Best Differed Poems
It All Started With A Parade
All walks of people crowding the streets
Like moving vessels of a mighty fleet.
Jolly Diana, a wake-up call at dawn;
A throng is gathered down the town.
Cadets go marching, called the corps;
Gutsy kids are watching from above the roofs.
Steps are drummed to a cadence;
As marshals yell to the human stream.
Big brothers joined in uniform
They are soldiers, the kids assumed.
With ecstasy without disguise,
Pride and innocence seen in their eyes.
Some beat the drums and others blow horns;
A gal is leading with a baton.
with Flags of colors and banners too;
To a festive town around they go.
Church bells tolled and clergies joined,
And so the teachers and policemen.
The politicians and constituents;
The village folks are coming in.
The air is filled with festivity
There's so much fun all through the day.
From one entertainment to another it leads;
But it all started with a parade.
Date and Time of Writing:
March 01, 2012
10:14am - 10:48am
February 28, 2012 is the 40th anniversary of Barangay Liburon in Carcar City, Cebu, Philippines from being a Sitio of Barangay Can-asujan to an independent *Barangay. Being new to the community, I had the curiosity of how the community people conducted the celebration. I have the honest comparison of my ecstasy being a 3-year old kid in 1974, having the first consciousness of a parade in commemoration of Sogod, Southern Leyte annual town fiesta that was then held every 15th of December (later moved to December 21st). As a sort of reminiscence, and how it differed to what I observed of the present kids observing the parade, led me to the writing of this poem.
* In Philippine political setting, the Barangay is the smallest administrative division. It is a community of about 800 square hectare more or less, subdivided into smaller villages called Sitios. The Barangay is headed by an elected Barangay Captain with a counsel composed of eight counselors.
The other day
The same man
Who told me that
Men are the superior sex
Also asked me if I could
Be "less of a woman"
So that for once he could have
A "logical" conversation with me
Being the reasonable woman that I am
I responded with "Of course I can....t"
Because I am a woman
And I will not lessen that part of me
I am not ashamed of my femaleness anymore
If he was as much of a man he said he was
This superior sex that he claimed to be
I shouldn't have threatened him
With my as he called them "ignorant arguments"
He wouldn't have twisted his smirk
Into a pained frown
Instead of asking me to lessen myself
He would have lifted himself above me
Without any help from me...a woman
Right?
If men are the superior sex
Why would he ask me to help him?
Just to minutes ago I was nothing to him
His smug demeanor
And puffed up ego
Would have deflated once he found out
That he would need me for something
That he couldn't do
Because trust me
He tried to tear me down
He tried to break me but couldn't
So instead he attacked my being female
By trying to make me lessen myself
So he could have the most ultimate power he could
Forcing me an EQUAL to him
To destroy myself
And kill my own ego
So he could collect another casualty
To add to his broken self
The truth is that he never thought
He was the superior sex
He was just too afraid to accept the fact
That I was just like him
He realized that I could do to him
Exactly what he did to me
But what he didn't know
Is that I wouldn't dare
Because I would never expect
Man, woman or anyone in between
To shrink themselves
So I could be the bigger person
I would instead
Take a few steps back
And try to understand their point of view
And why it differed from mine
I would not ridicule them for being
Different from me
I would welcome them and all that they were
Into my arms
And build them up
If they ever felt
Like they would break down
Because I am not the superior sex
Or superior anything
I am just another human
I am just like you
Africa is raped. The continent of life is pumped dry, and the colonizer won’t stop, ’till he is stopped. And blocked.
We pay colonial tax for the baskets we have weaved. Our own weaved baskets. We remain cocooned to a mask, a philosopher who has seen Africa’s image in the advent of adversity, concludes; the children of black skins white masks -the despised and the despising. Living in the postcolonial but not yet decolonized.
In 1885 you were chopped and divided by colonial borders, by colonial masters. Your rivers of know knowledge were polluted but they never ceased flowing. Your rainmakers pleaded to the ancestors for rain that will cleanse the worst of the west. A philosopher has paused and whistled, oh, the wretched of the earth!
Now the wind of change is here-the new colonizer has already entered without even knocking, concluding without asking. He is already in a feast and taking to the east. But still the voices of your children are still daring and glaring, voices from within. Voices comparable to water about to evaporate to a desert, in image and symbol. Neatly done, they look like a weaved basket, or sometimes like a weaver bird that does not tire. Yet in rage and singing repeatedly an unending chorus of a dull song. They sing for you the land of fallen heroes, they cannot cease flowing. The river runs along the line of least resistance.
The image of the new colonizer rejects your poets and griots when they cough syllables of tradition, when they plant a seed that should incite no fear for the dead. Africa is under siege, predated by vultures and dining with a fork and knife, and chop sticks. We are silenced and crippled and ridiculed. All of a sudden her tales are beliefs are witchcraft, her decisions are validated. Her dream is differed. From the abundance of her production, her labor, she receives only a grain of wheat, or nothing.
UNFORGETTABLE
What has it been?
The many, many years flock together
And she’s never been out of mind
Her gentle femininity
That almost apologetic smile
Blend eternally with the multitude
Nor had I tried to efface that opaque vision
No I kept it close upon my awareness
In a cherished area of soul
Alas she sits now beside me
Nothing absolutely nothing has changed
That sweet nausea has returned and even
stronger my yearning
When one loves really loves
The fated friendship may be fraught
With restraint
Yes our two loves differed
Perhaps hers the truer
But for me a waking, lesson taking
perhaps lifetimes to comprehend
Oh she still loves me
In her antiseptic way
Innocents project their feelings are dumb
cannot lie
And she blithely tells me of her new guy
Ah this strange love is blind on either side
I wish her happiness
Dave Austin
Be you,
On you alone
rely.
Rely,
Not on man's vow;
Your hands.
Your hands:
Only true friends,
Play not.
Play not,
In your morning;
Time flies.
Time flies,
Hit the targets;
Save wins.
Save wins,
Days are differed;
Your night.
Your night,
Guide jelously;
Fear God.
Fear God
And worship him -
Good night.
I ask myself what love is, never
seem to find an answer
Was plato right to say that love is a
disease like cancer
Is love a myth, an emotion we make
ourselves feel to fill a void
Or is it stored in us and we choose
on who we deploy
Perhaps I am just a cynic and
pessimistic
Thou could it be that I am simply
realistic
Consequently my opinions dont
mirror that of my peers
Even thou we're not differed by
years
I dont amplify everything that i hear
Nor can I imagine ever sheding a
tear
At least not for now, but my future
still unfolds
And I admit my way of thinking has
froze me cold
Regardless of that, I refuse to play a
role
In letting the words I love you
become a cliché
Not everyone means what they say
For that is what i believe
So in conversation I retrieve what I
conceive because I am not naive
Not enough to believe that most
people listen to reason
At the end of the day, who in your
life is truly worth pleasing?
My father passed on nearly ten years before I got married. He was not present for my college graduation, nor was he alive when I finished high school.
My youngest sibling was nine months old. There was a period of grief at his passing, but then survival demands appeared and said, “Let there be life”. So I moved on.
At the time, his absence never bothered me. I learned to live without him; to leap from boy to man. I never accused or charged him for dying too soon;
OR DID I? I never blamed him for the pains and the wounds; OR DID I?
There were signs that he was becoming a better person to live with;
but I don’t really know how I would have differed had he lived longer.
Many years later I realized that I subconsciously shut him out; I SHOULDN'T HAVE. I angrily charged him for things he did and judgmentally accused him of things he shouldn’t have done. I SHOULDN'T HAVE. Without mercy, I prosecuted, sentenced, and banished him and all that he represented; BUT
I SHOULDN'T HAVE.
Subconsciously, I reacted to his negative ways and rendered him irrelevant.
There were things I did not know, and other things I never considered.
I silently, without fuss or fight, without sufficient evidence, shut him out.
Yes, I rendered him unimportant and irrelevant; anything positive was blocked out, never rising to an appreciative level. It would take years to even realize this. Yes, Father was dead physically, but he deserved a kind memory. However, for years I was as if silent and frozen, unable to remember anything of value.
But then it happened!! Twelve years ago at a family reunion, a younger sister spoke well of our father and sat me straight. She spoke of things I never knew of the man whose memory I had crushed, and whose influence I thought I could live without. She spoke of a man I never knew and painted a portrait of a man that was kind, caring, and sensitive toward others.
It was like a reunion with my long-deceased father; and as if I was
given a second encounter with him. I tell you, I forgave him and consciously let his influence and memory back into my life, and I am the better for it.
07112015
Glow
Surge of expectations are emerging out
Democracy you developed I believe that
Civilization to civilization might be differed culture
Opinions, creed, beliefs manner disciplines other hurdles
These days everywhere bugle of people
Ranting chanting dancing demo for the cracy wanting
Not caring the shoots of heated guns
Many died with the slush of wound they got
No fears merely aspersions to throw the septic stuck in throne
Democracy you established super again
Since the dawn of civilization ancestors fought sacrificing heart
Many were crushed with the tanks in dust
Ultimately you roared from the half of the earth
Discretion you bear all whistled from space
I see these days from the internet
Greets to scientists investors for that with great belief
You have been able to string up all in one
Liberty to express earn name and fame
Do this much further genuine for my earth
Construct road building health hazard removal plus
Secure job for fruit grain, see the nature has never stopped birth
Park sanitation election to rule develop belief all are yours full
Create love and priority as per basis all will cheers you essential glow
At least postpone poverty now welcome overwhelmingly justice
Prudence there is in behavior of faith
Distend glow of happiness for people’s sake
Let come democracy expected by denizen
They have birth right to demand for genuine
Prosperity is here nature has bountiful
Don’t mess thwarting it from up gullible
Leave trickery share freedom as one need all deserve so to come.
Passing of an Icon
An accomplished Lady of recondite letters
Writing humanity to free from its fetters-
From your clever Prose being deciphered,
With skewed minds, is where you differed.
And where, with prejudice, our minds think
Fellow Human beings can foul or sting
Indeed, there the Grass can loudly Sing!
Your discerning Eye and your sharp Wit
Endowed your firm hand with incisive writ-
Doris Lessing, rendezvous of every culture,
You ardently celebrated the pen’s rupture
With that broad mind and feminine looks
Reminiscent of the Golden Notebooks(s);
Thrall from callous confines of Cookbooks!
Doris the Amazon, you were sadly dismissed
Yet, in our hearts you’ll be happily missed;
The Vim, the Spirit, and your Idiosyncrasy
Will be cherished as our invaluable legacy:
Of a male Chauvinist or me a cold raptor,
From time immemorial, being a cruel captor,
To bow stepping forward to accept the Sceptre!
**Dedicated to the Great Writer; Doris Lessing, upon her passing on at her home on 17/11/2013.
JM
The virtuous white ewe of the black ram
Shifting her loyalty like her mother
As she wanted to live as she loved him
Oh, Alas! She has secretly married the moor.
Tricked by Emilia and pitched sexier
Both the women differently portrayed
Contrast between the two is key factor
The three women are used, abused and misused.
Emilia quite ahead of her time
Through her the bard comments on relation
Between husband and wife of a lifetime
Women as submissive in tradition
She goes on to suggest wrongs of women
Are the result of mistreat by husband
The ills of husband instruct the women
The three women are used, abused and misused.
Bianca is in great contrast in theme
Presenting the lowest call of woman
Something that is most apparent in crime
The way in which she is treated by men
Iago plays on great contrast between
Casio’s good treatment of both instead
The three women are used, abused and misused.
Women in Othello used in number
Of ways with class of the women differed
The way men act towards strangely rather
The three women are used, abused and misused.
* Rhyme scheme - 'ababbcbC ababbcbC ababbcbC bcbC',
======================================
I have revised the refrain "C" as this one is an old poem
Dr.Ram Mehta
5Th Place win in
Contest: Gothic or Romantic by Giorgio venetto
I’ve seen black sheep set in Pongola grass
Within pallid seas, differed,
Like black buttons on a white cotton suit;
Sheep are color blind.
A bee is fine-looking,
But there’s fire in its ass.
Can the wild goat trust
The adder with inviting pelt?
Did Emmitt Till paint changes
With his blood in cotton picking towns;
The blood that called from Mississippi,
Like Abel’s blood calling from the ground.
Death had a voice, a voice in the wind,
The wind that walked north-west
And brought a microscope
For John Public to see
How inferior to dogs we are.
As a child, I played
Ring-around-the-roses
Until I saw “Rosewood”
And heard the drums
Beaten like Rodney King,
And the heartbeat of Cojoe
And Nanny racing
Towards the mountain of the devil,
To escape the cotton fields.
The drums are always talking.
The old south is alive and kicking high.
This is no Elvis tale. Exhume the body,
See with your own eyeballs.
No DNA can confirm
That Jim Crow is dead.
Jim Crow has a roost on Fox News.
He’s always crowing,
Whipped up by the “boy”
In the WHITE house.
How much can you see
If you look from the outside?
I’ve seen it even in REM sleep,
Even when I dream of roasted breadfruit,
Jockato in coconut milk, and Chinese geisha;
Willie Lynch is a man breathing
The smog-filled air in Washington.
In 1955, Money was the root of the evil,
And ’68 Memphis was the cross
Of the sacrificial lamb,
But these days men are lynched
In broad day light.
String up, dangling
Like papa's khakis floating
In breeze walking the orange glen.
All eyes should see our opinion of them.
Today we’re civilize,
And Catholicism is not voodoo.
We no longer use rope,
Our tongues do a fine job.
Like Mutabaruka,
I have no color problem;
Everything is black to me,
As black as Sarah’s view of the motherland
(It’s not too vital for her to learn).
If blue skies
Cried acid,
And wash the dark color
From this portrait,
I would still be black,
As black as tar.
It’s in my blood.
Obsessed with harmony,
I write this allegory:
Once there were two rival kings,
Actually brothers.
Each always (or at least often) thought:
Only my God exists.
They thought not of the implication.
Like king, like citizens!
So, naturally, differences arose
Where there was cause for none—after all.
However, the two kingdoms had
Their strikingly common factors,
As simple mathematics can show:
The Highest Common Factor was Corruption:
As suggested by disproportionate income;
Only the ratio and proportion differed!
Violence was the second HCF:
Only cause of violence differed—from time to time.
Killing was common:
Killing leaders or killing people.
But the equations here are of higher mathematics—
Beyond the reach and range of common readers:
The killer is equal to the killed;
Or the killer is greater than the killed.
In any case, killing was just!
The two kingdoms, however, were divided
By some common factors—
A strange paradox:
They were divided by the same language,
Because the two dialects differed—a vital difference!
Sport they had in common,
But often the two teams violently disputed.
So, disputes often arose
Between the two kings.
Now, an adjacent king, Br’er Wolf,
Offered to mediate—
Like the proverbial monkey in the Panchatantra story:
Now there was a triangle.
Then?
There was no triangle--
Only a big red circle!
— Ram, R. V.
Winner II, Premiere Poetry Contest, sponsored by Silent One, July 27, 2017
My daughter wondered how things differed
Back when she was born,
Aside from styles of music
Or the clothing that was worn.
We didn’t have computers then.
“What did you do?” she gasped.
We researched in the library,
A concept she’s not grasped.
We had no cell phones. “How’d you reach
The people that you called?”
We used a land line or a pay phone;
She was just appalled.
We didn’t have CD’s or movies
Out on DVD’s.
She thought that was hilarious
And answered, “Come on, please!”
The changes don’t seem too extreme
But still, it made us grin,
That what we take for granted now –
Well, hasn’t always been.
I guess when centenarians
Think back and reminisce
They must be thinking – all those years
Have brought us up to – this?
Kigali! You’re a dream differed
An indefinite dream for unkeyed
You break too many hearts
Heal too many souls abruptly
Kill so many indeed loves
Thus incite a life of pretense.
You’re a money made lifestyle
A suitable dilapidate religion
A refuge to desperate buddies
That many believe you’re a curb
Yet you confuse fidelitous colleens
And deceive whoever you want.
But you’re a dam of opportunities.
Kigali! You’re a home without taboos
An essence of somewhat hopes
Where people move each night
Couples break back and forth
Relationships built over sights basis
Where everyone mind their own hassles
Big players are the best prayers
Where worship is a vital business
Preaching, a sophisticated deal
With a new mean of divination
Yet it’s got a certain overnight
And God is only sought by troubled!
But you’re a land of many chances.
Kigali! You’re a Neverland we never plot
Thus many of us don’t mind you
But still can’t revert to birthplaces.
You’re a confusing glittering promise
Enormous attractants diverting youngsters
Where speaking a mother tongue is illiterate
A place that changed many of us names
Where tramping is a tiresome sport
Many starve and won’t ever surrender
Such a place of modernity and technology
That even modernized feelings and foods
Bodies can be remade and looks created.
And you’re a center of creativity.
Was it by Coincidence or design
That you came to be mine
if only for the night
The only night I wished for no dawn
We stemed from different worlds
but we blossomed in our very own
Our language differed
but our souls understood
Just one night together
and now most likely a lifetime apart
but even that fact cannot taint
Our night, our beating hearts
My soul hopes for yours
And I hope the universe is kind
and brings us back together
by coincidence or design