Best Crucible Poems
The crucible savant.. by Steven Hudson
(Crucible: A place or situation in which concentrated forces interact to cause or influence change or development.
Savant: a person of learning…)
Through sleepless, hopeless nights
With liquor on breath and dull head
Alone and cold in lay,
We made our passage to manhood,
Many days in suffer and want
Through tears and hardness of heart,
With sorrow for cellmates
In a prison self-made,
Rather hunger and want
Then submission to those above,
Wild wanderlust thrust us into darkness
Uncertainty of survival, without care,
Knowing no other way,
We strove to understand the deeds done to us in violence,
Shiver, quake, lie awake, as hopelessness covered us like a blanket,
Thieves and murderers as strange bedfellows,
Ladies of the night for use and forgotten,
Laws of the land forsaken,
In desperate want, Never knowing if we’d awaken,
Making our way through this world
Boys living as men,
We threw the line, heaved and toiled
In bright sun and fear,
With hands and feet against the frigid snow,
We lived beyond the breaking,
Many before us have sought their manhood,
While others have had it thrust upon them,
Much has been learned, much has been taught
By the flames and the fire, the crucible savant,
It has been our right of passage
Through bloodstained cloth and scars,
The fathers who came before us, live forever in the Arms,
Painted grey, now I see, the path laid out for me,
By the Infinite Son, whose Glory was won,
Making the savant, a reflection of Thee..
Crucible
In the vast expanse of life's grand tapestry,
Where dreams are born and destinies take shape,
There lie the trials that test our souls with glee,
And shape us into beings of courage and faith.
Oh, how we yearn for happiness' sweet embrace,
A shimmering mirage, forever in our sight,
Yet on this path, we encounter hardship's face,
The labyrinth of existence, our eternal fight.
Through murky depths and shadows cast askew,
We stumble, we fall, but we rise once more,
For within us burns a flame that always renews,
A spirit unyielding, a heart that fiercely soars.
With every trial faced, a lesson is learned,
Each setback a chance to discover our strength,
For it is in the darkest hours we discern,
The power to conquer, the will to go to any length.
We chase our dreams with fervor, unbridled,
With passion as our compass, we forge ahead,
Though obstacles may tower, unbeholden,
We find the strength to conquer fear and dread.
The pursuit of happiness, a lofty endeavor,
An elusive quarry that dances beyond our grasp,
But with each step, we come a little closer,
Through courage, resilience, and the will to clasp.
For in the depths of struggle, we find our core,
A resilience that defies the tests of time,
And as we navigate life's tumultuous shore,
We emerge as warriors, our souls sublime.
Embrace the trials, for they shape who we are,
They mold us into beings of wisdom and might,
For the pursuit of happiness is not too far,
If we march forward with purpose and light.
So, let us not falter in the face of strife,
But embrace the challenges that life bestows,
For in the crucible of trials, we find life,
And the pursuit of happiness forever flows.
Boy
Obstinate, belligerent,
Cursing, fighting, bullying,
Girl, crucible, ring, child,
Relenting, healing, sacrificing,
Steadfast, kind,
Man
Evil is among them,
Or so it truly seems.
Lies afflicting witches,
Is what holds the town of Salem at bay.
Abigail's mistake quickly turns into a terrible mess,
that leads to eternal damnation.
They tell the town that witches are among them,
to gain privileges that others cannot.
John and his wife have kept a cold house,
because of John's choice to lay with another.
The lies continue for days and days,
and people in the town of Salem even start to hang.
Abigail's lie leads her to control the town,
But what she doesn't know now is that she will eventually go down.
I can only begin,
To express what its like,
To have gone through such things,
As the crucible hike,
54 hours of torturing pain,
Which only got worse,
When it started to rain,
6 hours of sleep,
Issued 3 MRE'S,
5 recruits dropped,
Overcome by the heat,
After 2 days of hiking,
We were issued our masks,
Taken into a chamber,
Were we get CS gassed,
With the rest of our strength,
We head for the reaper,
Into the mountains,
We hike deeper and deeper,
80 pounds on our backs,
M16 to our side,
Ascending the mountain,
Screaming painfully inside,
The Reapers a monster,
It can swallow you up,
A truck had to follow,
To pick recruits up,
though it felt like forever,
We had finally arrived,
Beyond exhausted,
and sleep deprived,
Then the DI's scream out,
lets pack up our trash,
its time to head out,
So get off of your ass,
The hike back was torture,
But as we got back,
we ate a meal fit for warriors,
then marched straight to our racks,
Some thought they'd been dreaming,
Some wild cartoon,
But we had really overcome it,
As a team, a platoon!
Copyright © 2009 Zachary Jackson
In front of the vestibule the dragon slumbers
Atop a skeletal heap of unfathomable numbers
Like the despair that guards my fatigued core
Surrounded by the ruin of all that I implore
Beside the parlor bearing my unadorned diadem
Broods a scorned and jealous leviathan
As the scarab pushes the sun across the sky
My worry and anxiety continue to ramify
The imprisoned kraken waits with ominous patience
Beneath the bedrock and the foundations
The primeval serpent slithers around the apple of my eye
As my vigor wanes and my dread intensifies
However, I will never yield, I will fight forever, with my sword, with my shield
I reach for Excalibur, I reach for Mjolnir, I reach for Moses' Rod
And I summon the power that comes only from the true God
I wrestle my demons, I fight my fiends, and I clash with my foes
And I reclaim back from their greedy tendrils my hard-won repose
Thus is the plight of recovery
With each new height and discovery
Comes a new battle to wage
That I might enter my "golden age"
Dark I stand, cobalt cold and chipped ice
to the touch. Like a jetty on a winter's day,
mooring empty, friendless boats jostled
by vexed waves; bullying the weak.
But there was a time. I stood like Vesuvius,
naked to your cause. And hungered
for that momentary thrust of raw steel,
releasing spumante detonations that
reached a soot filled sky. I resonated with
the intensity of platinum-white heat, ready
to shape your dreams. Before returning it
forged by my love and pliable to your hammer
Buckets of water would quenched your prize and
sent screaming rivulets of steam off to find a
haven from the heat. Then, standing proud,
admired our work, as an artist to his canvas
But, days passed into years and years into an age.
And from the corner of my empire, I watched
the spring of your prime, turn to the clay filled
winter of your day. Like the dimming of a lustrous pearl
And now your apron, hangs on its nail,
gathering collections of a spiders yearly
endeavours. Whilst motionless and resolute,
I guard your kingdom and await your return.
Ready to recommence the heat of battle once more
Spring came like a crucible-
With a flicker, a spark, a bursting
Into color like a blossoming flame
Out of a crackle of breaking ice-
The sunlight burns through
With the brilliance of revelation
As season blazes into season,
A divine transubstantiation.
IN THE CRUCIBLE OF LOVE
Love
unlike hate
is eternal;
and cannot be
transformed.
Love is
and can only be
its self;
but hate
has many manifestations;
demanding
and expressing evil
in various deceptive ways—
Seeking to destroy all that is good.
Ah, but the goodness of love
is of God
and is impervious
to the will and destructiveness of hate.
Love surpasses all things;
and in due season,
hate and injustice
will fade into love and justice;
and hate and inequality
shall melt and flow into equality:
Such is the power of love—
Where love is, hate cannot abide.
"Poetry is a life-cherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry." — Mary Oliver
Inside the conscious mind of each poet
dwells stupendous and sundry thoughts.
They can escape as daydreams or nightmares
but sometimes, we capture them on paper
to share with the rest of the world.
We can record our exciting moments
yet also express our fears and failures.
We can create marvelous fantasies -
words to inspire the productivity of others.
It’s neat when we get our notions written down.
It's then our heads are cleared to make room
every day for more unversed ideas.
Best of all we have a hard copy
of past thoughts to read when a spark
within our own minds asks for remembrance.
November 29, 2022
Sponsor: Sotto Poet
Contest: poetry is a life cherishing force 20169
Crucible
Peer into an unpredictable universe
Of ambivalent depths
A calyx cul-de-sac tipped up
Into a crucible of the unexplainable
Where curiosity strides into pure moments of mystique
Fields of glory in bluebells
Rusted milestones
Hail ravaged wheat.
Echoes of the prophetic tongue
Swirl in chanted brews and prayers
Mists, parted by potions,
Bleed new horizons rising like cities lost
In hundred year mists
Brewed in a grail uncovered from eon’s smothering dusts
Tasting ego and humility
That knows its need for divinity.
Mercy metastasized in every grieving limb
And through the organ of the soul
Led through foreshadow’s chalice
Into unfathomable days yet to be born.
5-1-23
Contest: Up to 20 Lines
Sponsor: Sotto Poet
Twenty lines.
This world’s
sustained drama
seductively alluring,
leaving us
choking on
bits of broken
dreams,
shattered
memories,
ludicrous
lies …
Time to awaken
from sleep!
Strip away oxgoads
that constrain us,
that restrain us,
that bind us to past errors
preventing success
Allow us to roam
across fields,
vast and varied,
expansive fields of
endeavor that speak
to humanity’s
greatest needs—
Hearts can beat stronger
Lungs can breath freely
Minds can then grasp …
The truth!
As scorching as the spring’s mid-day sun
Muddled with pain from the burn
Fiercely caressing to the bone
Obviously heating to hurt
In silence he mourns
For it hurts with sore
But diligence he brings to fore
Slowly begetting patience at dawn
And his reward ultimately borne
Yet out of fear
Hands dare not come near
As he feast there
Hoping to overcome his flare
But he is now as cold as snow
For he hold pretense in the low
Seeking for patience as it sows
And finally he bows
For the heart that beholds him
Children of possibilities navigate the classable realms,
settling upon the measurable.
Amorous piglets, their peachy snouts delve,
rooting through the trash heap of desire.
"In a time beyond now," wheatenly speaks the tale-spinner,
plucking a clover, pale and crowned with stardust,
among the untamed grains sown in the depth of breath.
I crave an eye bathed in Bengal's blaze,
eternity riding a celestial pyre,
Cetus dancing on an ocean canvas,
whose seas flow no fresher than the confessions' wicked drippings.
These realms are places of suspicion,
where pigments of reality and fantasy fasten,
and I am compelled to dwell within my cresset,
guardian of the trimming glimmers.
Snipping the subtle freshness,
a novice to the gallows of Experience,
I gaze through colored glass,
where each tint tells a story of refracted truths.
The Crucible Of Fire
We call it ash,
although more like desiccated granular bone coral.
Whether ash or coral, I will be.
I am afraid, as I see
through unseeing eyes,
as I feel, even though I cannot feel,
the flickering flames that feed through the doors ahead
waiting for what was me.
Young once.
Not special but a beginning, a promise.
No hill too tall to climb, no challenge too great;
no laughter too big to embrace.
Dreams.
and then desire shredded,
sent aloft with the winds,
Vanished to some other world.
Hands grown spotted with time.
Eyes gone dim and rheumy,
sour old man breath of despair, and yes,
magic, either forgotten or tossed toward the fire ahead.
David Holmes