Best Escapees Poems
When leaks my pen of flowing ink
I quickly staunch the flood
by blotting with my fingertip
the pool of chromatic drip
Escapees while my mind took flight
wandering across the sky
writing in script of a damsel's plight
until the globules caught my eye
Often, I've stopped writing to think....
there lies drops of my poem's blood
Swirls and whirls of rhyme and phrase
captured with the stab of a finger
Words trapped inside a maze
where my poetic thoughts must linger
a miniature portrait of my write
a tattoo in black on parchment of white
They cling, these city dwellers,
to crannied city walls
dusted with the exhaled indifference
of a blindly passing world.
Gasping in the fetid urban exhale
longing for the touch of errant bee.
Escapees of discarded flower pots
surviving on sporadic a/c drips
stretch to catch a glimpse of sunrise.
Rooted in their dreams of being free.
2/18/2020
Gypsies
Across a misty channel
Sensor fingers
Stretch
Through foggy, silent waves
Where two souls embrace
In expeditions of speechless discovery
Two minds stand naked,
Face to face,
With wordless words
Each knowing the inner rhyme
Of another soul –
Intimate outside skin and limbs.
Across the barriers of minutes, hours, months
Two silent gypsies wander,
Through heartbeats
They stand, then gaze,
Connected to each other -
Escapees of the spoken word;
Outside the limits of ticking clocks
Two hearts touch
And see the signature of yet another
Self
At the address of the not yet arrived,
Undelivered.
Across the minutes and the moonlight
Pushing past the stealthy march of mysteries
Two fugitives flee holding hands
Leaving footprints
Escaping lines and spaces
Of a calendar;
Two almost strangers stand
At the mystic gates of the unknown -
Today’s unwanted guests
Intruders in tomorrow’s dwelling -
Thieves of time -
Fate’s despoilers.
Across the walls of midnight’s
Crumbling castles
Two wanderers peer into fleeting glimpses
Briefly understanding
The images and ghosts
Taking shape in the mist undefined;
Two stowaways crouch in secret coves,
Hidden from eyes born into mortality
In the warehouse of the borning
To see and not quite
Understand
Young future’s dance.
Across all barriers of time and space
Two gypsies touch outside galaxies to identify
Vague daylight outlines- dim midnight contours -
Embracing imprints,
Acknowledgment of events to come -
Words still unspoken;
Two souls run past the morning
Then return in recognition
For they now stand
Outside of themselves -
Vagabonds of facts
Nomads escaping demands for proof in black and white.
Great minds get the memo.
Reliving Upside Down
by Odin Roark
The Jungle Gym geodesic glistened,
Afternoon showers dripped,
Languorous droplets fell,
Saturating sand below,
Just like then.
Bench of parents
Reflected memories old,
Stroller wheels struggling,
Obstinate sand as obstacle,
Giggles and screeches
From canopy covered pram,
Bumpy ride for my brother,
His laughter, sheer joy.
Fathers,
Mothers,
Sitters and nannies,
Attentive to children’s every move.
So many eyes saw me
Atop the dome’s iron lattice,
Hanging by my legs,
Seeing the world upside down,
Shouting, “Look at me, Grandpa!”
He didn’t notice this day,
His sudden slumped body,
Dropped the half eaten sandwich
To the ground.
Part of me wanted not to upright my view,
That safety of abstract vision so foreign then,
So understandable now,
So strangely comforting then,
So painful now.
I now straddle atop the bars,
Thinking thirty-three years haven’t made it easier,
Save the bench now replaced
The sand succeeded by concrete,
The tenders and watchers now often of different purpose,
Staring at me not knowing
I’m anything but a nut case.
Some of us just discover
Life’s remembrances
Sometimes prophesy what is to come.
Some, like me, will realize
Their whole adult life is programmed upside down,
Its sophisticated induction lures escapees
Into free-for all playground-workplaces
Where capture so often comes by way of
Pills,
Powder,
Liquid
Needles.
I smile.
Swing down to the ground,
Throw an embrace to Grandpa’s bench,
Look up and shout…
“Reliving upside down moments of love is okay.
Really…
It’s okay.”
I stay late to steal the night air to owl cry, looking on the virgin ideas to rainfalls. August augmented my hope to millennium laughter. Bell rings to escort the escapees from scandals to bloom as blouses, under virgin legs.
I chain ideas together to fix fact from fiction to whistle blow. I dissolved salt to salute the King on his reign of majesty in the Island to the Icelander. Robb not the knot tied in the heart of bride to the bridge.
Diamonds to dinosaurs from brew of coffee to cough mixture to euphoria hope. Ballad gossips to the failure of adjectives to describe my desire to discrepancy velvet. Penultimate to penguin loves with pedophilia and conversion from deceit to delicacy love.
A family gen that cemented us together is thicker than water fractured by crack of gun sinister love. You refuse to references the refugees on the red light alert.
Label the talents to termites’ hearsay, somber to saga poem that powers my element of thinking to the twinkle of bell to strategic maneuvers
Yelling to yellow leaf yonder aspirant astonished to dangling wire to the wild lives. Courthouse cut courtesy captions in the newspapers very special hot tea in the morning. Dictum the dog master sneak virgin Island and excursion bodyguards to curtail the escalation of situation under gunpoint.
Love is so powerful between Andy and Helena after their love grew up to the climax they found themselves in a situation where no one can live without the other this has been going on secretly for so long. But nobody knew it until the fortuneteller prophesied that love indeed existed between Andy and Helena.
These two families have long better feuds between them, as result of suspicion that’s Andy’s family murdered Helena’s brother in the forest for land. Then the confusion has been going on for a while and there was an eminent threats Helena’s family planning to retaliate for the atrocity Andy’s family has committed.
Despite this grudge still these lovers maintained their relationship secretly and tight. One night they were discussing about their love affairs suddenly they caught nearby the forest making love.(You see how love is so powerful even the forest experiences love.) The news thundered all over the town. They were apprehended and brought before the magistrate court and they were found guilty to all count charges.
This was a promise made by the elders that anyone of them hurt the other he or she will be sentence to death by hanging. After both parts found guilty before the law of the land, Andy and Helena were to be hanged on the gallows.
But their death sentences were suspended for a week later, they were so lucky to abscond over the night and went to nearby cave for safe haven, then the news spreads like wildfire on dry grasses.
Then the people of the village to find these two escapees and kill them before their parents, the chief of the village, requested all the young boys and the hunters’ men to get into the forest and bring those culprits before him.
The chief of the village put bounty upon the captures of these they considered as criminals, but I considered them as real and faithful lovers.
The attacked all the routes some people were on the heart of the forest searching for them, on the other sides there was a big river and lots of dangerous animals in it.
Andy and Helena did not know how to swim; however, they found cannon by the river they used it to cross. After all the suffering they went through at the end the eloped and married with four children.
The contents of a sandwich often plot to escape. Particularly lettuces. Their leaves when chopped can climb well out of bread. So it is always wise therefore to use an adhesives such as mayonnaise to practically glue the contents to the bread. Thus ensuring no escapees. The ham slices always go to sleep though but chicken pieces can fly so shut the bread together very quickly. It is not to say if a jam will run with the butter. It depends upon the flavour. Strawberry jam is far more hesitant than a blue berry preserve so please be careful when making such a jam as more than three blueberries per square inch of pan could cause interruptions for the bread and the butter. Ingredients interrupting intentionally ignoring ignitions. And a circular piece of bread is easier for the contents to escape than a little square slice. So be careful when preparing sandwiches. Now it is time to commute. Goodbye. And good luck too. Have a lovely day. And carry the carton not the umbrella in case of the odd shower. Ha x z colonialism at thirty seven loaves to seven pieces of diced cucumber with tomatoes. Z
Form:
The Escapees
The goat by the wayside had sun flecked eyes
rhombus brown pupils… and silky white wool.
But it was not alone, together with a donkey
that had brown eyes which exuded endless
patience, and long lashes; they both were on
the way to town where a circus said it needed
more animals and promised hay, dry straw
to sleep on and fame. But knew, as I heard
an ohm of a plane overhead, that it is difficult
to find your way back home and remembered
my mother watering plants on the window sill
while I was biking up and down the road
showing off. I took the animals back to the farm
the agrarian was glad to see them, the goat was
his pet, the donkey too now that he had a blue
tractor, yet both make the domestic landscape
more picturesque.
There's no easy way to say this so I'll just be blunt.
Every evening at 8:30 I venture outdoors and I hunt.
I don't slaughter my prey. I just capture them you see,
and then I bring all my captives home with me.
I don't consume my prey. I place them all in captivity.
Now for the rest of their lives their lives belong to me.
I release them all into my 100 gallon fish tank
I then seal the top with a screen. No escapees from my tank.
I don't believe my prisoners, whom I see as my children, feel as captives necessarily.
What I have given them is a wonderful thing. An Utopian Society,
Their environment is perfectly humid and ideal for them.
Two heating pads grace the bottom of my fish tank prison.
An inch or two of fresh soil also lines my prison fish tank's bottom.
All they really need is fresh water for nourishment
but they also enjoy nectar, so I provide also fresh sugar water for them.
Now once daily like a plant I water them.
Decorative fossils, plants and rocks are also displayed on the bottom
of the moss covered heated soil of this most aesthetically pleasing terrarium..
They all have shelter and tunnels that they all can explore
but most important of all, they're all safe from predators.
They have plenty of space to socialize.
More importantly, they have much needed open space so that they can all fly.
and every now and then they display their gratefulness to me
with some of the greatest natural light shows I've truly been honored to see.
They are My Children. I am their Deity.
No I don't feel they feel as captives necessarily.
I believe that in their way, they'll be grateful til their dying day for My Firefly Utopian Society,
Will they pro create?
Well, we'll just have to see and wait.
Standing silent,stark and black
Its eyeless sockets staring emptily
Over the London skyline
The fiery tomb of so many
Devastated,distraught and dead
Homes that became Hell
Flames roaring hungrily upwards
To devour figures silhouetted at windows
Their outlines sharply etched
In the minds of helpless onlookers
Their screams to re-echo in their tortured nightmares
While the billowing black smoke choked
Those who heeded the fatal advice
To stay indoors.
Tongues of flame licked greedily at the doors
Seeking whom they would devour
Sirens wailed as did escapees and onlookers
In grief and frustration
Battling against the searing heat
Selflessly entering this torch of a tower
To drag to safety those they could
Putting their own lives on the line
The firemen battled on
Until they could do no more
And now the shell is silent as the tomb
The inferno sated and finally suppressed
Anger now flares up to identify
Those who left the community
Defenceless
Against this avoidable tragedy
It was inevitable that the building's shortcomings
Would claim its quota of victims
To the shame of those who should
Have known better and were forewarned.
It’s sunny now,
It seems so cheery.
But, oh, inside
Is so so dreary.
The bell tower rings,
At quarter past one.
The bell ringers job
Is not done.
It rings for death,
It rings for disease,
It rings for time.
It rings for escapees.
The officials exclaim,
“Nothing’s wrong! Why do you ask?!”
His words are slurred.
He takes a swig from his flask.
Once you’re in,
You get swallowed.
You feel unsafe.
You’re being followed.
Please, please help.
I'm living in hell.
I hear a ring.
It’s from the bell!
My friends are dying,
I can barely speak.
These doctors don't care.
Dominique, Dominique.
Alexander Pearce, you won’t know the name
And you’ll gag when you find out his claim to fame
He was sent to Australia for steeling some shoes
According to Ireland’s 1819 crime news
Ended up in Port Author but got out on bail
Drunk and disorderly so it’s back into jail
Recalcitrant convicts were sent then to an isle
Just west of Tasmania in lieu of a trial
Escape from Tasmanian prison he did
Eight escapees in the wilderness hid
They fought to survive with no water or food
Leaving eight ruthless guys in a murderess mood
So they made a pact, these desperate guys
To use as a meal, the next guy that dies
And wouldn’t you know it, when it got down to two
Alexander Pearce knew just what he had to do
In a battle of wits and an axe in his hand
Alexander Pearce was the last standing man
He ate what he could and appeared healthy, well fed
When he was captured and to Port Author led
Although he confessed and told them the truth
He went right back to prison, they needed some proof
Ninety days later, he escaped once again
With a guy named Cox who he found couldn’t swim
So there by the river Cox met his fate
And Alex, poor guy, had some more on his plate
So when he was caught (this is where you might gag)
They found human flesh in his shoulder pack bag
He said hang me now for I can’t resist
The taste of man’s flesh from ankle to wrist
So they granted his wish and they hung the young lad
The story is true, the story is sad
He was young, he was poor, and he paid his dues
All of this from a poor kid needing shoes
"Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance,
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.
I hope you dance" ~~ Mark Daniel Sanders / Tia M. Sillers ~~
Superseded thought waves not bothering with romance.
Why should I care now completely free, I am going to dance.
My cares are wild nymphs, escapees from worry no longer slaves.
Not bothering with romance, superseded thought waves
I am going to give my willpower a real fighting chance.
Blow my cares to the wind and be free, I am going to dance.
Whenever it’s my time, I’ll survive all this til my final hour.
A real fighting chance, I am going to give my willpower.
I won’t take a single moment for granted my health to enhance.
Carefree as a bird, you guessed it, I am going to dance.
Don’t tell me I am weak, I am strong, my feet well planted.
My health to enhance, I won’t take a single moment for granted.
Wonders happen I won’t believe the worst, In this enormous expanse,
The world revolves around faith, I have my share and I am going to dance,
As they bring in the verdict, I can’t say it will matter, it’ just the first.
In this enormous expanse, wonders happen, I won’t believe the worst.
I am light on my feet, I won’t sit this one out. I am absorbed in a trance,
Nothing can hurt me, I shall overcome, right now I am going to dance,
My word is survive, cant climb a mountain I will climb a hill, there’s no defeat
I won’t sit this one out I am absorbed in a trance, I am light on my feet.
Owl eyes break as dimming light worms about,
Hollow clap surrenders a sparked ribboning,
Escapees breakout from their misty cells,
Wakes of earthen prints puddling,
Harbored ills bade sanctuary,
A glassy millpond beholds the begotten,
Abrupt warming tempts the absence,
Stirred tea sweetly idling,
An archer colorfully tools the realm,
Directives wondering,
Vibrant life answering,
A stranger to loneliness,
...I felt like being alive.
On a grassy verge above the surging rill
she stood fair haired and proud,
three leaf clover substrate at her toes.
Clutching saline bouquets I had plucked
from my neighbours walk-in green house.
Woman of resplendent peerage cast a
pearlescent glance among the swirl-frond
waves that prey on fractured fjords.
At a distance, in her mind.
But not for long before we fled like butterfly
escapees over marshes, mounds and meads.
Shriek from sun-dried swallow as we stumble
awkwardly upon their woodbine nest.
Noonday train fire iron to the fossil
fuel bled caterpillar plain,
rural muzak for a pinpoint tip toe dash
through barren fodder,
spiny thistle scald on insect bitten arch,
splashes are a symbol on our craft
stitch needle knitwear.
Yet I struggled to keep pace on
raw earth sand stone,
crab apple briar tangles by the dozen
hung like plastic refuse obstacle,
but nothing now could halt this headlong
sprint to who knows where.
Date written; 23rd Of December 2020
Date posted to contest ; First Of October 2022
Contest name ; 2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 15
Sponsor ; Mark Toney
A 26 line poem