Best Disguise Poems
She saw my pain and gifted me a crown
and named me Queen when I felt like a clown
She sent her gift cross the many miles
And wreathed my teary face in rainbow smiles
She knew what words and rhymes all mean to me
And so she gifted joy to poetry
A chance to add an image to my rhyme
And write of life and what makes it sublime
She left this place for she could not abide
discrimination’s sneer; it touched her pride
But she came back for me in time of need
When others brought me down, my heart she freed
In every line she writes my heart can trace
The beauty of an angel filled with grace
For Silent One's Tribute Contest
Revised August 6, 2015
F J (Flo) Thompson is a woman I admire with my whole heart. Some of you may know the story of how she named me Queen and wrote a poem about my kingdom here on the Soup. Knowing the sensitivity of my heart, she sent me a tiara and hair decorations in the mail all the way here to lift my spirits. She gifted me my first Premium Membership and now….a year later, she gifted me the second one along with a Lifetime Membership. I discovered that she anonymously gifted others Premium Memberships as well. Friends like this are so rare and precious. I’m overwhelmed as I write. I love being able to add photos to my poems and being able to blog. People don’t know what joy I find in writing. FJ knows. She’s my angel in disguise. I’m forever grateful. I love her poetry because of the strength of passion and conviction with which she writes.
Beside the linen hanging out to dry,
a young girl trudges with a basket full
of sheets that she has cleaned. Her head is bent
to hide a tear she does not want to cry.
Although in summer’s heat, she’s feeling spent,
it’s not her work now troubling her soul.
Her mother’s had to work hard every day
and leave the children by themselves till night.
There is no outside help; the mother tries
to raise a brood whose father passed away.
Her sweetest child, red-haired and oh so wise,
does much to make her mother’s burden light.
She knows her mother needs to get some sleep.
An old soul, she sees all and rarely cries,
but while her brothers run free in the sun,
she drops her load and simply starts to weep.
Grief flows till she resumes her role - the one
that is the family’s angel in disguise.
~
Winter breathes in sepia tones along a lonely two lane street
divided amongst the sweeping frozen dunes
now forced into shouldered amnesty
Street lights shiver in snowcapped bonnets
while sidewalks sleep ‘neath blankets of flittering flakes
The air, frigidly crisp…moves of tiny chiffon sparkles dancing
Rooftops, plump and soft, show off their frosted padding
as evergreens find alabaster fingers tickling their branches
in chilled teasings and frozen dustings
Footprints, once there are gone, covered and recovered again
all evidence of life is erased beneath pearl clouded skies
and faint outlines of distant thoughts
White on black stripes drape in glacial wanderings
spanning the slush of asphalt weavings
in straight line piercings across the wintry landscape
January reigns brutal, subzero ponderings swirl
from high above the icebox wasteland, once brimming with color
now opaque in its arctic seasoned disguise…
~
Written from memory…no winter here. : )
Merely a child yet now she is running the house
So many chores to undertake, her childhood is in tatters
How can she forget the day her dear mama passed away
Her father mourns secretly since he lost his beloved spouse
Precious memories of her in their hearts forever will stay
His darling daughter survived, and nothing else matters
02~06~15
abcacb rhyme form
Contest: Angel in Disguise - Isaiah Zerbst
Her hands are pained and twisted
Her eyes almost blind
Her feet burning and crippled
Yet she still has some of her mind.
She use to be so lively
And loving all the time
Caring for her family
And saving every dime
She would work in her garden
To feed us all year round
Giving us all a pardon
And never making a sound
The clothes we wore
Her hands did sew
Filling every drawer
Never letting us go without, even if what she had was few
The beautiful smile upon her face
Would brighten any room
Like flowers in a vase
She would take away the gloom
Her life she spent giving love
To all that crossed her path
Putting everyone else above
Even if they were filled with wrath
But now her body is failing
And it is hard to even move
There are times she should be wailing
Yet she still has something to prove
Her hands are pained and twisted
Her eyes almost blind
Her feet burning and crippled
Yet she still loves all mankind
And when you gaze into her eyes
And see her heart you realize
She is more than just a mother in our lives
She is an angel is disguise.
The stream meanders down its age old course
Spilling over rocks and splashing round her feet
Soft beauty of its solitude make her labors light
In dappled peace nature's whispers so endorse
Her fancies released on tender wings of flight
Revealing a mind and body for this day replete
Visual Number 6
Between the sun and the moon
is a dimming, starless sky
filled with hues of contemplation.
She knows the time will come too soon,
so she holds a silent conversation
before she bids her horse good bye.
Crawling along the sidewalk,
his tiny legs wiggling along
with his wriggling, squiggly body,
he creeps me out!
If he survives the elements
or the stampede of hard-soled monster feet
upon his too-soft squishy body,
he will perform a disappearing act!
Spewing sticky strands
from glands near his mouth,
he twists himself into an ugly shell
hidden and hanging from a common twig.
Shedding skin, he slowly reveals
his chrysalis self.
At last,
his inner beauty, that rare beauty in disguise,
will have changed before our amazed eyes
into the colorful radiant wings
of a splendid butterfly!
Written Jan. 4, 2016 and pretty much my only free verse so far this year!
Angelically 'gainst windowpane.
Pure innocence, with child like eyes.
Her gentle charms are so serene,
With grace unblemished by a stain.
That portrait so befits a queen.
This shining light, in maidens guise,
In time, would paradise regain?
Her elegance, no gaze denies.
Enchantment simply evergreen.
True beauty; she,will still remain,
Heaven; on Earth, her wings unseen.
Truly an Angel in disguise.
2/ 26/ 2015.
They slowly float
All forms and size
A sheep, a boat
Wolf in disguise
They slowly float
Mystic and wise
Horse without throat
I swat at flies
I use a note
Containing lies
And take an oath
To cut the ties
To slowly float
To shrink in size
Hide in my coat
Stifle all cries
They slowly float,
A sheep, a boat
My tattered coat
Vulnerable throat
Wolf in disguise
Mystic and wise
I cut all ties
Today I'll rise
***
March 15, 2017
Copyright © Darren White
and deep I went, to the master's pit,
a leech, a brand-fire, saw I lit, then
down among the throbbing roar, there
stood a spectre, drenched in gore
when challenged, did he rant and rave,
to find me in his abyss, his cave;
from whence he came I know not where,
for mine was but to answer, not enquire
then stripped I of his molten coat, in the
form of a goat, thinking was Beelzebub undone;
but to my great surprise, Apollyon it was,
in masterly disguise
and seeing me now, Gabriel, in full light, he thrust his fiery
sword to smite, the one God loves, (indeed tis me),
but I crushed his stink and broke off free
he turned and smite me yet again, the pain of death
drove me insane; but lost the blow, in this great fore,
I called on my father for strength, four score; and I the
"fallen angel", so to speak, plunged my sword into his beak
and when his black light came near no more, and threw his
poison to the floor, to fight so thus, and give no quarter, was
my want, his needful slaughter;
and now at twilights shimmering scar, of timid moonlight's
evil bar, the pit, when entered, carries no threat; for paid
brave Gabriel, Apollyon's debt.
Pattering rain shattering on grey road
With grisly green umbrella she troad
In a black attire looking ghostly white
Her red woeful eyes sending fearful jilt.
Watery moon painting yellowish lips
Frozen fear dancing on pink finger tips
Her flowing hair sweeping pain of ashes
An orange lamp blinking passing wishes.
Violet blooms falling from whining trees
Covering brown earth - a graveyard in pleas
Ah nature, dull and dreary, standing still
Her fervid eloquence under blue spill.
My canary cage cried a fearful moan
While eyes shifted, into thin air she gone.
Third Place in STRAND PICK 8,any theme,any form Poetry Contest sponsored by Brian Strand
Water rushing through the brook
leaving drowned out laughter
and a blooming lilypad
A mother with a weary look
as she wades through, feet clad
It’s her children she’s looking after
Hair threatens to fall in her distant eyes
She remembers when she hadn’t worried
stealing kisses under barnyard roofs
She begins to chastise
“Children put on your boots”
She raised the voice, and they scurried
But inside she was grinning ear to ear
Thinking of sweet-smelling memories
and grass-stained linen
As her children crawled near
She said, “Now listen,
I must share some stories…”
This is the story of a woman unknown.
On top of green hill that rose above a village
There was a tiny white cottage that sat for all to see
The clouds brushed on its roof
And green vines ran up and down the walls
This cottage was the house of a woman named Unknown
She rose early in the morning and wore a black cloak
Which covered her face and body
Many did not wish to speak to her
She would visit the riverside and they would all run away
When she sat by the large white rock nobody would
Greet her though she softly said, "Hello"
Mothers told their children never to speak to her
For they said she was a which
Then one day a dragon came down from the sky
He swallowed the sun and said
That it would be returned to them when
The fairest maiden was offered to him as his bride
One by one the beauties of the village
Presented themselves to the dragon
None of them could fill the glass of his desire
Then one day, Unknown visited the dragon
She pulled off her cloak and time froze;
Never had he or the village seen,
A maiden with such red lips
Hair golden like sweet honey
A frame so gentle and petite
Skin whiter than white and softer than air
The dragon unable to contain such beauty
Spit out the sun and turned into dust
While Unknown disappeared into time
And was greatly missed by the village that never knew her.
Nero was a cruel, unfair emperor playing
the lyre as his disguise to conceal his consuming guilt;
and he caused destruction without feeling
an ounce of pity for those he governed with distrust.
Why did he want to destroy a city so mighty and glorious,
and replace it with a Golden Palace and magnificent gardens?
It seems inconceivable, but it was confirmed by many as the Great Fire
which ravaged Rome for six horrible days...who dared to call Nero a liar?
On the rooftop, with the widest view of Rome burning underneath,
Nero played the lyre as his disguise...singing,"The destruction of Troy" with derision.
And while looking so innocent and sad, he did nothing to control it;
wasn't his madness an evident sign of that contemplated act brought to completion?
Finding the scapegoats was too easy for him, to cover up his evil deed...
he blamed the Christians and had them thrown to the beasts of the Colosseum,
but many more were crucified along the Via Appia and was Nero appeased?
No, he still continued to play the lyre as his disguise with increased delirium.