Best Dislodged Poems
Caustic memories dissolve on my tongue
Lingering tastes of battery acid and nicotine
Cause me to choke on putrid saliva.
Staring at melting walls, clocks tick in unison.
Distorted birdsong hums outside of jagged windows
Under the warped sun, an unrepentant landscape blurs.
Freshly budding peonies liquefy;
Veils thin, evaporating the delusion of reality.
Why must I mould to the edges at your bidding,
Contort to the point of my own dysfunction?
For such fleeting worship, this devastation lingers -
Devours and disconnects my inner workings.
I lie highlighted in shadow, a beacon of quiet distress;
A dislodged scapula desperate to be labelled angelic.
Grounded, wingless, and forever out of time -
Wearing the last face you cared for as a comforter.
Neon venom warming twisted arteries,
Sinister patches stitched upon a breaking back.
A narcissist's crown digging into my head
Like rusted nails plunged into worm-infested wood—
Permanent disconnection, frayed cerebral cortex.
Blurred vision obscures insidious figures hiding in hushed corners,
Whispering in Babylonian tongue. Hallucinatory illusions haunt
What was a once-pristine sanctuary,
Now morphing into a surrealistic asylum.
Revelation exists above shadow in temporal machination,
I'm consciousness not yet swept up with sand;
Closed eyes cleanse my corneas - I rest in a balm of clarity.
Your power superficial, a cankerous cataract peeled clean off.
It is you who is bereft, washed up with the shell you created.
All the walls of your empty room fallen flat,
As I unfurl in the mirror beyond the shoreline,
I realise - it was never me you couldn't stomach.
Categories:
dislodged, art, deep, imagery, poetry,
Form:
Ekphrasis
Snow
floats down
silently
covering earth
in a white blanket.
Children whoop with delight
dashing to make a snowman,
with a carrot nose and coal eyes.
Suddenly snowflakes swirl so thickly
they give him a scarf to keep out the cold!
Their snowman stands guard in the white garden
Until the sun appears and warms earth.
Slowly, so slowly the snow melts -
poor snowman, his ‘eyes’ fall out
and his nose is dislodged.
The children are sad,
they wave goodbye
to their old
melting
friend
Double Etheree – syllable count 110
Contest: Snow
Sponsor: Shadow Hamilton
11~15~15
Categories:
dislodged, children, fun, snow,
Form:
Etheree
A constant vein of nature’s blood cascading rock and sand,
Flushing grains of dislodged mud. The beat in a mountain band,
Currawongs sing melody. Black Cockies rasping call;
The whispering breeze that shakes the trees, near a waterfall.
Sassafras and twisted ti-tree display a rippling shadow,
Mosses mingling with lichens where the sunlight doesn't show,
Blackwood and Lilly Pilly trunks, struggling for the light,
Lost is the canopy, when mist rolls in a billowed eerie white.
Where there's always a river through a valley in the high country,
There's always something there that takes my breath away from me
along the banks by the shimmer, pristine life is shrouding me,
Walking this river, through a valley in the high country.
The flit is there, sharp eyes note, in camouflage a glistening eye,
A Ground Thrush as still as stone watching me go walking by,
The rustle of the leaves are gentle, attracts a fleeting glance
of a disappearing rodent. Instinct breeds no games of chance.
The reason I am walking here, with times eternal strain,
I find no battle with my mind. Up here the world lives sane,
Life and death hold constant beauty, complimenting every stage.
Slow is change that's left alone, even when the waters rage.
Where there's always a river through a valley in the high country,
There's always something there that takes my breath away from me
along the banks by the shimmer, pristine life is shrouding me,
Walking this river, through a valley in the high country.
Categories:
dislodged, nature,
Form:
Lyric
I took you in and held you tight,
I danced into your soul,
And took the rope you balanced on,
Dislodged your self-control,
To pull apart your shattered heart,
Rebuild your classic pose,
And paint the lust inside your mind,
Underneath the clothes,
For me, I had to fuel my pain,
I had to feel what I had broke,
To create a world that I had lost,
With every painful stroke,
So I built you up then tore you down,
I played with what you are,
I captured, on canvas, the truth to you,
Your hurt, your rent, your scar.
Written 4th Feb entered into Brian's Contest
Categories:
dislodged, art, emotions, heart, love,
Form:
Quatrain
I don’t answer
Intensely personal questions people ask
For these shreds to pieces what is truly me
The pieces are of no use to them though.
The effort seems to stem from veiled envy
Incisive curiosity or even subtle insult.
I am forced to uncover and introspect
Ask myself why I’m under the prying lens
For my life’s energy dissipates reorganizing
The dislodged pieces in place once again.
I don’t react
When caustic comments people make
On the manner I behave seems odd to them
Or on the way I do or don’t do things
For them when they ask or even for myself
For these are innate traits I am born with
Discarding or changing which for their sake
Or walk on their footsteps they set would be
To dispense with a vital part of my psyche
And to exist as a void entity of no identity.
I don’t demonstrate
The feeling of appreciation articulately enough
If people do something good to me sometimes
For that action appears an expression overdone
Deceptively laden with fake display of gratitude
Which in essence hides the tacit expectation
That the good done is what is deserved and due.
When for this trait people criticize my insensitivity
A part of my mind inherently obliged though
Is tortured to premature and painful demise
I can’t endure for I don’t deserve the treatment
And they aim to maim part of my bruised persona
I can’t rejuvenate for it does no longer respond.
People say
I have gone or going mad.
I tell them, yes, I’m quirky
If self-preservation makes one so.
That’s why I am alive still
As a mad man at my will.
I say to me
So let it be.
February 6, 2018.
Categories:
dislodged, me, psychological, relationship,
Form:
Free verse
Exhiliration comes (thanks dad)
Cassius Clay in his day,
quick as lightning he did thunder,
watch him fight,
an awesome sight,
Great Boxer,
one man wonder.
At 4 I had a bully sure
Murphy was me a slapping.
Dad taught me fisticuffs the cure,
Murphy was no longer rapping.
A bouncing in the Valley some,
Keeping bad guys out the door,
3 guys wanted me to fight,
So I said “oh for sure.”
As we got outside,
One jumped to punch at me,
I ducked his punch ,
Dislodged his lunch ,
An he was on the floor.
His mate grabbed me,
So I slammed this guy ,
Into the bloody wall.
But he’d rise and grab at me,
Never punched him, not at all,
Just slammed and slammed on he.
3 knock downs of the bigger guy
He just kept arising , (tough bugger)
Twice for the middle guy
And the third,
Off the wall was enterprising.
Exhiliration comes,
when you have won the fight.
Lebanese mates came to help,
The three were put to flight.
Well I guess i do posses the makings of a brawler,
and with the fairer sex perhaps a little crawler,
so come n visit me at least then in your mind,
and passion slips between your thighs ....
oh no no no never mind ....Sponsor Debbie Guzzi
Contest Name Give Thanks
Categories:
dislodged, adventureme, me,
Form:
Rhyme
Drop cloth dreams
It has been found that given enough time
failure will find this destined loser
lurking in gallery tints
and watercolor fault lines
semi gloss replaced by flat
Painting abstract nothings
on a canvas made of words
Broken brushes stain the existing
balance with a voice that collects the remnants
speaking tarnished silver when silence should be golden
Pop art wastelands of dotted balloons
float above the ground where his face falls,
shamed and hidden, in plain sight
with eyes holding quarters of bygone years
melting clocks keep time with his idiocy
Impressionists laugh at his existence
in muted tone chuckles and turpentine snickers
Stretched on easels of dislodged glances
with splattered smocks tied in double knots
one size fits all
This palette of mixed memories
resting on mainstream notions, waits
for the end is sure to come
finding him alone with an empty imagination
and nothing but drop cloth dreams
6/1/17
For the JUNE PREMIERE CONTEST Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Brian Strand
Categories:
dislodged, art, lost, sad,
Form:
Free verse
‘Turn swords into ploughshares and nightmares to dreams’
I have not one plough and no shares in the market
Insomnia has taken over my nights the rest is illusion
Ambitions are exhausted and hope has no yearning
Freedom dangles on the rope of puppet-less strings
Vacuum reflects an echo of silent ear bursting rasping
Dissonance oozes from cacophony’s apathetic rattle
The heavy clanger of other’s fraudulent forge melts disowned blood
Into ice in my veins as a purulent mind oozes vile battles' cries
Muted by trench feet scraping bottomless mind-fields and apathy
‘Pull yourself out of catatonia’s core-less pits’
But there is no kernel of truth and fruits of desire have rotted
To the acrid stench of a Self carefully lost on broken branches
Snapped composure looms over a well-trodden treacherous path
Carved into an involuntary hermit’s cave by a cliff edged road side
It is grave in the cavern in which vacant vagrants jumble their bones
Disconnect their last possession and wilfully trade skulls and bones
‘This too shall pass and so many others have been stuck in the rot’
And yet suffocation in some muddy sludge is sinking
Slowly and excruciatingly tempting to join forces of evil
A dark rusty anchor floats high on the unreachable ceiling
Time I have endless measures of but the world is upside down
I am out of the picture that has faded memories for the future
Dislodged and dismembered I am a powerful union of nothing
‘Change your perspective and find solace where it is hidden’
So he who is I from the distance finally lets go of unwarranted grip
Descends as far from the surface as possible beyond expectations
And finds footing of the shackles where the ploughshare should be
The spikes pierce my soles and my soul ostensibly drowned in sorrow
At least there is pain and some place in between scars to feel emotions
That tentatively nurture rescue apparently beyond impossible salvation
‘Your advice seemed hollow but there is some loving space left inside my shell’
29th November 2019
Categories:
dislodged, courage, depression, hope,
Form:
Free verse
My mind a dislodged leaf floats away
on the quiet stream of dreams from cacophony of life
to a distant placid cobalt lake
soaking the azure dust of the sparkling sky.
On the banks stand the petrified trees
for the stilled branches don’t sway,
their shadows on the lake are unruffled
for the squall has stopped to blow.
The motionless mist hangs, a veil of dense solitude,
until the clouds descend and melt it away.
The drops of rain pierce the water,
dissipate the pain of the broken heart
in radiating ripples that disappear
in the calm water poised unperturbed.
They take my mind behind the shroud of stillness
to the serene shade of solitude
on the banks of the flowing dreams.
I plunge and dive deep within,
see my dreams weave at lonely depth
the tapestry of profound bliss for my soul.
May 31, 2018.
Categories:
dislodged, dream, solitude,
Form:
Free verse
Losing the belonging in debris of broken heart
to the silent shore of sorrow I had sauntered.
My emotions swirled like dislodged moist sands
in the tide of remote time when you were mine.
On the rolling sea made of billion drops of tear
descended somber shadow of night’s slate sky,
split unseen by the flying flash of a shooting star,
dissolving like memory on the horizon of oblivion.
Transient flame of trajectory of consumed desire
furrowed in my mind a blazing trail of yearning,
that I wished I could follow with the shooting star,
even if it was transitory like the flicker of my love.
I slept on the desolate edge of the lonely night,
you became in my dreaming sky a shining star,
briefly sparkling so far away, yet adoringly so near,
but you disappeared, for I didn’t dream enough.
Written : August 14, 2019
February 23, 2020
Contest : Strand Select Y, Any Form, Any Theme
Sponsor : Brian Strand
Categories:
dislodged, dream, imagery, lost love,
Form:
Free verse
Desiccated in my torrid wasteland,
soil brittle and dry, turns to dust,
soars high on the wings of summer wind.
Some blows away from me,
some I gather in my sagging palm
for the skeletal roots exposed fragile
of my magnolia tree I reared with care,
year after tenuous year.
Each passing day engraved in the veins of leaves,
changing into verdance of memory.
The dust storm scraping the edge of listless time,
rose from the depth of dusky horizon.
The surge swept the dislodged leaves away,
in the rustle I heard them whisper…
‘catch us, hold us before we disappear’.
Through the dust swirling to nowhere
the last rays of the twilight sun filtered,
its spectrum soaked the vestige of soiled dreams,
streamed through the enlivened essence.
I now chase the drifting mirage,
morphed into the fallen leaves flying away
from my magnolia tree defoliated,
the boughs bare and unburdened.
Across the melting shadows of the clouds adrift,
through the golden beam of the setting sun
I’ll run until I reach the end of the garden path,
catch someday the fleeting leaves,
hold them until they turn to buds of hope,
slip through my weathered fingers,
fill the void where the ancient magnolia tree
in my pasture once used to be.
It will rise from the dust of pain,
and make me happy again.
March 22, 2020
Contest : Strand Choice N, Any Form, Any Theme
Sponsor : Brian Strand
Categories:
dislodged, hope, inspirational, life,
Form:
Free verse
Early morning
and I walk the shoreline
of my waking mind,
picking over what has been
washed up, the tidal spoils
dislodged from a dream,
scattered memories,
the flotsam of time.
These are what I lay
upon a page,
the beach strewn litter
from a throw away age
and weathered sea shells
that speak, murmur into
a listening ear the incantations
of the deep.
Categories:
dislodged, beach, poetry,
Form:
Free verse
I was first picked up
In a cast-off shop in Liverpool;
Surrounded by racks of seasoned shirts
Bearing names of old soldiers.
“Draper” draped on an immature frame
In a collage of brown and green,
Overlapping and enveloping
Any semblance of a past self.
Baby-faced and militant,
The paradoxical camo in an urban warzone.
Slogans painted from shoulder to shoulder
In pungent, nuclear-white bathroom paint.
The smell is burned to memory,
Singeing nose hairs with chemical vigour,
Of dance-generated sweat, upturned pints,
A lover’s aftershave, the sting of cigarette smoke.
Washed once, maybe twice,
But anxious eyes watched the spin cycle,
Fearing specks of dislodged paint
Covering my muddy canvas.
Now “Draper” drapes a matured frame,
The only scent that lingers is
The petrichor of Northern summer
Tie-dyed deep into my fibres.
I bare a name that isn’t mine,
Memories of a life I did not live,
Scars from battles I never saw,
And honours that aren’t mine to claim.
Categories:
dislodged, allegory, fashion, identity, life,
Form:
Free verse
While gathering wood one autumn day
To make a stack beside the stove,
I spied a nest along the way
Of back and forth and to and fro.
November’s wind had forced it down.
I took the time to pick it up,
This robin’s nest upon the ground,
Then held it gently with my glove.
I looked for answers up in the elm
To see from where it came dislodged.
I held the craft upon my hand,
And spun it round in wonderment.
To weave a cup from twigs so fine,
Stole bits of sage and lavender,
Small tufts of moss and battered twine,
Woolen yarn from an old sweater.
To darn a home with such keen eye
Must be a bird of graceful stock.
Her handiwork beneath the sky
Must earn her praises among the flock.
For holly berries pierced the spray
Of saw tooth grass and tangled weed.
A lofty home with leafy shade
Of downy-tucked and winding reed.
She worked o’er treetop and chimney
To gather many a splendid thing.
She sang a whimsical melody
Of peaceful groves and feathered wing.
Once bright blue eggs had filled this nest
Through starry nights, mid- summer’s storm.
All pressed beneath her scarlet breast;
She kept them safe from snare and thorn.
She raised her clutch on branches high
With fitful scorn and lessons shrill.
Then spread her wings to let them fly;
A prideful scarlet bosom swell.
Now autumn’s red has left the trees.
Cold winter’s breath is on the sill.
The rustling of a withered leaf
Holds no sweet song nor feather quill.
When spring returns on budding leaves
To grace this farm with robin’s wing
Thickets will flush with hearts afire
And geese will sift upon the mire.
The earth will thaw as days grow long.
Come May, again I’ll hear her song
And all kinds of fluttering about
While turning blossoms inside out.
The robin’s work will start again
With tufts of moss and battered twine,
For chance will find her way to me.
A nest, she’ll build amid my tree.
Categories:
dislodged, america, bird, nature, seasons,
Form:
Pastoral
They were on the summit of the hill as if poised in a portrait.
The breeze ruffling the stud's forelock and mane as he arched his head
responding to the reins he moved on as his rider leant forward and
rubbed his poll in affection. Tensed up his withers quivering he sprang into
action careening down the slope pulling up lame. His rider dismounted
and ran his hand down his legs finding some heat in the fetlock. Lifting
his leg he found the cause a stone lodged in his frog, using his hoof
pick he dislodged it thanking his lucky stars that it was not a pulled stifle.
Checking his hind legs for heat in the hocks and gaskin he found all to be well.
He patted his croup in affection and re-examined the front leg still a little heat but his coronet seemed fine. A week's rest should put him right allowing the bruised frog time to heal. It would be tight to keep him fit for their big show in three weeks time but a strained stifle would have put him out of action for at least six weeks. On foot he lead Silver back to the stables and there applied a poultice to his hoof which he would change daily until the frog recovered, leaving Silver munching happily on hay. He walked into the tack room and replaced his tack and stood admiring the rows of rosettes that lined the walls.. The upcoming show would give him the final proof of how superb he was and then people would flock to bring their mares to him and his line would be perpetuated long into the future.
Categories:
dislodged, horse,
Form:
Narrative