Best Discordance Poems
Mark
The earth turns its face from you
as if ashamed. You
who tilled the soil, now marked
by what the soil received.
Your brother's blood—
how it murmurs, how it screams.
Deafness would be a mercy.
Wanderer
At Babel, you watch them build
their tongues a discordance of hope.
You know better.
The tower falls. Always, things fall.
In Athens, questions hang in the air
like ripe fruit. You reach for one
find your hand empty.
Constantinople burns.
You've seen this fire before
in your own heart, in Abel's eyes.
Love
Her laughter—sunlight on water.
For a moment, you forget remembering
the weight of your name.
Time, that relentless thief,
steals her breath, leaving you
with pockets full of silence,
her absence echoing in your eternal night.
Witness
Verdun. Mud and blood
indistinguishable. You've carried this earth before,
will carry it again. In Selma, voices rise.
You join the chorus, unseen.
Your story spoiled, yet written
in every cry for justice,
a testament to your own unending quest for peace.
Grace
The sea spilling secrets
waves crashing against the shores of your soul.
In a quiet cell, you contemplate forgiveness—
that impossible shore.
Your heart is a vessel of unspoken prayers.
Each wave a reminder: the divine
as elusive as your peace.
Mortality
She sees you—truly sees.
Beyond the mark, the myth,
to the man who carries centuries in his bones.
You learn to love in moments, not millennia.
Each breath a gift, each touch a benediction
her presence a bridge to your humanity.
Return
The earth no longer rejects you.
You lay down, finally
into the arms of the brother
you've carried all this time.
Abel smiles. You close your eyes.
The silence, at last, is sweet.
Born in the last decade of the old regime
Born a twain year before our unity to bear
All the flourishing devoid credos and pro-
phecies that foresaw our dark current futures
Possessed by omens and the Serpent’s seeds
Of rebellion bad tidings from anyplace
Were dropping and chances dwindle. In the
Intervening time storey-buildings bloomed
Eggheads rose to make the era theirs with
Funds diverted abroad to squeeze the brinks
The illuminated then urinate on the poor’s
Offspring to connect them to the State how
Blind is this society in total discordance
Through a world of discordance, I found You.
From bane to bliss, You lifted me.
With a soul so resonate Your words.
With a spirit so lifted in jubilant assent.
In resonance of Your divine touch I praise
With peace I am saved by Your grace
The cacophony, the clamor
The artificial glamour
The rush to acquire stuff
Fill the emptiness with fluff
Smother silence with yammers
Compressing questions, neglecting answers
Wisdom awaits in secluded woods
In scarlet sunsets, understood
Elicit bliss in solitude
The still in search of self precludes
Repose anonymities permeate
And soothe the restless agitate
From discordance, isolate
Reclusive paths both curve and straight
Frenzies lessens and abates
Turmoil lightens, evaporates
In lush quarantine of thought
Quietude of soul is sought
Equanimity in time alone
Replenishes soil in which dreams are grown
America, the beautiful...
aimlessly just like a cloud
drifting free above the crowd
of cluttered chaos and bleak souls
of jungles thriving in hellholes.
America, whose freedom's praised...
floating over stained landmarks
(those abandoned, spotty marks),
where still we fight for equal rights
and others live barb wired lives
and yet most struggle to survive.
America, the patriot...
what constitutes right or wrong?
The status quo? Thick and strong,
that hides behind the weak and blind
and what I'll call BULLreaucracy
and manicured hypocrisy.
America, how's glory sung
when silenced by human tears,
their sufferance braved through years?
It's not starred banners waved in air,
but nooses hung with ropes threadbare!
America, you noble one...
to the world, your throne is might
proudly hailing in every light.
BUT crown your good? With brotherhood?
where discordance and hatred fall
with little mercy on us all?
America, triumphant one,
lead us to untrampled ground,
out of the past, homeward bound,
over ramparts and black hearts
beneath the shadow of His hand
and once again to your great land.
My sad, deplorable glory is a nightmare for another
This knowing is sickening to the bone
The need for anothers' pain is like a virus
Slitting the veins of truth and delirious want of false
Watching the bile flow through
I emptied a full, sorrowful glass for you
Without even a moment’s glance
Your parched lips opened to drink
But like poison the sustainable exhalation surrounded your body
I shrank at the shrieks of your disquietude
Not knowing what to do
Expression died with the loss of flow
I couldn’t flourish in the bleak winters of your loss
I couldn’t grow
All happiness in a flash of susceptibility
Turned to woe
I gave into thinking it was all an unworthy dream
But the answers, the symbolism was never clear
The loss of your very soul is what I fear
I never meant to poison you in what I take as nourishment
And here now you rot
At the expense of these sad, empty tunes
They must mean close to nothing to you
Pain
Pain
Why do I revolve around the pain?
The empty glass of your spirits remains stained
With the insides of all things true
Torn away
Smothered in a ghostly, ghastly gore
I couldn’t see you could not take it
The sorrow I meant to erase to fake it
But instead make it
The reason I live is to sing for you
To disintegrate the swelling blue
But instead I crawled into your only space
Leaving only disgrace
The gore splattering in jewels across your face
I’ll tell you what
All my achievements are naught
They are only fakes
I am nothing without God’s grace
I spurt with illegitimate words and tunes
That you can never face!
As if by the heaven I inspired
I am drunken with your bile
Of pride risen above the mile
What is this sadness—
This anger, this madness?
Show me what to do
Show me what to say
I’ll dispose of all vagaries I dared to feel today
And replace it with pain
Replace it with pain
Discordance from another is my nightmare smothered
And this the majority crave
The need—the desire for acknowledgement
We will take it to the grave
I never wanted heartless fame
A poison in a cup
I never wanted anything
Only to fill you up
I poured the glass and there it came
Just sad, tired air
Nothing left to give you
Not even the sentiment of a stare
The truth is I am scared
The truth is I am scared
I guess, at times we are all. . .
Not there
7/13/13
We pledged a portion of our lives training ruling,
When is it thriving to mandate and perform?
What do words feign in the theater of living?
Unlike dance, which is an achievement charm.
I've barely suffered to forbear a lasting mark,
By betraying these futile sensations on paper,
I realize the purity of the most significant task,
My way of life would radically grip to remember.
The business idea made Disney on the up,
The reality of a dream versus advert view,
Undeniably we don't soar but rise each step,
For the view and attain our genuine shaw.
My performance overtakes that of the wise,
I meander from one to the closest, awestruck,
How are you presently, they enquire? A gaze,
"Oh me?" I say gently. I'm doing fine, not stuck.
A mistaken view of such a rare performance,
My rarest bestowal in a decade of struggle,
Oh, how I awed, dumbs that its discordance,
An act of the stage never held a snuggle.
After exerting my skills, I left the spot right,
My faint dwell bears me with joy and calm,
When the sun sets, I gain peace in the night,
Hastily, the veil will fall off, so I won't harm.
Stain not letting, be diverted by anything,
Whatever deeds to hail you, elect varying,
Essay not inciting to be swung by any turmoil,
Any lifestyle drive love, trust, and verity,
Recall that life is too short not to dwell fully.
1st place contest winner
Written: May 14, 2022
The Greatest Performance of My Life Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: JCB Brul
explanations of life's complexity seem more like
eager delusions designed to keep us tame, all my
energy is sucked out of my soul as I try to hold on
explosive emotions can't just be willed away
exploring of all my flaws, and damage that weight on me
eternity seems well, quite daunting.
exhaling long breaths as I scramble to stay calm
excising demons, evil parasites, mental agony and takes all of
energy leaving little left to with the
exigent circumstances of life
enhanced by loneliness and longing
eat away at what little remains of my vitality
each day chips at my hopes, dreams, reasons to go on
existence is constant, and time stops for no one.
each dawn I awake and dread the day to come
"exacts steps are not marked. Just keep walking!" I command myself
elongated by perception moment's feel like years.
eerie shadows and screaming whispers of afterthoughts and doubt
echo through my being swarming my mind in perpetual discordance
evening comes to me like a warm loving embrace
eagerly awaiting sleeps oblivion as a respite from the difficulty of day
entertaining synapses collide without fail
enticing thoughts of suicide as I try to fight for sleep
exhaustion creeping up and lingering no matter how much rest
endlessly I search for some meaning to maintain all the
effort and toil it takes to go on living. the fact is
etched into my soul is the promise I made to you to keep going
elusive as happiness seems, I gave my word I would be strong
essentially, I'm just living in hopes your looking down on me
eyes full of understanding and love that I fear I will never again see.
Relate to me with not one word of sorrow,
As from some timeless lay,
Regale me with a numinous poetic theme
That shall take me faraway!
O’ forespeak to me no form of darkness,
That may lie beyond my sight,
Nor utter thus to me of life’s nearing end
To time’s everlasting flight!
Address me not with one fallacious word,
Nor vocals of dispute,
Reply to me only with the purist of truth
That no one can refute!
O’ thus retell to me from the ethereal verse,
As God I then may hear,
For I wish only the sacred prose of Heaven
To fall upon my ear!
Speak to me no despairing words of sorrow,
Nor one single utterance of pain!
I beseech ye!
Sound gently now, upon this burdened soul,
As the drops of summer rain!
O’ or leave me to my self-communing silence,
Lest all madness be unfurled,
For it is difficult to hear the muse of harmony
Through the discordance of this world!
Many so afraid
in cultures misunderstood
God fearing antics
to depress such discordance,
who indeed is civilized?
© Harry J Horsman 2013
In an universe of timeless rhyme,
Stars in constellations at synchronicity, chime.
The world is full of vivid faiths,
Gospels life, in a clockwork, gaits,
Cleanliness of the soul, is God-ordained,
Natural instincts arrays mind trends,
Life in its eternal discipline works,
In resonance of the metronome marks.
Order in place is the calmness of a sea,
Regularity strides, ‘the way to be’,
Peace of a cry in a new-born’s face,
Heals the pain from deliverance,
YET
When unexpected calamity strikes,
Disorder seizes the way of life,
Exploding stars and black holes bend,
Shining light source to unexpected ends.
Multiple heavens appear like hell,
Flying birds drop dead out of spell,
Fear of the unnatural, erodes the mind,
Eunuchs images demons of a kind.
Discordance of music, croaks like a frog,
Precision of the clock, comes to a stop,
Momentary pain, shrouds eternal glee,
A peaceful soul try, hellfire, flee.
For once, the spec of disarray,
Puts the soul, into a transitory fray,
The call of the wilderness, intrigues the brave,
Yet, the moment of imprudent zeal, could turn him to his grave.
Apprehensive calmness, before a storm,
And a clear bright contentment, after it’s gone,
The conductor conducts, the symphony in grace,
Though at moments a cord, sounds tuned out of place.
Within her sensitive heart, a storm brewed.
No one could see her inner agony,
Even when her mind to suffering glued.
Beneath the calm and serene appearance,
In her mind's cavern dwelt a silent grief,
And none could find in her a discordance.
She did not complain or show any guile.
Persevered not to make her pain outward.
Always faced the people with a sweet smile.
.
Instant joy and cheer she could ever feign.
Even in her life's most trying moments,
A calm equipoise, she tried to maintain.
She purposely put on this deception,
Not to make her ailing parents troubled,
While her heart was bleeding in dejection.
Such double life was so hard to endure.
How long she could do this, she was not sure.
May. 9.2023
Take a Chance on Chanso Poetry Contest
Sponsor- Kim Rodrigues
5 Verses and 1 envoi
10 syllables in each line.
When the world was youthful
spiderwebs sang as they were spun.
Language was woven in the air
as accents of winds and trees
conveyed by an eloquent sky.
Untrammeled meadows annunciated
upon the lips of dens and burrows
scooped by shrew, mole, and vole.
Fresh bathed daisies signed a speech
as they swayed,
buttercups birthed calligraphy’s of sunlight.
Giddy rills gave voice to fritillaries
that flew to the sun or moon.
Words were idioms painted upon
the melodious leafage
of the up-risen and rising.
Then that shaggy brat
the primordial ape it grunted forth,
translating its gripey gut
through the clack of a creaky tongue.
Guttural and gregarious
it learned to babble and
belch an oral discordance.
It yapped and yawped,
yawped and yapped
until a spoken language
verbosely pivoted to prolix
polluting the very airy air.
Then it was
that a nascent poet boldly stood
rhyming would with could
until even the dumbest of his tribe
understood
and cheered him fit to bust
while the green grown world
with all its idiomatic kin
lost the will to express
as before
for the fluent earth again.
I came in to your apartment entrance
In someone's clothes to celebrate a happy
Circumstance.
Even though you didn't finance
This reliance
There was complaisance
No definance
Because of your continuance
I soon had dominance.
When you didn't have me you showed petulance
And discordance.
You had no chance
Of deliverance
From the death dance.
Gone from your face is the radiance
Of life as the ambulance
Team loaded up your body with no utterance.
You sent a message loud and clear as life
Goes on that there are people who will always
Want to enhance
And advance
Their life for an empty significant extravagance.
You sound like a fingernail
dragged over a blackboard.
Every word cast as blackmail
from a forked tongue in cheek.
Bathed in the vile, bile of diatribe,
masticated to be flung as dung expelled.
Your snarled words reek with
the dissonant cadence of discordance.
As your eyes flicker
from side to side with lies,
you look away, unable
to face me, eye to eye,
unmasked,
unshielded,
nakedly exposed,
in tune tonality,
truthful.