Best Declension Poems
Agricola……
so started Gaius Caesar’s last assault
a farmer, who we hated by default
for Latin somehow came to rule our world
as meanings of declension slow unfurled
Thus, were we tossed into the forum’s pit
to grapple with the words and how they fit
to stand alone before the silenced crowd
to read our mock translations, mumbling loud
as he, with leaders of judgement’s phalanx
resembled pirates as we walked the plankx
plunged into the ablatives and datives
for none can speak a language as the natives
and so we settled for our Cee’s and Dee’s
as Gaius Caesar brought us to our knees
for laughter accompanied declension
followed by a visit to detention
©2/10/2022
Latin Lessons Poetry Contest
Sparring with demons, and dragons and deadheads
It bobs and weaves like a drunken sailor.
Omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient
I'm quite attached to it - joined at the psyche.
Image of an incubus twirling as I do.
Patron Saint of agony, I curse it
And relegate it to a 2nd-class personage.
Out, damn spot, out - and take the blood with you.
When I am naked, it is clad (no projection),
No libido, no tumescence, no consummation.
How's that for a declension?
When it ascends, I float in the ether.
This hermaphrodite queen is superior
To all mono-sexual beings
And since I am bound and bounded
It supplies the rope, the pins and the Worchestshire Sauce
Third person singular with plural overtones.
No objection for this object of my affectation.
Alas, the narcissus cannot not spin like lilies,
But only vegetate with the legumes.
The coda, finale, epilog await
Looming like a sarcophagus awaiting its occupant
And alcohol cannot still the tooth
That nibbles at its soul.
Man stands high – in Creation - but higher yet she wants to stand!
Before Columbus, trees stood like Sentries, minding communications;
Once these lands were taken, WE hear much of “Supply & Demand,”
Nations weep: gone the Three Sisters and B. Bison from this land
Gone, too, crystal rivers, lakes, Bear Spirit, all Sacred Mountains
Man stands high – in Creation – but higher yet she wants to stand
Sacred tobacco now worth gold, peace pipes we don’t understand
Three Sisters kept apart; Maize is one of our sugar fountains
Once these lands were taken, WE hear much of “Supply & Demand”
Caleb went to Harvard College, against Uncle’s reprimand
First Native grad in ‘65 – before death – from consumption!
Man stands high - in Creation - but higher yet she wants to stand!
That Uncle was a leader on Martha’s Vineyard, Chief Shaman
He saw schools as the means to kill Tradition, shrewd deception;
Once these lands were taken, WE hear much of “Supply & Demand”
Caleb’s death killed Harvard-style Bible Colleges in this land
Trees stay down now, bug and butterfly species showcase declension
Man stands high – in Creation – but higher yet she wants to stand
Once these lands were taken, WE hear much of “Supply & Demand”
(c)Deo, 9/28/2017
On the streets clinging to cars,
Those smiling faces, sulky little palms.
Skeletal structures and lifeless gestures,
Declaring that even starvation is marred.
Pleading for some help and attention.
They don’t understand ethics or declension!
Crowding over food like vultures on corpse.
The tussles and struggles make them ruthless and crass.
Leaky roofs and stinking beds.
Humiliation, Hunger, Rape and violence.
Sanitation, Hygiene, sufferings and never-ending trails.
Dry taps and stagnant clogged ground.
Aimless days and sleepless nights.
Shrinking space and creeping dearth.
Pool of siblings under every shed.
Clusters of mushrooms in the maze,
Nurture only miseries and haze.
No emotions, love or sacrifice!
Surviving in the depths of despair!
There is just one hope in their eyes!
Your mercy is what they seek and entice!
No, they don’t need food,
They don’t need your sympathy.
Just hold their hand,
And give them an opportunity.
Yes, they aren’t willing, they need to be pushed.
For ages, their lives have revolved only around food!
All they understand is compromise and bargains.
We have to hone and educate, for them we have to raise the curtain!
Together we grow, together we expand.
Let’s make a beautiful home, let’s make it certain!
We don’t have to do too much,
It is just about “sharing hands!”
Like snowflakes, no two stars are alike,
despite their myriad declension,
to minuscule pin-pricks in sky above.
Unlike the sameness of sand-grains
scattered willy-nilly on a beach,
that no one notices or cares
of their randomness in profusions,
looking up, we see the pattern of stars,
unique, one by one or in gathered collusion.
In galaxies, the blinking stars curl and swirl.
Their spiral arms stream to awaken their dangling tales.
To the ancient star gazers the milky way appears as milk split
by the Greek goddess Hera while nursing Heracles.
Or as cornmeal crumbs dropped
as the Cherokee dog ran away.
It's a pathway, a rainbow, a river, a snake or a crocodile
connecting heavens and Earth,
connecting spirits and souls to hope and the underworld.
For us, here and now with all our fancy scopes,
The more you look, the more you see.
Each star in the sprinkle is unique in color, shape, age, and its twinkle.
The more you venture back in time,
into the myriads of mind boggling light years away,
the more the unique layers of patterns
are revealed, with countless, endless
myriads of possibilities, beyond apprehension,
in the milky way, supposedly spat out
by Big Bang spurts.
(buzzfeeding, kickstarting, needling darn noggin)
An effort to recall word, phrase,
musician... indigenous tribe...
most frustrating literary
endeavor to das scribe
aggravating enough to sub
bourbon spur teetotaler to imbibe
and/or nsync, whereby soul searching
devil's advocate demands bribe.
Lil brokeback Engelbert Humperdinck
(born Arnold George Dorsey) bent edict coercion
(think sexual mores)
scaring stripes off blushing zebra
bunched unencumbered vice pliable straw
aforementioned pablum admittedly "fake"
birthed within cerebral tenderloin
of impractical joker,
whereby fifty plus shades
of gray matter (mine)
chafed and rubbed raw
prevarication playfully did overdraw
and tax poetic license writ courtesy this paw
poor putz offal declension
sprouted within mum maw
noun tent to verb (bull eyes - red) to draw
flak, but merely to harmlessly entertain
so accept apologies (mine)
verses calling strong (lanced) arm of law.
I (garden variety poetaster) reckon fair game
media personalities grist for rumor mill, though lame
explanation given (funny first and surname)
adopted by supposed "finest middle-of-the-road
balladeers around," who co opted his stage name
from authentic Engelbert Humperdinck; selfsame
prodigy circa 1 September 1854 –
27 September 1921
German composer, who wrote, I gently exclaim
the opera Hansel and Gretel - a Grimm fairytale
actually frightful saga - read countless times
setting me boyhood imagination aflame
with mailer daemons, who haunted dreams
(mine) 'course in retrospect material tame
compared/contrasted with current pandemic
analogous as if mother Earth -
a metaphorical dame
experiencing long overdue reprieve, cuz shame
on *****sapiens belching pollutants
at any price to garner fortune and fame.
With some apprehension, he prepared to write;
with his muse’s dissention, there’d be no insight,
and thus, by extension, no joint, shared delight.
With her added dimension, he’d dared lofty heights.
In joyful ascension, they’d paired on long flights,
but now, in declension, grievance aired, all seemed trite.
It was his intention to square with his sprite -
Contention impaired him; he hated the fight.
Ego in suspension, to her laird, much contrite,
he sought his redemption, aware of his plight.
Their convention fared better than he thought it might;
his affections declared, they were once again tight.
Their shared penchant for flair soared into the bright light.
----------
something a little different - a monorhyme with two internal rhymes per line as well...
This is a day of real deep declension
the clouds look to be drawing near
Jesus warned us of such an evil day
when mankind will have much to fear
This world has consistently rejected God
more and more as the years have gone by
they're without excuse as judgement comes
then the great judge will declare you must die
Peter warned of this in his first epistle
telling all that the end was in sight
exhorting believers to be much in prayer
making sure our pleadings go into flight
Be praying with a real seriousness
making sure to be contacting every day
with your saviour and Lord who hears you
He will listen carefully when you pray
Learn to be ever watchful all around
be on your guard as Satan seeks to attack
on your knees looking up for God's provision
then the Lord's armour won't ever crack!
('But the end of all things is at hand; therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers.')
1 Peter 4: 7 (NKJV)
Man’s intrinsic apathy's negligence-justified frown
Is the actual defining substance of a mortal clown;
Who with hollowed prejudgments fellow men slays,
And likens to hallowed duty his thoughtless decays.
He is evil's meekest martyr by doom's onus bound,
The cold-blooded outlaw donning dark's lucid veils;
His the bounden call to trim unwary lives that thrive,
His a sworn charge to hit to halt sea's merriest sails.
They're hell's happiest saints of true devoted cadre,
Obstinate desperados who without real reason hate;
Theirs rare glories for wanton vitriol by meanest fate
Met on innocent casualties of villainy's vicious adder.
What grand gratification fills world's cruelest hearts
That sting undeserving souls in most delicate parts?
Why do allegedly feeling minds grow numbest to cry,
Whilst their pleading victims in iron malevolence die?
How can life’s most cognitive kind find sweet preys,
In other creatures alike in mien and all visible ways?
Tiny seed with embryo in toe
awaits the sower to decipher
all it's wants and needs,
to grow captive, in plots and pots.
Nature knows the needs of seeds off by heart.
Growers learn the code of what and when
by rote declension recitals of scripts,
and wasteful trial and error plantings.
Such failed trials and tribulations prove
costly to seeds left to rot, freeze-dry and die
when sown in cold, parched and barren,
foreign lands.
Skipping is binary,
one, nought, one, nought, one.
Clip clop.
Tick tock.
One foot up, skip.
Next foot up, skip.
Hop, step and jump,
'tis hopscotch time.
Heart in love, skips a beat.
Electrons skip in quantum rings,
dangling their participles.
Skipping off-beat in music
it's syncopation.
Flat stone, flat-thrown
bounces, skims and skips 'oer pond
plink, ploink, plink ploink, plonk.
Notice, perchance if you will,
each skip is smaller, than the one before,
descending in declension to rest.
hic, haec, hoc
huic, huic, huic
hunc, hanc, hoc
hoc, hac, hoc
Aah
The image of the letters of Déjà Vu
Tells it true.
The eyebrows of the 'e' and 'a'
cast a frown, with the 'j' the snotty nose in between.
Its the face of a frown, not a smile.
For Déjà Vu stirs the heart with wishful view.
With a canvas painted by a hopeful mind,
waiting for 'match-up' to gel and bind
links to the past, on a dead-pan bridge to the future.
Providing supposed certainty, sense and purpose,
rather than what chaos disgorges
as fate and destiny re-written,
by flaps of butterfly wings.
For Déjà Vu
is a tricky, deceptive, perpetual lier,
that begs to lead you astray
with its endless declension to past tense
tainting the present with has-been conspiracy theories,
collated in albums of recollections
dusty, vague and worn-out.....