Best Echelons Poems
Autumn arrives, its breath a cool breeze.
Birds forming echelons travel the sky.
Sunlight bedazzles the bright leaves of trees.
Poets like me may be prone to sigh,
wistfully bidding the summer goodbye.
Aug. 24, 2019
Contest: Writing Challenge 3, August 2019- Five Lines- Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Dear Heart - Wiishkobi Ode
Form I used: An English Quintain is a poem that consists of five lines hence the "quint" in quintain. A quintain does not have a specific length for each line. It can be as short or as long as the poet likes. The rhyme scheme of an English quintain is a/b/a/b/b.
Categories:
echelons, autumn,
Form:
Quintain (English)
The era of catatonic self-destruction has risen yet again from boulder-blocked caves,
Whose cavernous stalactite incisors drip with the blood of thorny crowns,
Worn in punitive irony for the subversion of fertile inferiority,
Which, like rabbits, duplicates and hops about in trouncing contentment.
Yet despite the grin stretched beneath empty eyes,
Which are eclipsed by dilation of cimmerian shades poured from tipped inkwells,
Darkness ripened by age has inflated its penumbral grasp upon the solar plexus.
Hearts beat now to the false circadian rhythm of telemetry.
Screens fueled by waves polluting the air scramble for attention;
Screaming as if the spotlight has slithered away from their thespian heads.
But even so we watch as if waiting for a nothingness we know.
Petulant performances pretending to perfect the perception of reality persevere,
Despite their lack of empirical validity.
Our bodies and the space around they occupy have become irrelevant.
Experience and physical stimulation have been replaced by mirror neurons,
Firing incessantly at the sight of electromagnetic facsimiles,
Which are vomited in projected disproportion into our unwitting faces,
From nauseating mouths of those whose disease has spread to lower echelons.
And so we sit and stare upon the square on walls and in our hands,
As the prefrontal cortex and its dehydrated lobes succumb to the reptilians.
Another era of lack of mind borne from the fruitlessness of parasitic seeds,
Planted by the pretenders who swim in the wealth of our applause.
Clap away, we will, until we collapse in the arthritic solidification of redundant repetition.
Welcome to the show; a televised apocalypse of thought.
Where worlds were once created in cognition,
They're now created in the lenses of cameras.
When worlds were once refracted light coruscating from the eye,
They're now flickered in slides reflected from the television.
Categories:
echelons, addiction, social, society,
Form:
Free verse
Tongues loose, tongues in a hangman’s noose
Wag without care to declare nonsense
As wisdom salvaged from the sluice
Where nonsense whacked common sense
Lost in a sea of error whose terror
Harmed victims concealed by protagonists who opted to promote
The cult of nonsense whose defence mirror
Plunged into reverse gears that chose to demote
Common sense when tongue waggers
Congregated in an occult cabal to upgrade gossiping skills
As though grapevine daggers
Staggered upper echelons of wisdom whose quills
Spilled reason in dark corners where tongue waggers shared nonsense seeds
Plus fertilizers of idleness and the icing on cakes of lies
Whose taste on tongues that wagged feeds
Total belief in naked gossip sties
Tied malfeasants together tighter
The better for them to wage war on common sense and desecrate workplace etiquette
Which is anathema to tenets of ultimate gossipers rate lighter
Than curses the wisdom ticket
That caught gossipers red handed munching grapevine beans
While sharing tins and pins of sins
For which gossipers scrambled when grapevine means
Came under close scrutiny when truth queens
Declared grapevines illegal in Wisdom Land
Where any culprit convicted of spreading gossip propaganda
Would be stripped of the royal brand
And punished for the gossip blunder
Committed without shame
To discredit the truth and integrity
In solemn worship of the blame name and claim
Would be sent to Coventry for eternity.
Categories:
echelons, poems,
Form:
Free verse
They sit high – very high
in their echelons of such great importance,
where they can look down
on us
(all the millions of us excluded
from their exclusive group) -
from the penniless and the ever-struggling souls
to the middle class and even
to many of the upper classes -
Oh, the countless souls they have convinced
that their falsehoods are truths.
With money and with powerful connections,
and with the "so-called" science of those they bribe
to push their falsehoods,
they have insinuated themselves
into every organization of great importance,
where their ultimate purposes
can best be carried out.
The “Cancel Culture” originated with them,
for they try to silence those who oppose them.
They cause their messages
to be imprinted on the minds
of the masses through endless repitition
in the conventional media that they control.
This constant regurgitation of their messages
becomes the belief system
of nearly the entire global community.
They talk and talk and talk,
feigning interest in OUR best interests
as they sit high – very high
planning out an end game
which does not really
have all that much longer
to be played out.
March 3, 2021
for Beata Agustin's 'MY SIGNIFICANT 2021 POEM ' Poetry
My only dramatic monolgue of the year and also one of my most significant poems.
Categories:
echelons, social,
Form:
Dramatic Monologue
any superstitious peasants
out there tonight
TV junkies gossipy groupies
smooth talking saxophonists
am I talking too fast
for couple's therapy
uh oh here comes
another scar on my head
the optimist would say
the scar of opportunity
fortunately digression is an art
that never plays for keeps
you don't want to become
the unwitting tool
of smarter people do you
you do
it's your worst nightmare
instead let's play museum
you have eye
you have other eye
you will however need an augury
let's step onto the showroom floor
where we have our latest models
Bill the mechanic seer
could tell your fate
from a pile of tossed grease rags
he was right almost every time
he even told 3 circus anteaters
they would run for President
and they did
Edwina the cleaning lady sibyl
could swing a vacuum bag
round her head and tell from the
dust cloud if you were gonna die
from gall bladder or aphrodisiac
Zaza the 1 trick pony
could hoof the innards of a road kill
and you'd find love
an astronomer named Ziggy
told our planet that a big rock
was coming from the sky like a freight train
that's why I'm appearing before you
in this ethereal minimum medium
you'll have to forgive me
if I show a lack of enthusiasm
for this dangerous matter
I may have fallen captive to the tow
of the clandestine echelons
working their hands like bug legs
in a sign language
that horrifies the deaf
I've scanned this
for alien message implants
you won't need a map of area 51
just a chicken wire cage
which is always as refreshing as
another lash of the cane
take permission out behind the toadstools
and put a bullet up its shirt
they just hand me the script
and I broadcast what I'm told
radio free Carthage
From "Engine of Didactic Beauty" available on Amazon
Artist Portfolio: http://walteralter.site11.com/
Categories:
echelons, how i feel,
Form:
Free verse
spring melts into summer’s light
proving wrong that still despair,
chilled in winter’s heart,
has corroded to the marrow
for even poppies bloom
in broken fields and shell holes
bones blanketed in shrouds of moss
trill of larks cross no man’s land
as pollen floats out lazy over fields
fuzzed with sprouts and turned earth
windblossoms mazy crisscrossed
blown like crimson tracers
cicadas drone their symphonies
calling humid waves
warping off fields like sultry wraiths
moaning at dead eyed cocks on broken weathervanes
cats, lazy from the heat,
retreat to hidden nooks
détente with bird and squirrel
water oaths held dear
water ripples on silent streams
tracing gusts like a rolling barrage of cotton ingots
heavy with odors of stratosphere, of faraway places
tearing at the heart’s windsock
wet bulb heat folded in cumulous
divebombed by nectar laden bees
crazy for the blossoms
soaked and sultry queenright days
a story, sad songs
decibels rung in high towers
echelons above reality
sung to tone deaf and dusty gods
skies clear of dark storm crows
now becoming past
soon becoming now
then slides to never
as photographs fade
at times it’s too much
this heady weight of others
moments like whispers gone
while standing windburnt on hillsides
barren and mass wasted
somewhere distant wardrums beat
our racial folie à deux...
Categories:
echelons, memory, war,
Form:
Prose Poetry
sheep sleep surreptitiously
spiders spin shredded silken seances
song birds sulk soporifically
rabid ravens rave rapturous rhapsodies
capriciously caught in clangour
I die dire deceptive dreams
tepid tears tear through torment
viscous vapours vacate venom
pus pelts my pitiful pillow
oozes omnipotent oblivion
alliterations alight anger
freeze fervent fear
reiterate raucous refusal
ruminate reverberate rancid rile
I wake the wake of weary waste
recycle random rubbish remonstrate
then morning mourns Morpheus
mocks mountains of morose meanders
day dawns dubious daunting delight
as I tease temptation to take a tally
send syllables into space and shuttle
to morphing metaphors from my mind
until excruciating echoes become echelons
of cumbersome circuits and contempt
when restless rest revisits and revolves
recoils at respite and the raven raves
20th December 2020
Categories:
echelons, sleep,
Form:
Alliteration
Every time they incite me against you
they tell me you are my enemy
And every time they incite you against me
they tell you am your enemy
They themselves never have enemies
Not that they are at peace with everybody
But because there are no enemies at all
Every time they declare war between us
they tell me to fight for my constitutional rights
And they tell you to fight for your patriotic rights
But themselves never participate in the wars
Not that they have no rights to fight for
But because they use us to fight their wars
They turn their differences to our war
and make us fight for their power
And when they get to the high echelons
they never look back at us
As we lay our slain,
they celebrate their victory
If the enmity is between me and you
We shall declare our war
And if the fight is for our rights
We shall determine whether to fight
We shall let their difference be their differences
And their wars be their wars
If somebody must fight,
Let it be them not us.
Categories:
echelons, political, war,
Form:
Free verse
How weird is the human nature,
How unscrupulous is he a creature.
He acts like a god when he is strong,
He becomes reluctant to admit that he can
Ever be wrong,
He dreams of owning the whole planet,
He wants to leave behind his each ‘n every cognate.
At times he is too timid even to dream,
Out of the gravest darkness, sometimes
He finds the golden gleam,
Sometimes he is a person with a magnanimous soul,
At others he is vicarious and snatches everything away
Playing it fair or foul,
When you loose, he helps you to fight the maladies
And makes you brave,
And when you succeed he may turn to be your greatest knave,
Sometimes he works tirelessly to give another being the gift of life.
At others he talks the language of hatred, terror, bombs and knife.
At times he is full of valor and even defies death,
At others he is frightened out of his skin by the thought of stopping his breath.
He has the ability to live above the mundane matters of the echelons of the
society.
He may indomitably deny the very existence of the almighty.
When his heart is filled with the sweet thing called love,
He turns as gentle and meek as a humble dove.
The human nature is so vivid, so arcane, so protean,
Like no other creature existing on this planet has ever been.
Categories:
echelons, life, people, may, planet,
Form:
Couplet
“Death to Caesar!!!”
“What!! What did you say???”
I said: “Breath to Caesar!!”
“Long and healthy and contented breath.”
“So which of his Legions are you a part of?”
“OH! God, if there is one, they call us the freezing legion.
“See these fingers, well where they used to be, well
they got lopped off. It was so cold out they didn’t even
bleed. Saved my indentured frigging life.”
“Those that died froze so quickly we didn’t even
need litters to carry them off the field of battle.”
“Just picked them up stiff as you please and threw
them in the cart.”
“So What made you join up?” “Trouble with the law?
or In-law?” “Too many tarts?” “Eh, C’mon.”
“Damn, same old story. Dad’s a senator, always bragging
about his son, you know.”
“Agricolas this, Agricolas that.” “Dammit, stop snickering.
He thought it would be an advantage to have an outlandish
moniker.” “So he hung this one on me.” “So one day I just
got fed up, said screw this, and went off to become a legionnaire.”
“Guess I showed him what he could do with his stupid name.
Now I kill farmers, well not just farmers, just about anybody
that gets in the way of the Legion.” “Not a bad job though, as
long as your not the one frozen stiff and tossed in the cart.”
“Well, I bet your dad’s proud now.”
“Nope, hasn’t spoken to me in three years. Says I spend too much
time hanging about with the lower echelons of humanity.” “I told
him we weren’t partying, that I hacked their limbs off, crushed their
skulls, decimated their homes and villages.” “Last thing he said to me
was Nail Caesar!!” “Ya gotta love these loyal subjects.”
for Isaiah Zerbst, The Roman Legion contest
Categories:
echelons, death, history, humor,
Form:
Prose Poetry
Calm,collected and serene
Then a timely vituperation
Evokes in spilt seconds
A cornucopia of rashfolly
Tempers, scream up
The meanest echelons of inhumane rive
Words; few left unsaid
Blood of a few, left unshed
All's torn apart
And all in parts, fell apart
Then she is gone
As swiftly as she was born
And left all parts; in parts
Heap of rubbles now drawn with carts
To tombs; heaped and tombstoned with hats
Calm, collected and somewhat serene
Once more, I am
Now with regrets
But she's gone
Swiftly as she was born
-My untamed tantrum
Categories:
echelons, anger
Form:
Sirens, alarm bells and unscheduled drills
Intended to teach us emergency skills
On land we might jump up and run for the trees
But where does one run in these vast frigid seas
It has to be said that they’ve done their research
I almost felt scared when I felt the ship lurch
And when people ran, was that fear that I smelt
For God’s sake just say where we’ll find a life belt
Even the barman has gone up on deck
But I need a drink to sling down my neck
It’s the friggin Titanic, not some little yacht
And it cannot sink… in case you forgot
So let them all play games of ‘victims at sea’.
These dumb practice sessions mean little to me
I’d soon find the lifeboats through instinct and stealth
So they can all practice while I serve myself
A generous whiskey, poured by my fair hand
Of course I shall pay… you should understand
But I’m gonna write, gonna kick up a stink
For British White Star Line have just spilt my drink
When I get home, gonna rock me some boats
Gonna stand for election and get me some votes
I paid loadsa money to be on this trip
Yet they make it act like an unstable ship
What kind of practice drill needs an orchestra
Is it to impress a White Star investor
But pumping in water is over the top
It may look authentic but it has to stop
Oh, come on, you’re taking this so very far
I’m freezing my bits off, while gripping the bar
Okay, I get it, some people might drown
If they booked a trip on a ship that went down
I mean no offence if their income was meagre
I get that the lowly can sometimes be eager
To act like they’re worthy to be in our midst
But those lower echelons wouldn’t be missed
Those less educated might well have been fooled
And leapt overboard when “Abandon” was called
But now, with the water up over my head
I wish I’d stayed up in my cabin - in bed
You can’t frighten folk by pretending you’re sinking
I’ll find who’s to blame and what they were thinking
Tomorrow, I’ll sue them for feigning my death
For now though, I’m too busy… holding my breath.
Categories:
echelons, ocean,
Form:
Rhyme
This is me, no airs, pretensions, nor put-ons
Take me, squeeze me, slather my upper echelons
May detect a wee whimper
Now here comes the clincher
Will sing Portugal's national anthem with timbre
Categories:
echelons, smile,
Form:
Limerick
A Skin Full of Dust
Smuts cover skins barely breathing scorched on hungry hope
no coat and no crust trickling from upper echelons of greed
dry shrivelled breasts do not feed the babies screaming in pain
Shallow sunken eyes speak louder than words falling foul
Star dust sprinkles from magician’s dreams sends a rainbow
gushing water crops of plenty justice life and dignity dispensed
sharing is caring and stockbrokers applaud broken domination
It was a dream after all and I cannot return to slumber and peace
22nd March 2017
Categories:
echelons, hope,
Form:
Free verse
gurgling water sounds
echelons of honking geese...
a sparrow’s sweet chirp
Haiku
3/30/2021
How-many-syllables
Spring Haiku - Traditional Form Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Tania Kitchin
Categories:
echelons, 10th grade, 11th grade,
Form:
Haiku