Best Crucibles Poems
Like a creature hibernating in its burrow
Waiting to come out with the first verdure of spring,
The seed of a poem lay dormant in my heart
Through the long winter awaiting another spring.
After staying torpid inside for long,
At a time I expected it the least
Timidly came out the first word,
As shaky as a calf getting up for the first time.
Then another came and word after word in a row
Like pellets of rain on the window pane.
I boiled them in the crucibles of my imagination
And dipped them in the ocean of my emotions.
But rhyme came to set constraints.
For the right alignment I struggled.
I had to decide on its texture and format.
Pondered if it should be a sonnet or an ode.
I might have kept the door open for long.
Alas! All my words and fancies flew away,
Like birds taking on wings into the sky
From a cage where they were imprisoned for long.
I stood so helpless with my mouth shut,
Staring blankly out into the airy nothing,
Like one lost in the doorway of his own threshold,
Unable to call back those winged words lost in the void
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~Placed Fifth~
Submitted for Marathon no.10. Poetry Contest
Sponsor - Mark Toney
~Placed First~
31. March .2022
A Brian Strand Standard
Poetry Contest
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Reformations amities amid poetics tour de force overture within, virtuoso's....
Fatalisms exuberant pas de deux; foreordained this ballet in exquisites verse
To cross dimensions of spatial extent; the new promised frontier?!
Paragons quintessential interludes gracing the paramouric stages
Amid divinities design a birth, borne upon the canvas of touchstone time....
Fantastic phenomena; parting these cosmic curtains in yesteryears ambivalence
Watersheds cardinal red moment in predestined manifestations crossing thresholds
Parallel spheres once bound by catharsises hand crafted crucibles reasons!?
Eclipsed, from limbo to be carried unto Eden; loves, eternal cats cradle palms....
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.... * “Imagine” ~
I hate it although that's my side story.
The breaking of the chains
The knitting of myself on the ground
The subjection to the crucibles of questions:
Of what reason should my going be?
Oh my good home!
The love of my homeland
The love of my brothers and sisters
The friendship shared with people of my homeland
This becomes my response in the land of aliens.
Love felt and sustained
In my heart there is joy at the thought of my home
Moved with tears if denied to come home
In vain do I live outside the city happiness
A place of rest
The company of the abandoned.
Oh my good home.
A diaphanous mist hangs over me
Blurring my thoughts and fancy
Or is it that my Muses have gone into lazy slumber?
Whatever thoughts I have, they come fragmented and scrambled
In no way I can piece them into a string
As I try to nest them together, they wheel away like pigeons
When I struggle for utterance,
Like a child, I lisp at the very first word
Though thoughts strike me like pellets of rain against windowpanes
I fail to broil them in the crucibles of my imagination
I am a miner searching for a nugget of gold
In tons of drilled out mineral ore
In the dead of the night, in frightening stillness
I am awake, with a pen in my hand
A heavy weight pulling me down
Caught in a creative maelstrom, I whirl and whirl
I hope the ink will soon spill over
Scrawling coherent lines and letters
Like an emboldened farmer,
I sow seeds of my thoughts into a land barren,
Not fecund enough and not watered with imagination!
Who can say some of them won’t strike root
Even in the cleft of a rock and struggle bravely into sunshine
Spreading over their sterile birth place
With beauties any eye would love to behold!
I wait for that moment...
Yes, I am a poet in the making...!
October.1.2022
~ Placed Seventh~
2022 Marathon mile.23 Poetry Contest
Sponsor -Mark Toney
What of...A Pearl? 5-30-24
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Pearl
Born from irritation
Errant seed, like a pebble in a sandal,
Rubbing raw the soft heart in bruises
Lustrous armor built around crumbs of discontent -
A resume of overcoming ravished wounds
From a jagged invasion to round perfection.
A sly annoyance, nurtured,
Grows into heroic neon hues
Of black or white, cream, gold or pink
Inside darkness, in stillness’ mystery,
Deep within oceanic birthing swells
A metamorphosis in the hands of grace.
Through the stony crucibles’ selfless sacrifice
Layers of harmony built from an unreachable itch
Step out into tranquility, an opalescent retort,
From lesions to beauty cultured from injury
Flawless orbs revel in firstborn revelation
To decorate innocence reborn.
Written: May 20, 2026, for a contest sponsored by Brian Strand
9th place contest winner
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This poem is about the great painting by Eva Schumy, titled The Alchemy of Love: the painting maps out internal human energies as physical fluids flow through hidden circuits, pipes, and channels carved into mountains. It illustrates the transformative power of love, which physically and psychologically transforms our raw, invisible bodily energies into something spiritual and harmonious.
Alchemy of Love (Extended Incantation)
Star-shards shatter,
fire-forged, fervent—
from cosmic crucibles
to coal-black stone.
Love liquefies lead,
turns ash to amber,
breath to burning,
bone to bloom.
I inhale her flame,
a pearl pulsing,
a power pressing
past the veil.
Golden gush,
silver stair,
spiral spun
through shadow air.
Red streams curl,
making circles,
singing change
in secret rooms.
Vellum vacuum shudders,
vessels of watching
venture into merging,
vows unsaid kindle.
No fates, no graves—
only the alchemy,
only the ache,
only the ascent.
Serendipity 7-30-26 Bit Size Contest No 150
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Serendipity
Orange poppy crucibles
Canyons cradle lavender lupine
Flowers paint deserts
Serendipity
Summer epiphany
When all around is torn by strife,
woes without end beset your life.
When peace is but a dismal dream
a wistful wish or so it seems.
How can the soul in such a state
find peace when trials fill its plate?
The words of saint Paul provide clues
to those who read when they feel blue.
Rejoice in God, do, never balk
when sadness and strife your soul stalk.
Let not storm clouds His will obscure
His ways are best, His purpose pure.
Remember that God’s words are true,
what he has promised he will do.
The storms of life can never foil
his perfect plan, nor make him toil.
Refuse to worry, never doubt,
nurture your faith and make it stout.
Life’s crucibles are meant to make
and purify you for his sake.
Resort to prayer when cares crest
like ocean waves upon your chest.
The soul who craves his Savior’s breast
will pass life’s tests, in Him find rest.
My faith in me
Have made vast changes to my dream
I shall never be again who I am
But who he meant for me to be
A pilgrim whose nomadic days are o'er
I did not come saturated like a tree
Behind whose walls the incessant engines hum
Cracking water on the processing line
Churning marketable products out of light
I did not come saturated like a tree
My faith was a pounding hammer on my temple door
My mind was rock hard plastered against such a storm
I did not know worldly reason could make such a wall
For I was just a memory of Babel's traditions scrawled
On the evening news like old newspaper
On the evening news the old newsmaker
Identity was then just Babel's muckraker
Yet I was obsess with queries
For that an earthworm outlived God's image was not right
And reptiles that would grow their tails again
And amoebas so immortal almost, and my fading sight
Things beyond the crucibles of all my pain
I needed to know why was I born if still I had to die
Faith was a rough boot against an heckling egg.
And yet it was a gift to me
Mailed to my querying address, a gift to cover nakedness
Where temple walls ill-suffice
The boundaries of my quest
And once I thought I took it like a tree
But now ever bending on my knees
I am an ancient sea
Composed of rivers, salt, and rain
And sunlight
Making me into atmosphere again.
Judgement’s fine line runs betwixt Prudentia’s
Right and Left hands. In her right, the mirror
Offers serious reflection on life
Lessons learned in crucibles of choice --
Wisdom bridles rash reactive impulse.
But in her left is the serpent coil’d,
Hissing, intimidating, strike ready
With venom of conscience paralysis.
Counting the cost, thinking alternative
Courses to their conclusive end, is right.
What motivates me to action? Impulse
Of vengeance, or sure defense of the Truth?
But Fear of the Cost’s inconvenience is
Cowardice cloak for blind eyes turn’d away.
Our oath is our soul keeping
our joys are from smoking and drinking,
from the cannabis we cultivate a seeing
a laughter from the suffering
a tear for the living memory
from the raw uncut winery
We feel the flesh more keenly,
our trophies include skull cap revelry
imbibing the blessings of the enemy
from the roof of their mind's sanctuary
a treasure merrily grisly,
the scalps of our competitors a salary
making for cloak and horse bridle history,
from the trauma we make victory,
From the trauma we make victory
we showed the world how to whip and ride
how to love liberty,
paper and stone do not decide
the way in which we remedy
iniquity, only in Truth do we confide,
as our kin conquered steadily
from Kushan to Hispania's Atlantic tide,
Rome relinquishing the keys to Destiny
from Atilla to Theodoric's tribe,
the nomadic warriors and traders remained free,
Visigoths vanished as their independence atrophied
the Ostrogoths succumbed to sedentary treachery,
our songs remain sung strongly,
Our songs remain sung strongly,
as Christ was cruxified
for crucibles carried by the Family
we gave sanctuary to many a preacher stigmatized,
Toaists tasted the terror of our primal domain
Buddhists bathed in butterflys' blood
as the Jews jumped on the caravan coin,
Hindus knew Indra lived in the Aryan Hood
while the Nestorians never questioned our sin
and the shamans ate the shame of life,
Mohammad's ginger genetics made him kin
and his Jihad made us grin at the strife
his armies hired us and paid better than the Byzantine,
sometimes faith lives on the edge of a knife,
J.A.B. 2020
From mouth to ear across a lifetime lived,
traveling strings tying lives together thread on thread.
Every one word building lifetimes;
bonded mud of bricks to house
our broken bags of trailing flesh.
We will hold each others heart,
we will hold each others head up high.
Better or worse for the word or two that has made,
will forever make, and always is,
the difference.
Speak this word or that, watch the matter of it all unfold,
past lives shaped and shaping now
in crucibles of all our conversations.
Words to bridge and touch this world,
like knives or axes falling,
slicing moments each peeled back,
revealing bullets spent and sailing
on to wounded tearful souls.
Comfort words,
words of love,
different shapes and sizes wrapped
in different voices heard.
Inflections, accents, whispered,
loudly shaped intense of spirit,
colored by emotion to enforce.
Chosen words of purpose:
dispatched, planned,
let fly in haste,
erecting endless layers to our waste.
Tools of our intention common to our time,
reserved and planned, chosen with meticulous care,
whose definitions matter more than when or where.
Piercing silent dreams,
floating on the breath of every God,
making mysteries of all we seem to be.
Mirrors made of silence once,
we soon are made of words that move us
through a doorway, joining into life.
Today, a workshop for the poet. Write about a cup.
Standing empty, purpose unfulfilled.
Imagination startled as I smash the cup inside my head.
A million shards of broken pottery lying on the floor.
Broken poems and promises lying on the floor.
Shards thrown out of context as are we.
Broken souls from out a shattered God.
Each shard, a refugee. You and me.
Metaphors attached to all the brokenness we own.
Cups of purpose seeking our fulfillment.
Joined to make a whole of all we hold;
become a cup our truth will then unfold.
What began as empty, filled with our life’s portion,
sharing, sipping, spilling all along the way.
Losing contents we may label dear
until the final tipping of a cup left upside down.
What words escape our pens that are not truth.
Whose content change the soul from which we bleed
Whether subject cup or love, or other siphoned dalliance,
at our finish will complete a lifetime’s cupping need.
Crucibles of tattered thorns intrests silenece of feverish scorns. Watered down rivers of loosely washed words woven which wander for weakening tranquility. Cascading into the pantheon of precipitating poet promises never finding grounds of solidity. Promises broken. Eternally the immortal sand is sieved. Roots find no hold. Blushes exchanged for the loss of words sanity, comprehending not, that which is bearing no fruit. Sighs afloat on blooms of brushed breezes blowing through the mind with a feverish pitch. A change of key the notes deafen the heart. Disturbing thoughts portrayed in the eye of ones mind as hellish scapes of monotonous crimes fill the heart of the humbled head. There is no going back. Destroyed works of slumbered art wither to rushing waters of wounded love. I have lost hope. Isolated secrets swim in a lot of desturbed lies which wicked deeds do not appease. No Comfort for the diseased works belated in times gone past. She has lied. Folly her actions be, raping the indicitive spirit that once beheld my being. The mirror unjustly blames me. And it curses the sight of thine eyes. She belittles me in tongues of foreign descent. My mind is slipping. Shadows now light the difference uncertain. The world seems a shallow place and I reside in a plethora of painful pins poking at my prostituted passions. I draw ever near the cliff that quickens my arrival. Struck out is the marrow from my bones nothing of substance can reside within. Hollow is the vessel quandering it's own demise. Mind in a fog I sit at the window, staring at life that no longer contemplates meaning in the grand hall of the emptiness were I once dwelled. Searching for importance in my soul in nothing but darkness. If the reaper comes tonight I care not. Why must I reap what she has sown? No reason for questions, I no longer care. Forgive me all I wish is to be whole agin and remove the pins from my distraught impovereshed personality. Slowly life returns. But my mind remains broken.
Stiff was the blood of bondage
Across the highways of the mind.
Voyaging to the edge of universe
In explorations for hidden girth
The silent tangents explored
Where the universe still expands
To accommodate all the reveries.
Gathering ephemeral images in fold
Carrying wings of the cosmic form
Touching the butts of the metallic
For crucibles in the burning gold.
Traveling through the frozen tumult
Halting to make it a sheltered gain
Autumnal settings in new time zones
Dry salvages under some sultry pain.
harvest from the terrestrial
Mother Nature giving her best.
pastures green on the other side
Man's canal gift from Mother Earth
Get your thoughts in from books.
grinded, marshed in crucibles
seiving out the shaft, lest it chokes
wrapping into boluses, bit by bit
Light up the scenes in merry
sending shivers down the throat
popping out mystery mist
while wrapped round in cocoons
Glory, glory, celestials
levitating into the abode of enlightenment
seeing clear visions hidden in the fog
looking down on terrestrial beings as tiny ants
An epidural intake to calm the pain
until I'm lost in its mirage.
My status reading is "High."