Best Despoiled Poems
The Fall of The Winter King
He had risen to power
fueled by a vicious and ruthless determination
to reclaim a lost throne.
His tactics had stunned the unsuspecting,
laid barren the fields,
blanketed the forest,
silenced the sounds of life itself.
A dictator, seeking no counsel,
accepting no offers of surrender,
driven by the desire to destroy
the kingdom that had usurped his throne.
Rumors spread of a daring bud – sprouting -
a tune hummed by the imprisoned trees
adrift on the whipping winds of war
in defiance of the heartless king.
A call to arms sounded
by the most gentle, the most delicate.
The first acts of open rebellion,
The resounding crack of the ice jamb
the aching roar of the river’s rage
surging over its banks
awakening those still held captive.
Slowly the insurrection took root
buds gathered in hidden clusters,
trees quietly bloomed
muffling the screeching gales,
offering safety to bands of rebels.
Flocks of warblers met -
feathered archers - hurling their
darting arrows against the glare
of a cold king’s horror.
Sweet grasses spread across
the brown, despoiled fields -
a verdant gauntlet tossed in the face of dread.
Flowers crept from thawing dungeons
waving their colors,
swarms of banished pollinators
followed the call to duty.
The ebb and flow of battle -
frosted retreats,
clandestine sunrise maneuvers.
The resurgence of heart,
the growing hope of warmth.
As memory of the chilled repression
faded preparation was made
to receive the beauty and bounty
of a new and peaceful King.
John G. Lawless
1/11/2015
For SKAT’s Winter’s End – Poetry Contest
My pulse is weak; it flutters while I plead
for air to give my lungs a chance to breathe.
Abuse must stop, or soon my heart will bleed.
My virgin flesh despoiled and robbed for greed,
in pain I cringe and hide my face in shame.
My pulse is weak; it flutters while I plead.
Entwined in thorns, I’m begging to be freed.
My lips are dry; they thirst for kiss of life.
Abuse must stop, or soon my heart will bleed.
These ailing limbs, unwilling to concede
defeat, as vibrant echoes numb the mind.
My pulse is weak; it flutters while I plead.
Mankind is blind, appears to take no heed.
The soul is lost and time is running out.
Abuse must stop, or soon my heart will bleed.
On verge of suffocation, I’m in need
of love and hope to sprout from hidden seed.
My pulse is weak; it flutters while I plead.
Abuse must stop, or soon my heart will bleed.
---------------------------------
International Earth Day Contest
Hosted by Carolyn Devonshire
[Published in Kavya Kishor, Bangladesh ~ 25 April 2023]
I've written of longing and pensive fears,
of sorrow, pain and my ravished emotions.
Tomes of poetry are an expose' of my soul
before my pen ran dry and my heart resigned.
Despoiled by devotion and ribbons of lies
is a tarnished ring, my circle of gold.
Love's wounds on paper, continued to bleed.
Poems in testament to what once had been real.
In dust-laden books I shall never again read
are Sonnets beaded with ardor, I chose to impart
now lie hidden from my eyes, impaled by a dart.
Each one a dagger thrust to the pith of my heart.
With a sigh, I filled my ink well one last time
to pen the lines, I render in my last confession.
Words I had dared not whisper into your ear.
I lingered just a moment to wipe an errant tear,
but on parchment, they fell in rapid succession
then wrote with quivering lips and trembling fingers.
"When I lie pale and cold in death's possession
my love will live on, flowing beyond death's door.
When my eyes are closed, lips tinted pale blue
and the rhythmic beat of my heart is no more ~
maybe then you will admit that you loved me, too."
2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 23 Contest
Sponsored by Mark Toney.
Originally posted on 12/19/2019
Hollow Justice
Justice called the role
not seeking innocence
but truth
beauty stood before the bench
accused of wilting flowers,
faded hues, dimming rainbows
purity stood guiltily
head bowed, besmirched,
despoiled by innuendo
pride stood angrily
fist clenched, defiant,
without shame
honor cowered in the shadows
disgraced by perception’s
cowardly fabrications
duty stood alone
neglected, shunned,
by those she served
truth stood silent
in the knowledge
none are innocent
John G. Lawless
8/21/2015
She'd been staring at me since I can recall.
A da Vinci saccharine smile painted on her lips
that I'd traced with fingertips in my youth.
Forsooth wondering, "Who are you, comely lady,
and why does no one ever mention your name?"
Eyes of melancholy, but not a tear had she spilled.
For years now, I'd asked that the truth be told
why she'd been given a place on the parlor wall,
yet no one speaks of her with honor or a trace
of how gracefully she sat on that stiff backed chair.
A fetching look adorned the face of this exquisite lass,
whose lustrous raven hair was released from its chignon.
What sin had she committed that's kept her story hidden
and her name omitted or deleted from the family Bible?
In gold gilded frame, what blame does she still carry?
What thrust and parry duel must she have fought,
perhaps for love. Her presence hangs in oils but despoiled.
Aged painting of this alluring woman remains a mystery
to me, but I see in her eyes, a familiarity I recognize
each time I peer into the mirror on the vestibule wall.
We cannot tame a raging storm, so with patience,
we must wait for the calm. ~ by poet
The balmy afternoon had been fulgent and warm
Until darkness foreshadowed an approaching storm
Wailing winds of the nor'easter would soon cause grief
damaging fragile coral growth upon the reef
Leaden clouds encroached and shrouded the gloomy day
The aura changed from gold to hue of graphite gray
It seemed as if an eclipse turned day into night
as feathered wings rose in unison to take flight
Thunder's billowed breath blew across the ocean's waves
as if the tempest was demanding what it craves
Atmosphere grew heavy with each powerful roar
White caps rushed with clangor against the sandy shore
With vengeance, the storm hurled jagged lightening strikes
Split second flashes that resembled silver spikes
* * *
Then, the deluge rained like arrows, sharp as metal
That would've wounded men like a stinging nettle
The monsoon swept overland, clear across the dunes
on zephyr winds that howled diabolical tunes
The storm seethed with a furor that was unsuppressed
leaving the seaside landscape despoiled and distressed
Battered by ferocious weather that was to blame
Nature's forces can be impossible to tame
Finally, squalls dwindled and waves no longer surged
Glowing rays of sunlight defiantly emerged
And so the storm came with raging temper to vent,
pillaged treasures from the sea. Yes, it came and went
It was quite a balmy evening, fulgent and warm
Upon the beach seashells lie, displaced by the storm
You always tell me how much you love my poetry
but is that the only reason you feel drawn to me?
I write Sonnets filled with love and romance for you,
adoring stanzas meant to caress your heart and soul,
but is it my rhyming words, or me that you cherish?
If I no longer wrote about the silvered moon in eclipse,
would your soft parted lips still want to cling to mine?
I could gladly write all day and night to please you,
but if I did not clasp a feathered quill in my hand,
I wonder... would you still hold me dear in your life?
I sit and write only for you lately. Am I fooling myself
to think it's just for the words I scribble on parchment
that you've become enthralled with the flair of my pen.
What then, my love? If no longer I could compose
expressions of devoutness meant for your eyes only.
With reverence, I beseech you to love me for who I am.
Would you leave me in painful throes of heartache,
forsaking my heart when my muse no longer expresses
the passionate verses you seek me to scribe for you?
Would you love me if I wasn't a poet, darling, scrawling
arduous words to describe the beauty of your face,
or the changing shades of grey in your wintery eyes?
No, dear one. Do not answer the questions I ask of you
for to hear your voice deny me of your love, I'd become
incapable of ever authoring another affectionate line.
I would tear my pages of poetry in half and burn them.
Grief-stricken; my tears blurring the ink to ever write again.
Despoiled of the will to create even one more quixotic verse.
She ran away,
Into the night,
Alone and sad.
They saw her,
Watched, then approached,
Offered her kindness.
She felt safe,
With innocent trust
She accepted friendship,
Went with them,
Believed in goodness.
They beat her.
Force fed drugs,
Imprisoned, bound, gagged.
Trapped and scared
She wet herself.
Men came in
Violated, ravished, despoiled.
Screaming in pain,
Hungry and cold.
The abuse continued,
Day after day
Death threats delivered.
Family and friends
Search and appeal.
Police examine evidence.
Twelve hour shifts
In sexual slavery,
No possible escape,
Branded by ink.
Feelings of repugnance
She covets death.
A tip off
Activates Police raid.
They find her,
Bruised, petrified, vacant.
Inside a cage,
Blemished, defiled, impure.
Reunited with family,
Striving for normality,
An uphill climb.
Courage and tenacity
Needed for survival.
Guilty and impure.
Never again to
Be a child.
7th March 2017
Neath shimmered strings of starlight’s breeze, crepuscular in night
on trodden soil he lay with slumbered eyes.
Lashed to oak, his chestnut mare in dream just out of sight
snaps free as lightning flashes; flares the skies.
Bounds to foot with double stride; yet late his capture earns
a feeble grip on equine hoof afoot,
his trusty steed, as mist might drift through juvenile sown ferns,
has vanished like dark ebbing motes of soot.
Miles from home, no transit back, bewildered by events
considers how to forge his journey home,
perplexing state, a quandary, unravels and presents
the only choice he has, which is to roam.
Through thicket thick, forest green, cross arid plains of dust
unto the homestead poised for his return,
discordant thunder stills his heart; wriggles in as thrust
compels him, for he knows they too do yearn.
For passage spry and safe, and quiescent nights on swag
now rolls his bed with reins onto his back;
through sheathes of rain, in startled fright, a lonely Sambar stag
hoof striking ground, preparing to attack.
Muzzles drawn, the beast is felled yet antlers gore both arms
as motion peters awkwardly apace,
bandages his wounded wings as parent-like alarms
resound upon the visage of a face.
Hidden by the brush, the physiognomy not seen
now trundles to its father’s fallen side,
its death is beyond doubt, lest his hand does intervene
to raise the fawn the way the buck had tried.
A careful snouted nudge from the fawn as sunup blooms
arises him from sleep, but only just,
passes over arid plains then through the vista looms
the iron gates of home bedimmed by dust.
Collapses through the gates on the soiree of her birth
returning home disheveled and delayed,
bent on being present so she’d never know a dearth
of every night, his whispered serenade.
Strength, in time, would vivify, recouping over weeks
the erred reason for his sullied trip,
remains on blocks, left un-repaired, despoiled by the leaks
and placed the fawn forever by her hip.
Eyes well up recalling, every year from that day on
his little girl’s elated monkeyshines,
when the gown was given her, how happiness had shone
into his heart his journey’s worth entwines.
Beside the busy highway,
In the bushes there lay supine’
A despoiled corpse of a splendid damsel,
Scratched, bruised and all nailed,
Her cheeks bore the prints of teeth,
And marble-white neck blue scars,
Her silky white dress was spotted,
With the dots of blood,
Her delicate white soft shoeless feet,
Were still unharmed,
Her hair was disheveled, added to her grace,
Her eyes half opened,
As they were looking afar high beyond the sky,
To her dwelling place,
The wronged lips still bore an elegant smile,
If saying, "O! Dwellers of the world be happy evermore,
I depart to my own celestial place,
Where no one will desecrate my sanctity."
Then from the contents of her handbag,
Some one found out a stained document,
And with blood was inscribed,
"I am Miss Honesty, raped in the dark,
By the custodians of law."
Rondelet: Yang be evil
for the continuously raped and hidden
minors of India
Yang be evil
Yin acts with rash impunity
Yang be evil
No power controls the Devil
Wombs despoiled in mad enmity
Innocence: raped humanity
Yang be evil
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, 2012
The iron men march on
Rending the earth from the sky
Landscape despoiled
AN UGLY VISITOR, CORONA VIRUS
We have an ugly visitor;
Corona Virus is his name.
He's prowling like a predator
With an aim to devour or maim.
He disregards every convention.
Schools, airlines,... he shuts down;
Doctors are in his line of elimination
As he locks down town after town!
Countries are wearied from burying people.
Caterpillars are full time grave diggers.
Coffins in a grave are multiple.
Little attention is paid to mourners!
He's the newsmaker of the year,
If there is still such a thing!
For indeed different times are here;
It's a new world of Corona's making!
He found people living in peace,
At least peace as we' had come to know it.
Being, as he is, a life changing disease,
He despoiled in a manner rabied!
"Everyone has to stay at home,
Then the virus will not travel!
No spectators for any sort of game
Or sitting at a bar with a liquor bottle!"
He cares little about national pride.
He looks down upon local wars
Or the special day of a bride!
He shuts down both bank and bourse!
Corona has eclipsed every concern:
Major issues are whitewashed!
How food for your children you will earn
Is rendered insignificant and quashed!
"Call the intelligent men of the land!
Let them cast their lots and tell
When this distress is going to end!
Bring all tools this curse to quell!"
It's been ten months and there's still no cure
Except the recommended hygiene methods.
Governments and institutions must procure
Personal protection and nutrition needs.
The world is hoping for a vaccine,...
Earnestly hoping for a miracle:
That the journey to a medicine
May indeed prove a shorter cycle!
Maybe Corona will make us one:
Oriental, Caucasian, African, all one race,
And all the living under the sun,
Might learn to have a little more grace!
For so long you’ve held the key, the scepter and the crown,
Harrowing the reality, the subconscious, the deep within.
Your voice was deep, poignant, forbidding. Clattering like,
The tumbling down of ancient and spidery bones, swishing
Like the dust raised by warm nocturnal winds above the grave,
Of underneath whose cold stone, you speak.
I’ve held on to these, the pain most notably, the curse of living,
Clung to it as one would a shepherd’s staff. I was bleating, you, stoic,
An anguished ghost whose wispy façade slashes through the ages,
Thru generations of minds in the offing of torment. The honored
Priest above my chasm and dreams, whose scepter whirls an order,
to the bottomless chaos, defining, refining.
Such morbidity, such dusky frights and ebon like chill, thawing,
turning ductile the mind’s seams to enable comprehension
of misery, for one, for two and for as long as dreaded numbers
Could gnaw, could go and would soar. And then dreadfully and
just as suddenly, fall. But always finds in the descent kindred misery,
Again and again spewing thermals for tattered wings.
Aye, my friend, you’ve enabled these, I followed your grim lead too,
Debauched a day, or two, or three. I honestly can’t remember anymore.
When you despoiled your body did you lose your soul? I asked this
Because mine never was. It was never lost. But you, aside from being
a friend, are a terrible despot. For you bound my soulful core, right
after you cried over lost grains of golden sand.
Alas, when you failed to save even one of these grains from your
Clasp, why the need to wail and ask if all that we see or seem,
Is but a dream within a dream? Why cast eternal umbrae over
Those sojourns which aside from your company lifts my weary
Psyche? Those twilight times when I can escape and open the
Drain in the reality of my life?
MY CAR MY BUCOLIC.
The speed of my automobile exclusively,
Depends on the wheelman which earth born,
Crave where the passengers await it's destination,
Seeing an endless road ahead.
Every four years is it's renewal with the,
Hope of getting to the promise terra-firma,
Where the Israelites peregrinates to,
With despondency from it's adversaries.
Only the strong survive to drive the car twice.
Oh! My wrecked car needs help;
Oh! My foolhardy driver needs help
The despoiled car got it's wound from exterior
Forces; where there is no necessity for protect
Asthenic tyre dawdle the speed;
The engines that fabricates the car now hassle,
Each other with hopeless range in anger
In this car, life live by the way car live life.
My enfeebled heart deems of the,
Mechanic who can revamp my sick car
My position calls for change which we need;
Marooning us inside the darkest tunnel to fracas,
The predators which we see not.
Let's have a heroic search,
Seeing not the vices of the past motorist.
Wheel the car oh driver!
Wheel the car to the right path
That the passenger serene
Wheel pass the motor park where other,
Cars swift with competition among them
My car my bucolic with countless myriad resources.
By: ADEBOYE JESUTOFUNMI?