Best Diagonals Poems
Winter Scene
A white domain, rhythmic tinkling of bells
the pure mystery of diagonals
and gliding along snow-lanes
Mystical plumes from flared nostrils,
snow crunching under animated hooves.
A sled streaming through stillness,
stone-carved beauty alive in shape and form
A temporary world that feels timeless.
Old or New 8 line MAX -
Contest Judged: 10/8/2016 8:11:00 PM
Sponsored by: Rick Parise
First Place
A snow pony and sled
The pure mystery of diagonals, gliding
and tinkling bells
Beside a grey-green meadow, shadow less
down snow lanes with plumes of breath,
mystical from its nostrils
Stone carved but alive in shape and form
The snow crunches under its animated hooves
This sled streaming through a pure, white domain
A temporary yet, timeless feeling world.
Suzanne Delaney
Every time I remembered a tiny fraction of
Mathematics, there would always be some
Monstrous mathematical computation waiting
To fight me. Yeah, math was the worse BULLY.
THOUSANDS more steps a few formulars, obliaques,
Diagonals, parallelograms.
Often times my mind would just come apart at the
Seams. I thought I might as well day dream.
No way out!! There was definitely shame to my
Aim.
I haven't even memorized the amount of coins in
My pocket!!
I had the CURSE.
I had it worse!
At first I thought it was only I with such a
Deep seeded rebellion toward math.
Then I searched the room and found
Vacant stares.
There was definitely a LUMP IN MY SLUMP.
I didn't want to share my AGGRAVATION.
I WAS thoroughly RUNNING diagonals
Straight into a brick wall of MATHEMATICAL
PHOBIA.
Other wise this doesn't add up at all. Time
And time I assured myself I had mastered it.
This wasn't the confusing
UNIVERSE I thought , thousands of
Confusing steps anticipated my arrival.
There I was DESTINED for a mathless liveable LIFE.
I had concluded it wasn't my cue.
It simply wasn't one of my values.
Now, I stand.
With VALUABLE VALOR.
YES, A SAVORY BRAVERY
MY mathlessness.
A mathless WORLD OF MY OWN.
MY LAST MATHEMATICAL. THOUGHT
I MIGHT NOT BE ALONE, I AM NOT
ONE BUT MORE!!
I have fun with the world of geometry
The square, the rectangle and the parallelogram
Oh' the trapezoid and the rhombus
The triangles, the isosceles and the equilateral
All are a great tight family together
The circles and ellipses are closely related
The formulas of geometry try to memorize
The areas and circumferences
The diagonals and angles
For the trigonometric functions
You discover a new world
The sines and cosines
The tangents and arc tangents
If all this is not enough to entice you
Most probably now you fell in love with geometry
I have fun with the world of geometry
The square, the rectangle and the parallelogram
Oh' the trapezoid and the rhombus
The triangles, the isosceles and the equilateral
All are a great happy family together
The circles and ellipses are closely related
The formulas of geometry try to memorize
The areas and circumferences
The diagonals and angles
Learn the trigonometric functions
You discover a new world
The sines and cosines
The tangents and arc tangents
If all this is not enough to entice you
Hopefully and much soon you probably
will fall in love with world of geometry
Sexual Employee
It clocked in at 7:02 am
No orifice in sight
Placed the time card in a slot
Made its way to a metallic table
Blank white paper on the top
#2 lead pencil, covered yellow, appeared
One hour later the employee began to draw
At the center of the paper starting at point “A”
A thin line was drawn from there to point “B’ on the page
Horizontal, naturally
Below that, one hour later, another line was formed
Starting at point “C”
It too was a thin line drawn and continued on to point “D”
Horizontally, of course (the two lines never intersected)
Vertical lines could only be drawn on Fridays
Diagonals were not permitted
They were perverse and went against the laws of nature
The employee had no discernible features worth mentioning
But, it does come to work each day though
With two buttons built or installed into its side
It rolled over to the clock at 4:02 pm and punched out
Placed the time card in a designated slot and left
Went home with the push buttons still installed
One red. One green. Always the same
We never questioned
It is not our job
Doodle me your funny strokes of frog looking just like hidden Mickey
Or your princess that wears a tiara made of a plane triangle
Go ahead!
Indulge yourself!
Fill my sheet with your vertical lines
Top them up with diagonals and curves
Sketch your favorite part of her body if you wish
You can even ask Mr. Crayon to join in
Don’t stop scribbling.
Keep leaving a mark ‘cause I find your lead sexy.
Just don’t rub me with your rubber.
Glenn Sentes
For Nette Onclaud's SEXY Contest
02-02-12
Went to the zoo today to gawk at the animals
Wonder what they think of us dressed in our casuals
Shorts with a bow tie
With suspenders, I wouldn't lie
Pink and purple checks, stripes and pretty diagonals
© Jack Ellison 2015
Went to the zoo today to gawk at the animals
Wonder what they think of us dressed up in casuals
Shorts with a bow tie
With suspenders, I wouldn't lie
Pink and purple checks, stripes and pretty diagonals
DEVOTION POEM 39th ANNIVERSARY
On this stilled night,
Dare I presume?
After a listening to the way
Einstein came to realize his
Relativity realities,
Dare I presume to sit once overagain in memory
In a student center’s crowded circumstances…?
To choose you, to offer a share of my
Sandwich, snapping a mental photo of your hands,
Which in our years I will come to love, able
To imagine their frequent, gentle touch over
My skin, just as your eyes always do, as still, after
All these years as if asking permission for its sought sight of me.
Do we presume in our dancing angles so relative
To our decades of delighted diagonals resting our heads
On each other’s chests, feeling the warmth, the slow
Up and down as breaths go on? Hold then, once again
My heart in your hands, as we incline back or lean forward
In time, in this astounding utterance of long years — 39 —
That I dare not utter without some marveling tears;
For my long ago hopes of this togetherness,
I once but presumed to bear, a simple maid
With hopes of loving thee, with a love that can bring you
Some joy in its life and length of passion.
A dream, a hope, a vow become reality.
The deepest love can presume its memories to seem as
If they occurred only yesterday, held in the heart
Once over, living again.
——————————- ————————————————. ————————————-
(c) sally young eslinger 8/17/22
Anniversary 8/17/83
With regards to t.s. Elliot
Two Dimensional Love and Life
Some lines move horizontally
Others go diagonal
There are lines that travel up and down
They all make love within their set parameters
As is their culture and tradition there
Always within the lines, as is their prerogative and mission
For years Mr. E-line traveled from the east alone
One day he stumbled into Le Le Ling, from a line of high position
Coming from the east straight at him without permission
She was a fine line worth knowing, from a noble lineage
Both wanted sex directly when they met
They fell in linear love from point to point
Neither could continue forward, nor go up or down
And forget about left and right, as their world was flat and straight
They had to do everything frontal and did so on the spot
In the two dimensional realm you were caste from birth
To mate with someone from your universe
From your circle so to speak
Obviously they are lines so let’s proceed
In any case they came from flat lands of the east and west
Horizontal was the only life they knew
Le Le Ling and E- line were destined for each other
Other lines outside of Horizontal World were frowned upon
Diagonals were out of fashion, up and down too
Looked down upon in flat land prejudicial manner
Though “down” in their reality was not an option
Other dimensions did not exist for them
From their narrow point of view
Mr. And Mrs. Line had a baby line one day
They named it Little Liner
Raise it to be direct and true
And straight as an arrow too
In their religion there is only one commandment
Look in front of you to find your way to heaven
Since you have no other direction any way
Stay in line, head toward the light to find the truth
On a sand less stepped on
by many, I drew a square
whose side is twice my height.
I lay on my back in that square
with my head tangent to its side
and with my feet on the intersection
of the square's diagonals.
Temperature rose in the place.
My body melted.
My head turned into a magnet
and my feet into a pivot.
On each vertex of the square
emerged a magnet polar with mine.
They beckoned me
to join them in their play.
As I approached one of them,
it moved away from me.
The next did the same.
Again I approached another,
hoping that it would be
different from the previous,
but I failed.
They were all the same!
They had planned it?
I thought of stopping their mischief
until I felt that some
mechanisms on my pivot (feet)
were giving them motivation.
Weigh the ideological anchor, set sail to the flexible space.
A place that has no existence in and of itself, in reality the quest into
a fascinating territory, with no borders and are of the conceptualized phantasm.
An incursion into an imaginary land of perception or maybe, a recursion,
as you define it or defining the definition in a dictionary.
This story began, in a story or just maybe, in the dreams of continuum,
only you know, for the only conjugant is that of your own inflection,
in the mirror of a mirror, where colors vibrate musically and
the sky is upside down and time is not the factor of flight and
moments do not adhere, to themselves put slide in poly-diagonals and
the snowflake effect reverses itself, building a better snowman,
who in turn, offers you a drink of music, that makes you feel, right at home,
in your igloo. Mi casa es vuestra casa, where the cold is not relative to the dynamics, of thermal barriers. Parry, the Fisher King is eating Gilbert’s grapes, while discussing the Rain man. Don’t be disturbed,
I am not the Black Swan, of the family or playing the Game,
while flying over the cuckoo's nest. In fact, Beautifully minded,
without the hallucinations, just a few changes and your mind,
went on a rant picturesque or grotesque about, what is he talking about but the digression was a fluid response, of outside stimuli and
not where your imagination is going or was or could have been but
it was captured and then set free in a land of make believe...
My guru carries a set of brass knuckles
you'd think he'd be all yes sir and no sir
but instead I get ahah hoho and egad
I can't do anything right on my best day
and I have the branding iron scars to prove it
tattooed in diagonals like barricade tape
Hank's Motor Cottages Sleep With Hank
yes that's his name my guru Hank
he just told me to say menacing presence
instead of the more benign guru baba
a strange man a man of banal mystery
it is becoming evident that he knows nothing
simply landed a place to send his mail
I only let him shave in the kitchen
when he rides in on the Western Pacific
outdoor seating fresh air enjoyable panorama
he likes the outdoors and strangely enough
also likes acres of humming server farms
with a couple of slow pinwheel generators
on a naked hill of uranium tailings nearby
the readings aren't what they used to be
but the kangaroo rats are as big as kangaroos
so you have to drive real slow at night
and keep the fissured windows rolled up
if you have a car like Hank's Hudson Hornet
coffee can sized pistons twin carburetors
and a back seat big enough to live in
it was a big improvement over under a train trestle
Hank has seen a lot of the world and its trestles
been beat up and falling down drunk in a lot of cities
but learned to hit back and take names
his brindle Great Dane has a funny name for a dog
it is Arthur and he can bark it like a battle cry
AR-THURF he goes when Dandelion Hank's cat
taunts him from the back seat rear shelf
Hank dropped in to shave just last night
so we're lucky to have his wisdom right here
for example he has solved world insanity
set your head on fire is basically it
but it probably won't catch on
people believing their own lies
has a momentum to tilt all the ten pins
over at the Bowl and Boogie Lanes
when it's Cicada Night
and the ladies get in free
*** Sketching the Ballerina ***
It is well, quite well after midnight.
My pup lies fagged on the blanket
as close to me as possible.
The young ballerina sits slightly slumped
On a bench across from the barre, still wearing
Her stage costume with its long net skirt.
I am vexed that the sleeping hour has come.
I grieve to leave her.
She was looking with her black eyes
Directly into my own, asking (as I’m asking myself),
“How can I leave her with a twisted foot?”
The enviable line of the ballerina’s foot, which
“En pointe”
Completes the geometry of the ballet:
Toes coursing the lines of the legs,
On diagonals or paralleling the arms
On through to a pointing fingertip,
With the addition of a superbly angled head.
I grieve having to leave my sketch, to keep
The pretty ballerina in a long-waiting lurch
With her foot twisted, against all her dancer’s instincts;
Against completion of her body line;
Against all her trained and now natural inclinations
Directed to set her preparation
For beginning any elegance in motion;
Add life to the already vibrant music;
Wear her training posture unto every finale’s curtsy
And well deserve the appluse that comes
Along with the roses tossed up
Around her perfect feet…
I simply must put the pencil down,
Wondering how soon before her
Tears might fall while she waits for her foot to be drawn
Correctly arched. The sketch’s error involves
Perhaps a sixteenth of an inch here and there
With the slightest touch of erasing…It’s
The additional light of day,
Which altogether should make a portrait worthy
Of showing to St. Peter as he stands by The Gate.
As she displays her weariness to me,
I must beg her pardon, for it’s now nearly
Three hours past midnight
And my pillow begs for the lay of my head.
My dismal skills must rest
And wait for my sketchpad
To be spread over with beams from
The window’s morning sun.
—————————————————————————————
(c) sally young eslinger 6/2023
Thanks be to God…