Best Decimate Poems
A Poet's Gift
A poet writes to share a secret depth
Of feelings within their soulful breast.
They write to grasp onto immortality,
To be remembered beyond their death.
A poet shares emotions inked upon the
Page that cannot verbally be conveyed.
They dwell in a world of dreams, of dark
And light, of imagination, of metaphors,
Where heartbreak heaves and love believes.
Poets dwell where nature inspires, and
Longing desires may elevate or decimate.
They feel compelled to write day or night
From their innate state of expressiveness.
Music, dance, and art entwined, are all a part
Of creating that sonnet, free verse or rhyme
Which may capture hearts in belabored sigh,
Cause tears to well, the heart to swell, joy to
Bloom, cause lovers to swoon in blissful reverie.
Poetry...the greatest gift a poet yearns to share
With sensitivity, with their open heart laid bare.
7-23-19
A STRAND (1048) Poetry Contest N/A
Sponsor Brian Strand
Let's All Drink to Lockdown
by Jan Beaumont ©
I'm normally a social girl
I love to meet my mates
But lately with the virus here
We can't go out the gates.
You see, we are the 'oldies' now
We need to stay inside
If they haven't seen us for a while
They'll think we've upped and died.
They'll never know the things we did
Before we got this old
There wasn't any Facebook
So not everything was told.
We may seem sweet old ladies
Who would never be uncouth
But we grew up in the 60s -
If you only knew the truth!
There was sex and drugs and rock 'n roll
The pill and miniskirts
We smoked, we drank, we partied
And were quite outrageous flirts.
Then we settled down, got married
And turned into someone's mum,
Somebody's wife, then nana,
Who on earth did we become?
We didn't mind the change of pace
Because our lives were full
But to bury us before we're dead
Is like red rag to a bull!
So here you find me stuck inside
For 4 weeks, maybe more
I finally found myself again
Then I had to close the door!
It didnt really bother me
I'd wile away the hour
I'd bake for all the family
But I've got no flaming flour!
Now Netflix is just wonderful
I like a gutsy thriller
I'm swooning over Idris
Or some random sexy killer.
At least I've got a stash of booze
For when I'm being idle
There's wine and whiskey, even gin
If I'm feeling suicidal!
So let's all drink to lockdown
To recovery and health
And hope this awful virus
Doesn't decimate our wealth.
We'll all get through the crisis
And be back to join our mates
Just hoping I'm not far too wide
To fit through the flaming gates!
Rise Up Warrior And Slay The Savage Beasts
Rise thyself up and fight the angry storm
Tomorrow will certainly be far too late
Stirring winds are flashing their usual norm
In conjunction with busy hands of Fate
Trees swaying, limbs breaking, man what a roar
The angry gods are gifting out their wrath
Dancing up the valley, vengeful they tore
Leaving an unholy ripped up path.
Rise as a young man full of piss and gin
Know how world hits hard as it operates
Kick the new dawn and race onward to win
Swing thy hammer to ruin and decimate
For the crowd rejoices in a winner
Hercules a hero, killed the beast
Have a feast, roast pig for your fine dinner
The slayers are vacationing back east.
Rise up a warrior, with heart and brass shield
Let thy sword arm cut and see running red
Refuse to beg and thee must never yield
Never give up unless you are stone-dead.
Robert J. Lindley, Dec 7th 1979
Rhyme
Note-
Last night we had a party.
The bar was full and truly a'hopping.
Wrote this poem when I got home, then went to sleep.
A poet's flowing poems uplift the souls
of men and sing of legends small and great,
of knights and lords, of fiefdoms, and of fate,
of kings, and pontiffs in ungodly roles!
Long, long ago, these popes, desiring control,
enjoined the knights to charge; and penetrate
their Christ's Jerusalem to decimate
the infidels and caliphs of dark Sheol!
When wanton rulers pillage and plunder, poets
write and sing of their wicked, immoral acts,
betrayals, carnage, and cabals; tho' it's
wiser to just ignore these damning facts,
let poets instead make them known, so it's
repaid by poetic justice's attacks.
Unseen but ubiquitous,
Savage and surreal,
If not curated but contagious,
Annihilative and aerial,
Then lurking, now loose,
You are the silent stone sepulchre,
Tangling, tormenting; transient truce,
An asphyxiating, aggravating and apocalyptic aperture,
You might among countless thriving throng induce fear,
Cause bountiful bouts of darkness and despair,
You might perhaps possess lives of mankind in multitudes,
Cripple economies and ravage revenues.
Say, can you cease the blowing of wildly winds?
Say, can you banish a bridal blush or a child’s caprice?
Say, can you hold the hanker of a koel for its lilting lyrics, while it sings?
Say, can you shackle the Sun, or rob its rays with your bitter malice?
You are nothing but an atomic annihilator, a sombre spree,
In vain you strive to rule over our spirits free,
We would surmount all sufferings and decimate your derisive decree.
Saptarshi Mukherjee
They have told us the consequences of our actions,
We have been told about the trailing reactions,
We turned deaf ears,
Our insatiable desires have ruled us,
Our voracious longings have
chauffeured us to plunder her home,
We take more than she can give,
We take and leave little,
We rely on the law of replenishment,
Inadvertently bringing to bear our punishment,
We decimate her home,
Leaving her frail and bare,
She cries out for help,
She tells us to read the writings on the wall,
She tells us to ponder on the meaning of the words,
She tells us to consider the impending troubles,
That gloom will bring,
We say we don’t mind taking the fall,
For there'll be a season of rejuvenation,
Her hands will bear us before we stumble,
Oblivious to the fact that we have weakened her hands,
We stand at the edge of the cliff.
February 14, 2023.
"A Poet's Gift" you wrote three years ago -
the arc of your poetic heart to tell.
You spoke of deep emotions in the soul
invoking tears to well and hearts to swell.
You had a gift. You were a gift as well.
written 23 October 2022
// Connie Marcum Wong wrote the poem below which I have often come back to as a reminder why a poet writes. When my well runs dry, I return to these words and find my embers are stoked and a flame rekindled. Connie knew how to elevate the English language as an artist elevates a blank canvas into a work of art, and I admire her greatly for her gift. She had a gift, and in her friendship and encouragement she WAS a gift as well. Thank you, Connie. //
A Poet's Gift
A poet writes to share a secret depth
Of feelings within their soulful breast.
They write to grasp onto immortality,
To be remembered beyond their death.
A poet shares emotions inked upon the
Page that cannot verbally be conveyed.
They dwell in a world of dreams, of dark
And light, of imagination, of metaphors,
Where heartbreak heaves and love believes.
Poets dwell where nature inspires, and
Longing desires may elevate or decimate.
They feel compelled to write day or night
From their innate state of expressiveness.
Music, dance, and art entwined, are all a part
Of creating that sonnet, free verse or rhyme
Which may capture hearts in belabored sigh,
Cause tears to well, the heart to swell, joy to
Bloom, cause lovers to swoon in blissful reverie.
Poetry...the greatest gift a poet yearns to share
With sensitivity, with their open heart laid bare.
"A Poet's Gift" written 7-23-19 by Connie Marcum Wong
"Connie's Gift" submitted to:
Short Connie Tributes - How did Connie Marcum Wong Inspire You Contest
Sponsored by: Andrea Dietrich
There is a woodpile in my in-laws’ cellar, and some coal, but other rumored things also.
And it has been there a long time since anyone tripped down these broken concrete steps.
Maybe twenty or thirty years; we inherited this home a long time ago.
We have sold it four times on contract,
which has fallen through again.
My husband is not here,
He cannot take it.
But I can, so I take a couple of steps,
Until I get within a foot, when I stop dead as
I can smell the mold through the three-inch door.
The rumor is that there are treasures down there.
I do not know. We were never allowed near this cellar door.
Now I am sixty-six, so technically old enough to go down into this cobwebby den,
But I can smell the mold through the door.
So I back up and rest in an old lawn chair, left by one of the people who thought they
were buying the house before they decided to desert it.
I can still smell the mold, so I back up a bit further, the sun on my face, my feet leaning against a gentle lavender clover.
I am terrified of mold, as I am an asthmatic, and mold could trigger some awfulness in me.
So here I sit, staring as others wander in and out, poking among dusty things
That are disintegrating as they are being brought out into the sun.
Other relatives are coughing; trying to breathe as they haul green and brown stuff out,
Most indistinguishable as real things at first or second glance.
Most needing a power washing, that would completely decimate it.
Maybe she had the right idea, one says, pointing at me, as I lie here, soaking
Up the sun rays. I take off my shoes and push my toes into the clover.
Then I turn my face up, letting the sun hit my nose.
Are you kidding? A teenager yells. This treasure hunt is great!
She runs back down the steps to haul out more loot that her prissy mother
Will never let her take in the car, let alone in the house.
I know because I am prissy girl’s mother.
So here I sit, in a falling-apart green lawn chair, watching the show.
Thinking how my mother-in-law is probably up in heaven laughing, as she too
Smells the mold through that cellar door.
I’d annihilate
the ascending sun
from the sky
incinerate the
eremitic moon
beyond recognition
eradicate
each and every
constellation from its
galaxy
decimate every
planet one
at
a
time
if I believed
that it would
give you one
instant of
respite
from the
savages gorging
on your essence.
On line date
Is no way to find your soulmate
It will leave you anticipating
Met with a wolf in waiting
From all the concentrating
That leads to more debating
Because they all want to lie
Hoping you will just let it pass on by
No matter how hard you try
Online dating is just one big pie
Full of men and women who won't
Look you in the eye
Constantly asking yourself why
Getting close enough to make you cry
As more time seems to pass you by
Can't find the one who makes your heart fly
Hearing so many of them lie
I fear that love does not grow here
Makes me just want to disappear
When so many want to make a career
Out of Making us fear
The love we want to feel so near
To deceive your good trust
While making you believe they are in lust
It's all one big bust
They claim that they are in love
In reality, they are no turtle dove
More like today's scammer
Waiting to clobber you with a big hammer
We need to put them all in the slammer
For being a wolf in waiting
Decimating loves gifts
To those who are willing to bare it all
Making sure not to fall
We all hope to find waiting at loves gate
Ready to negotiate
What keeps us up so late
The love we all appreciate
The one that makes us feel so great
That scammers just decimate
The more I concentrate
Im sure that others have found
Their soul mate
No way I want to complicate
The love I appreciate
I think I will just wait
To meet loves fate
Face to face
A broken shell, a living hell, and all I'm left with now is my regret.
Better days ahead were a pipedream after our relationship crumbled. Countless arguments. Disagreements. Every day! For my life, I can't believe we stayed together as long as we did. God knows I didn't want her to leave me. How much longer must I wrestle with these painful memories?
I just feel regret, unspoken, I just feel the pain; since she left, my life has been a broken shell, a living hell — I can't believe I let her go; it was foolish pride before the fall the day she left when I lost all — I should have held her closer, I should have made her see the feelings I have for her, what she means to me; I didn't say I love her or beg her to stay, instead, I stood in silence and watched her walk away, and all I'm left with now is my regret.
Justification is an exercise in futility. Knowing what I could have and should have done leaves an inextricable switchblade in my soul. Love's lessons learned too late — love's loss too great.
Misting eyes beseech as memories replay in my head, but they're too painful, and I feel dead. No joy to be found. Oh well, my self-imposed hell. Painful memories open like an oubliette under my feet, plunging me lost and languishing in isolation's labyrinth. Questions left unanswered, decaying in the debris fields of "what if.”
Reflection can be a catharsis for the soul, but it can also rip a hole in it, and soon reality roars from guilt's bottomless pit to devour all hope. Sometimes despair is mitigated by occasional reminders of us. Thoughts lingering on happier times, blessed moments mine to treasure. Until the damnable loop of regret dominates to decimate any respite of joy. Vanishing expectations. Weeping willow's silent wail. Xerox memories fade with time.
Years have passed, and my thoughts continue to haunt me over what we could have had. Zero-sum game — all I'm left with now is my regret.
Talents offspring, not ingress
nor decimate of soul's transgress
the effigy of heart's duress
is "silence" ~ without word's address!
So spreading, lose my worth's suggest?
Err not, the motive is repress,
my ear not beckoning regress
but waiting, listening, no recess!
The matters implementing stress
must not be heard, but felt, impress
if not the message, why am blest
to so maneuver crowd's ingest!
Disciples speaking, not conquest
the role of prophets so confess
that thought and feeling, give my best
the saving, instigate ~ no less~
So listening, with the heart's express
fields action, stemming from . . . . the test!
The Queen's henchmen penetrate professionally the porous perimeter,
as a Phyrric victory I pacified your Lady's legion,
for both in the open,like charriots missing riders,decentralized command,the measure,
I, like you maneuver behind the superior shelter of Praetorian's protection,
Levy the lurid seige upon my country's citadel as incensed infidels do,
your cantankerous catapaults wasting pawns like pebbles punched by a storming sea,
an officer sacraficed sardonically, intrepidly,
so to decimate the dormant foots encumbering you,
audacious as an angered asp the timely tactic was,will it hasten your demise to me?
Mandatory machinations amongst this moonlight morass,palpable being Death's caress,
a zephyer like a frosty scythe grazes gingerly our anxious eyes,
tethering the still strategy of mens' mentation,
advancing positions predicted but unproven, an apocolyptic inevitability provoked,
fostering inclement suspense,
justice is now beyond principle,virtue survives only on victor's blade,
incantations made in fire for fear's sublimation,
The common denominator of this prommenade of predation is relentless domination,
manipulating the opposition,perception taunted and haunted
as the fox dictates the chimerical chase,
a vermillion heartbeat,virulent,lucious,with a thin hum of vincibility
lures you to na spot of fragile dominion,
divided forces tend to scream like burning forest
when ambushed along trails of a tedious pace,
When the harp chords chortle tears of tucker from a skulless head,recall with dire dignity
that you were vanquished in strong purpose,
the memory of your egregious exploits will depend on the degree of quater
afforded by my soveriegnty
given to this proud harem of prospective sybils
rescued by a king's necessary nemesis,
J.A.B. - Part Three -
The neighbors gazed at the sky with the nighttime stars.
There is plenty to see while they’re living on Mars.
Since the planet is dry with a thin atmosphere,
so much can be seen because the sky is so clear.
The colony has been peaceful and serene here.
However, concerns about earth clutched them in fear.
The colonists viewed as they sat on their front porch,
their home earth shining brightly like a blue-green torch.
From one hundred million kilometers away,
nations have begun to fight each other today.
One night, they were watching as the earth burned with red.
An atomic war began with millions feared dead.
The blinking light Morse code box relayed a message.
It described a global war with massive carnage.
“Detonations obliterate Australia.
Explosions decimate Cape Town, South Africa.
London, Paris, and Los Angeles are all gone.”
This made all speculate of what was going on.
“Are my parents, brothers, and sisters still alive?
From what happened, will civilization survive?
I have not written to my brother as of late
because there’s a five dollar first class postage rate.”
The new circumstances perpetuated fright.
The luggage store in town stayed open late that night.
The decision to leave was made amongst themselves.
By the dawn, the luggage disappeared from the shelves.
Based on "The Martian Chronicles" by Ray Bradbury
The image of morning mapping from the four cardinal points at the center of
busy pedestrians running ups and down to the bottom of their energies,
Chasing the note they never designed to decimate
ownership.
The smiling morning bubbling their imagination to the high magnitude of
Success languishing behind heart seeking to control situation to the center
of the market, number of desperate merchandises queuing to drink their
Imagination protruding bellies where Satan jolts their hearts to refine
thirty with disastrous desires.
The noise is enough to tantalize the talon of termites boiling at the
center hopping to solve dove segmented wants which never will be OK to
Occurrence of the occupation that too schlock to crumble tantamount to
desire of the heart.
Despite the pain still depicted on his hustle still never give up searching
the treasures that he never keeps no he pinpoints the right place, but just
Living in dilemma of success rocked of magenta quill of shaving beard.
The center of plying to control the Flocks moment of people from all
Angles, prices are bargain with sometimes smile with sometimes waged with
Sadness, the sanity of controlling the market trends is far from certain.
Stalls from left to right which drank the movements of people from one
Place to the other impossible night mad with workaholics perambulating with
Stitches ideas like the mountains of women flashing around with eagerness
to cook the dinners for husbands paying the prices for being too long away from home.
I blame the desires that preoccupied the daily lives of individuals
Superseding with treasures that don't accompany neither nor accomplish your
Bills for the prayers you missed and messed your time behind rouged
the Treasures that still is your colonial master.