Best Denuded Poems
* For Mary Kathleen Lessard Caithness *
~
cast tie-lines to shadowy depths above
meteors to plunge the ocean of suns
kick off - tally-ho! from the pier of known
a scoundrel's nod to the skull and bone
vast skies uncharted now beckon ahead
a dusk of dreams splashed yellow and red
naught but astounding, the adventures be
an endless sojourn 'cross a sparkling sea
the sky-palette waits for a score of tales
come a warm solar wind to puff the sails
all worries and why's now, abaft the beam!
set our course due for a foolish dream!
a celestial tempest to bend the jack
to his tasking a-hold the kicking strap
stem the tide, aye, mind the moonbeam drift
spread her wings wide and give her lift
the sextant's now set to the Milky Way
(we'll grave her clean on a windless day)
to port side, a wink from the Seven Sisters
off starboard, the gleam of nebulous vistas
we sunder the clouds with our wake of mist
now dark matter deep and heaven-kissed
tossed by the waves through a sea of night
we gasp for the void, yet we drown in light
our spirits denuded and paean-versed
we dare constellations to do their worst
for now we all pull to the labor at hand
to chart the expanse of this boundless land
at the bidding and mercy of a rapturous breeze
three prayers for fair winds and following seas
'til our hearts are sated and our marrow torn
and we drop our anchor there, worry-worn …
on the sands of time, we'll commend our dance
and return our dust ... to the great expanse.
~ 1st Place ~ in the "Sky" Poetry Contest, Anthony Slausen, Sponsor.
~ 1st Place ~ in the "Best Rhyming Poem 2018" Poetry Contest, John Hamilton, Sponsor.
~ Poem of the Day ~ at Poetry Soup.com, awarded February 1, 2018.
Categories:
denuded, adventure, imagination, metaphor, sea,
Form:
Couplet
My life spirals ever downward...
The grave taunts me with its laugh.
Death's bony fingers are affixed my throat
As the jester of my unmerited epitaph.
My angst at my ever-flounder appears
Well-earned and justly placed
Where the rabid minions of an avenging God
Will no doubt make bold of my disgrace.
Have I lived too long a life so plain
Where my soul was too confined
And any realistic hope of eternal bliss
Seems mere folly at this time?
To live too long is an old Man's curse
And bound to evoke some industry
Where best intentions are set adrift...
To partake sweet ecstasy.
These stains that commemorate my Earthly Sins
Are laid denuded for all to see.
I drag them unceremoniously into an afterlife
That may not wish to bolster me.
But who among us hasn't stumbled
With Death's foot ajar the door
With temptations strewn like pearled oysters
On life's repugnant shores?
The righteous path is straight and narrow
And a vehicle for all those bold and brave
But only appeared crucial and strategic as
I stand with one foot in the grave.
How happier were those days gone by
When I was young and free from vice.
If I had only maintained such vernal guileless
To insure a place in paradise.
But I have come to this conclusion
As Death's whisper slakes my soul with dread.
Too much time has been my nemesis and any
Last minute burbling is better left unsaid.
So at this hour... this late late hour...
I now confront an awful truth.
I might have had a better chance at Heaven...
Had I perished in my youth.
The End
Ever-flounder: A bad situation of one's own making.
*I wrote this poem from the perspective of someone who fears their sins are
too heavy for God to bear.
*Follow my cartoon at Webtoon Bob's Your uncle.
Categories:
denuded, angst, confusion, death,
Form:
Rhyme
>>>
cavorted about as elfin brides
under a saffron maple tree^^^^
Dressed in prism-hued layers
of chiffon in ethereal shimmers
and delicate silken gossamers
They having their group wedding in the fall
And fairy folk bustled about all round
as flimsy and flighty as they could be
while henna leaves fell upon the brides,
>>>>> in ceremonial nuptial
An autumn's breezy ritual>>>Branches denuded
Yet autumn's august>>>
in honey fallen maple leaves as well
>>>>Playing hide'n' seek
with browny brownie grooms
also camouflaged in the heap...>>>
( beautiful quote 7)
Categories:
denuded, autumn, fairy, wedding,
Form:
Blank verse
"Amid the jagged shadows of mossy leafless boughs;”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
,
I stand amidst the stillness of the graveyard and browse
My unbearable anguish like drooping flowers surge,
Amid the jagged shadows of mossy leafless boughs,
While hungry birds fly round twittering a plaintive dirge.
The old oak tree now denuded from all its green leaves
Time pass, forlorn eerie mist descends hiding the grave
Then sparkling white snow flutter down, thus my heart bereaves,
Bringing on hopelessness that dear life can never save.
No flowers by request she always maintained and said.
I could not bear to see others hide her from my view,
I disobeyed her and covered her with roses red.
Memories flooded my mind with thoughts that I pursue.
In the pain stillness of my heart, I know death does part
But like the nude oak tree, no one can refill my heart.
Categories:
denuded, death, rose,
Form:
Sonnet
I hear the winter call my name
in syllables bereft of breeze,
ethereal through silent trees
hypnotic in their leafless maim.
In sheerest blue of morning freeze
the shadows drape from rimy limbs
while through my head a matin swims
that beckons past the boundaries
of culture's polished monotone.
I'd ramble the denuded scape
past hoary waters' icebound gape,
to arcane winds my caution thrown.
Across the dawning's lambent sill
the winter calls. I hear it still.
Categories:
denuded, longing, nature, winter,
Form:
Sonnet
When you said to me,
"Climb up here, It's pollution free."
Sacred. Safe.
Your rarefied air.
Calculating, you seemed so free.
Safeguard. Sage.
I said I could breathe...
Underrated your density.
Saintly. Sane.
High-minded insight.
When anticipated terror
denuded me,
cool rarefied air
regulated insanity,
far gone fear.
I will breathe
in your rarefied air.
Let it burn brisk
in brittle, brave lungs.
Gasp and grasp
life's flame, full flare.
Lunge for high notions,
those far-flung schemes.
I will breathe in
High mind's smoke,
hung in air-
that ghostly stroke of genius,
rare token in disguise
Well spoken word flurries
whipping away thin guise.
Floating crown
adrift on high.
I will breathe in
Your rarefied air,
because I listened to you.
"Clamber up, high!
Unfazed view will circle you,
miles on end surround you.
No going around the bend.
Nowhere else to go.
No zig zag escape.
No spike in pressure.
No deep depression.
No bad atmosphere.
No stabbing shove.
No push or pull on edge.
Just your pledge to breathe.
To move in one direction.
Forever. Mentally "together."
Stay in good shape."
I will breathe out.
Your rarefied thoughts
congeal life's force,
slows down blood flow.
Till body gloved heart
faintly, faintly glows...
Concealed fire's torch,
caved embers die down.
Stripped artfully apart,
Your rarefied airs
blanket my mind in snow.
13/10/2018. Purely fiction. On the pros and cons of mentorship. "Higher" education is not necessarily a good thing. Learning lessons are.
Categories:
denuded, education, identity, mentor,
Form:
Alliteration
Ursus Maritimus ...
I entered your world in quietude, slipping through the granular, soft.
Long slats to feet parting the frozen. Cold of a previously unknown
Extreme, nipping, sharp, the epidermis with ardor. A Mid-May akin to
February, homeward, first warning of extrinsic ire, ignored. Hours of
Similar (sobering) revelations ensued, supplanted by days, weeks,
Moons ... reality - icebound and born of abiding trial. The basic
Elements staggering, swallowed by the providence around me. A
Vastness beyond vast, afar ... crushing cold of limitless value, each
Sunrise a new contingency for measure of my insignificance. How I
Adored you for your beauty - such reward for the naked eye, there
Amidst a denuded struggle. Shaped by eons of selection into a
Creation of perfect form and ease, as at home with desolation as
I at a warm hearth and aliment. Moving sprite through your environs,
All senses attuned to the mind's axis ... at once knowing and known,
Master of a savage domain. Every dynamism a fluid dance, every
Steamed puff of exhalation a waif of delicacy, bespoken. Do not the
Gods aspire to such? If there were deities afforded such barren and
Bleak scapes, it would be none other than you - as exquisitely
Magnificent and divine as the forbidding but breathtaking element
Around you, my brother. Yet, I fear I have doomed you, for others
Will now follow ... others who find no such elegance in anything
But graft and greed. By the simple act of watching I may have
Sealed your fate, firm and grim. So, I will not turn to admire you
As I leave ... but rather keep you forever as a phantom in my mind
And heart and longings - to let you devour my spirit and join with
You, ever after straining to hear the echo of your lonely, distant
Growl, the one that so often haunts my thoughts and meanderings,
Dark and cold in the arctic night, dark and cold in the willows ...
Deep and frozen and dreaming, of your gleaming and breathless
Beauty. If but mine to touch ... to know. Forgive me and farewell ...
Brother Bear.
Categories:
denuded, animal, appreciation, beauty, nature,
Form:
Free verse
Stiff pleated fronds in concert rise
to wax under the April sun
and trill their canticles begun
in verses jade that they comprise.
Chartreuse of thorny branches splay
a tumult to belie the grace
that on display they interlace
like rose stems on a breezeless day.
Atop the thatched denuded bole
gush fountains cast in cardamom,
an opalescent diadem
that glistens on the mossy knoll.
In thus exuberant array
do cloistered peacocks mime ballet.
1/20/18
Categories:
denuded, imagery, nature, spring, tree,
Form:
Quatorzain
Our fig in January, entirely denuded now
like my heart in your absence, is but
more beautiful, if possible, in its seasonal
solemnity than in summer's exacting extravagance.
The trunk, grown massive in manhood, is a citadel
of strength supporting the curving bowl of its
branches as they bend back into themselves, becoming
the bare black sculpture of winter trees Hemingway
described in Paris in the Jardin of Luxembourg
where we used to walk, following in his footsteps.
These prayerful branches, grown as large as
the beanstalk giant of storybook lore, cup
the sky, making a sieve through which rain filters,
better for unobstructed passage to its
earthbound blessing, clearer for the distillation.
Above ground two massive roots, more visible
in winter definition--veins from the beating heart
of the tree--though siblings still, sprawl out
in different directions, then disappear wherever
they are traveling, who knows where? Not
climbing skyward like Jack on his leafy ladder,
but earthward out of sight toward a Southern
provenance, toward Provence, perhaps,
as if impassioned for home.
HAPPY NEW YEAR FELLOW SOUPERS!
Categories:
denuded, naturewinter, winter, new year,
Form:
Narrative
The tapered blade glinted in the fast fading moonlight
It slipped so easy between the ribs on this, another murderous night
Swiftly the body was denuded of all his earthly goods
As the bladed murderer slipped off, into the nearby darkening woods.
The tapered blade reappeared two nights from that deed
No one took notice, the warnings they did not heed
The blade did flash the body fell, gurgling sounds did rise
As the body crumpled the life blood gone, twas no real surprise.
A vigilante, they declared, was on the prowl at night
Two evil men had been attacked and given more than just a fright
The death toll rose week by week, but none could tell the tale
The man with the tapered blade, not once his deadly blade did fail.
The bloody murderer with the blade came to a crossroads in his life
He stood between three roads marked Hope, Despair and Strife
Onto his knees he fell, he prayed and asked “Which road do I take?”
I have done your bidding Lord; help me my choice to make.
Looking down from heaven on high the Lord was angered so
“I never told you to act as judge and everyone will know.
Behind you a fourth road is opening this one is called Retribution.
Take that one if you dare I say, but expect no absolution.”
The murderous vigilante, his thanks did express in supplication
He took the given road, not realising this act was in its self the causation
Of the opening of a doorway where stood the Reaper with his scythe
As the curved blade came down, he watched his victim writhe.
The Grim reaper did smile his daily task he did so enjoy
To be given a soul to keep, would keep his devils in happy employ
So if you take the path-the one marked retribution
Remember at the end of it may not be the hoped for or best solution.
©5/11/2102 ~GG~
Categories:
denuded, fear, body,
Form:
Quatrain
Behold Beatrice, Pitcairn
the paradise sunsets lie in Tahiti
sunrise, the folly of Easter
islands, sanitoriums, deluded, denuded
limbos and purgatories, the never evermore
Polynesian metaphors transmigrate my mind
O to graze with the deer, dear
the tree never falls silently
lizards scatter, birds scurry to flight
i could never buy into falling silence
let alone fate of Galileo's descending weights
church theologians preferring an atheist Aristhrottle
forgive me for being sententious dear
no pity for Cyrano
the hidden Darcy
in another failed Benedick in port
without Dante's delusions
love with no embrace
Service, woman, a slightly tainted saint
Tennyson's wound that never heals
Petrarch, Augustine, it grows insane
ah the vicissitudes, where was i
yes, leaving metaphors and literate men
your laughter starts in those ignescent eyes
ignition, brush fires of rippling ballerinas
facial muscles lost in abandonment
to some elfish music i see, never hear
lips widening, bursting rubaiyat pandemonium
i adore your infectious risibility
it is your amatory smile i love most
demure, candles gamboling in the moonlight
i am a moth lost in the flames
of your demanding timidity
it is then i see in your eyes
the dove gracing your hands
the beast who serves your lust
this is why the Norsemen
fear nothing but women
swords once ready, berserkers, Odin
now lie silent volcanoes in my heart, Freya
the seas are without headstones
and i am wondering again terricolous
all of this are the clouds overhead
it is the heavens i see in your eyes
not the red dawn i fear
we see the jungle, its' song, inevitable war
the struggle to stand in the light
possibly besotted, erratum
the seas have long not cared
with you, i learn, heal
we are undeniably humanity
we are paradise lost
the hells of yesterday
need not rule the heavens of today
your arms gravid with red sunsets
fill my deepest hopes of all morrows
its' ultimate price is gladly paid
Miramar 94 The Patient Stones
Revised 5/22 OKC
see on Youtube
Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 Is Not What It Seems
there are certain words in here common in 19th Century literature that always remind me....besotted with Jane Austen
Categories:
denuded, fate, history, lust, metaphor,
Form:
Romanticism
Trees still denuded but burgeoning with buds
Will soon be bedecked in the brightest of duds.
Small birds renew flitting amid bursts of bright song
While crocus heads from the soil shyly push up along.
Freshness and newness is what they declare
When brightness and music do fill the air
Hope and joy in simplicity blend
With which no other season can ever contend.
Summer's profusion ,autumn's decay,
Winter bleak, brightened but by Christmas Day
Yet spring with its simple and artless style
Young and old alike doth beguile.
Vivaldi's Four Seasons, a work of great art,
Depicts the cycle with humour and heart
But the princess of seasons stands merrily played
To leave the rest in its shy little shade.
Categories:
denuded, happiness, hope, nature, seasons
Form:
Rhyme
Golden threads finger through the fog
To whisper at frosted boughs
For dawn is yawning at quilted trees
Where sunlight doth tap the pane of silent glass
Reflecting the blaze burning bright
Through misty Elms denuded
Of shame through natures stark humility
Poet Destroyer’s contest: Autumn Day
11 September 2014
Categories:
denuded, autumn, morning,
Form:
Free verse
Autumn is a thief! She stole my gown of gold
She let it fall gently onto the ground out of my reach!
Naked …I'm totally naked, denuded of my fabulous fallen frock
Now I'm at the mercy of the wild wicked winter winds
I’ll shiver until spring brings me a new dress of vibrant green
Not posted in time for contest
11~13~16
Categories:
denuded, autumn, nature, seasons, tree,
Form:
Personification
The anorexia is not conspicuous,
being half-submerged, just
breaking through.
She’s a powdered mirage.
Her skin a hyaline shear
drawn over a necklace
of clavicle bones.
She knows her chest
is returning to childhood,
she wants to shelter there,
to be her own child.
Small breasts bob under
burgundy nipples,
buds made more prominent,
anchored as they are
to shipwrecked ribs.
Designer bling distracts.
Cameras whir, she poses,
one hand on a denuded hip,
not resting there,
but stealthily carrying
an ounce of flesh,
toward a spotlight.
We collude with her,
applaud the way
she decorates a condition.
We all know her emaciated beauty
is a mutual hoodwink.
We know that the closer to death
sexuality becomes,
the more rapacious our appetite,
the more we will wail,
as she slips
through our hungry hands.
Categories:
denuded, poetry,
Form:
Free verse