Best Exploratory Poems
A dream
To hear the whippoorwills' sad urgent call
I was very glad when I was a lad
But now twilight nearing new season's fall
My Essence of truth my consciousness calls
My tears being not of my former years
For sake of humans I now turn my cares
As compassion of true identity
From sacred place calls from infinity
Within unlimited aspects' of me
A great white throne in the distance I see
Around sacred bend a familiar friend
Silhouette of me as my God I see
No more desirous of earth's vain glory
The mind's wilderness of exploratory
History recedes illusions of me
My ego thoughts I just had to be
Totality of Love I see as me
Enter into God's synchronicity
I now see my God as I now see me
As sacredness of the reality
As Sacredness calls a new season's fall
Recesses the former whippoorwills' call
As new life calls I now realize it all
New life is in the Sacred Season's Fall
Mystified as I liquefied I cry
As in spirit of love quite high I fly
Above consequences life's densities
As spiritual tears replace human fears
1-12-10
Upon rising, awakened by
ripening scent teasing my nose,
trilling my lips and tongue, – my taste buds opening
to bird-like songs as dawn's light breathes new life
and hope into my journey, so begins
a fresh flutter of time, an extending
run of exclamatory chirps and wing-full
stretching –
Muse beckons, yielding to artist'
pen and eye – we are co-authors, exchanging
thoughtful leafs and sun-dipped pages; mingling natures,
swapping poetic voice, reversing positions of artist vs model –
conjuring word-images and interactive, painted-canvases – confounding our seasons of
blossoming and harvest, embracing God's budding voice and fruitful manifestations,
His nectar-ed, figurative language, blending human with Divine senses....
displaying contrasts that stimulate exploratory forming
and transitory shading – clearing and clouding
affects both inside and on my outside, as the clutter of
yesterday, and promise of a spring-like showers soak
crusty sediments with saturating, fertile possibilities;
all taking bows – the theater that of spiritual mastery –
Mystery is
my source, my echo, my chambered growth.
My resources, exploitable enclaves of poetic walls, primed,
awaiting both solid and abstract vibrations, energizing
experimental blurbs, those planned and random into searchable
articulations, grasping, too often vainly, for fantastical alliteration
of sterile, common-place views –
I am deepened and ready to let air
we are each our best audience
my left-hand meeting your right
for a brisk clap of inspiration followed
by riotous applause....
Au Natural, our first birthday suits
soon obscured by zip-up rompers and baby boots
Baby’s not embarrassed by her appearance
insecure parents run interference
Next up, movement-control
baby must not dance to rock-‘n-roll
‘Grown-ups’ crush baby’s curiosity
‘No-ing’ all instincts exploratory...
Forever unchain inquisitive wonts
~ Viva la au natural renaissance
Entry in 'Our Natural State' contest
Sponsor: Unseeking Seeker
Date: Jan. 14, 2025
Gershon Wolf
I get it! Love one another,
trying our best to get along...
but, when it comes to pertinent
issues, how does one compromise
with wrong? Well, no one
knows the truth, each having
his or her own – hmm...so, burn
your bibles, ignore your
parents, no seeming facts
should be incorruptibly sewn to
the fabrics of developing, hungry
minds – instead, imprint them with
social media of all brainless, circum-me
kinds –
and a cell phone
to replace prayer and God,
who most likely, thought he had
seen it all, having survived the
thoroughly self exploratory era of Mod.
Writing beautifully is a unique art,
It requires a powerful imagination.
You can write with tender delicacy or,
You can write with an exclamation.
You can be descriptive, exploratory, and persuasive,
Or a narrative fictional poet.
And you can write your ideas using elegant words,
Then, on Poetry Soup, you can publicly show it.
Poets on here have a relaxed mind, keen observation,
And a whimsical way with the dictionary.
They make us care how magnificent life is,
Using words like a child’s confectionary.
And having people comment with “That’s beautiful”,
“Excellent”, “I love how your words are so clear”.
These comments are always uplifting and inspiring,
This society is so pure and sincere.
So a big shout out to the poets and friends,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts in verse and rhyme.
Thank you for sharing part of who you are,
With the poetry world for the rest of all time.
Are there medical treatments to cure this disease? Will clinical trials shine a light on
this sickness? Will exploratory surgery find the source of where it all began? Will
radical and controversial experiments result in new ways to manage this progressing virus?
Will it just be assessed by a well accredited doctor just so he can write a script and
say, “Thou shalt be healed!”? Therapy of all sorts worked only for some time. Various
coping mechanisms helped but they progressed and only made the darkness more dark. It’s
coursed through veins for years until now it’s coagulating, choking the very life. Who or
what held that needle to the naive vein? It wasn’t a fast injection….no it was slow and
torturous…feeding a little bit at a time, poisoning body, mind and heart. Some of the most
trivial, mundane things feed it…give it the consuming power. Like an ink drop from the
well on paper…it spreads and grows. With each added drop, the spot grows bigger, darker,
wet, and more vulnerable. Where is the cure? Is it in a pill, a treatment, a study,
therapy, in the opinion of a doctor in the top of his field? Have you ever been so
desperate for a cure to something that seems impossibly incurable? So desperate that you
would give anything to be free…or does it even exist?
Return to Forever,
a seminal eclectic jazz band of the seventies
My teenage years,
my rebellious years
I loved that band,
for more than their unique brand
of cosmic musical forays
No, listening to them separated me from my teenage peer pack:
they liked listening to formulaic cookie-cutter pop,
I preferred zoning out on cutting-edge fusion jazz
Fusion was a cool sound,
rock melding with jazz
Rock would pump you up
Jazz would mellow you down
I thank Return to Forever
for slowing a raging hormonal teenager down
Allowing me to become more cerebral,
raising my consciousness higher and higher off the ground
Their music made me feel like I was a regal space prince,
who possessed his own cosmic minstrels
Royalty has its privileges ...
standing apart,
being special is a gift
It's soul pioneer art
Return to Forever instilled in me the mind of a muse;
creative genius unfiltered, exploratory ventures untethered
Freedom to expand the mind was treasures found of a spiritual kind
Return to Forever,
even their name had a mystical appeal
Return to Forever,
their music prepared my heart
for the lonely days every man apart
must one day live
This sonnet was inspired while celebrating my daughter’s birthday. Everyone was eating
cake except me. I hardly ever eat sweets. “A moment on the lips, forever on the hips”.
Anyway, while they were enjoying the moment, I began to muse. Later that evening I
composed this:
My daughter is older by a year today.
She is thirty-seven. I wonder where
The time has gone It seems to melt away.
It’s like an imperceptible glacier
Receding slowly, leaving once unseen
Destruction bare, exposed to view, behind.
I see what time has etched on me between
A youth of yesteryear and current time.
The mirror reflects wrinkled lines and spots.
And not to mention, but I will! The gray.
And like the ice, receding hair, a lot
Is lost. My exploratory survey?
It can be said, expressed this way: Ahem!
I once had youth and now it’s gone, Amen.
It seems to be an ongoing epoch,
With the trials of humanity.
Where peaceful days are short-lived,
While chaos expands for clarity.
There are so many divisions to separate,
One can only wonder what's left to unite.
Since the multitude of minds and bodies,
Rarely agree on what's wrong or right.
As I search my memory and history, my question
Asks if we've ever known a lasting peace.
Because it seems, whether for God or country,
A conflict arises, and they never cease!
As mankind spread beyond the horizon,
Like global nomads riding the four winds.
Its diverse seeds were planted to cultivate,
Where new beliefs and culture wouldn't rescind.
Our nature is curious and exploratory,
Occasionally crossing boundaries and new land.
And ultimately, we would cross paths with others,
So different that we couldn't understand.
Here different cultures might interact briefly,
Yet history has shown that before long, there's a fight.
Since a lack of understanding and tolerance,
Promoted fear that would last through the night
Early on, variances of culture and religion,
Might have fueled the excuses that saw fit...
To bare arms against a neighbor or new enemy,
And then absorb those new lands to now sit.
Now in recent times our history is simplified,
As political motives and resources become real.
Where the strength or weakness of combatants,
May be measured more by volumes of steel.
While the God's may be motivating some players,
Humanity can only wonder if peace can lead.
Because the question of how much will satisfy,
Those with power and what appears to be greed.
Can the global community survive,
Through this economy of hatred and war?
Or will we police ourselves to sustain and realize,
Learning a lasting peace, like never before.
who the hell let that pimp in?
My boss grabed me, then
Immediatly, I became the next candidate for exploratory surgery;
Sodomized with a paring knife to remove the alleged ******** from my ass;
I immediatly volunteered for pimp removal surgery,
Flooding! On a gurney headed for the emergency room;
As the doctor studied my hemoraging rectum,
My ******* became blackmail for that pimp;
Not a hole,not an opening,
Just pulsating, hemoraging flesh!
The flys just congragate while the blood coagulates !
WISE ASS
You know this person!
In middle school his perfect sarcasm
seems funny and bold and wise to our ears,
makes adults and institutions seem hopelessly
inept, disingenuous, insecure
By high school, however, his wise ass
negativity wins lots of first dates but
never real girlfriends, even the bad girls
back off, and the jocks and jazz drummers
have better things to do than hear a bitter
monologue about the social studies teacher,
the new librarian’s hair-do, the gym
teacher’s twitching left eye
In college or the service
he gets to see the nation, gets to
travel overseas and build a bulging catalog
of every quirk and fault in every community
and culture – the languages and the hair,
the religions and the traditions are simply stupid
or depraved, insipid or immoral, patently unworthy
of the exploratory tendencies of the intellect
or the heart
Newly in the workforce
he is the unanimous selection for union representative
but elected only once because he actually loves fighting,
not negotiating, for the salaries and the benefits
that his colleagues surely deserve
The neighbors are sure
that his wife is a saint, that the children are scarred,
everyone hoping that she moves to New Zealand
and the kids change their surnames, melt into the
fabric of Chattanooga or Dubuque, perhaps Orono
or Las Cruces leaving him alone to nail everyone he
encounters with his porch signs and t-shirts, his
infallible ability to see through good intentions
to the deceitful, the liberal and the miserable
among us who make everything so wrong!
In the senior housing complex
he has friends for three months
then takes his meals alone in the company
of others, his only real exercise the occasional
walking back of an asinine comment or a bitter
observation, and when moved to assisted living,
his behavior is so bad that staff wishes out-loud
for his early demise, a desirable situation
which in spite of their strong commitment to the
God of all good things, they successfully engineer
for the good of all concerned!
WHEN WORDS FLOW LIKE RIVER
He had a master’s degree in English literature
Words flowed from his mouth like flooding river
Made him an accomplished smooth speaker
An acumen he acquired for people to endear.
The first encounter with him was exploratory
He had warmly asked in spare time what did I do
My interest I said was in writing modern poetry
From glint of my eyes I was a poet he said he knew.
Couple of poems I had to recite reluctantly for him
To respond to his request I thought he made sincerely
He was expressive praising their theme and rhyme
Said I’d soon become a poet of fame in the country.
My limits in the literary scene I was well aware
Whenever we met he would call me the poet of fame
In his usual manner of expression in linguistic flair
To me an obsessed habitual teaser he became.
As a student of literature the depth of love of poetry
In my vocal fake admirer I wanted to find out
I offered to give him a few books of poem free
He disappeared, he'd swallow my fame I'd no doubt.
Praise is an eulogy that’s always nice to hear
You need to know who’s an eloquent banter.
February 3, 2018.
Midnight to dawn, our instruments work;
Exploratory surgery on heart and mind;
Sharpened words slicing skin and nerve;
Poking, prodding, invading, always bleeding.
Tissue splits, guts spill, the heart hemorrhages;
The most vulnerable specialists, we are terminal;
In dark corners, we write our eulogies in rhymes,
Red neon on silver canvas, ancient marquee signs.
We welcome strangers and friends into our dens,
An impetuous invitation to a desperate bloodletting,
Or for the most morose poet, a public disembowelment;
Our pretty pen dancing, piercing a hemorrhaging heart.
I recall, as a kid, I liked to check out scary abandoned houses,
and I would let my imagination run wild in my adventures.
Empty, dilapidated, broken-down houses attracted me.
I'd often take exploratory excursions on my own,
hoping to experience the ghostly apparitions
frequently associated with haunted houses.
I felt inexplicably drawn to such places.
Enigmatic creaking often startled me
and yet, I'd investigate every creak,
forcing myself to keep on going.
Old scary ruins frightened me,
but that is what I wanted.
Fright cultivated my
sense of mystery.
Spooky places
still tend to
give me
chills.
Resting my weary head upon your chest
Soothing lullaby your heart beat strums I like best
Tracing body outline with wandering gentle fingertips
Placing sweet kisses with luxurious lips
Safe Haven wrapped inside your arms
Dreams become reality nightmares can do no harm
Anticipating sweet tastes that roll-off exploratory tongue
Hitting high notes in tune together synchronized perfect duet to be sung
Slowly spreading my wings pulling me from my cocoon
Exotic flowers interwined blossoming together beneath the light of the moon
Silhouettes dancing upon the walls
My guardian angel to earth you did fall
Breath upon neck short blissful gasp
Grip gets tighter as our hands are interlocked in full grasp
Sweet forehead and eskimo kisses upon my nose
Embraced in sweetest of unions together as one electric feelings curling up my toes
My calm in the storm you bring to me sweet serene peace
Your smile makes it all worthwhile with unconditional love that doesn't cease
Sweet ray of sunshine like a river my love for you always will flow
My forever Valentine it'll remain with you always, even apart it still does grow