Best Expounding Poems
Callused fingers press vibrating strings,
drawing passion from a violin.
And with burnished wood snug to his cheek,
amplifies what he feels in his heart.
Subtle notes saturate my being
as crying strings elicit feelings.
And expounding on love and desire,
music stirs the imagination.
His bow hangs, like a lingering kiss
savoring the taste of ecstasy.
And with a tear trickling down his cheek,
he unleashes unbridled fervor.
Combining hope with pangs of rapture
sound slips the bounds of reality.
And each vibe resonates in my heart,
reigniting passion's dormant flame.
As callused fingers tug my heartstrings
I've never before felt so alive.
And in this state of exaltation,
I feel my pulse race, and my heart pound.
Ashen was the sky
That rejected hand of sunrise
Sullen was the heart
That stumbled in affection,
Incapable of lauding
Ruby blush of budding rose
And pink passions on horizon
Defying darkened woes.
In midst of a vibrant spring
Her garden blooms curled up
Amid hostile dry weather,
Teared-up, she sat alone
In pathos of indignation
Refusing to surrender
To demands of mendacity.
Crepuscular obscurity
Betrayed her evening
Fashioning night’s reverie
In trickery of nightmares,
As rancor of disillusionment
In ambivalent outrage
Recognized your stygian echoes.
Dead are her feelings now
Stilled in darkened cemetery
In graveyard of misdeeds,
Where spent emotions
Lamenting shattered love
Inscribe finality on tombstone
In epitaph of silent screams
Expounding your infidelity.
Oh, harbingers of cold hands,
Architects of pale shelter,
Glittering shiny metals
Disguising as genuine jewels,
Fear the cry of her angst
Howling soul forsaken
For she holds you in contempt
Of ancient Agape love
And monument to beloved--
The wondrous Taj Mahal.
November 15, 2019
Placed 1st: Pale shelter contest; Sponsor: John Hamilton
Placed 2nd: Strand special 11 by Brian Strand
When two choose each the other
Having decided this, their fate
A bond, a pledge, a vow replaces
That which, unchosen, cannot wait
Even when it requires a warrior resolute,
Vitality deathless, and sacrifice continuous,
Eternal must the pledge be, or
Risk betrayal's scourge sinuous.
It is at the pit, against the fiery horde
That Absalom dulls the finest sword
This is what it takes to stand at my side
Antagony to injustice is my cause
Knell my soul to abandon, divide
Eidetically my failure would resound, preside
Sorcerous dreams expounding my flaws.
Indebted to peace, yet still facing war
Soliloquy sweet, punished yet more.
When the lashes pernicious slander my spirit
Have you the stamina to fight weaponless, naked?
Ardently ask the goddess Irit
That throughout the nightmare, you survive unwakéd?
Impassioned, immortal, immoderate, rhetorical
Would you, could you, if so, should you?
Illusion or real, my fight is defense
Leave destruction behind
Lose selfish pretense
Give willingly blood to the unjust blow
Impatiently wait the night for the dawn
Vicious dark creatures attack love's glow
Effervescent, they dissolve at the light, and pass on.
Because violence feeds violence, and hate cannot withstand love's rapture.
Be careful 'bout the things you say.
Make certain how they sound;
For other people may not know,
And spread their thoughts around;
Expounding on your choice of words,
And how they saw your manner.
It's best to weigh your words, my friend,
Than pay the price of candor;
For oft when people hear some things,
They take them out of context,
And on repeating what they've heard,
They give it different syntax.
They'll weave a story from your words,
That you won't recognize,
And then just try and find someone,
To stand and sympathize;
A single friend who knows you well,
And won't believe such stories,
Is hard to find when times are hard,
And gossips compound worries;
So watch your words for they have power,
Or you'll end up in mourning,
To whom and where and what you said.
Remember well this warning.
"A FOOL GETS INTO CONSTANT FIGHTS. HIS MOUTH IS HIS UNDOING. HIS WORDS ENDANGER HIM."
Proverbs 18:6-7
(Living Bible)
I would be the pen* in the sovereign Author’s hand
Communicating what He has perfectly planned
Along righteous command of virtuous demand
Toward gracious life that is bountifully grand.
Honoured am I to be gripped with supreme prudence
Exposing heavenly wisdom’s iridescence
Expounding truth of verities’ precious essence
Against the attacks of skeptical impudence.
With prevailing love, mercy and peace as my ink
I can inspire hearts to care as minds of kindness think
Moving commitment beyond dedication brink
Propelling compassion for selfishness to shrink.
As the pen bearing the great Creator’s trademark
I yield to His fingers for miraculous spark
So poems can shine midst nooks in souls hopelessly dark
Drawing them nigh to the Lord and to His voice*, hark.
*Psalm 45:1 My heart is inditing a good matter: I speak of the things which I have made touching the king: my tongue is the pen of a ready writer.
June 15, 2020
7th place, "Non Human" Poetry Writing Premier Contest
Sponsored by Chantelle Anne Cooke; judged on 6/16/2020.
glory expounding
with gavel
sent to hell with love
MagiCicada13
*** Yes…Obscessed with Poetry! ***
As the moon was releasing finale beams
And the sun was dressing
For her later, post-solstice, winter rise…
I had not yet slept, kept
Awake by epiphanies of poetics —
My tireless pen scribbling
Down
the rushing lyrics to their
Rising
score.
Then, as the clouds refused to part
To reveal our sun’s well-warming
light at her mid-day height,
I was excitedly expounding
About the knowlege my night
with poetry had brought, revealing,
So i thought, some meaning
about the human psyche,
More than just matters of words.
But, beyond the import
Of Poetry growing a range of spring
Violets across my nigh clear pages,
An afternoon’s gust replete
With January hail,
Fell over me after
I exclaimed, “Amazing?”
and to hear in response:
“Look, you’re obscessed with poetry.
I’m not. And I was
just wondering how long
before quiet would —“
Eliminate the wondering…
As (justdays before Christmas), on
A cold afternoon, a storm passed through
The city with little warning.
Flashed lightning twice over
The sky, and sounding but once,
Thunder struck us dumb.
Quiet?
I hear inner gusts
Smack my tears against the windows’ panes.
My amusement is drowned within the room.
Quiet?
While I could scream — Yes!
Yes! I am obscessed
With poetry
With God
With my beloved, and our pups
With drawing, dance and music, too…
But, foremost, I am obscessed —
To say and stay so,
With living
With surviving
in blessed Hope —
on past the trials of ailments
and the hard gales of age —
While
Thankful to poetry — perhaps
anong the least of most of these,
For its patiently waiting ways —
Within the All and everyone one of us —
So we hold images in our dreams of seeing
Violet buds spring their heads
Above a layer of January snow,
And we might hear the poems’ rise
In its brilliance
From each opening purple petal.
—————————————————————————————————————-
(c) sally you g eslinger 1/ /2023
Thanks be to God…
Close to election time, we have the chance
to hear the candidates for office speak,
or “stump,” in nearby towns, to give their stance
on issues and improvements that they seek,
to promise they will strengthen all that’s weak.
The term “stump speech” dates back two hundred years,
when it was not used figuratively;
and those of the American Frontier
who ran for office stood, for all to see,
on tree stumps while they campaigned movingly.
All-day affairs complete with food and beer,
these rural fetes were rollicking and loud.
The speakers then (as now) tried hard to steer
the votes their way and captivate the crowd.
By hecklers’ jeers, the brave ones were not cowed.
With jokes and boasts, some livened every speech.
Sharp jabs at rivals filled the country air.
As time progressed, some speakers chose to reach
the crowd, not from a tree stump—but a chair
or barrel. Such scenarios weren’t rare.
Historical accounts of stumping state
the names of stand-out speakers in that day.
Three skilled men who excelled in a debate—
Abe Lincoln, Stephen Douglas, Henry Clay—
were stumpers whose wise words held unique sway.
Today some folks flock to the county fair,
not just for entertainment but to see
the candidates debating with great flair,
expounding on the facts; but they won’t be
atop tree stumps to shout, “Please vote for me!”
February 1, 2022
entered in Emile Pinet's Quintain (English) Contest
Two Thousand Sixteen's Coming
By Franklin Price
4/21/2015
Two thousand sixteen's coming
It's not that far away
Politicians from the woodwork
Are coming out to play
Posing and expounding
Until their breaths are spent
On the negatives of others
As they run for president
It's not the things for which they stand
Or the good things that they did
It's the bad things of their opponent
As a stupid teenage kid
There's no recollection out of bounds
How far fetched to mind it seems
It may not have even happened
May have come to them in dreams
While you're deciding how to vote
Listen closely clear your mind
Search for one who speaks of self
Maybe one of them you'll find
If you do and they make sense
Plans for the populous
Get behind push them along
Climb on the campaign bus
This searching is the hardest job
For which anyone applies
For politicians fool us
Put blinders on our eyes
Blinders are for horses
Not for presidential races
Look closely at the candidates
And for their second faces
Public Speaking
Public speaking made me nervous when I was in school
Getting up in front of class, I always lost my cool
I memorized my speeches and really knew them well
But between my brain and lips, things just didn’t jell
Here are a few examples with embarrassing details
“Saving whales,” I meant to say instead of “waving sails”
And when one wants to talk about “battle ships and cruisers”
His audience will likely laugh at “cattle ships and bruisers”
It shouldn’t be as hard as jumping a high hurdle
To say “hypodermic needle” not “hypodemic nurdle”
And certainly one understands that a “well-oiled bicycle”
Will last a whole lot longer than a “well-boiled icicle”
During school it seemed likely I’d been “wasting two terms”
Still, a whole lot better that “tasting two worms”
So compared to public speaking, writing is the “fun part”
More dignified that expounding on the latest “pun fart”
Murderer
Of a child's innocence.
Too late to forgive
Her hate-filled drunkeness when
Expounding on this word.
Rather forget than pretend she cared.
Maybe in some
Other lifetime we
Two will work through our
History to find the
Elation this word brings when
Remembered by others.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ for a Rambling Poet's contest, May 2010 ~~~~~~~~~~
Keeping flippant thoughts in check
Convolutions make a schizophrenic toss
blind paranoia into the catatonic tomb
yelling whispers caught in mind cacophony
Rest the head in a drugged-out succor!
Deafen the sententious words – dead -
Nuke the firing adversary neuron!
No aesthetic can anesthetize the thinking demon
expounding beyond the bliss of ignorance
Stewards imagined become abominable ghouls!
Tangles exorbitant unravel contemplation’s nest…
(3/9/2021)
Persuasion's possessive verses
'midst absolute poetic madness
surrendered in rhapsodic poesy,
poets are a tidy sum of quirky &
care zilch of external perceptions,
content to breathe 'round seduction
and unicorns' phantasmagoria
insomuch nonsense amid candor,
directionless winds 'neath allegory
'pon posies and dragon's intimation
twisting mundane to vibrant intrigue,
translations representing prism's
kaleidoscopic colorful impressions
and themes of whimsies' schematics,
transparency & transcendence yielded
'neath abstraction's elaborations,
refining & expounding unspoken lyrical
compositions of a fancied expose
commencing communed communication,
redundancies' excesses never take recess
panoramic hues of conceptualizations' foibles
reverberating gusto of paradoxical aberrations,
chromatic visuals swaying eye's sensory perspective
distorting brain synapses proliferating alterations,
dancing 'tween fiery moonbows & dandelion whims
'pon emotions flabbergasted mid-starry night folly,
prancing within rain's whetted infidelity of sunrises
hanging amongst cosmoses' effulgent constellations,
feet never planted firmly in earthy burnt umber
viewing worldly horizons differently upside zest's zing
of inky relished sublimation and shifting symmetry - -
and we make naught apologies for imperfect paragons
I Asked Myself A Rhetorical Question...
Asper daily expounding fostering
inchoate manifesting mod
er writ writing quality,
solitary scrimmage tackling
undertaking, yielding whir
ring, sputtering, kickstarting, and
buzz-feeding at competitive, communal
crowed did metaphorical trough,
where household named author's
top New York Times best seller
tier, overshadowing under
rated genre bending, breakout aspiring,
story board qualifying,
opportunistic newbie man
use script artful dodgers
mere dust collecting drafts,
anticipating to stir infectious interest
incumbent - at mercy,
tripwire activating quint
essential key, which anchors print
ting projected uncertain
popularity first edition,
awakening, guiding, nosing
asymptote analogy steering
reader toward nascent
scribe, where paper
back writer wannabe,
toils away incorporating subtle
(hook, line and sinker) techniques,
(albeit apropos literary
ploys, a true test tum ment,
viz sophisticated gambits
to massage late tint
prestidigitation abra ca dab rah,
sine non qua cogent
see kant, and tangent triggers
modest mien fortified, exemplified,
and downplayed akin
to unassuming Clark Kent
in his cape ably nonchalant
transformation into superman,
and/or more pointedly,
some original heft leant
to set apart striking
poignant implement
exhibited by aspiring
writer daily revising,
albeit gal or gent
his/her uniquely obscure
trademark, but
eventually keen agent
assays non-boastful writing style
im prim mature print,
sans unassuming swiftly tailored
harried style seduces seek
curing sincere overnight reverent,
well deserved kudos
comically marveling
at thee most im portent
salient strengths, per
hops hue moored opulent
quality instigates
affinity toward nascent,
bar riddle be, bill leading,
bud ding scrivener,
not necessary alluding
to a hypothetical outlier
thus, any similarity between the
above statement and
a living person perchance named
Matthew Scott Harris
purely coincidental.
pioneer esprit de corps front tier brisk.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Open arms and clenched raised fists raise
masquerade diametrically opposed to rodomontade sways
spewing threatening sacred constitution
expounding vaunted values déclassé 1968 degreed phase
Wharton alumni now on warpath to raze
via his bull dozing wreaks havoc on coven daze
ruining complex edifice
usurped storied super power craze
thru humiliation, liquidation of dredging bays
* * * * * * * * * * * *
and justification (viewed thru his warped vision)
scotching inalienable rights reducing to rubble bedrock division
with remainder of flinty stones,
and unlovely bones a wasteland fission
absent without a trace any evidence of Halcyon days,
which abomination, decimation, and gangrenous lesion
joie de vivre, when martial law decree deep incision
heil come rolled up (frightfully with egregious decision.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
the venomous, tenebrous, and rancorous white house
Head honcho viz prez) inside checkered hookahs lighting
one end per slow burn as hoary smoke emanates
in shape of Taj Mahal, then harmless as Mickey mouse
he iz well singed, seared, and scalded like a cook grouse
(yet of course still alive) sent to further douse
him into initiation righting tis basic human coup laid louse.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Acid test whereby he will be sold to Vladimir Putin for bunk
her hilled feather bedding rubles on the dollar, where clunk
key interim held up by cadre of well comb pence dunk
key Kong sated marionettes, which will carry fleshy lunk
dirty deeds done dirt cheap of this unmentionable monk
key villainous uber trumpeter, scabrous, recalcitrant querulous punk!
* * * * * * * * * * * *
keep your finger and toes crossed for the next four years
aware that such laughable ruse and superstitious scares
not one impish bot of fate, but more so gives false cheers.