Best Doldrum Poems
life is a feather on the wind ~ fallen from a sparrow who's not sinned
borne and adrift upon the air ~ brushed away like a stray strand of hair
fragile wanderer in doldrum streams ~ illuminated by moonbeams
floating on currents o'er the sea ~ never asks, "What's to become of me?"
a wisp, floundering where it doesn't belong ~ when it's done nothing wrong
A living thing, drawing breath ~ before it fell into the sea of death?
fragile are feathers and lives ~ torn asunder when an ill wind arrives
man's mortality smothers ~ but feathers... a sparrow can grow others
Who am I is a question,
That baffles and confuses me.
Aren’t I a stranger to myself,
When in me angels and demons cohabit,
Dwelling side by side.
Sometimes I am mired in confusion.
Sometimes I feel I am a moth caught fast in the fire,
And about to be burnt, when drawn to light
Mindless of the great peril looming.
Sometimes I feel I am sidelined and ignored,
And left out from the mainstream of life,
Like a book stacked away on a rusty shelf
In a dark corner, never touched or dusted.
After a wave of rising energy
I fall into a state when I feel so inert and dull.
At times, feel that I am a lifeboat without oars.
But soon I alight on the lighthouse of joy.
As the cycle of seasons keeps changing
The pendulum of my life swings from joy to sorrow
And hope and despair are threaded,
Into the tapestry of life as warp and woof
Essentially kind and compassionate,
I am moved to tears whenever I see,
An instance of human suffering
And tears of joy well my eyes
When I witness human excellence and pride over it.
Time has mellowed me, and wisdom has taught me,
To see the inner light shining in me.
Even when dark clouds creep into my night sky
Beneath the façade of my aching torso,
I see a soul eternal and indestructible.
At best, I like to think that I am a child of God,
And I strive to be led by that inner light.
Even when I swim in the doldrum of life,
I pray to release the infinitesimal quantum of energy,
That keeps the fire in me ever-blazing,
To add my lustre even to the stars.
To love and be loved is my credo,
For “even if I speak
in the language of angels and have no love
I am only a noisy, empty gong”.
There is a spark of heavenly fire in each one of us
Though it may lie dormant in broad daylight
It kindles up, beams, and blazes
In the dark hours of adversity.
So, frolic in the Living water and dance on the cliff
An edifice constructed through years of hard labor
May be destroyed overnight but keep building anyway!
Clad in doldrum
with yarns of fuchsia
hemmed here & there
twisted amidst the layers
& simulacrum
esoteric verse
slicked in ethereal
& outvying
of vehemences, I goad
to scatter zeal
into the waves
grand & unbiased
while perching with
a quintessence unclasps
to the orbs thence
& the musings of yours
undying zest
for morrowing unfolding
in yearnings
& beyond.
1St Place Contest Winner
Written: July 13, 2022
A BRIAN STRAND PREMIERE CHOICE Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Brian Strand
Assuming hand from above
guiding fretful pinioned glove
past waltzing pines and drunken oaks,
cheerful friends yet frightened folk.
Swelling fear puffs spotted breast,
no watchful eye, no woven nest.
Sharply shoved by hurried gust
and mistral maidens in a huff,
who twirl up toward yellow glare
to greet abashed doldrum air.
Green eye below, delusions home,
blue eye above, illusions roam
which flit and fly it seems with ease
Yet Freedom answers to the breeze.
Close-cropped, careless cast,
Body blunted by each week's
Doldrum-diving fast.
Colourful fanciful with myriads of mirage
Hidden in public glare
The more you look the less you see
Opened in hidden trenches
The more you dig the less you uncover
Clothed more in shades of grey
Preying on the public treasury
Fleecing the unassuming with
Alacrity akin to mediaeval thieves
Leaving the leaching wound
Letting the trickles cascade down
You masquerade it in soothing words
That is suit to the garbage trash
Giving rhetorics instead of economics
That will deliver from this doldrum
Time is of the essence for action
Every ticking tock of the time
Count and should be made to count
As these masquerading marauders
Needed a dose of reality
Isaacola AA
@newnaija
Topic.2
when my friend drifted, despondent I grew, drowning into dull doldrum.
I wave vaguely toward a boat in the distance, but
can't think of what I would say if they invited me on board.
"That seems excessive kindness," I say, but a voice laughs in my head,
"Yeah, but they'll never do that!" In its vacuum stare, a seagull
encourages me to think past my confusing options. I laugh pretty hard and
move on to the empty boardwalk overlooking the choppy waters, picking someone's trash as part of my civic duty, thinking "life's better in this barren habitat" and then am glued to a kite spinning wildly in the sky attached to a windsurfer riding the waves, suddenly disappearing and then resurfacing, has trouble unhooking the kite, saying to myself, "that's a good kite he should keep it" and then watch it fly like a free bird before crashing into the ocean. I walk past the sign that reads, "Sally was here today" wondering if she was blonde or brunette. I whisper in my head, "this place must do well in the Summer." Today it's silent, like our interior souls crushed by the disease. "We'll come ahead on this one. What made you look for water snake in this environment?" My father would have encouraged me that I was right, he was always delusional, always carried a small umbrella even in hot Summer days as a precaution. "You need to learn to manage your affairs better," his voice rings in my head. He loved his car and wanted to drive it to his own funeral. I see an old grill gummed up with ashes, wondering how many beachgoers it had pleased and all the stories it had to tell. "There was once a married couple who ate their burgers raw." The boardwalk turns into rocky sand, waiting to torture my bare feet, a seagull is looking purposefully at my predicament, perhaps chuckling,
"these helpless creatures."
Lend me the swiftness of your wings, so I can ride above
the foamy waves and sit on a humpback whale that lies still in
recumbent grace, sniffing you out. I am your maid and it does not take long
to try its patience. I hope you spare me your wet witching. You would have saved a squad of dolphins from their daily doldrum if you were game and
moved in their playful company.
Inaccessible solitude, I venture to conclude at random.
Villanelle : Lodged in our cockles Aladdin lamps hum
Lodged in our cockles Aladdin lamps hum
Always to heart stings awakened to soothe
That in lost coves and caves melodious strum
When in dark lonesome nights owl hoots knock glum
None to hear silent sobs shut in tight booth
Lodged in our cockles Aladdin lamps hum
Some bounceable dame caught in a doldrum
Each secret finger on the Djinn’s sharp tooth
That in lost coves and caves melodious strum
Some invoke the lordly prince staid and glum
And make him slave to every wish in truth
Lodged in our cockles Aladdin lamps hum
If this right to steal some solace and plum
Were this not a gift from high above a truth
That in lost coves and caves melodious strum
How right we then all the fanfare and drum
For those few well-bred and armed to the tooth
Lodged in our cockles Aladdin lamps hum
That in lost coves and caves melodious strum
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2013
Clawed eyes bleeding the red acid of tears
Anguished hearts with piper's music in their ears
Pleasures throves of greed and selfishness
Indicts our vision of the citadel's shining
Towards a better promise of togetherness.
Anxieties mounts against Babel's towers rising
Lattitude to pain, when will the chrysallis from
Imago change again to butterfly
Ships can dare, but captain beware this doldrum
Masking the Bermuda Triangle from your eye.
Denial is vain when some have piled more
In worth than life can spend. Something is wrongly
Listed here, more than greed rots at the core
Emotionless, hearts uncreed of empathy
Messianic foundation broken before the towers fell
Mammom cankering the apple with hell
Apathy cannot endure against the ego's fear.
the troglodyte span
scribbling doldrum brain power
the halcyon days
I
am
lost in your hands
lost to your
smile
lost to the world
Gone
Gone from your sight
out of this world
We are not
Intertwined
Imperceptible
to
loves eternal
promise
My withering heart
is a broken part
Relationships
are what
I am running from.
I am gone
to my private Doldrum
My appetite for life
is gone
those
artificial
words
rest bitterly on my
laughing tongue
Nauseated
to all thats good
is who I've become
I
Lost
my
innocence
when i was young
Colder
than the tundran ice
unthawable
from the
Saharan Sun
I am
forever
gone
ROUTINE
There’s an enroute
To everything
A direction God
Gave us to trek
You and I have to prove
Make the most out of it.
Life has to begin
Its travails
Sometimes not in
Consonance to yours
Always God’s will is
the best.
But we fail to catch up
Underestimate His patience
Over desires humanly weak
Until we succumb to misdeeds.
Unwavering though we
are left
Cause we underscore the
Beauty of challenge
In God’s understanding we
Didn’t care
That there’s really something.
Something routine
To forget a malady
To forget doldrum
Out we go to life’s usual
Normal set pretty as well.
It’s a recurring thought–
Over and over again–
echoing in my head,
Bouncing back and forth,
Reeling up and down like a Yo-yo,
Like a boomerang that keeps coming back,
Like a song stuck in your head,
A thought that gnaws at your will to live,
Like an army of termites devouring your soul
making you hollow from within,
Like the waves of the sea
lapping its shore incessantly.
A thought nagging my soul,
Why not to just shut off everything?
Like turning off the lights,
turning around and walking away;
A thought to strip away
all my worries and cares of the world,
Like a snake shedding its skin
to just wander off leaving behind
petty rivalry, envy, jealousy, shallow ties,
The strife and the peril,
The platitude and the contradiction of life.
And to step out renewed, reborn,
into a new place with no identity,
no name, no past, no expectations
for the future – just living for today;
As I like. As I please.
With no vagaries of life,
No yearning for paradise.
Walking away folk free
unrestricted by time or space,
customs, creed or the rules of the law.
But this thought
Like an active volcano,
Ever brewing and rumbling
but never erupting,
Like a seed sowed with care and nurturing
but never sprouting, never coming to fruition.
It just keeps kneading and churning
Forever bobbling in the doldrum,
Performing boondoggle tasks,
Bearing the burden of the world like Atlas,
Unable to sigh or sneeze,
Fearful that a sudden moment,
The slightest shift
might cause an upheaval in someone’s life.
Ah, the woes of life,
Why thou linger willy-nilly in my vicinity?
Why thou not forsaketh me?
Go and befriend the dark, foreboding clouds
And burst down over some distant shores.
Let some sun shine upon me,
For once, let love
gather me in her warm embrace,
Let me not suffer
for having loved too well,
Bequeath to me the days rife with joy
and mellowed moonlit nights,
Let my path run some distance straight
and not twist or turn at whim,
Let there be spring in my seasons
instead of the gray cold and bare winter,
Let me rejoice in the day’s toil
and earn me the night’s repose,
It’s a recurring thought,
Over and over again,
echoing in my head...
Wait just a minute,
Didn’t we go over that already?
Written: March 16, 2025, for a contest Sponsored By Cobstance la France
Quote: Like the sun, show mercy, and like the night, hide others' flaws. Give like water and be humble like the earth. Be who you appear. By Poet
*****************
Peachy snowbells drift on the twilight-lit lake,
their rippling motions mirror the luster of silk.
Its grace lingers, fades, and is as elusive as a flake,
the ethereal charm of wonder is an everlasting ilk.
A cerulean mood settles into the doldrum,
adrift and lost, wiping blues, missing a cold rum.