Best Engorged Poems
The battles on the field are harsh and tough
The looting in their wake engorged with greed
Abundant spoils of war are not enough.
Atrocious in their acts that make no sense
The women and the girls are taken slaves
Abusing them with lust and violence.
Unable to resist the touch of shame
The captive females cry in pain and fear
Their lives will never be again the same.
And when the dust of war has blown away
The children of the foe get born to those
Who months before fell prey and ravaged lay.
Unwanted children still need loving care
Mothers find it hard to nurture such babes
Shame is endured by children in despair.
Their lives are defined by horrid attacks
Evil men who satisfied selfish needs
Indignities make them fall through the cracks.
Who loves a child rejected by its kin?
Society offers them no solace
The “enemy’s child”, created by sin;
But all these children still have hearts and souls
Rejection renews the cycle of pain
When there is no one who cares or consoles.
-----------------------------------------------------
Co-write: Paul Callus & Carolyn Devonshire
@ March 2015
They would ripen all at once
under a hot sun and hang
in a sugary glut only for a day
or two before starting to spoil.
I had to be quick and when
the time came,
I hurried home
from school to clamber up
the tree and seize
the fruit. Each was a warm,
engorged globe of flesh
with just a hint of give
when a finger was pressed
into skin.
No command,
not even from God,
could have held back a bite.
Mouthfuls of sweet peach
sent every pleasure bud
on the tongue into a spasm
and spilt the overload
oozing out of the corners
of stretched lips.
Great gulps
were hurried down the throat
to make room for another bite.
No savoring restraint held
me back, this was volume.
All afternoon
my face and hands
dripped a sticky syrup,
coating my shirt.
Finally I would have my fill
and sit bloated beneath
the tree surrounded
by peachstones some still
encased in leftovers
of pinkish flesh. Sorry evidence
to convict. Afterwards,
a terrible remorse always
took hold. Next day
I thought my stomach ache
was punishment from above.
Every year of my childhood,
in the heat of late summer,
I repeated the same sin,
suffered the same consequence,
hoped for forgiveness
from a wrathful God.
French Bread
Your index finger
draws figure-eights
in the dusting of flour
on the counter top
where you lean
quite casually,
watching as I make
a loaf of French bread.
Then, laughing a bit,
you insert your powdery finger
into my right ear.
I’m startled...
I was so very focused
on assembling ingredients
that I wasn’t aware
of my surroundings,
at least not enough to see
your finger inching its way
toward me. I laugh too,
realizing the intimacy
of your floured finger.
Somehow,
I don’t believe
your interest is in my baking,
but I proceed on to
proofing the yeast
in warm water,
watching carefully
for the always-shocking
bloom’s suggestion
of the possible,
our palates fine-tuned
to the perfume
of earth and damp places.
Thus begins the slow tango
of dryness becoming wet,
a touch of salt-taste,
elements bound together
by the slippery
until there is inseparable oneness,
deep warmth in the joining,
the inevitable rising,
swelling seeking relief.
But not yet, oh no...
First there must be a pause,
a relaxation of the engorged,
consummation delayed,
then the pressure of my hands,
pressing-on,
pressing and shaping and pressing.
We sip our wine,
talk quietly, anticipating
the inevitable increase,
saying between us,
“We’re ready for the final phase:
the heat that binds,
coalesces the disparate ingredients,
yielding at last to the
inevitable delectable finish.”
Later, cooling as it always must,
we can’t resist
nibbling still-warm bits
dipped in melted butter,
feeding them to each other,
transcending words,
finding new ways of seeing
one another.
Written November 23, 2013
for Charlotte’s Scorchers.
On Blue Ocean
Blue ocean rises
and falls with cool
serenity,
creating crests
of roving waves,
seeking yellow,
sun-bleached shores.
Aah! Behold
its engorged bosoms,
heaving and trembling,
passionately
spurting out
bubbly, champagne-like,
sparkling spumes,
that elatedly
lick and tickle
flashy red tails of
flirtatious mermaids.
On summer nights,
inhale deeply
its fresh salty scent,
which clings to the air,
like an old lover.
Then savoring the
sweet, rhythmic
undulation of
rippling, indigo
ocean, I drowse in
Poseidon’s arms and,
drift off … on a dream.
01-06-2016
Contest: Anacreontic Verse 2
Sponsor: Edward Ebbs
Placement: 3rd
The battles on the field are harsh and tough
The looting in their wake engorged with greed
Abundant spoils of war are not enough.
Atrocious in their acts that make no sense
The women and the girls are taken slaves
Abusing them with lust and violence.
Unable to resist the touch of shame
The captive females cry in pain and fear
Their lives will never be again the same.
And when the dust of war has blown away
The children of the foe get born to those
Who months before fell prey and ravaged lay.
Unwanted children still need loving care
Mothers find it hard to nurture such babes
Shame is endured by children in despair.
Their lives are defined by horrid attacks
Evil men who satisfied selfish needs
Indignities make them fall through the cracks.
Who loves a child rejected by its kin?
Society offers them no solace
The “enemy’s child,” created by sin;
But all these children still have hearts and souls
Rejection renews the cycle of pain
When there is no one who cares or consoles.
*Co-written with Paul Callus
Seijaku – 8-1-24
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Seijaku
Serenity abides with tranquility
Abiding in beauty
And deep respirations of satisfaction
Ready
Alert
Overlooking tangled mazes of overlapping obligations
Labyrinths of lists -
And atonal demands.
As the sun streaks past engorged calendars
In whirly-gigs of heavy-handed chaos
The shade of tranquility
Stretches out
Looming across the face of serendipity
With the breath of the rose
The whisper of sapphire jewels
Born from oceanic bowers.
In the shadows waits
The gift of each rubric solved
Pushing aside the tyranny of over committed -
In dawns, and Aurora’s ballet in neon slippers,
The spirit dialates,
As moonlight drips from feathery boughs,
Healed from epidemics of minutes
Swallowed by a never resting pendulum.
The poet arises, even blooms,
Ignoring the cataracts of frail dreams
When hurried footsteps and clouded hearts
Still race infected by chaotic delirium
Tripping over beauty’s outstretched boughs
To see – to notice -
To embrace
Lavender, gently waiting, with amazement.
Why are you here?
Your familiar skin,
Radiating miscellaneous emptiness
Trembling wanton security
Filled with finite smiles
Infinite complexities
Why should we indulge you again?
A rejected buffet of frozen tenderness,
Aching for high horses to help you gallop
Hunger, no vacancies to reside in your malnourished smile
Wishing for a soldier-in-arms
Wishing for a human-in-arms
As you reach for your step-stool glory
Another dignified teardrop
Stolen by cacti palms
Proverbial residue streaking across glassy 3rd eye
How would our cries
Affect your tomorrow
Meaningless
Why do you return?
Did your rose tints become another concaved agenda?
5 identities, incarcerated
4 revelations, engorged
3 embellishments, glorified
2 pre-judgments, sexualized
1 memory, tainted
Yet, your leech aches for another devouring of serenity.
Hoping to feel #1 again, before expiration
Of your 90 day return policy
Another Cinderella, with a shoe that was never going to fit…
©Drake J. Eszes
Pelvic desires arise when turning manic!
It's an all-powerful ejaculation
(from mania that feels keenly orgasmic)
Pelvis and loins ablaze like fantastic,
and engorged with such climaxed sensation;
Pelvic desires arise when turning manic!
Eros peaks, then runs wild and Jurassic;
and hunts for instant gratification
(from mania that feels keenly orgasmic!)
To burn with unrestrained lust is horrific;
but the red-hot flames of this condition
force coitus to break out when turning manic:
oh! to explode without control like a sex addict,
and copulate with total abandon
(when mania feels so keenly orgasmic!).
So, call it mad, but don't call it poetic:
this disease demands total expression.
These pelvic desires arise when turning manic,
from a mania whose possession is so fiercely orgasmic.
Tranquil
holidays
Avoiding stress
while pocketbooks are stretched
Desired
Lost are
the reasons
Gifting frenzies
trying to top last year
Engorged
©Debra Squyres
Death shadows, furious, frenzied, fought
Waiting for this wretched soul to rot
They redeemed me, tortured me, ceasing not
Crows perch upon my severed breast
Picking at the insipid flesh
Vultures of glee coo and ratify my rest
Love pierces my heart that is dead
Maddening my severed head
Feeding ones engorged instead
Deprived and empty of soul within
My ribcage grows bare and thin
Eaten away by my own cruel kin
Skeleton bare and scorned
Fowl breasts of youth unadorned
Cascaded in grotesque glory, basked and ever-mourned
I fly! Hovering over my body too weak
As tears fall down my hungry beak
Let me fly north toward winter so bleak!
The tears freeze on my cold bones
In the dark snow that blackens, I grow old
As wind, birds and corpses forever moan
Homeward north I fly…I feed
I, the coal-beaked corpse still need
To roam…to rot…to unremittingly greed
I am shadow, vulture, corpse, woman—all in one
Feeding on my own meat, enriching everyone
Absent of my own skin, the pain has just begun
For Justin Bordner's Death Shadow contest
What have you done, for you look like a perch?
On Botox you should've done some research
I won't sugarcoat it
You look very bloated
Your face is engorged, and some will besmirch
Resembling a puffer with puckered lips
I wanna pop them with my fingertips
Dress yourself up in lace
Get rid of that fish face
Girl, you better get real and come to grips!
Your booty sticks out. You've such a huge butt
People laugh behind your back when you strut
They giggle and they wink
Some even say you stink
Like a three-day old catch of Halibut
Your teeth are threatening like a hungry shark
Who'd bite me like a mad dog with a bark
You're known as a stinker
Caught, hook, line and sinker
People point at you and call you a snark
You are as fishy as a speckled trout
So nice to people before it's found out
It's nothing but a show
Just a smoke screen you blow
A tasteless fish thrown back, without a doubt
You've earned the deserved name of big mouth bass
A loose lip fish without an ounce of class
Kicked out of many schools
Cause they didn't like fools
Shunned by all the Tropicals known as wrasse
You've been compared to the swimmer called 'carp'
A lesser species whose teeth are quite sharp
A catch that's not a prize
Most fishermen despise
No angel fish when it plays on a harp
Sometimes you resemble a red snapper
Belting out words like a winded rapper
Blah blah blah, on you jaw
Irksome as a jackdaw
You sound like the news anchor, Jake Tapper
When you swim in the pool, you're called a whale
Ya think that's due to the size of your tail?
In candy you indulge
It's the cause of your bulge
You might want to try a diet of kale
Moonlight blushed as passion heightened
Hormones raged in aged bodies
Tongues spoke the language of moans
Fingers roamed across wrinkled plateaus
and into deep creviced valleys
Flesh was heated, engorged with anticipation...
We did not go gently into that good night
Morning found us entwined, weary and sated.
A full heart chokes
too full to feel
anything but broken.
Seems all is lost
and only phantoms linger
must I remain?
A hollow husk, a remnant
yet, engorged and choking
on maudlin memories lingering
I cannot stop the feelings
the haunted thoughts of loss
surrounded by what’s broken.
Rise up, wrap, beribboned breaks
yes, I must remain
for others have a need not lost
in pointless, pitiful sobs and choking.
Regain, search, reform to feel
the worth of love which lingers.
A man child grown who has lingered
past the vows which broke
too full, still, with anger of his own to feel
I must remain
anxious, prone, and choking
for forgiveness must not be lost.
Let it be forgiveness loosing
let sweet reminiscence linger
un-choked
let the bond of love live unbroken
though soon I must go and he remain
and naught will be left to feel.
For there are many types of feelings
and many ways to lose
what remains
what lingers
the broken
chokings.
Be gone death and loss
remain but joy a lingering
repair my broken life un-choked by grief.
There once was a skinny horse name George.
Poor ole soul lived alone in a gorge.
Three fit sheep came his way.
They were traded that day.
Matted, bony, his belly engorged.
Onward He forged, living on the brink.
I’ll save him, one young maiden did think.
Head hung; life was his game.
George, his infamous name.
She prayed; from his needs, she did not shrink.
George would not drink; lips were cracked and dry.
She asked God, “Please don’t let him die.”
Water was his kismet.
Sweet feed filled hope’s bucket.
She cut out mats; whisked away each fly.
Six months later, George was still alive.
Lips were moist; he ate; began to thrive.
With some flesh on his bones,
And relieved of his groans,
The day of her moving would arrive.
The time came when George had to be sold.
Half Arabian, not very old
Registration papers.
The old trader’s capers,
You promised them, the young girl cajoled.
How could he live; does he have luster?
Papers lost; no death by distemper.
Confessions on that day,
The girl went away.
Compassion to the horse did whisper.
New owners bought him, his health still poor.
His price and potential was the big lure.
They quickly changed his name.
Greener pastures, the game.
Star’s beauty became his life’s encore.
© June 7, 2011
Dane Ann Smith-Johnsen
Written for Poetry Soup Member Contest: A Horse Story
Sponsored by: Carol Brown
(Based on a true story)
The debate between free will and fate has taken a hard right
turn to neuroscience, Brodmann area 4 the primary motor
cortex of the brain located in the posterior frontal lobe
(the one cut out of the one who once flew over the cuckoo's nest).
This area of the cortex has the pattern of an homunculus!
a little man, a troll, the all-wise, mandragon, the golem of Jewish folklore.
This little man has a that, when fully engorged, is
equal in size to his entire body. However, diseases
such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, Huntington's, Lou Gehrig's and
Creutzfeldt-Jakob
are gunning for him. His basal ganglia are garbled
and he ends up giving poor advice and making bad decisions.
Who can say what happens to his soul or cells or if all will be given or
well?
I was listening to the famous astronomer on public radio
who expressed the certainty there is no death, your soul
is immortal, it exists outside of time (but not space?). That's because
time exists only in the human mind (as does the universe
including the professional baseball season which is canceled when
you're dead).
By Spring, my problems will be solved or ignored, either way is good.
Groundhog holds the knowledge of death without dying
for man needs help from every creature born.
Will the holocaust wipe the smile off the face of our romantic comedy
or will laughter outlast the outburst?
About the dark times will there be singing?
Yes, there will be singing and some of the songs will be sidesplitting.
Solving the murder reveals the city. Nature of kinships and economic
sustenance,
who loves whom and why, when things happened and how they lost
and found themselves
in what happened. Because a meter-making argument cannot appear
from nothingness, purposelessness, just cold.
He does not go where he was supposed to go. He is in the desert,
Sonoran desert, counting cactus buds and ocotillo blooms.
This is the afterlife for which he has always longed.