Best Dulled Poems
O April
how I’ve longed for your return
to breathe new life
into this gnarled body..
for these roots to be unfettered
from the grasping earthen frost -
the past season of fanged nor’easters gnashed
me bare - leaving me mauled and dulled
alone with stiffened limbs
lifted to face
the hard glower of old man winter
with not a morsel of mercy to be gained
but April
now that you're here to share
the innocence of the daisy
and the honeyed scent of the sweet pea
I feel inspirited like a sapling young and tender again;
mild is the fog’s embrace in early morn
as I taste your sweetened rainwater
and gentle is the rhythm of baptizing
showers bathing dark days away..
and ever grateful is my grayed heart
as it begins to beat
with the fresh pulse of verdant rebirth
oh April
how easily you inspire
my shy imagination to fly
with the zephyr's muse
to expand my artistry
in an afternoon’s brushstroke of forsythia light
dreams once frozen now thawed and golden
eager to flourish in bloom
awakening the poetry
in a new leaf’s unfurling whisper -
a whisper that grows a praising wind-psalm
as choirs of bursting buds
celebrate revival
with a rustling alleluia!
star-shaped sails rouse in swishing sounds
their leafy lyrical breath one with the breeze
my green-laden boughs now a wellspring
of exuberant born-again voices
a thronging rejoice lifted
to the heavens on the whisk of the westerlies;
supple is my sweep and sway ‘neath
the soft-bellied skies of Spring
dear lady, April
how I revel in the glorious abundance of your Nature;
your nurture enlivens my humble woody being
and though gray may shade my weather-beaten heart..
evergreen is my soul
Susan Ashley
April 12, 2021
~ First Place ~
Premiere Contest: April
Sponsor: Regina McIntosh
Chameleons
Chameleons we must be
In a world forever changing
For the sequel to tranquility
Is impending rearranging
The news of sudden tragedy
A husband leaves his wife
Before night stars can twinkle
Chaos rules your life
Maybe life has lost its luster
Stagnation’s dulled the sheen
The mind’s become too idle
Wreaking damage unforeseen
Hence the chameleon emerges
Commencing transformation
Altering its persona
To command the situation
Like the chameleon in nature
We employ our disguise
Our mechanism of defense
‘Til a plan we can devise
The thinness of skin
parchments across
blue veins and brittle stick bones
dreaming of budding branches—it lays loose
you've matched my desire
with phrases of burning leaves
flames—flaring gold, yellow and red
rheum fills my once clear eyes
but echoed memory guides me
through forests of fall
descending with feathered down
from empty nests
dulled and lifeless fodder for fire
ungathered leafless—
forlorn as stalks of dry corn
still, I eye beauty—
voice symphonies of words
and build bonfires from
each passing
night
You are far away now
Off in fields of gold
Dappled with evenings hot velvety light
90 degrees of separation has dulled the sword
eased the pain
The grasshoppers chirp in unison to your labors but they no longer ache in your solar plexus
Nor mine
What sweet sorrow is loss and gain
I now walk down the very paths I have always so longed for
the dark rich peat paths of happiness
contentment oozes from these fingertips as I write and I wonder if happiness is poetry
Or does it preclude it all together
The night sky fills with stars
The stars fill with fire flies that burst out of them like infinitesimal lightning bolts
jettisoned to my soul
he and I chase storms on decks swirled in smoke
We banter and bay at one another
you are in a field of gold somewhere
or beside
a river bed
The smell of the wet earth of shore beneath you reaches me… but momentarily
dismissed as the ash of the bonfire of a week ago fire or the grill of last night’s
unbelievably tasty ribs he concocted from air for me and me alone
but then we shared with so many
dinners
Lingers on my lip tips…the bottom edge
I kiss him and mean it with all I am
A being
a re-being
Super beings are we
all
and our colors wash
upon the canvas of my life
melding into one great magnificent us
Spectacular are we
the creatures who so love life
we give our only begotten selves to each other
and never ever forsake
us
Is it a myth that History repeats?
This universal question that time deletes
Is the evidence clear that it occurs?
Through eons and eons it strangely recurs
Is it true that horrors are dulled by time?
This forever, unchanging paradigm
If wars are to end should it start with me?
To account for mankind’s insanity.
August 31st ‘22
For Dot Your I's and Cross Your T's Contest
by Hilo Poet
howmanysyllables =10
Lyrics By Lin Lane
Seems like yesterday I watched your fingers
play the piano, and heard your music unfold.
In memories, the romantic vision of us lingers,
though love's symphony dulled like tarnished gold.
When we were together, you wrote for me,
songs you scored day and night to compose
of the passion between an oak and willow tree,
Lyrics sweet as the fragrant scent of a rose.
Chorus:
But your love wilted like a flower
whose leaves lie withered on the keys.
My heart is wounded and I've no power
to make the miserable ache inside of it ease.
Tender notes on sheet music, ripped and torn.
No longer sung for they bring pain and grief,
stabbing me like a rose's sharpest thorn.
From loss of yesterday's passion there's no relief.
Can time erase the memories I fear won't fade?
Traces of us and what use to be linger in me.
I sway as if slayed by a dagger, and I'm afraid
that from the ghost of you, I'll never be free.
Chorus:
Your love wilted like a flower
whose leaves lie withered on the keys.
My heart is wounded and I've no power
to make the miserable ache inside of it ease.
In the outskirts, where whispers weave through the wind,
there stands a farmhouse, its timbers groaning with secrets,
a silhouette etched against the horizon’s fading light.
Once, it was alive, pulsing with the beat of day-to-day,
but now, it’s shrouded in a cloak of solitude,
walls lined with the echoes of laughter long gone,
rooms filled with the heavy air of stories untold.
The woman who lived there, a mystery, a shadow,
wandered its halls like a ghost, her presence barely felt
but in the gentle ivory caress of piano keys
that floated through the night, a sorrowful symphony
played to an audience of moon and stars.
Folks in town, they gossiped, cruel jests hidden behind closed doors,
labeling her a recluse, a witch, a specter of the past,
never understanding the weight of loneliness she carried,
a burden that bent her shoulders and dulled her eyes.
She found peace in her music, notes rising and falling,
like the breaths she drew, deep and resonant,
a language only she and the night could comprehend.
The farmhouse, with its peeling paint and creaking floors,
stood as a testament to her existence,
its decay mirroring the abandonment she felt,
doors no longer opening to welcome guests,
windows looking out with a yearning for the world.
Inside, the piano waited, its keys now silent,
dust gathering like a blanket, a comfort in the stillness,
each particle a memory, a moment frozen in time.
And so, the house remains, a relic of loneliness,
a monument to the misunderstood,
its story floating with the wind, carried through the fields,
a melody played on the strings of time,
eternal, echoing, alone.
It sat there—not as metal, not as memory,
but as something half-asleep and listening.
A quiet creature of keys and shadows,
its body dulled by dust, its spirit still humming
beneath the years.
It had known the weight of a man
who believed words could bend the world~
a man whose hands were rough with labor
yet gentle with letters, as if each keystroke
were a small salvation.
I remember the music of it~
that click-clack cadence like rain on a tin roof,
like a heartbeat learning to speak.
I was a child then, cross-legged under his desk,
catching the syllables like fireflies,
not knowing they were seeds, not knowing they were mine.
When Granddad passed, I carried the machine upward
as though escorting a relic to its resting place~
a silent procession through the narrow throat of the attic.
It waited there—through summers that smelt of cedar and heat,
through winters that whispered of things forgotten, it waited~
a sentinel of stories I was too afraid to write.
Years later, the attic groaned under my return,
as if recognizing the footsteps of someone
who had once believed in beginnings.
The machine was still there, its silhouette steady,
its longing patient. It had survived because some things endure
even when we abandon them~
faith, memory, and the quiet insistence of a dream
we pretend we outgrew.
When I touched it, the dust rose like breath.
The first key resisted-a refusal,
a reminder of all the years I’d resisted myself.
But then, a single letter, dark and certain,
punched through the page like a pulse returning.
By the third paragraph, I understood:
I had not resurrected the machine. It had resurrected me.
And somewhere between the rafters and the rising words,
I realized this truth: I was never the one writing the story.
I was the story finally finding its way back to the page.
The accompanying memoir vignette can be read at poetrysoup.com/short_stories/a_dream_deferred_13827
The sun dulled to a shade of green,
A creature hanging there I hadn't seen
Wings of webs and sparkling coloured hues
Seeming to be smiling at me, head tilted
A mystical creature there only I could see
The sun eclipsed; the darkness brings
a creature hanging with webbed wings,
seeming to smile at me, with fiery breath.
A mystical beast, a Dragon I could see.
It was not a span ago I remember,
they needed and had asked of me.
To think of their form so bold,
to give them the life they knew of old.
The mighty dragon hanging so near,
brushing away clouds of innate fear.
Pulsing wing beats shattered the glade,
yet held me safely in his mystical shade.
A voice of an Angel touched my ear.
"Thank you, for seeing my presence clear.”
“My Dragon's form in infinite perfection,
asking of me a new conception”.
"Do tell me of this Earth so changed,
now no castles and dungeons dwell.
Where I did roam for many years,
there maidens fled in horrifying tears.”
“Oh mighty creature, It is sad to say
those things don't exist today.”
”It has been a long, long, time for you
just wait I'll see what I can do?”
I sat thinking for an unusual time,
but could only think of fable and rhyme.
It did come to me in the end,
where a Dragon could happily blend.
Disney was looking for something new
Harry potter was in a right stew.
”Can you fly when asked my dragon of fire”?
Snorting smoke, he flew higher and higher.
I told him of films and fun so grand,
of castles Built in another land.
"Hold on!" I said as I found a strand.
"Can you fly to New Zealand?"
A nod from him and a smile so wide,
on his back I flew on, an incredible ride.
To star in The Hobbit was my dream too,
my dragon and me headed for pastures new.
A cloud of steam emitted from the stream
the mighty Dragon was just a dream.
At the bottom of the hill dust settled around,
I felt such a fool, as I hit the ground.
WALKING NEAR THE WATERS
Under the warm golden hug of sunrise’s bliss
shielded by rugged ridges and flagging trees
emerged a peaceful scene.
Through the clear, somber, sleeping, water
sunlight revealed shadows spelling odes beneath;
odes unfolded by rising ripples in cerulean gleam,
touched by nothing but the gliding breeze which
seizes silt and shingles causing baby currents lift.
Sparkling like priced pearls in the still noon,
their waves, a calm heart’s pulse, speak.
I linger, tranquil, afloat in the ageless ocean’s
lea, sitting on a dry old rock-sheltered bank,
drinking the healing power from the scene.
Time is suspend; I see the lake like a child,
the ridges and trees, His grand legions line.
The shadows stretch, His noble progress to a life
unfurled during years of swarming battles.
But, He has a wealth of hope and stood amidst
the sudden ripples; unmoved by fear, for He
can hold the shifts. He who’s polished tough
and wise has championed in a sunken time.
He matured. He populated good influence
calling others to imitate his stance. He promised
life without fear cherished with gratitude, and
his shared touch was not dulled by passing years.
His memory endured, so many remember Him.
______________________________________________________
~Inspired by the painting: Lake by Georgia Engelhard ~
***For the painting, Debbi Guzzi's Ten Paintings, Ten Poems, Not for a Contest, thanks for the wonderful experience.
__Olive Eloisa D. Guillermo__
9:17am, January 14, 2015
This is a poem about the future I'd love to have with the boy of my dreams.
None of this has actually happened yet (besides us falling in love with eachother) but it's how I would like it to happen.
Once upon a time, I became the luckiest girl in the world. I fell in love with a gorgeous boy with blue eyes, and he actually loved me back. He was like my prince, he treated me like his princess and would do anything for me. Today, we're united as King and Queen. It's been years, but walking down the aisle I'm still staring at the cutest, most perfect guy I've ever seen. When our lips finally meet after parting to say "I do", it tastes like Heaven.
Once upon a time, I married a gorgeous boy with blue eyes. And today, I saw those perfect blue eyes light up when he first held our little girl in his arms. She's got her Daddy's blue eyes and just a little bit of her Momma's brown hair. She's going to be spoiled and loved more than possible. She'll know we support her no matter what, and she can tell us everything. It will be perfect.
Once upon a time, one set of blue eyes became two, and we were made into a family. Now, that second pair of blue eyes is walking out the door to college, with a suitcase in one hand and a boy's hand in the other. He better love her and treat her just as well as her Daddy does.
Once upon a time, I fell in love with a gorgeous boy with blue eyes. His hair has dulled and grayed but his eyes are the same, and they've seen a lifetime's worth of happiness and love. My baby had babies with the boy she walked out the door with, and I can tell she loves them as much as we loved her. Now it's her time to live.
Invisible Prison
I look at the wall
I look at the floor
I look out the window
I look at the door
No clock on the wall
No light in the socket
Empty bottles and empty wallet
Bars in my mind
I am tied to chair
Longing freedom of the fresh air
Ropes hold me tight
Hopes have dulled my escaping knife
Empty room
Empty soul
I look at the floor
I look at the wall
I look at the door
I look out the window
The ceiling is falling
Fans twirling in my head
I stumble and fall
Through it all
Mirrors in turmoil
Dance in the mind
Death's sardonic laughter
Wishes granted by the latter
Month’s later authorities will demand
What the hell is the matter?
Red words, all a splatter
Stoic I sit, nothing to shatter
Police Report
One No sign of any struggle
Two Almost looks like he froze to death
One Door wasn’t even locked
One No food in the fridge
Two Odd hardly any furniture
One Will need a tox screen to make sure
One Looks like he just sat there and died
Two How long you figure he was like that?
One Month or more, maybe even two, allot of decomposition
Two Who called it in?
One Neighbor, said his car had a flat tire in his driveway
One and wasn’t moved in weeks
Two Hey take a look at this!
One what you got?
Two The freezer, full of Cash and gold
One I'd be damned, no food and all that doe
Two Almost feels like he was in a prison
One Who knows? The coroner is here
Two Ya, guess we done here, lab will do the rest
One Lets go grab a coffee
Some people have convictions, some people have two!
Not a whisper, nor a word,
Just one day in the fall
A brief moment in time,
where that moment, interred,
is now kept, as my own
in a frame on the wall.
Stirring my soul,
in soft shades of charcoal,
that can't fade, or be dulled,
With devotion, ....it is mine, to recall
Black arches and veins,
mottled pallets of gray,
from the trees overhead
in soft fingerlings, ......exquisitely spread.
To my depths, I'm enthralled,
and without reason, it calls,
all the breath from my lungs,.... uncontrolled
Now a season is mine,
whenever I pine,
to travel from spring, ....into fall
____________________________________________________________
From a Contest: "Black and White Film Photography"
3/5/15
Still the Worst Job Ever
How do I hold thee, let me count the ways.
I hold thee trembling, beneath kitchen sinks
crouched in the darkness of the brightest days
guiding thy beam as his patience shrinks.
I hold thee dulled by lightning’s fearsome flash
shakily awaiting unseen anger
tortured by the inevitable crash
intrigued by the neediness of danger.
I hold thee wide eyed in dirt-floored cellar
your flame slow flickering on edge of sight
dimming through the range of yellowed color
draining the darkness from a darkened night.
I hold thee, for my brothers all have fled
I hold thee, not knowing what they dread.
11/13/2014
Submitted for - Sara Kendrick - Jobs – Poetry Contest
How long can love’s sweet rose lay in the wings,
quiescent, waiting for that tender cue
to open up her heart, dissolve all strings,
before she withers, dulled from absent dew?
In yearning for the warmth that closeness brings
to blush her skin with hints of crimson hue,
how long can love’s sweet rose lay in the wings,
quiescent, waiting for that tender cue?
From shaded canopy her essence sings
in soft soliloquy, songs to imbue
the soul who claims he longs to hold her true,
yet to familiar paths his heart still clings.
How long can love’s sweet rose lay in the wings?