Best Diffident Poems
Write !
Some madness banter of insanity
is pulling at my thoughts
spilling effulgent
in giant verbs and huge marching nouns
collecting snippets as it walks
stomping on flowers
and mushing liquid the paints of images
swirls captivated
with great toed boots
I can hear it coming
a hefty heavy steady stamp
and I am almost afraid that it might rack me
hit me hard
and demand some elucidated expression from me
I would shudder
but excitement won't let me
Instead it sets me to a creaking ball points
and tiny alphabets that strain my eyes
while spelling out its diffident request
Write it says
Write, while some half cold sickness grip my stomach
and I wretch on grammar
and thus the great feathers quill
dips in the ink of my soul
and so ineptly scribbles epilepsy
explanation, image, wordage, spillage of sensory lobotomy
partridge in a god-damn pear tree
Curl about my finger
and reek havoc through those dictionary brain cells
yer! smash them brain cells
mush, mash and squeeze the last drip
find expression in the gooey lumps that are left
WRITE ! god dam it !
Be succinct, be poetic
surpassing idiom and useless language
for Christ sake just WRITE it !
Pilloried on my own sheets of paper
by my own pen
because it never catches enough
as it twist this origami of words
i-n-t-o s-o-m-e-t-h-i-n-g
I want to express
I need
I want
To etch with you
A moment of perfection
I need your voices
I need to hear you sing my poets
I need these scratching and scathing claws
and I need your delicate dance
I need something to end this misery
and I need this piquant
this ever enlightened soul search of words
to wrap up this bundle of love
And toss me nonchalant into eternity
Lest some madness of bantered insanity
Takes hold of me
9-21-22
Contest: I Wandered Lonely as a…Challenge
Sponsor: Natasha Scragg
11-4-22
Contest: 2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 19
Sponsor: Mark Toney
"I wandered lonely as cloud." Daffodil by William Wordsworth
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I Wandered Lonely as a Teardrop
I wandered lonely as a teardrop
In a sea of sand,
A tempest in one glistening drop,
Ruthless riptides of demands
Rush through a narrow neck of outlet
Turned upside down in midnight vignettes.
Cold specks of numb and ancient stone
Deaf to remorse of a single sigh
Tumble past my burn scar so alone
That weeps with solitude's clouded eye
No time to stop for struggling strangers
To get involved - a diffident danger.
A writhing sea of rushing crowds
Parts around my stifled sob
Roaring indifference shouted out loud
Guarded pain in my teardrop throbs
The shape of quivering unheard laments
Empathy drown and mercy absent.
My colorless grief weeps without end
In oceans like a shipwrecked nomad
Blocked from the warm fount of a friend
Heartbroken by a lost comrade
One teardrop cries to understand
The maddened surge in a sea of sand.
I hold myself a prisoner
A captive taciturn
Unspeakable enticement still yearning
Since coming of age to discern
Yet never knowing
Except in part
The fullness to overflowing
In the cerebral cortex of my heart
The heart knows reason
Which reason does not know
Inoculated by truth a lie will weaken
Like the dawn of a child in an embryo
For this the battle to bring heart to speech
In mind, for one to live oft' another thing dies
It's the delicate balance when determined to please
Suspended between fulfillment's death and the giving of life
The beauty of a fractured symmetry
Where thinking heart meets mind
To know this elusive camaraderie
Perhaps in a world in eternities time
So I see myself in another life
Where sorrows hold no interest
A wistful smile proves transparent
While intensity conveys my signet
Warmth and wrath bear equal zeal
But I, an antithesis in perfect balance
A lonely vagrant thronged by faces
Embraced by insipid attachments
As honey brines by way of nectar
In homes fashioned with wax
Void of every ignoble stinger
Known to propitiate the diffident task
Thus so masked I travel still
The duplicitous road yet shackled
Until my tongue finds clemency
From the demons my mind embattles
Long hair, coal, coiled
‘Round fingertips, bone white.
O, my diffident lover,
How I waited for that night.
When I held you as you dreamt,
And kissed your quivering lips.
When we bathed in the uncloaked moonlight,
In an everlasting eclipse.
Sky, the blankest façade
Lit by nicks of white.
I carry you into my dream;
I carry you into the night.
Line of inquiry
‘Minus Identity Who am I’
‘What a piece of work is a man!’
……… ………
And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust’
(Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Act II, scene 2)
From Shakespeare, through Hamlet,
It rings down to generations
And falls heavily in my ears too.
In vain, I attempt to probe into the mystery
Nay, the enigma called man,
Both in the silence of my solitude,
And in the learned circle of friends.
(Fool…! Unable to find who you are,
Can you venture to say who the other man is?)
Man is a jumble of contradictions,
I know, a hard nut to crack!
So unfathomable, so mysterious
At once a Satan and an angel
To the outer world I am someone.
But in the well-guarded cellars of my privacy
Aren’t I different?
Hiding my innards to light, as every other man.
Am I not a masked player in life’s pantomime!
I wonder what’s true to my being
And what makes me, the real me.
I see contradictions abound in me
And my personality, like an ocean is volatile,
Sometimes tranquil, sometimes agitated
Placid without waves very often,
But at times roaring with billows crashing!
I am openminded, but hide many secrets.
I am instinctively emotional, but mature.
I am an extrovert and feel happy in company,
But I like to withdraw into loneliness often.
I am mostly thoughtful, but tend to overthink.
I act confident but am diffident at heart.
Though satisfied with what I get,
I tend to crave more for the love people give me.
I am a poet and an artist, feeding on the encouragement I get
And stimulated by internal inspiration.
I am never a nosy parker, but curious about things
That pique my interest, be it of people or of the world.
I am a good listener, but need someone to listen to me.
I am easy to get along with, but get easily flustered.
I am compassionate, adjustable, loyal and humble.
At best I am a child of God, but lets the Satan,
Take over me sometimes when my temper rises.
How often, I wish to change myself
Change some of my characteristic traits
But minus my identity, I fear who I will be?
Beyond
These trivial pursuits
The day looms long,
Largely unused, unplanned,
Promising unimportant
Activities.
Anticipating alternatives,
Inertly I idle,
Mind meandering meaninglessly,
Mildly morose,
Diffident, diffuse,
And aimless.
TODAY’S WOMAN
A column can scaffold a back that is enervated.
We as women will burden ourselves with hate.
That is we will take on another’s disintegration.
All in that business is a mess.
It becomes our plight to fix.
We sing our songs while we take on the world.
We continue to overwhelm ourselves.
When we know anything, we have achieved success.
This is a formidable woman’s road map.
The lines she follows gets her there.
Intense in thought and with mind involved she forms the stratagem.
Her purpose is to inform the world.
Her future is, therefore, passed on to next baby girl.
Imminence is still yet to come.
Unless the world is in a formation discovery, we are backward spiraling.
The diffident disguises our lack of unity.
How obtrusive we are.
A conspiracy is inferred.
Reticent is unreserved.
We are a political powerhouse that must be robust.
We as women are the conditions of our home front.
We must disallow polluted waters from the wounds that bleed.
We must not be garrulous in our activism.
Cagey old women we will become.
When there is a reason, we must step-to-the-cause,
Insofar as our souls and spirit are intertwined,
As we segment, we can inspire all women to intermingle for support of universal health where women help each other to move forward.
For those aforementioned, our draft has been self-possessed.
We are women of potential acclimatization to invigorate, innovate, and to inform.
We are tomorrow and the future forthcoming.
____________________________________________________________________|
Penned June 07, 2015!
Why man is so scared of solitary Hina?
But is ready to devastate with someone!
Oh this dilemmatic notion slaves my mind to think
Please don’t mention its love, it is never prejudiced,
Not self-conceit either, then what is it Hina?
Just have a look around please
Whatever it is, is it beyond dignity of man?
Or is it merely another reflection of principles or values,
Or again is it the fear of death in solitary?
Maybe the dread of stigma,
i need to be answered , because last night,
When I saw that face in the veil,
Hopeless and wounded, but,
Still unable to cede, per significant other,
Why still diffident, don’t tell me this is love,
i still await to know, hope it’s not a fallacy
Then why their conscious doesn’t agree
It is not enough to convince me hina,
This reality is so bitter to swallow,
I will just wallow in my own vistas,
Yes! I’m not destined for this kind of absurdity.
One’s Androgynous Shadow
by Odin Roark
If only…
If only we thought more kindly,
Allowed the warrior to be daring,
The maternal to appear diffident,
The endowed virtue as oneness.
For where is it said
That man is only this,
Woman only that?
Did Nature evolve gendered life for separation,
Or as a collective to function in harmony?
To be physically male or female
Conflicts not DNA’s sensitive norms,
For to know oneself is to understand biological reality,
Its reward often kept in shadows of self-acknowledgement enjoyed,
Yet seldom shared.
Perhaps one day,
More than a few of us
Will come of age,
Rise above limiting mirrors,
Embrace innate honesty,
And reveal the essence of a sword’s artistry
Is but to defend life’s nurturing instinct.
To discover such definition,
The dignity and solemn truth of one’s androgynous shadow,
Is to set free the all-loving child held captive within,
To finally realize what it is to mature.
If only.
The Almighty King
God in disguise, a pure soul of divinity,
No wonder the bona fide progeny of God you’re,
The great one highly esteemed for visionary you’re,
So genial and benign, no man as you exists so munificent;
The Grace, all hearts’ desire and the beacon,
Pray hundred more years you live on for the sake of
A million souls’ peace and wellbeing you care for.
So appeasing just your sight is, the balm to despair,
Joyous eyes’ grandeur and love of all hearts,
At all times hallowed thou shall remain and recalled,
Even the threat‘d sway no man against thee
‘Cause almighty you’re, the optimal clout beholder.
In you, our hope and assurance we perceive,
Ideal we see in you to emulate, your greatness,
Flame to our shadowed lives and succor in plight,
You ne’er let the famine creep in and starve us,
No evil you let it destroy our harmony
And no bloodshed you let our lives be taken,
But wishes fulfilled and smiles brought upon,
Bestowal of happiness upon us your deeds betoken.
The great, for your myriad services toward us,
Diffident would be our lips and soul discontented
To express utterance of gratitude with existing jargons,
For beyond measure is your divine humanity,
But deep within truly indebted are your partisans
And reverently,all kneel before you, the almighty King,
Greatest of the greats, the reason we so smile.
When up I was growing, awed and confused,
sure was not I of which road to choose.
For binary my soul and dellusioned my mind,
I dallied at crossroads and worried not time.
Advised by my parents, mentors and teachers,
and hell and damnation from gospelling preachers.
And I young of youth so impressionable dear,
grasped for their words but availed not my ear.
For swayed by the Devil, so I was told,
of treasures of pleasures of counterfit gold.
Timidly, more boldly, I sought new sensation,
of carnal reality I made preservation.
But conscience was bothered and remorsely did grow,
my feet they did ponder of which way to go.
Temptation too great for me to withstand,
I cried unto GOD to give me a hand.
But His Holy Doctrine is not found in haste,
but abnegate the world with a seedling of faith.
Of frustrating skeptisisim I became apostate
and inclined toward autism and apathetic fate.
Drifting and squinting thru lusts' glaring light,
a glutenous hedonist all day and all night.
Inside of me though I feared what I was doin',
would eventually bring shame sorrow and ruin.
My karma so silent then leaped with a bound,
austere retribution enveloped me round.
So drubbed for my folly and benighted transgression,
my soul it feels cauterized, I caterwaul with compunction.
Penalized and contrite, with diffident circumspect,
with empirical knoiwledge I never shall forget.
Form:
after the sky drops.
The walking corpses come out
the veil of night masks
the decay
the rot
of humanity
Plague of the earth.
Found from the ashes
My phoenix we bled
Has she ever
thought love between
us, inside
her, filled up an empty bed.
No longer bereft,
somnolence
and love drowns my head.
Convalescent
Bemire emotion
I wash and rinse
what is left,
asking what we are
if no longer
dead?
Gold from lead.
The lifting sky
Our connubial affair.
The truths, I face,
we share,
She Said.
"when will it die?"
closing empty space
A diffident devotion
Within her embrace
a softly recited
poem unread
berceuse
tantric lullaby
healing the blighted
fading destiny to refuse
to claim or to lose.
An onus I malinger..
to choose.
Execration
of an inner fatalist
hopeless abuse.
Quantum entanglement
schismatic resentment
prepossessed
inspiring muse
of the alchemists
A bibulous creation
intimate turpitude.
sovereignty
asunder this hell
her orbit with abaddon.
Dissolution
her need to dispel
incertitude.
Inordinate.
Gravity well
collapsing in on itself
eternal
infinite
end
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Who Am I?
Sulking shoulders hold up an inscrutable face
haunted outsider with diffident fathers
preaching platitudes simply for their sweet sound
That lingers over the clacking forks at the dinner table.
The wardrobe changes nothing
As drab sneakers collect filth inside a Victorian house
and only rub clean aboard the slow spin of a Ferris wheel;
Scarlet jacket brushes past warped souls at 5000 RPM
over a cliff and under a thousand gently beckoning stars:
Moody eyes under an oil soaked Stetson
growl throaty defiance for past grievances,
Sneering the name that tried to smash his soul.
Speed and time always kill quickly and completely
Yet he roars on…
The insolent youth in quest of one honest elder.
The altar showed anomaly,
an orb of light,
a foil for small realities
that I could easily forget
but for that twilight cast,
to things I touch or dream--
that spirit song sequestered
where I cannot go.
Thoughts of relevance
...of insight
...of perceptions being reconciled
with the mundane
then smiling at myself:
all those are imprints on the mind
vibrating in the here and now
and possibly across the isthmus
in the place where peace prevails.
Orbs are discreet and diffident,
and when you chase them down,
they're gone. No peace remains
this side of consciousness,
yet on the journey of the open heart
an awe ineffable, a resolution that a dream
would trust and understand.
Or a dream within a dream?
Reality is ill defined. Yours, mine...
until the breath is gone
and consciousness fights on
to redefine the light.
And you and I will take awareness
to the end of day--and bless it,
certain that the night descends
to claim its own dark benefice
and decorous ecstacy.
~
Diffident,tentative unsure
As nothing stays the same;
Restless,flowing with the tide,
As nothing stays the same;
Evolving and revolving
As nothing stays the same;
Endless,everlasting age
Does nothing stay the same?
Metanoia says th sage