Best Dispassionate Poems
Atmospheric grayscale mirrors my mood
where rainbow pastels are loath to intrude,
monochrome perverse looms ‘cross universe -
black powder train, mind is gun barrel gray
cold dispassionate muzzle of dismay.
My happiness; my death will reimburse -
lifeblood bleeds an anemic attitude.
Susan Ashley
November 17, 2018
Waning love is a cold diamond thing
The hurt pressure
from the thought of losing you
is such a hard burden
Squeezing the hope out of me
Heavy-hearted acceptance ain’t easy,
especially when the weeping pang of separation
comes prematurely rushing through
Day by day,
I get premonition pulse signals of distress
Diamond bit by bit,
I receive this coal crushing feeling
And the hurt pressure
changes the beauty of what once did exist
Your vow of discontentment is tearing us apart
Day by day
Making our bond weaker
every 24/7 ...
I do feel a new heartbreak
Your ice cold eyes tell me the love flame
is no longer lit
As your heart becomes more
Diamond bit by bit
Pointed act of your future departure
pierces my mind deeply
As this soon-to-be severed heart pleads empty
Affectionate feelings voiced are on the decline,
your dispassionate vow sound
has a hollow golden ring
Echoes of neglected conciliatory healing
drowns my restless pain
in watery sheets of serrated discomfort
That jagged sharp sound,
thrust hard through my mate severed soul,
has a diamond sting
An asunder carat cutting my heart in half
Broken altar promise darkly coal uttered,
portends of your leaving
Those sacred two words,
once spoken with past caring intensity,
are now double troubling ...
And “I do” know why that is,
because you no longer desire me
Keeping your two-folded arm distance
is a cold diamond thing
As love on the wane wears the bosom hard bling-bling
Day by day,
my evening pillow dreams
get so very misty sigh moist softer
Diamond bit by bit,
my mourn awakenings
get teary pure carbon crystalline
IV
Once more I have been given cause to dwell
On that ill-fated romance;
I saw you again yesterday, years hence...was
It just another casual dalliance?
The affected tilt of your cruel and
Arrogant chin, the high piling of a mass of
Staggering auburn hair;
And often I have wondered, just how did it
Come about that former calamitous affair?
Spontaneous they say? Personally I suspect
It was all rather contrived.
At that moment when I looked into those
Unaging, dispassionate eyes,
Still so very black, still so very heroically
Beautiful,
Although saddened with all the sorrows
Of a tragedy that only he and you full knew,
I found what had always been there and was
Most evident...
I needs not guess at your deeper discontent:-
A blind man's tale of lust and infidelity;
Your abhorrence of those sworn oaths that set
Sharpened keels upon white breakers of a
Sapphire sea.
I watched as you raised a hot cappuccino
To those perfect lips.
But what cared he for war and death? He took
His chance, plunged his mouth - and kissed!
Wrapped in somnolent skin
Deprived
Of any sensation whatsoever.
Dispassionate,
Insensible.
Vacant eyes dissolved in smudges
Of weariness.
And behind, deep inside – a secluded life.
It should be careless.
True, it is indifferent to
Material world,
External disturbances,
Even to its own
Body – as if the body is a foster child
Molested by the malcontent
Father
Neglected by the mother who's tired
Of it all.
But inside, deep inside there is
Its preoccupation with itself.
It feels the external
But doesn't feel
As a part.
Inside life is lived
Truths are revealed.
It breeds, it grows, it protects, it nourishes itself.
It loves.
Secluded – because able to be constructed
And expanded on its own.
AND because it is in its nature
To be secluded.
Where Do Poets Go
I cannot write a tribute for a friend
who left our Soup in recent history,
because I have not been here long enough
to fully know the few who left last year.
So here are thoughts that I can offer now
in just surmising what the problems are
and hope this present group of gifted souls
will always share their talents as before.
Where do our poets go when all at once
we find their name and pages gone away?
Their heartfelt writings, words of wisdom fly,
afloat in air somewhere in cyberspace.
Were they offended by replies or blogs?
Were they upset with contest sponsor's choice?
Perhaps their muse took off and left them dry
to struggle on their own with no results.
It could be too, their time restraint to write
could not do justice to creative thoughts,
and it was easier to close the door
to words of imagery, they might display.
Perhaps they soon became dispassionate
to write and post, get comments and reply.
Though fun, these do demand much valued time
that takes away from other daily joys.
We cannot wonder why or what would make
those separate themselves from PS site.
For them, a sound decision made them act;
a choice each one of us could make some day.
Sandra M. Haight
~2nd Place~
Contest: Where Do Poets Go
Sponsor: Jerry T. Curtis
Judged: 03/01/2016
Blank Verse: Unrhymed, 10 syllables, 5 feet per line
How my mind as that of a child
Frivolous and foolish seeks solace
In a fictitious world of make believe
While reality, like a fiend stares right on my face!
Waiting for none, the globe continues to spin
And seasons arrive and depart without default
Yet how I wish to think,
With my exit, the world will come to an abrupt halt
When I am gone and lie cold under the sod
And my memory no more lingers
How my foolish heart desires to feel
My absence continually injures
Gains and losses when added up
Weighs equal on life’s dispassionate balance
Yet how I intend to boast foolishly~
With success alone, I ever had my alliance
Though I never reached the peak I sought
And faltered on my way distraught
How foolishly I try to console myself
That I got everything for which I had fought
Future awaits me with gloom and gaiety
And victory is certain to follow defeat
Yet how foolishly in my heart, I long to proclaim
Here is one for whom life shall ever be a treat!
Placed eighth
April.4.2022
My Foolish Heart Cash Prize Poetry Contest
Sponsor- L Milton Hawkins
encompassed in the womb
through darkness, i felt touch
ethereal strums from fingers
against my unborn flesh
as a melody soothed
in rhythmic pulses
from your heart
...it's the only time i felt loved
you gave me life
taught me to walk
two steps shy of death's door
i crawled in the shadows, afraid
cowering in the algidity of a touch
i ached for in outstretch motions
as tiny fingers reached upward
reverting back with blades
that scribbled scores of depth
while trying to feel anything but anguish
...i wished to be unborn
you fed me
ugliness through affliction
of dispassionate glares
as you made me
unlove myself
starve myself
until i was but an empty shell
of what i could have been
...i will never be good enough
you gave me a house
filled with treasures, untouched
clothed me in ridicule
made me learn to crawl
on weakened knees
while filling buckets
with my tears, my echoes
shuddering down halls
where i curled up
and died, unheard
...you killed me inside
November 12, 2019
Pale Shelter Poetry Contest
Sponsored by John Hamilton
The bee is a-buzzing~
a sweeter time of year –
for the hive is a-growing,
has to be dearly fed, as
the queen was off a-queening
had taken fond drones
to her sultry bed –
flowers, all-efficient,
the earth's blushing, reddening
ripening fertile ways –
Spring giving all colorful
blaze, warmly enticing
brightly dutifully tinting
adding uplifting expression
to
earth's
cold
drab
definitely
needing
inspiring
far too
dispassionate
winter
phase.
When fever rises to 109, the gravity is lost: I cling to sheets to hold the bed’s horizon but my spine tends to a weightlessness. The fever heats the protein till the folding point and, they say, it’s the beginning of the... I can’t rhyme out of it any longer. It’s hard to write poetry when you’re floating on the ceiling. Or you think you are: since then, you can’t distinguish the real from the unreal. They call it “The Earth immerging into the Water”, the first stage when consciousness starts leaving physical levels one after another. According to people who was on my way, the Water is about to turn into the Fire. And it does: I still can inhale the white-hot air of my hospital room but the exhalation does not come easy and, finally, ends. The suffocation, the flash, the sparks dying away in the dark. It's a little painful but pain will pass when the Air absorbs the Fire like a blotting paper absorbs spilled ink. They say, the process is still reversible but I wonder whether I want to reverse. Come on, how does it go? “Keep a clear mind, not clouded even with compassion; let your love become dispassionate;
don’t be sad don’t be happy
do not be afraid -
it’s the moment of your death"
It was with immense fortitude that he endured the pain.
His back was arched and head rose as he strode down the thoroughfare.
No one need know what lurked behind his eyes.
Although in all honesty he wanted someone to know what lay behind his eyes.
He composed his mind determined to ride this one out,
“Ok…I’m fine…I’m fine…there’s nothing wrong” he kept saying as if it were a mantra.
A few minutes passed. Finally, the steely gaze was drawn across his face.
His lip no longer quivered.
His heart no longer tightened.
For now, he was a detached dispassionate walking skeleton, nothing to call human here!
Even the sight of a mangled kitten wouldn’t render a response.
My manners are now controlling my passion; they are forever in my debt.
Like Wellington, I’m going to have to grin and bear it!
Throw my deepest love into a raging, scorching inferno, as it will only get in the way of my duty!
I shall never succumb to societies miss giving’s. Never shall I spew forth my sensibilities to the stranger in the street. My convictions are too honest to cheapen that.
A friend, however, has the misfortune or privilege to walk among my thoughts.
I know that we will walk hand in hand into Daedalus’ Labyrinth, a Minotaur at every corner. Never knowing if we shall return. Nonetheless we do it together.
Judgement is never passed. A grimace expression will never rise from your face.
Only in your presence can I remove the mask.
Only in your presence can I let my lip tremble.
Only in your presence can I let my heart feel the despair.
…
Be that as it may, once I leave the comforts of your abode I shall once again display the stiff upper lip.
By Michael Mearns
Copyright ©Michael Mearns
In that meteoric moment
she exhibited eternal qualities of wonderfully wrought womanhood,
calm,disciplined and candid,
adorned with few distinctions from the rest behind her
the loving leadership was projected in painstaking posture,
brutal perfection,a suffering of diligence amounting to total serenity,
she being a gem amongst stones,
for inexperience a cure,
synchronicity simple & symetrical like ripples in a river,
the troupe twirls & turns as leaves whirl gingerly in pools of water livid,
their torsos taut like trunks of young & vital trees,faces flowers,
brilliant when in cold morning view,
hands impossibly curved on extended arms,hearts placid,
without looking the dancers drape their faith
upon the integrity of her warm luminosity,
the lead lioness quietly commands their orbiting obeisance,
in her hushing eyes the sparkle of a rich race communicates confection
to the contemplative congregation,
she is a Godess in the midst of nymphs,
something dangerous,calamitous,manifested mutely in the expression
of a posterior dancer
whom strangely stares at the back & soul of the leading lady in stance,
this suggestive & supportive figure embodying dispassionate envy,
strategically laying seige
to the gloriously innocent leader of this cultural romance,
a reminder reminiscent of Eve's two children
in the forgotten fields of antiquity
where success was hunted savagely by the weakness
inherent amid imps -
This poem is premised upon a photograph of a traditional Cambodian dance troupe -
J.A.B.
I have found little in this
and none in that
I am a women
but have yet to have
a positive reaction to sex
at least to the heterosexual kind
I'm becoming more curious
about what exactly it is next
door that I will find.
I don't particular think
thrusting in and out is a good
image in my mind.
Why does pain first have
to ensue for pleasure to unwind?
I guess I just haven't caught
the right fish yet and
until than my vagina will
continue to feel dispassionate
unless my fingers are inserted
Bleached shells catch the sun
and throw it back again,
pearled cup-hearts smoothly clean,
long ago picked bare,
the forgotten feasts of ghost birds.
Waves lick forlorn sands
but cannot coax those dispassionate shells
to frolic in the happy surf;
empty, they choose the dry beach
just out of reach of happiness.
©Faye Lanham Gibson, May 5, 2015
In Ulzana's Raid,
the Native- and European-American concepts of property ownership
and rights
are incompatible and irresolvable. McIntosh
had no illusions about that. He said hating Apaches for killing whites
is like hating the desert for having no water.
I suspect the movie's not a good source of anthropological data
and overlooks the commonalities among human communities
to focus on just a few bold characters
as all art must.
I consider McIntosh fortunate
to have died commensurate with the way he lived his life,
rolling a final cigarette, nothing between him and the desert,
and no gravediggers waiting, jesting, defecating. Also,
he is lucky to have had one last, dispassionate friend
to whom there is nothing left to say, the Chiracahua tracker
Kah-ti-nay.
Last night's performance of Beauty and the Beast
may have been the most victorious, ecstatic, cohesive
moment in our little school's history. Emily was Beauty, a filament of
energy
who doesn't like to be touched and has been known to punch
boys hard. She had memorized her lines until she was hardly
Emily but only Beauty in a blue dress unselfconsciously
hiking up her tights between the Beast's advances.
Is this done in every American town and the world
over so there's no need to feel lost or lonely
ever?
There is no context for a man
outside the platoon or raiding party, home or shop.
When violence comes to the neighborhood,
the hierarchy of communicants will hold or fold
it is then the peace work proves relevant. I noticed McIntosh,
grizzled as he was, accepted the given hierarchy, a raw lieutenant's
orders,
as he did the desert and Apaches, with a shrug and foreknowledge
of the outcome.
If there's anywhere with no Emily or Beauty
we should bring them such blessings at the point of a
gun. But there is no place without Emily, not
the least-known prison in deepest space as long
as we do not hate or hurt or shun
the Beast.
S o dispassionate I have BECOME
E ager voices of people made me NUMB
R ambling tales of them just gave BOREDOM
I to restore my faith, still silently seek FREEDOM
O ffshore built my own little place to avoid any BOTHERSOME
U nafraid, un-argued, unasked, un-broken, ah my own solemn KINGDOM
S lowly turning in to an old soul though LONESOME
L ooking in the mirror, irking on lost SARCASM
O ver-busied, I made my mind, being DEFEATISM,
O f peace I only yearn and restore gone OPTIMISM
K nowingly of serious look wore, but still don’t know, why feelings are FEARSOME