
bit by bit it gravitated me into the void;
making me a slave to silence.
I had never seen anything more powerful,
perhaps it was a god;
a deity of darkness or hell.
I was immured in shackles,
made a prisoner of the dark;
yet in isolation I kept myself alive.
I begged the many divinities of the world,
yet none spoke of benediction.
No one stood alongside
and no one held my hand.
I knew I couldn’t make it,
but I didn’t let it show.
My mind screamed in thoughts
and my heart grew cold.
I couldn’t feel the outside world,
I was still in it
but it wasn’t in me anymore.
Thus, I clutched my heart in my hand
and locked my fist.
I switched off,
bereft of any feelings;
I became numb.
‘The Great Darkness’ became an acquaintance in solace
and let slip it’s deepest and darkest secret,
‘’that the best way out is through’’.
Hence, I placed back the frozen heart,
hopeful it would melt;
but flames breached from a rift;
igniting a wild fire;
captivating me and everything around.
It was a renascence
from my rite of passage,
that rekindled the id;
to moult
and contort
by the ordeal.
A door closed behind me
and a door swung open in front.
I saw everything I never wanted
and everything I always did.
I came out to the dark alleys of the world
with my chattel,
a forever-burning candle;
to light up yours;
for it was the end of the beginning.
Categories:
contort, birth, deep, depression, faith,
Form:
Free verse
“Corrosion of feelings”, the accusation said. A seal, a signature. I was a bit confused, though, when the judge, a heavyset gentleman with a kind red face, rose from his seat and cuddled me.
- What's your last wish, son? - he asked me sweetly.
No wishes.
- Come on, - he insisted. - Ask the audience, fifty-fifty or call a friend?
The subconscious thirst for feeling things the way normal humans do tries to turn even nothingness into something resembling human, to give weight to weightlessness, to attach sense to nonsense, so it was not surprising that they caught me by surprise when I saw the prosecutor's face contort: he was crying. I can imagine how the executioner will be upset to align me a little – a local euphemism. Poor butcher!
you are so callous -
he'll tell me slightly later
feeling my thin neck
31.08.2019
Ten Word Challenge 1 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Kai Michael Neumann
Categories:
contort, feelings,
Form:
Haibun
From the world
of Unspeakable
Delights, here you
come
walking and swaying down the
aisle - blessed
with sweetness and bathed
in tenderness - boldly
naked before
me
Anointed with
royal
charisma and power, you
trick me with your
silvery
voice and jolly disposition for
one
more chance to stare at
me uncompromisingly and
methodically
hand searching my soul and
body - faster and
faster - biting each
morsel in
before drowning lost
into my
eyes, intoxicated.
Breathlessly unassisted by your
mind, your
hands contort seeking a
way to either
touch me or find
shelter whereas your divine
lips shiver in distress.
On those
very - divine
indeed - lips of yours my world
gets done and
undone each and every
given day.
Categories:
contort, love, me,
Form:
Free verse
The scene distorted,
the image contorted,
light shaded,
time complicated,
haunting night,
strong enough
to distort light.
God Summarized,
as he thought about evacuating the planet,
it would be wrong,
it could take very long,
but it would save civilization,
from the devil’s invasion.
The devil’s yellow light of destruction missed,
the bomb passed the earth and sizzled,
lost its power and fizzled,
God had moved the whole planet,
so the distort, contort,
was simply a divine plan,
to fool the devil,
and to save Man.
Categories:
contort, fantasy
Form:
Dramatic Verse
You left to prey on another innocent heart,
and yet, it came as no surprise;
after all, it was your signature move.
My subconscious wasn't willing to overlook the obvious,
and attach genuine feelings to love's fake facade.
Confused and lonely,
I allowed you to breach the walls
of my heart with your whispered, witty words.
But when we cuddled close,
your thoughts seemed so distant;
your mettle started showing signs of corrosion
and I tried buffing it with trust and love;
but to no avail.
I realized our goals would never align,
for I had to contort the truth to make it fit your lies.
And I got tired of hanging on to a lost cause;
and so, I let go!
Categories:
contort, 10th grade, anxiety, betrayal,
Form:
Free verse
Age is not all decay; it is the ripening, the swelling, of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the husk. George MacDonald
_____________________________________________________________
In a world where decay is dominant,
Arctic tundra is melting, and envy is prominent.
Friendship withered away with the lapse of time,
Moon gapes at all facts and truths, concomitant.
We jive in death-cool air and chime,
Where dreams and hopes start to climb.
As though molehills faded into the grass,
Rapture rain has turned into melting rime.
In a place where the sky spills tears of brass,
And the howling winds bestow a deafening bass.
We lingered in the natural ephemeral support,
Behind the murky cloud of the ebbing mass
Our bond, however, was not flexible to contort,
Cyclic in the way that orchestral drums distort.
We carried out a solemn pledge on the floor,
In divine draughts, brambles flood the report.
The Meadow Brook gave us richness galore,
Black valleys where floods shred and roar?
We could not deny such a reservoir of devotion,
As with the wilting branches and dwindling door.
Our bonds faded, plagued by wide demotion,
Secrets below the land, a flurry of blades of notion.
In a world where deterioration prevails supreme,
Time and distance cast a curtain on our emotions.
But even amid such decay, there is a dream,
Darkening and drooping, we creep and esteem.
With the truth that humanity may split and slope,
Crows chirp as they drop twigs and scream.
While passing across acrid rings of mope,
Our ties are fraying. Teach me how to hope.
It shines brightly behind the gloomy overlay,
A dazzling beacon in the depths to grope.
In this universe of inexorable decay,
We acquire courage with each raw day.
With percussive pulses of love and delight,
Our ties will last for a span we cannot deny.
In a world where decay holds its might,
We defy its grasp, shining with an inner light.
Through the drills and tribulations we face,
Whatever embers burn our ego and sight.
Categories:
contort, analogy, angst, bereavement, care,
Form:
Rubaiyat
At times our SUBCONSCIOUS
holds memories we wish that had been
It can CONTORT the truth
as it can ATTACH a happy
SIGNATURE to our very
thoughts while forgetting
the CORROSION of the bad
it will SEAL a new memory
into our mind
Instead of being pushed away we
may view being CUDDLED
You do not have to be CONFUSED
to cast out the bad memories
it may SURPRISE you
as it does me
You see I ALIGN myself
with the good
I cast out all that hurt
making memories more pleasurable
and life a lot less stressed
N/A
Contest: ten word challenge 1
Sponsor:Kai Michael Neumann
Date:8/23/19
Categories:
contort, conflict, courage, growth, memory,
Form:
Free verse
Every day in every country,
Our language is distorted, mutated on planet Earth.
Good words like “drolic” die,
Whilst “wanna ‘ave a go” is given a birth.
In Australia it’s clearly a Mad World with
Slang words destroying our grammar.
“Yeah naah, naah yeah”
Smash literature, smash it with a hammer.
We always modify and contort our words,
“Too right, this arvo, I’m rooted, go crack a fat”.
Aussies go getting’ it written in permanent,
“Good onya” a fair dinkum tat.
When u were left alone, alone to fight,
Fight for survival, u gave it a crack.
But the society of dictionaries, they stood,
Stood up straight, and then they turned their back.
So, traditional writing is dying,
Stuttering, falling, the writing’s on the wall.
See ya later elocution,
Ya didn’t shorten, that’s been ya downfall.
But alas, don’t freak, ur family name is safe,
Since some old words evolve and new are created.
Shakespeare invented and killed off heaps himself,
Arch villain, rant, drugged and assassinated.
Lyric: Mad world
Cliche: The writing on the wall
Image: Crowd of people turn their backs on a fight
Entered into "Lyrics cliché image" contest 5/14/2016, ranked First place
Categories:
contort, drug, language, literature, remember,
Form:
Rhyme