Best Facade Poems
They protest to not be a drama queen
but just can't wait to jump into the scene
Pretending to be a friend
Verbal daggers they extend
Their true colors are now vibrantly seen
She wears
a dark façade -
a charcoal grey
once hot like burning coals.
Consumed by too much passion
she was scorched.
Too long
she has smoldered.
Her dark façade
is cold now. . . and brittle.
She fears that if you touch her
she’ll crumble.
Written 10/30/12 By Andrea Dietrich
For Nette Onclaud's VIEWS FROM A VIGNETTE Poetry Contest
She gazed into their eyes. The people she has loved all her life, blinded by a facade of people that surround everyone.
The girl she danced with to their favorite songs and held as she went through pain. The friends which whom she gossiped with from shitty teachers to teenage boys. The friends she had shown her true face to, beyond her mask.
Behind which remained a fragile girl whose heart ached so painfully she had once wished to end it. Yet once they knew she stilled remained alone. No, are you ok? No warm comforting hugs. No words of comfort given to her.
The things she had given these people when they needed it. When she fell apart they didn't seem to care. Too busy in their own worlds. So she kept talking about boys, they distracted her from herself. She kept singing along to the songs and her nails changed colors. But she was new, quiet, yet no one gave her a second glance.
And she awaited the day she could escape their oblivion. Their jabs she saved in memory. The invisible stabs that lay deep within. The bruises upon her lungs and the scabs upon her mind. The things that people gave to her and she kept. While she gave them the warmth they deserved and she was returned with icy winters and heartless smiles. The flawless facades of people everywhere.
Then she disappears. Without a trace. The people miss her for a while, they lost their warmth. Yet they move on, new facades of people to meet. New masks to try on, and new costumes to wear.
Awhile she bought bandages, stitches, and casts. Fixed herself right up to whom she was truly meant to be. The facade long gone along with bruises, scans, and stabs. Left behind was the naked personality of a girl once broken become anew.
When she return she visited all of them. She blew tornadoes upon them, and cried hurricanes. She stomped earthquakes, and shouted words so icy she caused blizzards. When the people tried to recover they asked her why she had become this way.
She merely said,
"If it weren't for me, you would become I."
Im not one
to die for
but to die
10,000 times
You don’t know me
I don’t know myself
Maybe one day we will
Will know
Theres nothing to know
Theres more to me
than myself
Theres more to you
than you
Behind this façade
We are
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
MORNING:
daylight catches dust motes
dancing above the kitchen sink.
you watch them spiral,
brief constellations
in the steam from your coffee cup.
THE COMMUTE:
a river of brake lights,
faces behind glass
polished smooth as stones
by the current.
AT THE OFFICE:
polite laughter cracks
like thin ice over deep water.
you answer emails
with exclamation points
sharp enough to pierce cardstock.
EVENING:
you trace the lines
on your partner’s sleeping face –
familiar as your own palm,
yet shifting
in the streetlamp’s yellow glow.
outside, the moon hangs
like a question mark
over the recycling bins.
is the performance
in the stiff shirt,
the automated smile,
the carefully curated playlist?
or is it here:
in the raw ache
when the neighbor’s dog dies?
in the way your throat tightens
at old photographs?
in the silent, furious prayer
you send when the test results come back?
perhaps the facade
isn’t the masks we wear,
but the insistence
that something behind them
is more real.
the dust motes settle.
the coffee cools.
you drink it anyway.
the truth tastes
like both ashes
and honey
on the tongue.
They say I’m rich.
My head held high and swinging hips
belie despair
nose in the air
denying thoughts of childhood demons
that lurk deep within the creases
of my conscience.
I turn outward for
accolades and tainted praise
to validate my living,
but harsh words like stones
bruise my dark skin.
Yet still I limp along, this solo jaunt,
Forlorn.
Moments of reflection
turn to trepidation,
that’s when it comes.
Shhh… knowing hands
secretly tug at the hems
of my innocence,
gone.
You say my shame defines me.
Wasted years of wonder
and senseless blunders
fuel my cry.
I fear when knowledge finally comes,
my light is gone.
They say I’m rich?
The façade of content that you see
Disguises a brewing pot of misery
Hidden deep inside his empty soul
Devoid of passion that life has stole
Making love only to his left hand
While she sleeps beside another man
The pale, impression from a wedding band
Discarded inside the bed nightstand
Seeing his children just once a week
A source of advice they no longer seek
The prospects for improvement look rather bleak
Alimony slaps him on the other cheek
He has felt the noose around his neck
But hasn’t stepped off of the chair, yet
He has tasted the nozzle of his gun
But has kept the safety latch turned on
The façade of content that you see
Keeps his life of pain a mystery
If that façade ever comes crumbling down
You better pack your bags and get out of town
Cool charming look
Bubbling like bonbon brook
Alas! ‘Twas bait with much hook
chaos elements of normality
insects buzzing in lamp dome
reveals alluring mouths
he breathes out a photographic desire
the contact lenses pops out
caught in pink mesh stockings
black curls colored bluish by the sunlight
like the children's drawn doodles
no shiny surfaces
12/11/2019
Sun :) - A-L Andresen :)
Copyright © All Rights Reserved
Pick A Title, Vol 11 - Kimo
Sponsored by: Edward Ibeh
10-7-6 howmanysyllables.com
3rd place in the contest
Its a story of an ambivert
The charade lively mingler personality
She was an acumen
The amiable heart
But she had another face
Shrinking violet persona
A soul who was forsaken
A creature who was ostracized
The spirit who believed that she was the most unlucky mortal
The one with the silence
Maybe she was in need of a rescuer
She abhorred being favored
The place where the soul achieved the peace
was in the silent lane accompanied by Her chaos
The quote she believed was
"The devil is for real"
Probably she was the one Who was a friend of demons
Maybe her past made her believe in this fact
Maybe she actually met a devil for real
Maybe the demon is her savior in the tumult of her chaos.
Chilvary met it's demise
Once the words "I Do" was declared
And his diamond cuff was secured
On her left third finger with care
Poor, self-indulgent
now left with self-guilt, self-hate
alone to relate
To be spoken silently
In that unpleasant tumult
Lurking behind the facade
He does not suspect in what wild fear
He'll join with her in a fatal play
Thus he sees his life as
an outrageous fortune
Like thunder shuttering orisons
The demented contempt of a puny mind
Repudiated into self negation
And subjugated himself into an empty shell
Infused into such subjective depositions
That leaves him with no refuge
"Poeta Nascitur Non Fit"
Hated decades ago
Accepted a decade ago
Glorified now
To the extent
of what we are horrified by
Painted tainted enlarged adjusted
Altered lessened sculpted tatted
A misrepresentation of our creative space
Now you are different if you are not
And the crowd screams, "Vive La Difference"!
As oath breakers call upon the Now
Learning lessons learned in the fog
To make the fog lace
We were under dressed anyway
And at odds with peace
Waiting for options
That are fail safe
Hic et nune...Hic et ubique
gardez la foi
Vox populi...Vox Dei
Gardez la foi
Or trouble will come
which will leave us asking
"Where did we go wrong?"
Quie'n Sabe?
Forgetting forgot to forget
what to forgive
and who not to
and so here we are
In a state of constant acceptance
consumed by society's need
to remain the same
in a constant state of change
Yet we are forewarned...
Not to be physically immoral
Not to be thieves
Not to be greedy
Not to be wrong
But we deceive ourselves
and submit
We disease ourselves
and admit it and live through it
and say, "it's right"
when we know it's wrong.
Do you remember
when we couldn't act
like what we weren't
Or be who we were not??
We play with destiny
and it's forbidden activity
like climbing a latter
with broken arms
Lean forward step light
Listen hard
It ain't even real to be real no more
so why try if you ain't
It ain't even real to be real no more
Now it's real to be fake.
Halfway through learning life you find therein the games
Played by the oblivious and those who made names
Then your simplicity in view begins being challenged
As make believe is by hard facts rearranged
That society is both with and without bearing
For the old warmongering and peace brokering
Continue on side by side
Each taking turns at being follower and guide
And since good and evil formidably are frontiers
Furnishing many men with careers
Many men have become showmen
Obliviously courting omen
They play for whoever pays the pipers
Be they a flock or a brood of vipers
For only to themselves are they loyal
And money is their hearts’ royal
And they call their desertion a sacrifice
Though it be a cunningly justified compromise
And all these the young wait to ruthlessly learn
As we still claim to fight a brighter day to earn
K. Muitherero