Best Dissembled Poems
Memory is my fading friend
of millennial days transpired—
faithful scribe and guardian
who measured mercy and intent
and gauged love’s joyful glint—
yet never turned from rutted path
when sorrow’s specter, tinged
in mottled shades of gray and black,
sought only to inveigh.
Dissembled memories puzzle,
viewed dimly from afar—
where motes of recollection dust
swirl in thoughtless disarray.
I stepped within to query,
asked what’s to be done,
but rueful silence was
the sole reply of ones
not only deaf but mute.
Then appeared a trove of treasured books,
pages crisp and white, without a crease—
gatherings firm, oblivious of age.
I lightly touched the gilded words,
their selfsame title: Wisdom: Gift of Time;
the Author’s name was mine.
I nodded, smiled and then withdrew
aware at once of where I was,
secure in all I knew.
1st Place, Portrait of a Poet, Gautami, Phookan
Chanel #5
She was immersed in a shallow
Dialogue with the guy—next—door.
A distant conversation,
Mingling with his heart, his senses.
Her “fake” pheromones
Brought him in to an all new ecstasy.
This brings us to the synopsis,
About the pheromone phenomenon.
Deceit and lies barbed her
Surreptitious, razor- edged tongue.
Told in dissembled words,
Concealed only by many falsifications.
Her fragrance brought
On intrigue as of a sweet libation.
Leading for a possible
Affinity that was from the start.
She breaths life in to him,
As they allocate their yet lone salivas’.
Life was better with her,
He cannot live as well without her.
She is the girl of his dreams,
Every night, still in his unwaking dreams.
Oh, Chanel seems
To still turn quite a few heads.
Travis “Ceijaeh” Klein
Through the glistening sunshine, he rode, the masked man,
His face dissembled, but held high in pride.
No one would dare ask what his name or history was,
Neither did someone know what beneath the mask, lied.
For what they knew he was the greatest warrior of the king,
Presumed humility and kindness to the people,
A true fighter in defending the truth,
Instances to prove his courage were inestimable.
He got down aside a patch of plenteous roses to pluck one,
The one which appeared special, with a fragrance to invigorate,
As he was on a quest, to find his soul mate.
This town he was going to was the last in the kingdom, Rubek.
Though the maidens in the kingdom were beautiful, no doubt.
His search in the previous towns had went in vein.
Though he was honored and renowned,
Scared of how his face might be they did refrain.
While he was on his way, Rubek had got the news
Maidens gathered-“What if he looks like a devil’s son.”
“His face would’ve been burnt, scraped during war.”
“I can’t marry him”, they cried in unison.
The masked man arrived, stopped right in front of them,
But when he asked for marriage they all had their heads bent low.
He discerned their answer for silence prolonged,
Sadness concealed under his mask, he rose to go.
Then one of them came forth from the crowd,
Observing her beauty and grace for a second he froze,
She said-“I’d consider myself fortunate to have a companion like you.”
Within no time he knelt, gave her the rose,
And then he threw up his mask for all to see.
Some maidens fainted, others cried in distress,
The masked man turned out to be the charming prince
Who took her hand and declared, “She will be my princess.”
Translation
So something has happened and you are not quite sure
What it is your woman is thinking
Don’t be confused or fret overlong
You only need a translation.
Just look at the words without the distraction
The emotion of the moment
The words stripped bare of the soothing tones
The dress up of dissimulation
This isn’t working ... (you guessed it) You’re Dumped
I wasn’t ready for this ... I was only playing
I’ve got too much on ... You’re not worth the time
I’m so busy ... Won’t/can’t share my life with you
It’s not you it’s me ... You’re not ‘enough’ for me
I’m sorting my priorities ... And you are not there (does she have a pet?)
I need time for family ... There is none left over for you
I want you to be a friend ... We’ll never be really close
I’ll understand if ‘friendship’ is too hard ... I don’t really care, just being polite
It’s not fair to you ... Wish you’d choose to go away
I’m confused ... There is someone else
No matter how it is dressed or dissembled
The results are clear to see.
See them sooner boys and perhaps retain
A semblance of dignity,
Remember men, (a word of caution)
there is no real difference between
romantic persistence and stalking .
For the women who read this,
Embarrassed, outraged!
Your mood is prompted by memories.
A reason please, men can take honesty,
But can you admit your mistakes?
© T. Arnold
Where's my soul?
Come, show me myself.
But just as I looked into my own reflection,
Behold, it was another person staring back at me; my identity is gone.
Not knowing my own self but in a shadow, in a maze,
I've drifted to where the wind blew.
Dissembled by the little white lies of the Harbinger,
Who brought news of a place with deep affection,
A glorious lagoon; filled with lust and despair.
Pleasures that last only momentarily and then back again in anguish,
Found in a place of remorse; in a cave of woes.
Fill me with wine and keep my heart filled with the lies of my youth,
Tickle my ears with soft soapy words,
Words that will nourish my ego and stretch my wings far from reason.
But like a vanished light, my soul has departed from me,
And as I searched for it, I find only a silhouette staring back at me.
Like a fading rainbow, it is no where to be found.
No where back to myself, but just a shell of a man.
Like a tenant who has long abandoned his house.
For I have threaded anomalously far away from myself,
And has forgotten who I used to be.
As she laid their, withering,
Her mind in a fog,
She stared at the dissembled body, of the one she once loved,
The blaring sounds of bombs, shouts in the distance, and thundering gun shots
The woman screams at the man to wake up, shakes at the broad man
as she cries uncontrollably
But all he hears is the deafening sound of a grenade blowup,
At the break point of dieing his last thoughts, memories were of a woman and child.
Men come over to take the woman away, as she fights to see him,
She looks at the man, tears in her brown eyes, to see him being
taken to a hospital wing, tear stains on his sunburned cheeks
She comes to see the man,
the smells of Latex and death
As she walks over to his bed,
She falls to her knees
Her heart in retching pain
She closes her delicate eyes
and opens them to see a sheet over a body, not breathing nor stirring
and a round object, glittering in the sunlight
She picks it up, in rough, muddy hands
It's an uneven medal, shaped like a heart, material of purple
of a remember solider
By Sarah
Straw Men (for Patrick and others)
There are scant few of them now, standing
In the rows of my memorably failed crop.
They came dressed as they were.
I always complimented them.
Counting on them to dispel
The crows, the starlings, black eyes
That have circled since before my days
At a miserable piano, black keys
Black notes, black words, scorched screams
From the nest, mothered with a smoking tongue.
My straw men would shoo those winged
Sooty moments, with their stuffed smiles.
But a lost girl, losing time, mind gone
And more birds lined up on the sagging staves
I trusted my straw men to silence my blank-eyed
Arias of despair, as straw men should, yes?
But fickle winds and wounding skies
Dissembled the men. Sometimes they climbed
Down and walked away, trailing their stuff
As the caws and cackles mocked their shuffled exit.
So many years, and my fields are picked over
One last man barely held his own stiff spine.
His straw swept and scattered by a tantrum storm, a terrible
Fugue of quick black notes, bird song and magpie laughing,
Left me again in my fallow place, face down
Tears feeding the aging soil and spoiled seed.
Goddamn them all! Damn all the straw men.
Let the black wings come and do their best.
I will sing some semblance of a single bright
Melody, my own, soaring as a scratchy drone
Over a black chorus that is now mine to direct.
Stay now with me , and listen to my sighs,
Bidding me to drain the curse and know it all.
Feigned that I spake ill of thee,
As to who beholds two currents thwart amid
the fluctous profound.
Pass , pass upon your way , for
I grow never old...and townward take to their
whirring flight. That o'er the green
cornfield did pass as I trembled.
Remarking how ill we are ; all
dissembled.
Hands, that the rod of empire might have
swayed, in one long yelllow string wound.
Tell how they lived and died
not heeding to the blight.
Dying in distant music, even as it came...
upon the fated night , gloomy encompassing
thee around.
And in the green underwood and cover, up ,
from the mystic play of shadows twining
and twisting as if they were alive...
Mindful the while that thus time flies for you,
That I myself was not more whimsical. Burning
more truely as it dwells, than
where the lights scatter amid two voices.
And all else is silent & perfect
with my choices.
The girl in the corner
Sucker cheeked
Sweet lips
had such a pretty face
you'd think
it was broken joy
in a flower pot
waiting to be dissembled
by sticky wrappers.
Tripping Point: An Opioid Odyssey
There are lines we cannot see, hardly know exist
Until we cross them. Then, as if by trip wire,
The temptress snare catapults us into a world
Of primeval darkness with no guide star.
“Hear my song and have a life of feel good”, she promises;
Her dissembled melody the dirge we can’t stop hearing.
Like a virus embedded in DNA she corrupts the message
Using us to propagate her death traps for more unwitting.
Lust for this mistress, Sans Merci, becomes insatiable,
Devouring all we love or live for - even hope itself!
Oh had I Circe’s warning:
Bind me to the mast, fill my sailors’ ears
With wax and sail alee of the siren’s song.
Copyright © 2018 Paul M Thomson
We used to share dreams;
thoughts, my sister and me.
I occupied the top bunk, she the lower
in the cold, dank bedroom
we once inhabited from dusk to dawn.
Not prophetic dreams, the future;
we had no perception, illusions.
No exchanging, dissembled violent nightmares,
or nightly voyages traveled solitarily.
But joint adventures that filled the time
between awakening and permission to arise.
An alternative to staring quietly
at a half a dozen lazy flies
performing elaborate cotillion
around a solitary bare lightbulb.
The game was simple; A subject was agreed,
then tiny imaginary books pressed tightly
into blinkered eyes would lightly lead us
to places, we could simultaneously inhabit.
Seamless journeys to picture-postcard lands,
often hand in hand with much-loved authors.
Young Spanish kings, wise Arab princes,
Pink fairy queens and fiery golden dragons.
Flying, swimming, never falling, never drowning.
No words spoken; vividly shared visions;
two young minds together, escaping;
to places far less painful than reality.
Secret sacred memories;
each one I can still recall, relive, enjoy.
A Tender Moment From Childhood Poetry Contest: Placed 2nd
Sponsored by: Malabika Ray Choudhury
Date wrote: 05-June-2021
I know it's she
even though the
photograph is dark
features dissembled
in motion and shadow.
I can see
her face enough,
straining at her smile,
fists frantically
joyous. This is her life,
awakened into
unending sunshine.
When one has been rejected as much as I,
dissembled to and told naught but lies,
it would please to have no need to abide
by the love of any man.
For at my young and tender age,
my heart is broke by sorrow and rage,
and by lovers who sought to entertain
very little but their privates.
At only eighteen years
I find myself confronting fears
of love that may never come near
and a future all alone.
My mind no longer wishes to know
of love and passion and eyes aglow,
but my heart betrays the truth in my soul:
I desire to learn of elusive true love.
So August comes to its soporific twilight
and furtively stares at September,
stance indulged in reassuring ataraxy
August blinks
September earns
September, bearing its comely plethora of dulcet promises
Woe, those of August
For it is fugacious and dalliant
Woe, September, mocking the children of August with its desuetuded and dissembled comeliness
But reap not your earnings of despair, children
All is August demure and dallaint
It will return again, and again
"And so on?"
And so on.
"Why?"
Denouement
Cloaked Thoughts
By: Miracle Man
2/25/2020
Dissembled thoughts never go on trial,
in psyche's dusty corner their life is spent.
Unless fruition comes by our lifestyle,
intent remains always, to circumvent.
Our thoughts are owned until we opt to share,
but like small town talk they're fast repeated.
Some leave reputations beyond repair,
leading to discussions-some quite heated.
“Good thoughts bear good fruit,
bad thoughts bear bad fruit--
and man is his own gardener”
James Allen