Best Excesses Poems
Love that curves with curving roads
Emerges on to shining meadows
And looks back for the message it delivers
To the dawn of fragile tomorrow.
Love that sinks to deep valleys
Often remembers the mountain peaks
Uncertain of the crossings today
Reminiscing joy of ethereal yesterday.
A romance of champagne and roses
Aches for the meaning of excesses,
Having been to places of ardent treasure
Love yearns for unassuming pleasure.
A genuine love is never the glitter
That shallow feelings randomly flutter,
A true love eminently captivates
Sincere attraction of natural demeanor.
When a call of authenticity awakens
A musical echo reverberates the sound,
And the rhythm of melodic souls
Surrenders in embrace of tender hearts.
November 1, 2017
Poem of the day on 11/2/2017
Placed 2nd: Strand select W poetry contest by Brian Strand
Gary's Yard Sale, the story
Authored by Chuck Keys
Among the rustbelt cities of yesterday,
Along the edges of the Detroit River,
A short distance to the side,
Resides a slice of Victorian times,
Excesses exceeded needed,
Where age confronts time,
The day before meets the day of,
And greets tomorrow.
Those in the hood
And outside,
Meet and greet among
The scraps of forgotten memories.
Lawns filled with bygones of size,
Tables filled with important somethings,
Maybe everythings,
For important that evolved into history.
Where memories become linked,
Each to a stored thought,
Treasured, pleasured or disdained,
To a person,
Of late or present,
To a future of who knows what.
During the day,
The history-of and the future-of talk,
To each,
Of where they were,
And where they hope to be,
The dust is blown off with the wind,
From the east, west, north and south.
The yard sale, the graveyard of the past,
The arena of the present,
Life and death of the sale,
Dance together, coupled,
Where Mine, becomes Yours' while
Gary the Conductor, orchestrates to perfection,
The operatic enjoyment of history,
Buyer meets seller, exchanges
Are made. As is today.
Bravo! Bravo!
*This poem is dedicated to Gary and Ann Harris of Northville MI USA – May they and
their Yard Sales age forever!
© Charles H Keys, 2010. All Rights Reserved. V1.4.09252010
As our world spins into this blatant madness
Family units like dead leaves, fading fast!
Our children lost, good values tossed
Idols abound, keeps us in a choke!
Excesses, extreme shape our lives
The Golden Rule, now a corny joke!
A simple guide to can heal our earth-disregarded
Yet, in spite of all these,
God will have the final say
When wars and storms sweep across our earth
Leaders ignore the hour at hand
Perhaps, the last to stand as men
To right the wrongs of history past
And re enact laws to seal the cracks!
Potent winds arising, already on track
Remember, love for man and nature will heal this earth
Yes, I believe, in spite of all these,
My God will have the final say
So let the politicians, argue, fight and scheme
Let the liars, deceivers, play their games!”
Let death merchants chant their evil anthem
“It’s not a child, but a piece of flesh”!
While the years like pages torn from a book
All blowing away like dust in the wind
Gone forever beyond eternity's veil!
'Too simplistic', some claim, that love's the remedy
Yet, in spite of all these, I will fear no end, for
My God will have the final say!
~*~
For the precious little unborn souls - in the womb
But not given their chance to suck in the Breath of Life
To find their way through the dusty storms of experience
And to grow and blossom
Into the lovely beings they were meant to be
.....Will there be Justice for them.....
For the families of people murdered - unjust destruction of life
Caused by those whose cruelty and selfishness knows no bounds
Waiting with empty hope for the peace they deserve
To see their loved ones avenged through a system
Set up to help those who caused so much hurt - the searing pain
.....Where is the Justice for them.....
For the children caught up in the insanity of abuse
Their bodies and souls raped; their hearts starved for the love
And the affection that should be theirs - the wait
For the systems that are supposed to rescue them - and yet
They are returned to those who hurt them the most - and then they die
.....Was there Justice for them.....
For the innumerable and wretched poor, needy and oppressed of the Earth
Who are always with us - deliberately kept that way on purpose
By those whose greed has bled the Planet dry
With their hoarding of wealth, riches and unbounded excesses
Cold compassion - forcing the poor to help the poor
Ignoring the request of our Creator - To Share
.....And Justice For All?
Not Yet!
SOMEDAY.....
When flowers die,
they die slowly-
edge by edge
the petals curl,
still, silently,
without complaint....
Unlike us,
cut flowers
should be let go before
the first tinge of death
while they are yet
radiant in deepest color.
We humans, however,
must stay alive long,
long past our first bloom--
till we have crinkled and
brutishly browned from
the excesses of time.
Yet we have
what flowers have not:
our love for them
dies with them
while our love
for our beloved blooms
ever more resplendent
with the long years,
lasting past the fading,
lasting past even death itself....
QUESTIONS OF BALANCE: A JEREMIAD
Why is it at 70 politicians are still underage
To assume political offices
And at 30 youths are overage to begin a professional career?
What divine strength hath a leader at 75
When a mandatory retirement awaits civil servants at 65?
Why should the government empowers the youths with $75 in 2 years
And expects them all to have own businesses
But civil servants who earn over $300 per month in 30 years
Are finding it difficult to own a garden or a store?
How is it our politicians could expend billions
To defect, campaign and give kickbacks
But would wait until the World Bank borrows them some millions
To provide a borewell drinking water?
How can they say the national treasury has collapsed to employment
Yet billions are looted and millions wasted on foreign fantasies?
Why should the achievement of our political endorsement
Be signed to MOUs as though we lack understanding?
Why should our lawmakers make laws that hound the masses
And not against their own chronic excesses and excuses?
Why should the wealthy politician vote a project for the poor
Assigned the execution of the project to himself and loot the funds?
Why do our lawmakers never make laws to free the masses
From poverty and political swindlers?
Why should the agency that fights corruption be corrupt?
Why should gluttons preside over the meager meals of the masses?
Why should the leader not serve today and the servant lead tomorrow?
Why should professional bandits be our bankers?
Why should 5% of public servants consume 60% of the nation’s wealth?
Why should a politician be a party leader, counsellor, chairman, governor, senator… still desperate to lead
And all behind his trails are poverty and anguish?
Why should a politician with obscene wealth hidden somewhere
Tell his people that their poverty and problem is Hausa, Igbo, Christian, Muslim, APC, PDP…?
And why is our nation over-laboured by multiplets of cultural, social
Political, religious questions awaiting caesarean responses?
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind
The answer is blowing in the wind!
Quite by chance
I saw a single, small, white wildflower
amid a crush of grass and weeds
along the roadside, its presence crowded out
by seed heads and space hungry leaves
of species honed for survival.
This wildflower occupied an area
no larger than my little finger
and even then was bumped and bullied
by weedy neighbors. It fed
on the leftover light filtered down
through the tall grass.
I would like to think that in this sometimes
bleak universe there is a caring
and benevolent force that tries to preserve
such fragile beauty from the rampant
excesses of survival and greed, nudges
the odds to favor such a humble flower,
nurtures its seed.
The melancholy way she twists her tresses.
Brilliantly, seductively blond; forever mad.
The pallor of her face, her wail expresses.
Off and on her rocker, the specter confesses,
But excuses the way she murdered the lad.
The melancholy way she twists her tresses —
It’s clearly the mirror, she addresses.
“In the end,” she says, “he was just a cad.”
The pallor of her face, her wail expresses.
Prince Charming wasn’t happy with her excesses.
She is clever - wants the mirror to think she’s sad.
The melancholy way she twists her tresses.
Sixteen, what a bombshell - her curve progresses,
draws lust, in her heyday before her present, bad.
The pallor of her face, her wail expresses.
“No one tells me what to do!” she stresses.
Unlike her Victorian gowns, her anger’s not a fad.
The melancholy way she twists her tresses.
The pallor of her face, her wail expresses.
10/31/2022
THIRD-PERSON VILLANELLE
L. Milton Hankins
No dispute, we should all love our neighbours
With a kindness of nature that’s right
And we ought to be generous, favour
Our excesses, to those in dire plight
But then ‘ought’ becomes ‘must! or we’ll take it’
With imprimatur, hand outs for free
Delegating as agents our rulers
To make sure the fruit falls from our tree
And the words of the woke decreed righteous
Are: ‘What good boys and girls are we!’
Yes I’ll go with you - black lives matter!
And the yellow and brown even white
And that all should be equally treated
Should have always been so in hindsight
But what’s past is gone, no going back to
make amends to dead who suffered then
Though those wishing to signal their virtue
proclaim race guilt with voice and with pen
And the hearts of the woke decreed righteous
Self congratulate then and again
I’ve a naive and innocent feeling
That the most of us have good intent
And would care for our friends and yet strangers
If misfortune and pain cause lament
So I trust that with this fellow feeling
In a civilised culture that’s free
Help will be given self determined
With no need for dictate or decree
Then the souls of the woke decreed righteous
may find deeper content with this key
The rose, Nature’s fragrant
Enchanter – inspiration of poets
Our preference for themes of romantic
Banter
Embracing her velvety flutes and
And silky arm swirls
Genuflecting servingly at her sacred
Scented altar
Is there more to be said of such
Endearing essence that has not
Already been amorously written
And gushingly read?
-------------------------------------
Perhaps highlight further
Her blood-like red -- rebleed years
Of greenless stems and deeply
Penetrating barbed thorns?
Or simply allow her to be
A manifest less complex rarity
Never linking her heavily to our own
Vein letting excesses and soul shredding
dooms
Affirm royally the Rose’s purpose, above all else
Simply to reside as another of Mother's perfect garden
Blooms --
REMEMBERING
Age sedates the imperfections of youth
excuses passions and
accommodates inexperience
Yet we heap glory on the culture
of their newly discovered experiments.
Often we tremble to see them go astray
biting away at civilized norms.
But when they reflect our dreams
of hedonistic excesses we smile
and wonder how to recapture the fire
that now simmers; a burnt out ember
of a flaming heart.
C.A.K. 10-1-2012
Limelight can burn;it never heals,
no matter fame how good it feels -
succombing to excesses, worse,
resisting not temptation's curse.
Every day is special, in some way.
Sometimes troubles come our way.
Remember this, problems are fleeting,
you never know what tomorrow brings.
You may have successes, enjoy some excesses,
But, life is not about what one possesses.
Strong winds may come, blow away everything,
You just never know what tomorrow brings.
Our life is like, the cold winter snow,
the sun burns hot, and away it goes.
One day to another, no one knows when it ends,
so enjoy while you can, family and friends.
Happiness comes to those who pray,
talk to your maker, anytime, everyday.
Entrust to him your worries, your everything,
For you just don't know what tomorrow brings.
John Derek Hamilton Feb 24,2013
And anger
Is a friend
That the oppressed
Must seize;
A purgative drug
To cleanse and preserve
The knowledge
And indignation
With which they affront
Agglutinated
The excesses of apartheid!
Come! Behold the scars
That those who angered
Seized- arms outstretched
Their spears flaming!
And you who dither
De-ice your souls
With flames of anger;
And un-reason
Will succumb
To reason!
Hail vanguard
Of our freedom! Hail!
(Poem written for that dark era, happily, now past!)
Staking Claims: For Yucatec Maya & Native Peoples
The stones of the desert cry with me
They are brothers and sisters, but no bloody kin
New hearts see just cold rocks … no warmth or charity …
Might you see how we worship gods in them?
The gods themselves are dead, buried in hopeless holes
They died when we could not stop the excesses of each Columbus
Who brought a brutal hunger for gold and souls
Then bone and marrow fell within Columbus’ compass
The trees and tree stumps of the Yucatan
Hold deep scars and memories in their bosoms
The limestone cries quietly for the sons of Chillam Balam
Their tears yielding tomorrow’s blossoms
For even grasses, herbs, insects … know
That they too will be sucked, one after another
Away from the withering, wrinkled body of our Mother
Through a gaping hole in the atmosphere
All earth cries with the sun and stone worshippers
The blackened peasant clasps his callused hands
With those last calories from a breakfast of peppers
Unaware that his gods died hopelessly condemned
The desert explodes into those oases
Where infatuated faith still yields cool, delicious flesh
And forgiving flowers among the spikes in the cactus:
The desert and stones are gentler than Columbus
©Dr. A. S. Deo, 500 Years after Columbus, circa 1996.
BACKGROUND NOTE OF HORRORS:
(Written in the 1990s. Blood and tears are part of the story, not only for Native Peoples like the Maya of the Yucatan, but for my wife and daughters, too. A Sri Lankan professor allied with my Promoter/Chairman of my doctoral committee, objected to my politics outside of the classroom. They used the clout of the legal department at my campus, The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, to shut me up and deny my degree. They failed, thanks to my “cold stone gods” and Jesus. I defended my thesis, successfully, on 1 May 1995 and was back working in my native South Africa in June 1995! Soon I was hired by the Department of Foreign Affairs in Pretoria, when Nelson Mandela was President. He retired in 1998. Sadly, little changed in the then DFA at the Union Buildings, and poor of South Africa … and across the globe, continue to get false hope & promises from Liberals, Conservatives, Blacks & Whites. Jesus alone will speak truth to you, about EVERYTHING. Check a Bible near you, start with John's Book)