Best Dark Hope Poems
melancholy days approach;
escape where? In naked woods?
where do winds wail around
the hilly slopes?
where ash, maple, and oak abound?
I see a dazzling blaze,
a kindling world,
as fires leap everywhere
all over the hemispheres,
where fatal booby traps are sprung,
where bombs fall without respite.
now, where can I escape?
Suddenly, night fell, and everything was quiet;
from somewhere, a bird sang.
I remembered Robert Browning’s words.
“God is in Heaven, all’s right with the world.”*
(from Pippa passes by Robert Browning)
The man stumbled on, wanting to get as far away as possible
the sights he had seen and lived through too terrible to contemplate.
How could another human deliberately inflict such awful things on another.
He could see a gentle stream of smoke arising from the distant chimney
and headed for the shelter it offered, staggering on until he reached it.
It was a pretty cottage nestled deep into the hillside and isolated.
He tumbled through the door and collapsed on the floor.
Mistily he drifted in then out of consciousness unable to focus
aware vaguely of a gentle touch that soothed and replenished.
He drank from the cup pressed to his lips and then let go.
The old lady shook her head at the follies of mankind,
and set to work bandaging his festering wounds.
She made a drawing potion to clean out the poison
that had taken a fierce hold racking him with fever.
Then she covered him and stoked up the fire.
For three days he lay in a coma muttering about the war,
not an ordinary one, oh no, this war caused carnage.
Evil stalked the land every hand turned against the other.
Sons killing fathers and brothers and to what point?
A simple disagreement about Creed had started this.
Weakened by the ravages he was slow to fully heal
yet he learned much from the old lady causing him to rethink.
To look at things with eyes a-new seeing the other point of view.
These new values he took with him when he left thanking her gratefully.
He set out on a new route, his task now to heal and bring peace.
Standing a-midst the crowd on a small hillock he taught them new values
not by preaching as such but by parables that showed the way to peace.
After all he would say; Pause and Think, For What are We without hope?
Everything gone by can be changed, all we have to do is care and act.
So lit the small flicker in your heart and fan up a healing blazing flame.
The cliffs were the only place she could go to find the edge of love
the only boundry between up and down, of faith and fate,
a frontier where tears scratch slate with bursts of pearl pain
and blood speaks to the sky for signs of passion's flood,
sea below, blue as sapphire lonely glow
churns the tide of romantic violence
salting silence into a sizzle of desire's uproar,
prehistoric granite a partner in the thunder
of her wet tides and his solid lift of sheer ridges
where vertical and horizontal make love in sharp contrast,
horizon rich in ransom of freedom's sweet space hovers
split by a sad pulse within her tired and pretty body,
night moves into day like a prophecy
born in the indigo of her cool inferno
auguring only one thing, high speeds
of love from comet's entrails,
on the precipice of self diagnosis
a vigil begins, ceremony of naked consciousness,
gathering the raw material of her soul
she lights a fire that burns like liquid crystal
waving into the shy truth
of shadows that no longer stand still,
the cliff dance starts, influx of instinct
imparts an innocent intuition
foretelling with ferocious accuracy
the survival or burial of they're love,
pouring vinegar and wine on each breast
she howls to the heights of His affection
and crawls towards the flames
to feel the sweat of lust in her veins,
the animal in her rises to hunt
through the heat, into passion complete,
life and death move her feet,
the pull of gravity gripping torso
closer to the drop of dreams,
a star breeze lashes and lifts
her hair and limbs calling for ascendance,
in a moment of reckless roundabout
she hears His husky whisper
of love with no doubt
nibbling on inner ear,
her heart won't lay still
when His eyes see her as mystical,
there is only one law of love
that she lives by, kiss or die,
only she knows the next step...
J.A.B.
Wooden floor's relief
Cooling fevered feet
Pace, bare, in blackness
As tranquil raindrops
Softens prickly nerves
Cloud covered stars
Still shine, behind
Glowing without
Doubt's permission
To find them
Just look up
Hope sees through
The dark
Like the
Moon.
12/18/19
For 'Pick a Title, Volume 12 - Diminished Hexaverse' contest
Sponsor: Edward Ibeh
Title: Cool Fever
A candle burns its life away;
sacrifice to it, is sweet;
it is a candle’s lot in life.
Candles gift, a light dark cloaked;
beacon burning bright;
candles warmth and charm are unmatched by
anything else, man has made.
Candles birth soft memories;
lend rest to the eyes and romance to the heart.
Candle has sung many centuries;
a companion in dark ages; on dark nights,
its glow can hold childhood terrors, at bay.
Candle songs kept aging sailors company on raging,
storm-ridden seas. No bullying leviathan
would ever cross candle’s path willingly.
Even sea monsters fear its burning breath.
Candles glow, a dancer on the air,
dances for everyone;
candle-tango brings passion to lovers.
No one is alone when candle is near,
such a light-companion,
draws others to its domain.
Candle has gathered friends together in
taverns to celebrate;
in hovels, for warmth and at parties of celebration.
By candles gift, we find our way home;
its welcome warmth, a song of love on an empty, cold night.
When you burn, burn bright and long;
your light is the warm love that you leave to the world.
No bulb, LED or solar panel can bestow your gift.
When your flame is gone, when your torch has been passed;
your legacy will light another’s way to
faith, hope and love.
from a winged elm tree
a wren's knife cuts through glum dawn ~
joyful day afoot
A New Hiku Footle Tanka Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Brian Strand
Date written: 11/15/2022
Hopes of happiness,
Laughter,
Turn into darkness and fear.
Screaming,
Shouting,
A spray of despair.
Tugged in my heart,
Ripping out my hair.
Nowhere to turn,
Nowhere to hide,
So much is going on,
Looking around,
Eyes filled with horror,
My country is falling apart,
Guns shooting,
Rebellious,
Tears of sadness,
Dropping down my cheek.
Gone are the dreams,
The hopes of joy,
Because of this war.
This war,
This destruction,
This tragic fate.
Where is the love,
The kindness,
The care,
For refugees?
she brings
the stars
to the night sky
she brings
the sun
to the day
without this light
we would live
in darkness
in darkness
we would live
in fear dismay
this makes us
appreciate
the light
the light
is love
in darkness
it allows us
to find our way
down the path of broken promises
up the stream’s misguided dreams
shoulders burdened crushed and rounded
by all accounts tallied and squared off
countless breaths and tears held back
while chilling fears explode unhinged
tossed plans and schemes to wispy clouds
deep in marshlands of futility hope lies
armsful of useless forgotten treasure
fistsful of dust cast out to all four winds
tomorrow’s sunrise stretching
over stray clearings of blue skies
but tonight under the canopy of stars
love no longer will be denied
Read on air by invitation ~ April 9, 2021 'LATE NIGHT POETS'
AP: 2nd place 2021
POTD - March 30, 2021
Submitted on March 28, 2021 for contest PHOENIX RISING sponsored by UNSEEKING SEEKER - RANKED 4TH
Awake on a numb dark night he wonders--
tired cells of his existence blazing
on fiery topanga in crushed slumber.
Anxious, chained, gasping at barriers
of individuality or a species that contain
appeasements in layered singularities
or contradictions in linear multitudes.
He drags himself to a paraphernalia,
his search for conquests shivers
in tangled cobwebs his fingers dance
to grand designs of his fantasies.
Oh! how he habitually gets drenched
in warm showers of colliding galaxies,
exploding curses of humanity in hammock,
Aesop's fables plagued in sloth.
His trembling raptures of oceans azure
send chills down the spine of raging coal.
Elevators of his dark realities push him
to take a fall as the Lady of Shalott
atop old cliff of his clueless journeys,
burning mankind, wars, paranoia but wait--
blurred visions of forgotten land arise,
painted from a million oscillations in cosmos,
unwritten pages of blood red stories
crushed and absorbed in soils of time,
simmered to seeds of hopes in his mind--
his fingers dance to tunes of a faint voice,
a dead soul sings amid a snowstorm,
'Oh come crushed souls, let's sleep tonight,
tomorrow you'll squeeze some lost hope in light'.
June 16, 2020
CRUSHED Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Anthony Biaanco
~Premiere Contest Winner: 9th Place
Meaning hangs on a wing
and briefly holds together,
tipping on some fine edge,
a feathers weight from oblivion.
Take this evening, a sunset
settling upon the water, the fleck
of a small boat with its solitary figure
floating the still, birds flying overhead,
each a part of a moment
sliced from a second.
Mere coincidence, a chance picture
put together by a confluence of things
in a corner of a vast cosmos.
The birds trailing their cries
in long threads across the sky
seem to hymn a lament,
the dark slowly closing over
the world like a large eyelid
before the coming of night
and the onset of sleep.
There is nothing but a sublime
myth to keep the soul awake,
to make of what is passing
into something permanent,
meaning kept afloat on that
small, distant image of a boat
set upon a blessed sea,
it's existence flickering in
and out of a pale beam
of hope.
I said "I was just trying to be heard."
but the grown-ups were scheduling the next meeting about meetings
and the stillness was louder than me.
I said "I saw the cracks before the walls fell."
but they called it anxiety
pressed a pill into my palm—a bitter bead to bolt the mouth—
traded my bike for a screen.
I said "I asked what happens when the warnings all come true."
but they gave me the word catastrophizing
and sent me to talk to someone who would teach me to cope.
I said "I need something—God, or anything bigger than this ungodly."
but they said they'd outgrown that
they said the universe runs on chaos
hope—a feathered fraud—
they said forgetting was the price of growing.
I said "I dreamed of a world that listened first."
but the world was scrolling
and the scroll had no bottom
and the bottom had no floor.
I am still trying to be heard
the grown-ups are still busy
the world is still scrolling.
and I am learning
that no one is coming
that rescue is a story, fantasy, myth
that survival is action, not a noun—
I teach myself
in the darklessness—where angels file complaints.
while the adults
argue the wording
of the warning
no one
will ever
read.
________________________________________
§ FINAL VOLTA
But even in the dawn
I feel the stillness shiver—
a warning
the world
still refuses to hear
an acorn
hits my head—
the forest still believes
in warning
even when we don't
Skies of unrepentant gray
Unrelenting day to day
Gloom ensconced in your brain
Hope waxes not; it only wanes
When at the door, who appears?
A stranger in whose eyes flash fear
Abruptly, senses so long dulled
Spring to life, your courage culled
Turns out you help him; he is pursued
By whom or what, not clear to you
Yet this much know, and mark it well --
It's mankind's plight wakes death's knell
The craziness of the world
comes to a close in silence
draws breath and shuts down
gathers into a ball of fire
gracefully falls into darkness
to dream of a better tomorrow
AP: 1st place 2026
Me: Since Samhain I have been chatting with Satan on Skype..On this date he celebrates his fall from grace..
Satan: Thank you Ken..You look marvelous today..What is your routine? You haven't aged in years...Is it diet and gym, the ladies and your erotic poetry?
Me: You are way too kind..(blushing)
Satan: Really, I enjoy your sense of eroticism, you have a fondness for the ladies I see..You should read "Justine" by my friend the Marquis de Sade..In order to know virtue, we must first acquaint ourselves with vice...
Me: Are you saying it is only through pain one can arrive at pleasure?
Satan: I'm saying you are unhappy because you desire things that cannot be..That's what desire IS, the need for what we cannot have..It's called greed...
Me: I have nothing to fear here..
Satan: Well Ken, there's always the truth..Maybe peace is acquired by the currency of loss..You are in love with perception..I have many friends here in hell with me you may have heard of, Anton Lavey, Aleister Crowley, Adolf Hitler among others..You should meet them..
Me: No thank you, I prefer to "Fear and Tremble" like Kierkegaard..I was taught your greatest truth was convincing the world there was only only one of you..
Satan: You know God loves you..
Me: Is that why you take interest?
Satan: You seek a measure of comfort from Women..Don't you know that love is the laziest theory for the meaning of life?
Me: But was not Faust saved in the end by the love of a woman?
Satan: I will not elaborate on your misconceptions..
Me: I'm just an ordinary human being with flesh, blood and bones..Nothing hard to decipher.. I wish for women and have needs..
Satan: They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions..Charming saying really..I say it is paved with intriguing questions...
Me: It is late, I have to go Mr. Satan...What time is it?
Satan: How much time do you need?
Me: No thanks..lol I have to go....
~ ~ ~ ~ ~