Best Doggedly Poems
Autumn teases the last cinnamon leaves
clinging to branches with amber fingers.
Seasonal change awakens Nature's thieves,
a wafting breeze that doggedly lingers,
stripping trees bare; a scene that sadly grieves.
Fall sings in a rhythmic glissando voice
announcing it's time that she takes the helm.
We acquiesce, given no other choice.
She reigns over Indian Summer's realm,
painting meadows and vales as we rejoice.
Acorns are gathered by hoarding squirrels
who scurry to find the tasty jewels,
cherishing them as valuable pearls.
As north winds blow, the temperature cools.
Chimney smoke drifts in white ribbons and curls.
Time for harvesting ripe apples for pies.
Halloween pumpkins are put on display.
Carefully, we watch Autumn's sullen skies
Clouds grow heavy, in shades of nimbus gray.
A gaggle of geese in migration, flies.
Autumn dresses herself in wrinkled gown.
Ruffled skirt in hues of crimson and gold.
Bodice in ochre, trimmed in walnut brown,
a russet cloak worn when a chill takes hold,
woven from wizened leaves that tumbled down.
July 13, 2022
2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 1 Contest
Sponsor: Mark Toney
Originally posted in September 2021
When darkness falls and finds us all alone,
When the heart becomes a small grey stone ...
Bravery is all there is.
When thunder shakes the windowpanes,
When those we love lie wracked with pain ...
Bravery is all there is.
Bravery concedes its fear;
Does not attempt to hide its tears.
Bravery is born of holding calm,
In quietly, doggedly, carrying on.
When reason fails to light the dark,
When the answer is a question mark ...
Bravery is all there is.
When justice seeks to rule in vain,
When sorrow sweeps the roiling brain ...
Bravery is all there is.
Bravery trembles while it stands,
Accepts what it cannot command.
Bravery bears its burdens well,
Looks not to see if others tell.
Be brave then, Mystery asks of us;
Face the unknown with silent trust -
For at the End, there is only this:
Bravery is all there is.
Bravery is all there is.
What is love?
The North Star guiding
a lost seafarer home
or the Siren’s song luring
him to the rocky shores?
Is it frolicking in the moonlit
nights in a field of flowers
or trudging across
an arid, scorching desert?
Is it a freeway to bliss and joy
or a meandering trail
through a rugged terrain
of grief and woe?
Is it a cup of hemlock
or a chalice of nectar?
Is it a snake pit
or a bridge over the chasm
of hatred and bigotry?
Is it an ever-elusive mirage
or the rock of Gibraltar?
Love is all that and more
and yet it’s nothing,
A mere emotion, a feeling,
At first blush, irrelevant
and yet it’s an impetus, a catalyst--
An euphoria permeating our entire being.
It is here, it is there,
and it is everywhere...
Yet, it is nowhere!
It creates mayhem and chaos
if it turns and walks away.
Love knows no boundaries,
It follows no customs or creed;
It cares not for any
race or language.
Not unlike air and water
or the enlivening sunlight--
Vital in good measures
devastating in excess,
Vexing as a thorn but
as enticing as the fragrance.
Love is but love!
No one has seen it
Yet everyone is touched by it,
Its constant presence is overwhelming
Yet you’ll never find
if you go looking for it,
It traverses distant shores,
Yet it doggedly never
leaves your threshold.
You are born with it
but never can you own it,
Forever it hovers around you
but never can you rein it in.
“Love is a many-splendored thing”.
Yet none can explain its true meaning,
It would call through a bullhorn
and you may not hear it,
It merely whispers in your ears
and turns your life topsy-turvy,
More furious than the flowing lava
It would give you the chills if provoked.
He indeed is a poor soul
bereft of hopes and dreams
who befriendeth not love!
~05/02/16
~Free Verse on Love contest by Laura Loo
~"Love turns the world around"
contest by Nayda Ivette Negron
With cooler nights and soft warm days.
quilts for the beds, days breeze welcome.
We say goodbye to summer's blaze.
Gold, orange and red are my Chrysanthemums,
as fall doggedly leaves the desert kingdom.
Soon will be gone, the light weight jackets.
Leaves, will finally, dance from the trees.
Goodbye to all the Farmer's Markets.
While I warm my hands round a cup of hot tea,
powdered sugar snow, in the hills I see.
The bird bath has a coat of ice,
small creatures go off and hibernate.
My home is redolent with baking spice,
red berries in the bushes, so ornate.
It's Winters time to dominate.
For the contest: Welcoming Winter
Hostess: Carol Brown
Placement: 9th
I stand naked wrapped only in the truth
you vile, loathsome reptile.
My contempt of you is limitless
as I have been force-fed your hypocrisy.
Your postulations are lost on me
as my insight into your repulsive nature
is exceeded only by the palpable stench of your aura.
Eyes opened to their widest apex,
ridiculously lends support to your “jokerish”
smile overly exaggerated in a…
Carol Channing kind of muse.
It seems your purse a revolving door
to his wants, has an ideally broken clasp…
Your shoulder, a never ending
tissue to his every sorrow should be waterlogged.
Which stands to reason why your legs
stretched open as wide as the earth’s axis,
“she-doggedly-in-heat” sniffs attention from him
and remains open like an all night 7-11 just to
provide “respite” in the name of “friendship”.
You find joy in slinking and scurrying through
the misfortunes and/or gains in our life,
all the while professing your love to him
and masticating on a stolen covenant
you have orchestrated in destroying.
There is no sector of my day
allowing me peace and escape from your
treachery and continued debauchery.
Your hair once a mousy shade of brown
now waxes blond in your further attempt
to assure he remains suckled at your breast
knowing his lust for blond haired, blue eyed
women that are six shades lighter than my ebony hues.
There is though, an appellative to my anguish,
which recoils from my tongue at
any attempt to voice this rage.
Escalating anger marinates and broils within
my breast as your ubiquitous presence
in my life has finally left me little strength
and no shelter from the uncloaked
vicious pain searing me to the core
in this deep abyss I have found myself in…
Unleashed fury beckons me, reaching back beyond now
when day was night and night was only imagined
barely controlling this hate and
the exigency to extract myself
from this nefarious, cheap, vaudevillian
show, which no longer can be ratiocinated
through your insipid lies before I...
Can’t imagine your expending this much
energy with your own household or husband because
you’re always living and breathing in mine!
Contempt has a name…and its malodor is…Linda.
I stand atop a mountain tall,
look down upon the land,
the forests clinging to the slopes,
green valleys long and grand.
Rivers carve torrents right through them,
can still hear them up here,
cabins scattered amongst the woods,
one such belongs to me.
Some wonder why I walk up peaks,
why I deal with that strain,
the only view that is better
would be from an airplane.
I am jammed in a window seat,
thirty thousand feet high,
the Great Lakes stretching below me,
almost as blue as sky.
There’s boats I see amongst the wave,
but they're actually ships,
trawlers and freighters loaded down,
doggedly make their trip.
The gray of cities on the shore,
suburbs encircle it,
the only view that could beat this
would be up in orbit.
I look out the capsule window,
five hundred miles high,
amazed by fringe of black and blue
where the great void meets sky.
The clouds a frosting, wispy white,
obscuring land and earth,
on the night side a web of lights,
the cities' yellow blur.
Beyond me a spangled starfield
stretches on endlessly,
to see greater you would have to
leave the dang galaxy.
I stare down on the spiral arms
of the grand Milky Way,
Bound loose around a brilliant core
where countless bright stars blaze.
Reaches of stars drifting about
in graceful, curving arcs,
billions of stars and their planets,
defy the endless dark.
The nova and the nebula,
so beautiful it hurts,
to see better you would have to
know the whole universe.
I gaze down on the great clusters,
light dots looks like a star,
but each is a whole galaxy,
Lord, how many there are!
Swinging around in massive groups,
too big to comprehend,
I can’t try to make sense of this,
it’s just too big for men.
My mind says that there’s nothing more,
I’ve reached the end, must quit;
but part of me thinks something else
must be bigger than this.
…and won’t that be cool to see.
Glancing down from breathless heights,
Amidst climey sighs,
The looming colossus awakens from slumber
And stretches across Thelwalls linear skies.
The hot engines hissing steam -
Recalled from fond memories long back -
Tumbling like huffing little rain clouds
Down from the lofty metal track;
Wherein brightly painted carriages:
The publicans daughter, the verger,
The magistrate, the chief executive -
Seated first class, all habitually sat.
Swift grandiose arches, a celebration
Trumpeting the artful masons cunning devise,
Boast loudly of the great towers
Parallelogram of terrific forces:
Crossing over in giant leaping strides.
Here below, like Hercules reclining,
The stoic gates of Latchfords black fortress locks
Lift to brace against the immense swell
Far and beyond the chimming remarks
Of Greenhalls absolute, mechanically proven,
Georgian bell;
When, ensconced within a purpose-built,
Purple brick tower:
Strikes the centuries old brewery clock
On the twelfth
Of every God given hour.
A rich bankers cantilever
Pushes doggedly against opposing, sheer,
Red Sandstone walls;
Again the mauve and azure rock pigeon claps...
And then...coo, coo, cooingly calls.
Dry buzzing heat blurs over
The hum of a high noons imcumbent midday;
The coup-de-gras scimitar wing stoops -
To fasten onto its slower-witted prey!
Steeped sides slipping amidst tumbling yellow
Gorse and sporadic flowers
Balk at the foreboding waters edge,
Where, over the denizens swirling bowers,
The resolute little rusting lugger,
Puffing and chugging,
relentlessly dredges and scours;
Churning the murky Eastham silts
That drab Manchester draw:
Into the vast hollowing quays
On beachless, concrete Salfords industrialized,
High-rise dockland shore.
Through the deepest part of the black
Channel
A salt grimed hulk smoothly slips...
Attached by a twisted hemp to the tugboat
That hauls the great ships.
Stirred by the bow waves
Flowing and ebbing like currents in time:
From the trough to the peak
The jettison and flotsam climbs -
Before succumbing to powerful undercurrents
Of irresistible designs!
From Africa to America spanning the world, quite possibly
My DNA struggled to survive to make me,
My existence is a testament to survival fitness,
My life is to nurture the future and bear witness, the past,
My name is the name to property they gave,
My heritage my lineage is that of a slave,
Yes, slave, property, harsh words to hear,
Great Granddad was born enslaved, three generations too near,
Granddad laid bricks, played music and sang,
Hope from Grandma’s illiterate lips, I sprang,
A lineage broken in Georgia or Carolina south,
passed on and on by word of mouth,
The legacy must pass through me to give my children power,
For their momma’s line stepped off the Mayflower,
In both I must help them see honor,
For the strength and the pride that made me must endure,
Listening, and teaching, and learning I press on without blame,
Learning from the past about my past I move on without shame,
Each new day, new creation, I write the story,
One of survival, renewal, reflection, doggedly pushing toward glory,
I am black yesterday, I am black now, I am black history.
Disappearing Ship With Shadow At The Prow
I sit with setting sun in evening twilight
gold and orange rays vanishing now
On comes the mysteries of this lonely night
disappearing ship with shadow at the prow
The night breeze so cool and silently calm
churning waters flow by with ease
Hardened heart like callouses on my palm
this dark time suddenly sets to please
Sailing on into each new imaginitive realm
constant pain tags doggedly along
Captain of my fate stirs slowly at the helm
past spirits sing their soulful song
I sleep deeper into this long flowing dream
ages fly by in streaks of enlightening rays
Serenity and solitude blessings of this stream
ship protected as its kneeling captain prays
Robert J. Lindley, 12/28/2014
Note- Reflections of a life now gone and
future time that must be wisely used.
No time for wasting efforts or foolish wants.
The mountains I sought to demolish stand as
sentinels to the futile vanity of a man and his
ego...
Amazing how things work. I've been in a dump for weeks
now and suddenly one comment gave me cause to reflect and write this poem.
Thank you Arthur Vaso....
Amidst thick clouds of misty grey,
shifting shadows subdue sunlight.
And shade the heat of Summer's day
amidst thick clouds of misty grey.
As Autumn seeks to find its way,
the sun stays hidden out of sight.
Amidst thick clouds of misty grey,
shifting shadows subdue sunlight.
The sun stays hidden out of sight,
till breezes blow the leaves away.
Aware of Winter's coming blight,
the sun stays hidden out of sight.
And shorter days see geese take flight
as November colors decay.
The sun stays hidden out of sight,
till breezes blow the leaves away.
As November colors decay,
Winter's wretched winds wail wildly.
And skeletal trees shake and sway,
as November colors decay.
Autumn doggedly tries to stay,
reluctant to give up mildly.
As November colors decay,
Winter's wretched winds wail wildly.
Entangled in reality;
you're trapped in depression's web.
And sometimes, you feel overwhelmed
as your emotions flow and ebb.
Buried within myths and clichés;
the secret of happiness lies.
And the tides of hope rise each day,
only to fall within your eyes.
Time choreographs the setting;
and a bleeding sun dies for you.
And blind-sided by your beauty;
it's easy to believe it's true.
Frustration and disappointment
reduce fantasies to a tease.
And your heart seeks sanctuary;
from a lifetime filled with unease.
Wasted years and corrosive tears
levy an extravagant toll.
But you pursue undying love;
searching every heart for a soul.
You are leery of all the lies
doggedly disguised as the truth.
And yet, like a breeze rustling leaves,
desire stirs the passions of youth.
Dreadful dawn dug doggedly deep, dazed dues
Prickle-prone paths pierce peer-less purpose
Buried bricks burn beneath brine and blood
Homes and holes hitch-hike heated Hours
Sync'd steps stoop, saddling steely shores
Shadows of sagging shoulders shed shrewd strokes
Sanctioned sympathy sealed and soiled in stoic stories
Homes and Holes hauling hymen of horror hormones
Nagging newts nutured nadir of nervous noisome nuns
Jilted jones jaded in jiltery journey of jerky joules
Measled mare much-malligned by myriad of magnetic manacles
Homes and holes held hostage in hidden hydrogen hades
It was a shock
Even though I didn’t check the clock
That colorful approach blew my mind
Cause it was seldom to find
Prior to this time, panted my heart
like never before
My system shook in search of the
missen…
My members anticipated for as long
as I waited
For time tickled slowly in delay of
fate
But something keeps beeping in my
head
Up! Up! It seems far away in the sky
Soaring with birds of unequal
feathers
And I know that’s ‘’U’’
When will force of gravity start
working in opposite?
When will rapture show its face?
Even if rapture and gravity take to
no concern,
Then I will board a plane
But still waiting for gravity to go hay-
wire,
Suddenly comes the heaven kissing
the earth.
And now comes my dreams at my
disposal
Oh! What an aura to behold.
See her smiling to attract sentence
My star, my heart, my baby
The rib that left before my inception
You’ve just filled the lacuna.
For I was blind yet could see your
heart
Dumb, but could still tell you that I
love you
Deaf, but heard you when you called
my name
Lame, yet walked into your life
Your eyes prints give me a reason to
stay
Your sonority reverbs in my tympanic
membrane-all wisdom like a sonic
boom
Hmm! I feel the euphoria of true
love
And I know we’ll forever move with
the speed of light
Now, my members dangle for joy
They jingle doggedly because of this
mingle
And never would I want to remain a
single
For my heart still pants to answer
your emotional questions
But…. Wait for a while!
Don’t I need some check up?
Ah! My chemistry has lost its sense
of organization
My members gyrate even when I
don’t take cigarette
I am drawn to what I cannot
understand
But that’s not my fault
Cause at the touch of love, everyone
becomes a poet.
Night and day, a thrashing
like an invisible whiptail
surge van hail,
doth swell me bosom
excruciatingly, doggedly blackmail
capriciously be-numbingly,
aggravatingly assail
mine conscience in
what paltry pale
capacity of this gamboling male,
I can "pay forward,"
whatever means shale
be moost apropos avail
to offset bewail
ling (internal psyche doth ale
hankering) against utter
lifetime (mine) peppered
with emotional, physical
and social destitution
bereft, viz fail
ling to maximize inspiration
reverberating as vibrant detail
lacking even justa minimum
desire to live
(visa vis no way
discover ring, nope nar even
"FAKE" king minuscule appeasement
of my body, mind,
and spirit triage during)
hell...shove (shelve) aside
such gloriously noble benighted role,
amidst upending folktale
re: King Arthur and His Knights
of the Round Table
futilely searching for holy grail
where steadfast conviction
emboldens this heart and hale
spirited mindful,
sincere hard drive spurs
(neigh saying horse
sense of mine)
where ambition saddled
to air (dan sing) quailing,
yen propelling (yours truly),
with sincere humanitarian,
(i.e. blood driven)
philanthropic spiritual zeal,
I tried to unveil,
this reasonably rhyming thumbnail
sketch poetically versatile
within this spurious verse despite
any trials undermining travail
rather mine heart felt genuine
motive fueled by impetus
to contribute within e kale
logi, fizzy hollow gee, humanity,
with integrity, magnanimity,
and quality fervency,
while still adept, adroit,
agile, and alert,
(cuz America needs more lerts
to become great again)
ironically steel tougher than nails,
duh pleating ability dovetail
to bug (or wug) gee wholesale.
You look into his eyes,
and your heart starts to break.
For all you see are lies;
his emotions are fake.
When he says he loves you,
he always lets you down.
Nothing he says is true;
he's just fooling around.
He has been forgiven
so many times before.
And each time you give in,
he hurts you even more.
Yet, you're never mad long;
he has a certain knack.
And though you know it's wrong,
you doggedly come back.
You've loved him from the start,
you can't just walk away.
But you fear in your heart;
you will have to someday.