Best Cudgel Poems
Sarah’s Story - Mental Illness
Sarah, the “Crazy Lady,” was a familiar sight,
roaming the streets any time of day or night.
Her foul body odor announced her presence,
as she paraded around in her filthy, smelly garments.
Walking barefoot regardless of the weather,
in her state of mind, she couldn’t do better.
Children teased and made fun of Sarah,
reciting ridiculing ditties, adding to the drama.
Behind her a lively entourage would follow,
taunting and calling her names creating a sideshow.
They howled with childish laughter,
as Sarah hurled angry profanities after.
An avid collector of all kinds of trash,
she transformed her abode into a garbage stash.
Sarah’s odd behavior made her fair game,
to unkind people who had no mercy or shame.
While many folks turned a blind eye,
young boys threw rocks and other missile,
at the roof and windows of the shack she occupied.
Behind bushes, they would scamper away to hide,
as Sarah furiously dashed outside,
brandishing a machete, cudgel, or broom,
screaming out curses, damnation, and doom.
Like a cancer, her mental illness had devoured her brain,
and before long, she was officially "certified insane."
Most agreed it was for her own benefit,
and for the good of society to be rid of this "misfit."
But even though she was locked away in an institution,
no psychiatric treatment could cure her mental condition.
When Sarah finally died, she was unloved and alone;
her passing was hardly noticed, and she was mourned by none.
Note: This piece was inspired by a true account. While we have made great strides in the study of mental illness and understanding it, unfortunately negative attitudes and beliefs toward people who have mental health conditions are still common. Thus, as a society, we still have a long way to go to improve our attitudes and to show more caring and compassion for those who suffer from various types of mental illness.
08-06-2015
Contest: Mental Illness
Sponsor: Nathan D.
Placement: 7th
I'm going to try one more time
To write an intellectual rhyme
Some with complicated words
Most of which I've never heard
Words that cudgel my brain
So I can deliberate and strain
My antediluvian brain
To think from a new perspective
Endeavour to be more selective
Perhaps I should keep improvising
These sesquipedalian words are so misguiding
It would save much more time
To stick (or adhere) to my simple rhyme
Depression is a Nomad wanderer, searching for a hope to break
In that place of heartless, smoke-filled rot where even laughter proves to fake.
The Darkness is a bold intruder, a critique of one's existence,
And hides in places, corners of gloom, an outcast from soul's resistance.
In the Café of Apathy, the face of dejection reappears,
Taking up cudgel in bedrooms and bars, traveling through streets of tears.
Dice, the goddess of morals, asked her mother, Themis
Why there's divorce, gambling, abortion, and alcoholism?
Why should dehumanization, like a Bloodstone, beamish?
Why should knives of nemesis nip the knots of neutralism?
Cores of conscience, like collapsed castles, Themis said, crash
The self within the inner sanctum, like sand grains, is split.
Joy, peace, harmony, happiness, and self-fulfillment clash
Empathy and sympathy submit to apathy's conflict.
Demons in humans delicately dominate their domains.
As though white sheep amongst black cattle, they cudgel their brains.
Their will to do good, like delinquent house dogs, is in chains.
Blood of cutthroat competitions, to win, flows in their veins.
Honesty should guide one and all, Themis said to Dice.
Summit of self-splendidness alone will never suffice.
Let us discuss the circus alive in the theater of your conflicts,
the Master of Ceremonies cremates caution
in the center of curiosity's conciet
where birds bleed songs of azure agony,
madness remembers the melody of a midnight march
to a shrine built from bricks baste with war sweat and stress
as Death sits solemnly thumping it's cranial cudgel methodically
atop drums taut with elephant hide,
a child approaches through the Hippodrome's east chamber
juggling three radiant orbs, omni, omega, ovation,
the audience of thousands uproars unanimously
when Hate, Love & Fate manifest as beasts of the best brutality
encircling the child with a primordial hunger in their bellies,
their handlers cocky and competitive, controls the animals with elements
such as air, fire & water, one by one they rush the child
with violent intent, in their hearts victim & victory are synonomous,
the tiger repelled by the fire of the child's imagination,
the bear repulsed from the whistle of his innocence,
and the lepoard refrains from the current of his youth,
in the balcony, Venus and Mars applaud proudly for sagacious survival,
acrobats appear, the grey one Fatigue, the green one is Resolve,
despite loathing each other they must be team or die from the heights,
gasps from a crowd caught in a conspiracy of soul piracy
as self destruction stands cackling on the arena floor with his anger crackling red,
attempting to whip the hands of the acrobats with a dragon's tail
encrusted with the crushed vertebrae of cowardice,
he strikes their wrists but they secure the dizzing stunt in defiance,
cheers collide with the chimera of acrobats transformed into an eagle's scream
while the Master of Ceremonies welcomes the women of warhorse wishes,
J.A.B.
In the sacred river.
I was born into polytheism,
Where Yemoja was the deity;
The goddess of river was the anchor
That held the village to life.
Her shrine was the sacred river
Where fortune was sought and recieved;
There fishing was forbade
Goddess’ heiresses could not be food.
The heiresses were beautiful
Appealing to eye,appealing to mouth,
But the beauty and taste of goddess
Were certainly beyond man’s hunt.
In their beauty they were sluggish
Their reverance made them so,
When you were Yemoja’s heiress
Who again shall you fear?
Then came the day of armageddon
The conflict of the titans
When guts of three children
Vowed to taste the godess’ flesh.
Two cousins and I had this agenda,
At the shadow of sun,we stole us to shrine;
With a basket we arrested five goddesses,
In a clay pot they became food.
As we were savouring the taste of the godess
A bone hung in my gut,I coughed to eject;
Mother came to help,cat let out of the bag:
Abomination,fishing in the sacred river.
Yemoja must be begged:
Twelve lashes of cudgel per child,
One hen,one cock ,one snail,
Six yards of white swiss velvet.
User’s name : Kayod5.
Contest : Gone fishin’.
Sponsor : Caleb Smith.
In the shower of dawn's
Slow daylight, kissed by
Angels locks, there came
A wave of bird sounds,
Then barking crafty fox
And I in nature’s orchestra,
Amid the fusty scores, the
Sound of waking voices,
Pushed slow through leafy doors
Then carried these across
The plain and back by echoes
March, not stopped by winter’s
Cudgel, nor bending bough
Of larch
So trickle me, streams water-
Hand, and babble to the brook
And hold me fierce like laughing
Giant, holds page of nature’s book
And I’ll not stir to country leave
For city's wicked grip, for there
The rasp of bloodless wind, sends
Out the its wiry whip
So build the wall’s bucolic fort
And wrest me all the more,
Where chick and weasel miss
The stare of eagles’ horny claw
And if one morn through mist
And rain, the tocsin sounds
Its bell, remember me o’er styal
And dell, so far from city hell
Blind and numb like death
dispenser of cudinatis, enemy of
the masses of mascara!
Made possible by holy
wizardry not in white Man's land
but within the enclave of black sentiment!
golden fleece released by mental ingenuity
I fear science! Technology awes me
in bewildered extremism!
But alas, my magic card is stolen
by the nemesis of unfortunate
altruism. Two ignoble gentlemen
joined in mischief stole my magic card!
Peddlers of ungodly trade
prodded this ugly cudgel at
my brow! oh! lola, noblest of
mankind! my miffed lips hardly
could utter a word to its detriment!
Oh! thanks, heavens! the card
lacked hole for unholy propitiation
they shall maneuver but the head
lies in the birth of the owner
except death and forceful recovery
can take away the secret number.
Alas naija! Alas my brother!
The trade mark identity has
been stolen. Whence shall I
go for reimbursement of the
stolen naira or who shall replace
the golden wallet? I do not
know! This act does not
surprise the city of Lagos, the
capital of moral impropriety.
At the end of this three moons,
my loads I shall pack and run
to safety where sanctity and truth
reign. in the north, similar
episode outplayed and the result
unexpected. But in this Lagos, theft
and perjury escalate.
Alas! Alas! My magic card thy
holy comfort I shall deeply miss
adieu! Sweat rainfall, adieu
Walk here with me
Along a strand of island in the sea
Let your heart drink like a leaf
From this mighty river
That shaped the world's relief
Listen to his name
Hear echoes of white colonial history
The burden of shame
Edging the teeth of fame
Chew it down to the middle bone
Feel the tension rise it
Like pimento fragrance preserving the night
Of Egyptian slime pits
And the prince denouncing privilege and place
Not so, not so here
For him who took up the cudgel of our race
The farmers boy
Built brick by brick from a builder's dream
This native scion ... out of the Maroon's citadel
This bewitching monument of St. Ann.
Ah Booker did you know
A man with bigger head for a mightier dream
From Panama to Ecuador
From Costa Rica to Brazil
Did your heart like a drum pound
Boom, boom, baba boom
When he clenched the lock of Africa's door
When every pulpit in the street
Became a university of our history
And freedom in every African child
Was Marcus Mosiah Garvey
Booker, did you see his kingdom
His black institutions
Like a galaxy dreamers could touch
His ships
On which the brothermen still wait
Like an armada sailing
From rubber baron shores
To pyramid pinnacle
They were his Icarus
And he our Daedalus
That could not shake the minotaur
But, Booker, did he not say
To look for him in the wind
So now you know why I never sleep again
His footprints are still here
Clear as the foment of nineteen thirty eight
This is where he carved his name
Not just on the printers page
But on the honor of all the age
Making us dream of civil rights
And human rights
And Rastafarian flight
And reparation for our plight
And above all he taught me
A little black face lover of his fight
Never to bow
My mind to the whore's tradition
Never to yield my soul
For I am a nobler structure that my rank here
I am the prince they striped bare
The Moses that have not see my red sea yet
The child still
Enthralled with the splendor of every sunset
Tell me dear, gently
And please possibly
Truly and fastly
Mind and heart concurly
Must make-up not routinely.
If ever you change
Tour mind and heart must dictate
Not the cudgel of someone
But if that’s the case
To respect it shall commence.
Perhaps loving me
I finally realize
Your vow is just a piece
And never come true
And be ever a ploy as false.
Just like the past
Nothing to hope than accept
For what you did maybe just
For I am you dealt
The consequence is potent.
To live by it is like a ghost
That horrify and haunt
Tomorrow is now the past
But let it be my guide to shoot
A waking star and again start.
If I ever to compensate
All your deeds I received
Definitely, I may not be able
Forever I’ll be indebted
And can repay when there’s miracle.
composed by WGSD to DGA
based on Elihu Burritt’s “Christmas in Germany” (c. 1850)
You find a hand-built chapel among small homes
constructed by children. But what children –
vicious young ne’er-do-wells from a Dickens novel,
pickpockets and worse; if not murderers, at least
boys handy with cudgel or knife; petty thieves;
girls just as bad. And here they’ve planted trees,
and a garden around the cottages they built.
Ducks and geese in the pond are no happier,
this December morning, than the children
who’ve invited everyone from miles around
to help them celebrate. People arrive
by carriage to sit on hard benches in the chapel
with its Christmas tree alight with tapers. And who
sits at the table of honor with a linen cloth?
"The poorest of the poor, the lamest of the lame,
the blindest of the blind, the oldest of the aged.
"Pauper guests from the hovels, hedges, and
highways of the neighborhood." How amazed
you were, Elihu, who’d traveled among society
and knew its ways, to witness this turnabout;
how children saved from the ditch, and raised
with love, would want to share their bounty –
their hand-baked bread, cakes, and confections,
hand-knit stockings, wooden shoes. Their joy.
Whenever I'm around you,
my hot brain became cool.
Blood, bone, veins functions well.
Its a remedy to my sickness.
You're more than a girl to me.
You're more than a friend to me.
You're more than a wife to be.
You're more than a life to live.
If the truth can live in World,
the world could have been a better place.
If the true boys can be truly loved,
This game could have a better game.
Your love in me is such a truth.
If not believe will cause a lot of pain.
It discourage me of being good.
And the truth in me will gently face.
I make my heart to hate pretty princess,
to strengthen your love in my heart.
I tried to get to your class,
to have that love which i lack.
If i can weep for help for so long,
more than a child crying to his mum for candy.
If i can cudgel my brain for so long,
locking my heart in truth and be candid.
If my vein you left in pain,
and you take your helpful love away.
And pretense grew over your face,
You decide to hit me where it pain
And sleep became my enemy.
And your thought became my tightest friend,
but my thought you left begging,
You bringing many things to death.
A wild pagan, the wind, a spectral masseuse,
Blunt cudgel and claw dipped in liquid frost,
To corrupt and ravage the pit head columns,
As black trees threshed and leaves were tossed;
Slapped against satanic steel mill backdrops,
Thrust over crusty cracked fissures of rock,
The rattling rain gunned down the mountains,
Scattered the sallow, forsaken flock.
In the forks and tines of lightning stabbing
To bomb the moon and shivering stars,
Ivories tickled by ozone and aftershock
Shrilled in a sky of splitting white scars;
The harpsichord played on a stormy night,
A melody wracked and cracked with disease,
Jagged enough to split open the heart,
For nothing and no one were sat at the keys…
Like A Fire Cat - Teaser Taste Of Spring...
Did Fistbump With Ole Man Winter
Once again, this fella alights
this poetaster and trots out weather,
nope not cuz freezing cold bites,
this poetic instance highlights
spate of unseasonably warm temperatures
circa early February 2019,
melting oppressive plights,
whereby totally tubular solar balm
energizes and alights
to zoom into heavenly heights
pleasantly zapping dendrites
with heaven sent
sunny rays, which excites
every fiber of this fella, writes,
a diametrically opposite
meteorological pleasure
pitch perfect to fly kites
versus torturous blast, sans
polar vortex arctic
cold one futilely fights,
where no complaint as
ecstasy knows no heights,
asper in above average winter
cathartically, holistically,
therapeutically... quiets
cabin fever with sneak
preview of summer -
skipping over stone temple rites
of spring despite dramatic
unseasonably warm weather
this anomaly nonetheless delights
this wordsmith voluntarily
holed up days and nights
from bone chilling, crushing brutal
(cudgel wielding) cold
understandably inducing flights
of fantasy imagining
(like...just yesterday)
hightailing to tropical
island paradise sights
blinds this sun worshipper
twittering revelling,
basking with robins
noah matter an old gipper
slakes insatiable thirsts
nsync with teetotaling
brewster herbalist honeydripper
ah... methinks this clime
makes me chipper
recalling good ole times
feeling like a day tripper
sprawled out atop roofed mansion
fronting happy hunting grounds
upon memory steadfast gripper
amidst haunting demesne
of "Glen Elm" transformed
courtesy where backhoes did stripper
of native flora and fauna
into ticky tack vinyl city for hipper
crats all in the name of progress!
Born shackled with globe sized
yoked millstone around my neck
rivaling the world Atlas shrugged,
or outsize boulder Sisyphus
eternally obliged to toil uphill
steepest mountain side
in concert with
Battlestar Galactica pièce de résistance
ear splitting discordant cacophonous din.
Simultaneously analogous twin tower
of Old Faithful geyser
Googleplex times Mariana Trench
aqueous oceanic chasm amply housing
Rhode Island sized fountainhead
constantly spewed vitriol
out subterranean mouth
scalding yours truly
with deadly skull king poison
(parenthetically), metaphorically, hyperbolically
approximates, nee aforementioned
actually an understatement
how whit sir yours truly
psyche dashed, manhandled, whipsawed
post parturition mine birth
subjected to class sic
biochemical, environmental, neurological
pummeling, oft times the cudgel
inherent, latent, salient...
genetically scripted torment.
Case in point
constitutes psychosocial (mine)
extreme introvertedness,
painfully shy reticence
exiled within zapped
writhing, wrenching, wracking
emotional, physical, spiritual isolation
plaguing mein kampf,
a worse fate than death
experiencing brutal and
nasty schooling as outcast
never feeling linkedin among peers,
nor family of origin
particularly latter years
minimally functioning just squeaking
to advance from one grade to the next
hidebound by invisible manacles
weighted heavily with severe anxiety
debilitating, paralyzing, unrelenting
panic/ anxiety attacks.
Scattershot employment track record
poor credit rating
the bane of misery
bias, discrimination, prejudice
throughout hand to mouth existence
impacted two innocent grown progeny
the eldest unforgiving,
no matter this papa coped
with demands of child raising
the missus easily overwhelmed
deferred domestic duties
birthday party arranger,
chauffeur, cook, homework helper,
summer time planner,
medical appointment scheduler...