Best Damns Poems
Every year our vacation was always the same. Two
weeks of fishing, playing, eating and being together
on the river. We had no electricity, no TV, and we
all loved it. The four cousins had time to get to know
each other and to just be kids. In the woods, on the river,
building forts and damns, catching frogs, campfires,
and , of course, fishing.
One day, when everyone else had given up and the kids
were playing on the bank, I hooked on to a BIG one.
I started to scream and shout...they all gathered round
to urge me on, give me advise and to share my
glorious moment. My tackle was not rigged for
salmon, but we could soon tell that's what I had.
For at least 15 minutes I was a star, playing that
fish, back and forth, until he was close to the
bank and we could see that he was a monster..
a big reddish salmon.
My niece, who was about 10, jumped into the
water to help me land him, and then, disaster struck.
He spit the hook, flashed his tail, and off he swam.
We all stood there in stunned silence..not knowing
whether to laugh of cry. I did a bit of each.
The story has become the stuff of legends, the story of
Aunti/Mom and the "one that got away"..really, its
more the story of the bond of family and times that
were so precious.
For the One That Got Away contest...
Categories:
damns, childhood, family, nostalgiame, me,
Form:
Narrative
My sonnet has the temper of a screaming child
because I'll not allow it to run free and wild
Mired on a pad, it damns me. "I want to fly free!"
"You're not ready," I whisper. "Put your trust in me."
It cried, trying to hold on to its pregnant dreams
blaming me for aborting expressive rhyme schemes
"Ask your muse to find more decorous selections."
On her advice, I began to make corrections.
I purged all the rhetoric and made a new start
resulting in the birth of a sonnet with heart
I danced for freedom I'd granted to my verses
No longer do I hear the yowling of curses
I will continue to write with a pliant quill
and an open mind with the ink I choose to spill
Categories:
damns, poetry,
Form:
Sonnet
her thoughts, dolorous, often smolder in her mind
long before they are penned upon paper
often crumpled and disregarded
like kindle for a fire
they call them poems anyway
she is inferior, a mere neophyte
fueled by inhibition
that flounders her way through life
and on the page alike
yet they call her poet
perhaps she has the providence
from her youth as her guide
to rid those memories
or spark the fire that burns
as she pens what they call poetry
she doesn't see her worth
between her words
or lecherous stares
cast from unworthy men
that burnt through her soul
she remembers only
a collection of bombast thoughts
that haunt her mind
as she writes them out
then damns them
through the flames of memory
yet they call it poetry
June 12, 2019
Categories:
damns, emotions, poems, words,
Form:
Free verse
What is the future? The present? The past?
Just a quick question I thought I'd just ask
Can scientists help us? So is it mere physics?
Is time metaphysical? Mental Olympics?
Do we walk backwards? See only what's been?
Or look into the fog? Far future unseen
Is there free will? Are we our own author?
No, destiny damns us to English tense torture!
I write this poem - the tense present simple
But simple soon ends with a present participle
Continuous tenses use "ing" at the end
For perfect (all tenses) add "ed" to amend
"Was", "will" and "am" - past, future and present
Irregular verbs? Long list most unpleasant
Spring sprang and sprung, unique without clone
Write, wrote and written I know, knew and known
A bit of a burden if not your first language
Unless you can master whilst eating a sandwich
But if we banned grammar and wrote more carefree
Our script becomes blander - we lose poetry
(Entry for past, present, future competition originally - recycled for the zany contest)
Categories:
damns, funny, humor, humorous, word
Form:
Verse
an evil damns the stream
a stagnancy so deadly,
life cannot not run
its natural course.
©Kathryn McLoughlin Collins
November 18, 2012
Categories:
damns, death,
Form:
Verse
I was encompassed within the sullen lust
Of gentrified prepositions
Incomplete adjectives layer the magnitude of
My emptied valor
I became entrenched in the touch
The smile
The tears
Of wistful elegance
This onyx cry
Now turns into an everlasting echo
I sing to these gated heavens
Where visionary angels no longer
Give me a second glance
Expectations rot unto red herrings
As supple conundrums
Insist my smile
Will “be ok”
The most conformed lie,
The most performed cry,
I was ever beaten with
…
Salted whips bless this tenderness,
Her one-armed caress
Diluted into illicit “flawlessness”
And I would have digressed
But, I became stronger
When she yelled at my infantile stance
Hunchback of forbidden damns
Burying our luminescent memories
In fear’s corrupted sands
My vulnerable love
Now life sentenced
She turned my open arms
Into vindicated assault rifles
As she cocked the clip
Of my abused remnants
Oh, how your abandoned grace
Blessed my broken rosaries
With silent goodbyes
Yet, here on bent knee
I still cry
I still cry
…
For the return
Of your identity
All of your eloquent mistakes
As your altered ego
Strokes the girth
Of fear’s liability
And I dare you to push back against
My scarred & humbled smile
I do not fear you today
I do not fear you tonight
I will not fear you tomorrow
No matter the weight of my sorrow
For my poignant love
Will always shine brighter
Than your poisoned fear
Of my tattered innocence
©D.J.E.
Categories:
damns, abuse, life, lost love,
Form:
Free verse
Hit Me with Your Best Shot - We are Orlando
A rainbow of all the droplets of color,
begins to run with a red that bleeds.
And from the sky it can mix any palette,
instead of parity and one of misdeeds.
The drinks are mixed in fun and joy,
as lanky men dance Hip Hop in form.
So young they live, despite brutal hate,
and also know, they're part of the norm.
The music peals, the voices double,
and laughter sings within their eyes.
Two women dance, a close hot Rumba,
they're young in age with spirits wise.
A bartender zips out the orders of shots,
for two Hot Damns and one Captain Coke.
Bring on five more of Irish Car Bombs,
it is last order up, with the shots, not a joke.
In the gray swirl of the dance by the girl,
and the dudes there, more happy than gay.
Hearing shots, not the drinks, no time to think,
as their bodies fall, the last breath in the fray.
Falling down like the movie, or empire!
Jumping fast, through a hole in a door.
Disappearing, becoming camouflaged,
to hide like an elephant stuck to the floor.
The man in the dark is unhinged and unstable,
he laughs at himself, the dying, their fears.
He's no martyr; his cause is but suicide,
to splash in their blood and dance in their tears.
Who bore the arms in protecting the innocent?
What ammunition or gun rang freedom's bell?
Was there life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness,
when at the nightclub, in Orlando, the last body fell?
By Edlynn Nau
© June 14, 2016
Flag Day
Categories:
damns, crazy, death, dedication, evil,
Form:
Elegy
I.
O Bacchanalia! O wild Mania,
be this crazed ecstasy the touch of God!?
To be transported bodes Arcadia:
but this sense—this awareness!—is too odd.
O manic shape! Touched attitude of thought!
This sudden, unlooked-for, deranged climax
of the mind inspires with enraptured thrill.
Calliope! thou hast me overwrought:
whence springs this manic grammar and syntax,
this wondrous expression which melts gloom's chill?
II.
Thou rhapsody! Thou monumental bliss!
What euphoria overwhelms the brain?
With eloquent Calliope's moist kiss,
thrilled ravishment uplifts the head's domain.
O Joy! Great, great Joy! Intense happiness,
with rapture mingled, revives the psyche
with grandiose delusion of the mind;
then glee that transcends efforts to express,
like preternatural Being whose frenzy
all at once overpowers, strikes me blind!
III.
Erelong is the psyche sorely distress'd,
as slowly is ruined the one diseased
by dire imbalance of the brain! Oppress'd,
and finding Mania now none appeased,
I wane with her then fading servitude;
for in her wake she leaves a deadly unrest
(that will perforce require the mortician).
For wretchedness of mind damns the unblest:
but o'er souls where with angels devils feud,
God can heal as the Divine Physician.
Categories:
damns, god, happiness, joy, mental
Form:
Bio
He'd let her slip through his grasp
How many silver moons had flew past
Yet their Love did still last.
Emotions flood the page
Damns that held felt the shock
Loves effect on hearts of rock.
Seeds of Love to natures plow
Time-crossed lovers take your bow
Heavens doors shall open now.
So much Love to fill a page
Across the world hearts did race
The sweet Love we shall make.
To hold you close like in my heart
To be with you life can start
even if we may depart.
Categories:
damns, i love you, ,
Form:
A coil of the labyrinth winds deep into the night.
A path that is tortuous and falls
into terror turning left then suddenly right.
Something sits in a dark room
pondering the moves of kings.
Hearts imagine a world of fire.
Oppression of governments that are tangled
in the web of the labyrinth, like mist.
The mind of a God-King;
a man of Flesh and
Cyberdreams.
An intelligence that damns all
is spoiled by the blood of the innocents.
The coil of the labyrinth.
An enigma of future kings and minds of turmoil.
An empire of illogic; Chaos in a sea of control.
Coils wind deep into the Darkness…
The beast of myth is built by mankind.
As minds ponder the moves of kings,
the assassination of Queens.
Tangled in the coils of the spine.
A maze is ablaze in holy fire.
Labyrinth; it spirals deep
into the dusky fortress of kingdoms to come.
A torrent path full of dread at every twist and
turn whines deep into the night.
A path that is tortuous
falls into terror
turning left
then suddenly
right.
…a traitorous path at night!
Categories:
damns, adventure, allegory, allusion, analogy,
Form:
Free verse
Are you the Aphrodite of the Greek tales
Or the Artemis who admirers drooling sent?
No, for Aphrodite had her little flaws
And Artemis the fortunes of Orion bent.
Nor are you the stunning star that the Magi led.
For the over-told story of the Magi is as old as dirt
But your drowsy rounded eyes look so cunning fresh;
The kind of tools that the will men pervert.
The famous Ishtar cannot be your match
For she lured with looks in order to kill;
And Inanna may have tried to rival you a bit
Had she not given in to Dumuzi’s antique skill.
And tired of prating about deities, I now must say I love you.
I know that time is so much gone, and so is my chance;
The remote luck I thought I stood some years gone
Must now be as extinct as the Pyrenean Ibex of ancient France.
Nosy bird says you vowed holy nuptials yesteryear,
Iron twines that a luck-loving man must never sever.
Yet can I ever lose you without losing all breath,too?
Do I toy with the time-oiled vice that damns forever?
Categories:
damns, love,
Form:
Verse
She calls me God and damns me nightly
As we exchange deep sighs and moans
I'm the father of Orgasms and Creations
The moans of a beastly release
She's Mother of every Desire
Match of my fires
explosion galore
From the steamy release
She knows just how to
Please and tease into
Full submission
Conquest and mission
The last gasp of breathe
Only to inhale life
From a river that flows
Towards me
She and I
Exchanged Souls
In the Heat of passions
Life giving Life
In and out
Rhythm and stroke
Lost in the Universe
Of Locking Eyes
Clasping hands
Holding on for
Dear Life
Wetting my Desire
Speaking deeply without
Words
The Magic of Sex that's
Niagara wet
Somewhere East of
Eden Corner to Corner
Walls and all
The Event Horizon
Of A vertical
And Horizontal Dance
Feeding from the
Elixir
We exchanged Life
Thru Soul Music
Our Love
Magic and Ritual
Ancient power
By the
New Moon and fire
In to Deep
Our Sexual Testimonies
pluralisms
No time for sleep
Her Boaz Pillar
Just the right angle
90° Pleas
Please and Tease
Orally she stroked
As I gave her soul confessions
In Every Damn Language
Tongue Speaking
As she downed her babies
Cooling the heat from
The night.
Kevin Guru©2016
New Moon Groove
Categories:
damns, beauty, desire, fantasy, for
Form:
Lyric
HE: I felt so alive for a minute there.
The moonlight struck your face.
Beauty fired my senses, arousing.
SHE: Tell me, I need to know you care.
HE: What will that tell you, what will it mean? What you already
know? Or a dubious ambivalence that you cannot face?
SHE: You think we move too fast, I know. Pieces
tearing away from us in blurring slipstreams?
Would they strip us to the bones of unknown futures?
Things we cannot sustain? Would such velocity deny you
grip of your own personality. I wouldn’t ask that of you…
HE: Who knows what you would or would not ask of me if
we don’t stop to think?
To drink the air after rainfall, to watch
the moonlight reflect in your tears,
sweet silvered orbs of mountain dew.
The savour of your essence, languid integration,
development of a degree of certainty – barriers against pain and despair.
SHE: My tears? You mention my tears. My tears drawn
from the well of your own sinking, buckets dipped in
rupturing premature graves.
The dagger plunge of reticence; failure
to tell me of love; to say yes, come on, let’s go –
and damn consequence.
To hell with consequence. Tell me…
HE: Truthfully I am unsure of what to tell you.
I hesitate to express it. I think, yes, I am in love
with you…but do I love you? It’s early…too early…
SHE: I want to speed. I want to race. To run, shouting
with adulation of you in
rapture of your adoration for me. I want to
move, fast, the way you moved against my
flesh when needs must,
when passion, lust, jawed and scavenged your will
and rammed it against my bleeding feminine surrender.
Time is wasting. Why can you not move fast?
HE: Fast? Faster than the rush of eroticism
and it’s frantic tumult? Why, because the danger lies
in reality and its fickle machinations. And it is this:
we need to pace ourselves, for love, like
the nature of existence itself,
cannot be hurtled towards or through or against.
Cynical it may sound, but neither is built to last, and
neither are we. Each moment damns us by its intricacy
You are…you are really crying now…I see…
SHE: Men!
Categories:
damns, life, love, time, love,
Form:
Blank verse
Remember speaks its semaphore
in passing eyes elicit stare
coquette the lip is waiting for
some smoldering shadow shall dare
Make threat to mountain with needles point
and clasp impetuous the hawthorn bush
for care not so the virtuous caught
as petulant to cause the bloods ignited rush
Such a useless thing called love
the demon of a feather sent afloat
artist of another happenstance in truth
tempered to the molten coin of a harlot
And tumescent in the trespasser of
panders to a daydreams lecherous thirst
but claims to burn the yearning of
and in mockery damns the broken heart to burst
Make threat to mountain with needles point
where so many as want the angels will dance upon
better for worse or dissonant
the parting shrift or parting gifts delusion
Beaten down to overburdened
exultation this poets cantankerous pen
or places in mythos such heady legend
a chocolate box of promises given
Still hammers bitter nails on libations grasp
treasured name so driven to agony
'till uttered with the final gasp
this ambrosia whispered into eternity
Freedom gained repentant of sightless prison
so open embraced surrendering kiss
as to quivering hand the lover seeks expression
and relinquishes all to hubris
Love be-damned to a useless thing called love
For what love wants is naught
neither in the service of soul
nor to spirits radiance brought
nor for love, is loves portent of, loves only goal
Categories:
damns, love,
Form:
Free verse
Mountains
People have climbed
Peaks do erupt
White colors cap
Clouds huddle around
Butterflies turn stomachs
Dreams are made
What are mountains?
You may be...
And even myself
Who we are...
Mountains are us.
All around us
Inside of us
We are mountains.
Together we become
Only formed together
We become us.
You without I
Are not together
Outside of ourselves
Look upon mountains
See inside yourself
Belief encompassed within
That we are.
Are we that?
We are that.
What is that?
This is mountainous.
Mountains of inspiration
Inspired by each-other
Connected bonds us
Together becomes we
Sharing our passions
We become together.
Mountains symbolize hope
Fears present doubt
We reflect disbelief
Shame damns pride
Ego rejects potential
Man follows indirection
Hope remains within
Mountains sustain dreams
As tangible hope
What are mountains?
You may be...
And even myself
Who we are...
Mountains are us.
All around us
Inside of us
We are mountains.
Together we become
Mountains of us
Only formed together
You and I
Together we become
Mountains
Categories:
damns, analogy, beauty, character, confidence,
Form:
Didactic