Best Diminutive Poems
Out of the dark, a lambent, lovely day has dawned
In silvery brilliance the early morning is drowned
In the sapphire sky, the sun has appeared on his diurnal shift
Over the firmament the vagrant clouds aimlessly drift
Pigeons nestle with their fledglings in the eaves
Bright sunshine seeps down through the leaves
Flocks of birds take on wings for their morning flight
Like diminutive dots they eventually disappear out of sight
All around is seen spring’s mesmerizing presence
The dormant bulbs have sprung back with a vengeance
They bear blossoms of pink, purple, yellow and white
Flashing before every watchful eye a spectacular sight
Like a bride, the Earth is clad in her silky emerald dress
Around honey laden florets, the bees restlessly buzz
Every heart overflows in cheer with no tension’s trace
On every face, smile shuttles from lips to eyes
In the wind I hear the lilts of a forgotten melody
From a woodland nearby, a lone bird sounds its parody
It seems Heaven has flung all its treasures down
And the Earth appears regally decked in floral crown
Within me, all of a sudden, I sense a divine elation
Erasing from my sullen soul, all traces of vexation
Through every fiber of my being, the waves of joy rise
And my spirit leaps out in ecstasy to the skies!
You have raided my night again,
as the burst of a sudden storm,
sneaking into my loneliness,
at the most unexpected hour,
plunging me into swirls of pain
too deep for expression,
leaving me in utter disorientation.
I now drift aimless with muddled thoughts,
through the dingy avenues of the past,
never once able to sever the chord,
that binds me so tight to those memoirs,
exposing me to torrid heat
with my soul, burning down….
like a piece of smouldering coal.
Sleepless are my nights.
Dreamless are my days.
Like the sundown shadows growing bigger,
with every stride I take,
the farther I move, the closer you follow.
Can I convince you ever again,
I never meant any harm to you.
How wearily have I watched the flies,
lured by the dazzling light,
char into diminutive specks of black,
by the scorching tongues of flame.
Still, why did I let you burn,
in the flame of my accursed passion?
You were like a flower admired from afar,
afraid of even the gentle breeze coming near,
lest it might jolt the delicate frame,
and shake the petals down, sooner than due.
Yet vulnerable turned the moment,
when all of a sudden, it started to rain.
Like a child, eager to play in the puddles,
you ran out into the pouring rain.
All soaked through and through,
You came in…. awhile my gaze,
rested on the filmy fabric,
seductively clinging to your curves.
Then, that wild surge…. beat me down.
And Alas! Under a magnetic pull,
surrendered your fragile self with ease.
At that moment of self-abandonment
looted off all that you held chaste.
Never surmised, you were crying,
when I felt your cheeks, so wet.
Now I know, it was agony,
not ecstasy that I, then, beheld on your sentient face!
You refused to respond to my calls.
Unanswered went all my anxious queries.
Like a hibernating toad,
to some dark underground cave, you slid.
Abruptly, alerted on call,
by an alien sound, far from familiar
I hastened to the casualty ward,
and saw you lying limp,
with drops of blood, still dripping down
from your slashed wrist,
staring at me with an open mouth!
As I watched you lying still
with your eyes refusing to flutter,
I knew my world tottering below,
and my heart, set ablaze,
into a funeral pyre.
The atmosphere rings with the bell like calls
of the plover flock, long before they are spotted.
The flight herringbones a grey fedora sky.
Markings of white and coal black weave,
wing-stitched, a blanket maker’s dream.
Sigh makers they close on the beach
at high tide, the horizon shivers the
sand blanches. These ravishing scavengers
light on the tattered edge of wet to dry,
dawdling with the dead.
Plovers are diminutive scroungers, one-legged
dancers, hopping to the pull of tide, dining on
crab-eggs in black-tie and feathered tails, their
gray skull caps lined with a black brow.
Sparrow-small birds dress to the nines.
A feast for the birds, fall crisps, crab moltings,
go on for endless miles. September is beginning
and soon winged ones will fly to sunny shores.
The cold Atlantic will moan for the loss of music,
the unstitched sky will part. The avian choir is off
to the mud flats of Carolina.
First Published Eunoia Review January 2015
Sudden, as a bolt from the blue,
Came down a humming bird, tantalizing
Skimming down and darting up
As an ever revolving top
It reeled round and round
Before it alighted on a drooping flower;
That hung from a bending branch
In a corner of my front yard garden
It precariously clung on to it
Like a small pendent on a chain
A sight so cool, now so rare
That lighted up my dull spirits!
Once they showed themselves up
On almost every sunny day
Promptly after the monsoon rains
When the plants en mass in resplendent bloom
Oh! How I love this tiny bird
Not larger than a bumble bee
Dressed in a cloak of green and black
Flitting round on fluttering wings
It literally dances and pirouettes in the air
Before descending down closer to its target
Swirling, gliding n’ moving back and forth
As if unsure of what it should do
Finally with a terrific jerk and swiveling move
It hovers close to hanging blooms
Balancing itself sans any support
And draws out nectar with its long needle bill
When the zephyrs carry a sweet scent
It flits from flower to flower
And having enjoyed the ambrosial treat
It flies back, well satiated like a darting arrow
My eyes fail to capture its lightning move
As it goes whizzing through the lambent air
Quickly disappearing like a mote of soot
Losing itself in the vast expanse of the blue
Being less than an ounce of fat
So light, sleek and well streamlined
It travels faster than the speed of light.
In a fleeting dash, moving out of sight
Can any other bird rival it in agility?
Or vie with it in its simple grace?
How cute, this spirit of ‘disembodied joy’
This winged diminutive denizen of the sky!
,
Blowing a kiss to you as
dissipation
gently overtakes
the rain, leaving
the inner works
of thunderstorms.
Inhaling and Exhaling
Intimacy from
Mother Earth.
Among the palm of ones
hand, the diminutive,
pulchritudinous,
and intellectual
Sunflower
waltzes dauntlessly
about the daystar.
A sight,
hence enthralling,
stimulates and
formulates a
meticulous remembrance,
as one blows a kiss to you.
Dedicated to Doreen Wright
deceptively black and white, like night and day
touching everyone yet never truly felt
colorless emotions lucent like crystal water
as ice fades into warmth of day, destined to melt
but a specter, a phantasm, a ghost am I
no more than a visitor in your dreams
unseen, a diminutive reflection of you,
a broken mirror, a thousand silent screams
no one sees me, no one hears me, no one
alone, so very alone, you look through me
like mist in the morning I fade in the light
am I here or a figment that you can't see
just a breath that tickles the back of your neck
invisible, easily brushed away, a mite
LOOK AT ME! I am here! a rainbow that needs love too
I'm real, I'm not so deceptively black and white
04/23/16
ARCTURUS TREASURE
Just standing in the handle of the dipper.
Drinking stars from inside her silver slipper.
The cup is buoyed up in ancient liquid light.
And Ursula tags a string upon her kindly kite.
Arcturus has flung the dipper far and high.
It rides the flow and surfs the starry sky.
The giant orange that spies the buxom bear.
Our secrets safe and kept as treasure there.
Upright to Milky Way it rips the canopy to scars.
And quickly moves against a slice of slippery stars.
Red glint that is polar to the stoic starry stream.
A visitor that flies within a deft diminutive dream.
Then in a blink or in a million years from now.
The red rust will break from our starry burnished bough.
A star no longer seen to ride a season by Ursula's urge.
Nor extend its dipper's handle in a splendid splurge.
A giant red that wore the bootes of heardsman all it's life.
And followed close to make the North Star a wondrous wife.
No Icarus to fly and melt in drawing hot while narrowing near
It's but a dying star yet keeps melodic magic sung in echoes ear.
by Edlynn Nau
A loose belt and a pair of boxers underneath
Coolin', stylin', and profilin' with a fresh new
pair of kicks on the feet
Saggin', draggin', loose and not together
Constantly pullin' and tuggin'...just straighten
'em up or take 'em off, brother
Swagga! Not! Just draggin' and saggin' with major
attitude
Belts are like beepers, totally obsolete, brother
looking like he has something to prove
A fashion statement of diminutive proportions,
I mean, really?
Just a fresh pair of sneakers, a pair of pants that
don't fit and a white tee
But what is looming as great as God's blue sky is
"tude," that's right, major, major "tude"!
Mean muggin', adrenaline flowing, and stayed on high
Come on, man! Find some quiet and let go. I mean, really
dude!?
Let him tell it; there is nothing wrong with his gait
He can't see, 'cause if he could, he
would even say it's not straight
The ticket is straightening up the spine and getting
inline to move forward
And maybe, just maybe, he has something to prove.
'Cause as long as he walks around saggin', he will be
viewed as saggin' spelled backward
Gentle are this afternoon's random rains,
that water the garden's blooming flowers.
Still one hummingbird ignores the showers.
Life travels through its delicate veins.
Suspended motionless feeds on planted nectar,
harmless, unimposing, all thrust no vector.
My tearing eyes lit glowingly,
in awe I observe attentively
this miniature bird moving quietly.
While silk wings flutter invisibly,
his straw draws food continually.
A brushed mystical blue
with stroked green sure
presents a marveled view
of God's fairy creature.
Flitting to and
fro above land.
Diminutive and grand
this alluring,
this flying
miracle!
18~10~2014
Sponsor: Andrea Dietrich
Contest Name: The "I Do Not Know" Poetry Form Contest
If Australia was a poem
It would be written in galloping Iambic
Full of characters leaning toward the laconic
Every line a simile, every name a diminutive
If Australia was a poem
It would be a sun drenched beach
A perpetual holiday of non-stop mate-ship,
good-natured joke telling and weekend BBQ’s
If Australia was a poem
It’s lines would start out leafy, ending in spinnifex,
head out of the big smoke to beyond the Black Stump
No matter what happened in between-
“She’d be right mate.
If Australia was a poem
It would be flowing like the landscape
It would speak to you of far away,
of scented , sun warmed winds and
distant shades of green and grey.
If Australia was a poem
I’d keep it close to heart
It’s familiar lines of birdsong and patriotic verse,
mingling in memory this land-my home.
A baby elephant arrived at my door,
I invited her in; having guests I adore.
Clutched in her trunk was a purple petunia,
I stifled a giggle; she looked very peculiar!
Swinging her trunk, she request some lunch,
I said “I don’t have much for you to munch”
Still, I ventured into my diminutive kitchen,
engrossed on an elephant feeding mission.
Sadly all my kitchen cupboards were bare,
and I couldn’t locate any jumbo sized fare.
Talullah then proffered six cans of tuna fish,
I found this bizarre, it was quite ludicrous!
She produced ten packs of dried spaghetti,
it appears small elephants are ever ready!
I cooked the spaghetti, piled it up in a dish,
she gobbled the lot and declared it delish!
Talullah requested if she could use the john,
and plodded to the toilet with great aplomb.
I hate to sound mean but she wasn’t petite
her bum wrecked my toilet and split the seat!
Trying something new Contest
Sponsored by Nina Parmenter
aplomb, john
spaghetti, every ready
tuna fish, ludicrous
kitchen, mission
petunia, peculiar
10/22/18
it glistens …
can you see?
do you see that little drop -
the tiny streak that
writes your name upon my visage -
that etches it’s damp and
dour reality onto what the mirror
shines back at me each day?
do you grasp all the
wonder and regret that floats there?
do you know the dazzling eyes
represented there as
I know them?
of a green more emerald
than olive - shocked with bolts of
gold, and glimmering
like the sun on the
spires of Oz …
oh, the limitless moments
I have bartered plunging their
dark mysteries -
swimming their exquisite madness
joined to their dreams and
yearnings and crazy, callow craves …
such a wee drip
there, a-cheek -
diminutive and inconsequential
a tiny, briny bead of
ocular insignificance, yet it roils with
the sad sobs of my marrow
and holds the
wonders and wilds of my spirit …
the ache of my
squandered passions ply
its deepest limits
swirling with an id, misunderstood,
and a life of chaotic endeavors
and endless imaginings ...
how many such beads of moisture
have trickled there
for your sake -
dropping to careless insignificance
on a cold surface below?
an ocean could not
hold all the wasted weep
that has dangled there without
name or number
and held the empty promise
of your cares …
the priceless validation of mortality
the crushing agony of deliverance
the haunting terror
of indifference and lack
the sublime sorrows
of sweet passions given to a lie
the awkward fear of a
gift in absence
the sacred apprehension of a hope, held
the wondrous horror that true
love may yet be real
the divine grief that it may NOT be
every minute, moment and mind
each elegant instance and iteration
every tender toil and
touch and temperament
swims to substance there in that drop
and is the liquid legitimacy of
all that I have been and ever shall be
yet all it is to YOU
is an answer …
and one more shining, shimmering
bleakly blessed place for
you to find …
your reflection.
Magic is a pretty cat,
Of undetermined breed;
Though her conformation says,
She could be part Siamese;
But she is black as black can be,
With luminous green eyes,
Dainty as a butterfly,
Diminutive in size.
She has a tiny little meow,
Musical it seems,
Sometimes she murmurs in her sleep,
Having kitty dreams.
She's really quite affectionate,
And very, very smart.
It isn't hard to see how quick,
She stole away my heart.
Emerge
Significant
although diminutive.
Submerged with a purpose,
under pressure with a plan.
Alone, and confused.
Which way is up, which way is down?
Suffocating with darkness all around.
Scared to live yet afraid to die. My instincts Emerge.
Predestined to live I fight, out of this desolate place, full of despair, I Emerge. From the dust and dirt where once I was imprisoned, leaving it all beneath me. Where darkness once ruled, I am donned with a gloriest and radiant light from the heavens. Where I was once engulfed with fear, I have the freedom to
love, to grow, and to thrive.
Days have come and gone, years have past. The heavens seeming to be just in my grasps. I have given myself without reservation; shade and shelter, food and medicine, pleasure and protection.
I am great. I am grand. I soar in the sky. I sway with the wind. I am strong. Nothing can move me. Nothing shall shake me.
For as much as I emerge, I am submerged. For I am free, but not free. For I am anchored by the Source, the sustainer of true life. For to truly live, is to truly love. For to become truly free, is to truly die. For I shall finally, for all eternity,
E
M
E
R
G
E
January 13
Sweet scent of magnolia permeated the air
on the cusp of a balmy summer gloaming
Myriads of stars would soon gleam above
My garden was already dappled with light
awash in the luminance of tiny fireflies
Diminutive lanterns had taken wing
in search of a mate or to feast on prey
Dancing in circles while crickets chirped
Not syncopated in rhythm, but all the same...
I was enchanted with their golden glow
Flickering sprites, mystical fairy creatures
They lingered long after the moon had risen
I dared not move in fear of chasing them away
No lidded prison would hold Nature's treasures
flitting in my garden in the aura of dusk