Best Contracted Poems
In open space free
Steel and glass enclosure
A small moving space confined
My possession of pride
Momentum propelled by young drive
A companion of trust.
The wingless bird
Tunneled timid air
Dust trailed the motion
Distance to sunrise horizon
Contracted like an accordion
Music under the bonnet.
Tread of twenty turning years
Took abrasive toll on patina of past
My adored Fiat Padmini senile
Rusted in immobile inertia
Old jalopy’s journey to junkyard
Raised the last dust
From the debris of my heart.
Written : July 22, 2019
May 19, 2020
Contest : Brian's Choice L
Sponsor : Brian Strand
Categories:
contracted, analogy, car, old,
Form:
Free verse
What I’m feeling is difficult to put into words
It really is very hard to share the pain
I feel in my sad and heavy heart.
I never dreamed when we married that
when it said “until death do us part”
We’d be divided so soon as husband and wife.
I always thought that there was no doubt
that we would grow old together in life.
There is a saying that says "nothing lasts forever".
It seems this includes marriage as well
Especially when you're hit with an obstacle in life
that knocks you when you're not looking on your face.
I couldn't see this coming it took me quite by surprise
I'd contracted something the Doctors couldn't mend
Soon I'd be leaving the man I loved more than life itself
My husband and soul mate, more importantly my friend.
My final wish for you is to find true peace in your heart
When I'm gone remember our happy times together
Let your heart be open for any new love that comes along
If it does grab it with both hands; don't let it slip away
I want you to find a new love with whom to spend your life
Then, if it's meant to be you'll know and have my blessing also
Very soon I hope and pray that you could be asking her some day
Would she do you the honor of of becoming your loving wife.
Categories:
contracted, death, husband, love, husband,
Form:
Lyric
A contracted seafarer...concerning no servile rank,
kept e'er involved watch...away from menial daily tasks top deck,
while steadfast wary of...the diligent taskmaster's whip.
A dawn swift gust...brushes the ship from a rocky pillar,
duly rallies from rest...aids calamitous bellows from crow's nest,
witnessed by crew...rose an angel disguised with devil horns.
Seawater laps feverishly...against ship's wooden hull,
as panic over breed minds...once sturdy legs go feebly about,
cascading thoughts grips privately...every man for himself.
Another abrupt action...frees a churning sea expounds,
and an opening hole...devouring anything within its midst,
as desperation consumes...a ship has long met its doom.
A lone selfless soul of limited else...moved past the lost,
and hastily clutched a burdened javelin...and hoist it upwards,
with his petitioned combined strength...released the deadly blow.
Her dying scream...was drowned out by restored happy voices,
and a wealth of well-wishes and praises...honoring accolades,
as lone eyes of a humble sort...gaze a siphoning pass.
Categories:
contracted, mythology,
Form:
Sijo
Here I lie in bed again,
Awaiting my next meal.
A worker enters in my room,
As if it's no big deal.
What ever happened to courtesy? Just a little knock.
Do you think I'm just a vegetable, Laying here like a rock?
What ever happened to manners? I haven't got a clue.
BUT KEEP IN MIND AND DON'T FORGET, THAT I'M A PERSON TOO.
I know I can not talk,
Or even joke around.
But I'm well aware of everything, and also every sound.
If you have another worker help, change me during rounds.
Please don't talk about me, as if I'm not around.
Treat me with respect,
the same I'd give to you.
KEEP IN MIND AND DON'T FORGET, THAT I'M A PERSON TOO.
My bones are stiff and achy,
I hear you say I'm contracted.
My belly hurts, I haven't pooped,
I hope I'm not impacted.
I'm sorry I may dribble,
and at times I even stare.
It's not easy being old,
aging isn't fair.
These are the cards God dealt me,
There's nothing I can do.
JUST KEEP IN MIND AND DON'T FORGET, THAT I'M A PERSON TOO.
I used to be a lively one,
just like your pretty self.
I traveled, married, and worked long hours until I lost my health.
I press my light to see a face,
Or just for company.
For someone just to look inside, and realize that I'm ME.
You walked past my light,
what am I to do?
PLEASE REMEMBER I'M A PERSON TOO.
I'm sorry that I messed the bed,
I feel like such a baby.
I'm so embarrassed, and ashamed,
that I'm doing this at eighty.
I'm sorry I couldn't hold it,
I didn't know what to do.
KEEP IN MIND AND DON'T FORGET, THAT I'M A PERSON TOO.
I wish that I was able,
to communicate some way.
So finally I'd get the chance,
to say what I want to say.
I hear you talk with other patients, so please don't walk away.
If everyone showed a little compassion,
I wouldn't feel this way.
So here I am, no family left, as loneliness weighs heavy on my chest.
I may be sad, I may be blue.
PLEASE REMEMBER I'M A PERSON TOO.
Next time my light is on,
come and see if I'm OK.
I'm a retired nurse of thirty years, and would love to hear about your day.
Categories:
contracted, baby, cry, depression, destiny,
Form:
Couplet
In order to understand , you should go to the poem "William part 1 "
Your back ..I thank you ! I know many disagree with the love one may choose to have with same sex , I ask you this time ..try and see past .
I lost contact with William for a long time .
Once going to the blues fest amongst hundreds in Line, for the porta potty
The sign said "vacant " I opened the door , It was William who thankfully was dressed !
We Laughed and had fun , something different though he had become .
He told me he fell in love with a Man , he said the man was Hiv positive and so was he . They used no Protection in Intimacy. What William did not understand , the man he loved dearly, had full blown Aids , William died soon , as he contracted a higher grade of the Virus . He died within one year .
I did not know of Williams demise, Until My Brother showed up with a friend at my door .
My Brother asked if they could come in , The friend he had with him lost his Brother .
It did not take long when I poured him a drink , he talked about William his Brother , that is when I began to think.
That was when I knew ..The Brother that he spoke of whom died so suddenly , was William .
With a wish to his Brother , please if it's the last thing you do , Find my friend, "the Platinum Blonde " tell her , I will always love her, he in death , had forgotten my name , it was the love he remembered ..the love stayed the same .
The man said he looked for many months and gave up , distraught he could not find This friend ,as he promised his brother on his death bed.
My Face turned white , as I saw the resemblance ..I put the two together .
It was a message Heaven sent . He too then realized , The Angel of William sent him right to the door of my home that cold , rainy , night.
This is for My beautiful friend , Never have I met one like you, with so much Life .
I miss him and to this day he will not be forgotten . I love you too .
always , your Platinum Blonde .
Categories:
contracted, black african american, grief,
Form:
Ballade
BULLET BLIND
$$ $$
Thrown from a capricious cannon like a piercing parasitic phantom $$$$$$$$$$
$ A rapacious raging random in creation of the agonistical assassin $$$$$$$$$$
The heated destroyer contracted by the egocentric employer >>>>>>>BULLET
$ The blistering boiler acephalous aiming a sinister spoiler $$$$$$$$$$$$$
$ Katabolic killing fields of what youthful yearning yields $$$$$$$$$$$
Bullet to the head $$$ you’re dead
Life of crime$$$ $$ doing time
Worship money $ bloody
Eyes of vain absorbing the pain$$
Greedy gods of war
Abusing the poor
Blind ambition
$ Manic mission $
Innocence lost
At a great cost $
$$$$$$$$$$$$$
March.26.2018
Something Concrete
Sponsored by: Maureen McGreavy
Categories:
contracted, conflict, fear, humanity,
Form:
Concrete
Contract
In a little town away out west ,
the Contract was out,
the thunderboxes best,
Tommy Bumble offered 20 cents a tin,
To take the human manure in,
With the contract he was blest,
Tommy Tartar was in haste,
He offered twenty five cents,
got replaced,
By the cheapest contract in,
His fart cart got a win,
He got the council contract.
This is just how business works,
When Abbot gets you contracted, an smirks,
Your lowest wage HE does win,
Others cheaper offerings,
Might undercut your perks,
Cheap labour for the cunning rich,
Contract forced on the worker,
Howard’s damned work-choices pitch,
Voters rejected him, the smirker.
Their aim is just to buy you cheap,
More dollars for the greedy creep,
Will you join up with the other sheep
And get mulesed into the bargain,
Weep…
Don Johnson
Categories:
contracted, adventure,
Form:
Ballad
For John Hink
I left your stool in my kitchen corner where you sat, a crooked grin on your weathered face that had seen a hundred sunsets. Fields you tilled by horse-drawn plows now contracted to clusters of London Bespoke Suits leveraging corn oil markets.Patiently you'd appear before supper as I made my way through the pantry pulling canned goods I lovingly processed and freshies I gathered from neat rows in my garden. We ate in silence, knowing words had long-since lost their weight. Clouds drift over our final resting place now, our souls drifting peacefully along, only visiting in dreams.
...your sister Ellie
6/9/20
Categories:
contracted, absence,
Form:
Prose
Spring hasn't sprung: No bees have stung;
No painter's fallen off a ladder's rung.
No miner's contracted black lung.
Spring hasn't sprung: No batter has swung
At a strike three pitch that no hurler has flung
In a ballpark where Opening Day Game banners
have yet to be hung.
Spring hasn't sprung: No dry parched tongue
Has yet been clinged or been clung
To lips burnt by the rays of the sun.
Spring hasn't sprung: No song has been sung
Off-tune and off-key in an obscure mother tongue
By a lone crooner bereft of a love unstrung.
Yes: It's ok that Spring hasn't sprung:
--If certain particular news is not brung.
March 30, 2018
Contest entry in "Spring Fling Zing Thing King (or Queen)"
Sponsor - Michael Vacek
Categories:
contracted, how i feel, philosophy,
Form:
Monorhyme
Born a year after her crowning, named after the Queen
My sister had no luck, her life short and mean
Academically and behaviorally in trouble at school
A royal rebel was 'Liz;' she broke all the rules
Couldn't hold a job for more than a year
Her 'friends' all smoked dope and drank beer
Yet a good heart had she; give you the shirt off her back
Acted surprised, not upset, if it didn't come back
Contracted HIV from a tainted blood transfusion
Lived seven more years in pain and disillusion
A tragic story, cut down at 36 by AIDS disease
My sister Elizabeth, namesake of royalty
~ This year marks 29 years since Elizabeth's passing ~
Categories:
contracted, sad, sister, tribute,
Form:
Ode
God believes in term limits –
no surprise, Congress does not;
The soul responds immediately
to truth – while policy requires
endless debating...
Good needs no rehearsing –
unlike evil, always heavily
scripted and eternally
contracted....
Categories:
contracted, evil, freedom, humorous, philosophy,
Form:
Free verse
"Placebo - Part 2"
There’s little sins and HUGE SINS
Little mistakes, possibly forgiveable.
HUGE MISTAKES, HUGE SINS?
That’s a different kind of metronome
marking time over a head, while
a recidivist waits for his deal with God.
You ask those little girls and boys
who are divested of their childhood,
their pure innocence in
the most heinous ways -
if they think you deserve a deal with God,
while you look at photos of them being defiled,
or worse, you are in the filthy piece of Celluloid with them.
You ask those little girls and boys
who have been divested of their childhood,
their pure innocence in
the most heinous of ways,
who have been killed and thrown
like bags of rubbish somewhere -
if they think you deserve a deal with God.
You ask the families of all that have been
inflicted and their lives unalterably changed -
whether they think you deserve a deal with God.
They say there is no God.
Well, perhaps there isn’t.
Why would a just God let that happen?
“Suffer the little children” etc
What if God is truly “I Am”? And that
“I Am” is in you.
And the you that is lying there
concerned for your own remorse,
your own deal with God -
not the deal and mercy
a child deserves to be given by God
(even at this moment, somewhere in the world,
a child all alone crying out for…);
well, you just
turn over in the cot in your crib and cry like a baby,
thinking you are all alone.
What if God that is the "I Am"
could kick out of your body
the other lesser god, the god
that is the "I Isn’t"?
Is it possible at this point, I wonder?
I guess it depends on what stage of diarrhoea,
you’ve contracted.
Because when you get down to the
nuts and bolts of it,
this Life we have,
is all about Contracts.
The officer on duty knocks
opens your door hatch, and announces,
“You’ve got a visitor”.
You swing off the top level of the bunk
you’re dying of boredom in,
trying not to kick the other “effer” in the head
and you are let out of your crib.
You’re off to make your deal with God.
(Lovejoy-Burton/2017 Dec)
“MOTHER, is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children” William Makepeace Thackeray
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_bYLcTjnPA
Categories:
contracted, abuse, addiction, child abuse,
Form:
Free verse
At Christmas I contracted the flu
From taking the kids to the zoo
The hippos were a wheezing
Ten monkeys were sneezing
Now my temperature’s a hundred and two!
Categories:
contracted, funny,
Form:
Limerick
Translation of Cuppiramania Bharathiyar’s poem: Kannamma, My Love! (Kannamma En Kaathali) by T. Wignesan
Yet another poem by the most famous modern Tamil poet, written a century ago – despite the commonplace imagery – follows in the original very complex classical Tamil prosodic rules in the execution of initial and end-rhymes, alliteration in each line and in the immediate and successive lines as a whole, the inner rhymes of assonance and consonance notwithstanding. The non-Tamil can best savour these poetic and/or musical qualities by listening to the version of the poem set to music, and here sung by Mahathi:
YouTubeFR: Aasai Mugam Jukebox – Songs of Bharathiyar – Tamil Patriotic Songs (It’s the 4th song down on the left column)
Does not the endearing warmth of our mutual gaze – Kannamma
Reflect the light of the sun and moon alike?
Does not the precious circular eye – Kannamma
Dispel the darkness of the skies?
Dressed in deep blue-black silk – the sari
Inlaid with choice diamonds
While in the core of pitch darkness – glitter
The scintillating stars – Dear-Girlie!
Does not the blossoming grove fade – lit by your
Illuminating smile?
Even as blue-tinted sea waves –your
Breast heaves in unison – Girlie-Dear!
Just as the enticing cuckoo call – your
Sweet dulcet tones invade, My Dear!
O! You unspoilt young maiden! – Kannamma!
The bridal feast* has yoked my heart, alas!
You speak of comparing birth-charts* - Kannamma
What avails such astrological omens?
For those who can hardly repress yearning – Kannamma
Might the stars forebode greater bliss?
If our elders will bestow approval – nuptial
Arrangements we will later formalize
Will I be waiting for you, My Dear – to seal
Our vows – plant I this kiss on your cheek!
Notes
• According to Hindu custom, the brides’s family has to offer a sumptuous dinner to the formally-invited bride-groom.
• Hindu marriages are often contracted after verification of
birth-charts, drawn up by astrologers, to ascertain the compatibility of the bride to the bride-groom.
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2015
Categories:
contracted, girlfriend, innocence, longing, love,
Form:
Dramatic Monologue
Where goest thou soul?
have you split again
into your kaleidoscope frame
in the body so vestigial contained
what if there is not one Other
but many that enter inside
waiting to stake claim
Where goest thou poet?
the higher self penned
it seems you have been contracted
to Groundhog Day again and again
Perhaps you are God, and in you the Matrix,
many souls enter your vessel
like a hotel door rotates and it swings
Where goest thou observer?
you stare at a wall, praying
like a wailing wall waits
for its prayers to be called,
head bowed, knocking, knocking, thrice knocking,
the mind opens its humble Shushan Door
where its Eastern side unsealed, shines so much more
and in walks The Stranger
the reading and writing of messages, bled
palms outheld, barefeet marked,
you have inherited the stigmata
all of a sudden you understand
you have been bookmarked,
alike for a while, shelved to be read
when It counts,
at the closing moment
of the main truth, the do and the dare
you are seated as if religiously waiting in Sunday school
passing and failing the tests, and failing again,
The Stranger smiles
as if you are the only one that imagines
The Stranger Is there,
The Stranger notes the notes you are passing back and forward again,
the teacher out front, has their back turned again, unaware
you pass The Stranger a note,
on it is written, “Get me the Hell out of here.”
The Stranger laughs and agrees
I follow The Stranger's lead like a child waits for a Saviour
to save the day, make it cool -
not a word spoken, yet the exchange, clearly heard,
the Door is wide open, and
out in the playground I am
again, throws me the ball,
I take the shot
The Stranger’s no fool
Candide Diderot. ‘24
Shushan/Golden Gate.
Categories:
contracted, muse,
Form:
Free verse