Best Failure Poems
dust-wearing-wind carries a feeble cry in its palm,
settles it near ears that can no longer hear.
Cries arise from hollows of your hungry face,
a pulpit of high cheeks bones— in sharp relief
to sunken skin-scape sallow and paper thin—
a preacher on the harrows of hunger.
Vulture keeps a still, silent vigil,
a patient witness to your starvation,
comrade and adversary
in a fight for your last breath and beat.
Your loyal companion, a symbol of death
where drones rain with flames on tents of refugees
and sky splitting missiles make shrapnel of the sun,
where dragon fire artillery shoots the moon
and shreds stars till they fate-fall
like the last nightjars from nocturne skies.
Dear child of war,
alone with nothing in your belly but a stone,
rib bones a famine cage,
thoracic fingers squeeze your soul.
Your heart a hostage,
flutters like a lost moth against your sternum.
I long to hold you and feed you
honey made from a million wild flowers
uncrushed beneath metal plates of tank treads.
I yearn to bathe you of collapsed concrete dust
cleanse you of your mother’s blood, her
rattle-boned, battle-owned, maternal body wrapped
over yours as they fed her Kalashnikov lead.
My faraway ache for your plight pales
against your tiny body’s black-rose-throes,
a pawn to thorns of soldiers
grown on rocket-torn-boot-worn streets.
War-zone fig trees bear no fruit,
hibiscus buds die as hornets knit nests into shrubs,
tomorrow but a diseased wheat field laid to waste.
Dear child of war,
deliverance will come when pall-bearer winds
carry your cries elsewhere…
They are in meaningless session again
Not seeking to serve but to practice the deception
Not seeking to lead but to mislead
Taking black and white, creating gray
Don't wave that flag if you do not honor it
Oppression by omission. You have given
NOTHING
But rights to the dissidents and wrongs to the citizens
Hear me now
I cannot replace the spine you're missing
ONE NATION UNDER GOD
If you cannot accept you cannot lead
If you cannot lead you are the problem
THE FAILURE
Authorizing condemnation and treason
Banning prayer and patriotism
Once filled with victory and pride
Now mired in failure
Represent or resign, serve or secede
Make a stand for once or fall forever
We no longer will tolerate
YOUR FAILURE
One nation UNDER GOD.
dreams
decapitated
damsel in
deadlock
disappointed
disillusioned
will dust off
try again
AP: Honorable Mention 2020
Failure
Vows were exchanged
Many promises made
Two hearts crushed as feelings vanished
Breakdown
Entry for Catie's "traditional cinquain" contest
Much to the chagrin of those who
would prefer to lay witness to
one's failure's,
Imagine not for the slightest
moment that our will has become
so weak as to allow compliance.
Where once our vision may have
been clouded and our boundaries
seemed forever shattered,
know in the end that our naked
sense of vulnerability truly
is our saving grace.
For it is that woundedness
if you will that lends itself
to a higher awareness.
Do we not gain strength
from our painful life experiences?
Should we not strive harder to conquer
life's old injuries?
By following our instincts step by
step along the very road that has
been paved before us,
And yes expecting at times that
there will be treacherous curves
we must allow for,
Oh to throw caution to the wind
and laugh in the face of failure
invites us to celebrate our
mightiest strength of all...
COURAGE...
This lockdown has me locked out of your heart
Though closer than a thought, we're miles apart
The shroud of silence settles tightly in
My words die on my lips before they start
Outside a monster howls in constant rage
Inside we beat our hands on walled-in cage
Our dreams illusive, bleed now on the floor
The truth exacts from us an awful wage
The days and nights are dressed in apathy
Deranged, we long to find some normalcy
Yet time looks on and jeers our fearful state
For well it knows we crave some company
Our words, our dreams, our love has all but died
The masks we wore, this quarantine let slide
I look at you and don't know who you are
The loveless look you give can't be denied
And so we bide our time in house arrest
The bygone times remembered as the best
One day we'll leave and face the world outside
With knowledge that our love has failed the test
Eileen Manassian
I once wrote a poem that fit
All the contest descriptions. And it
Was praised with much grace,
I was hopeful to place,
But completely forgot to submit!
For Jan's NA collaboration, if she thinks this is within the prompt.
And all it happened
As i feared
Turned into life
A nightmare
When i touched the flame
I burned down
All my ashes
Lingered around
Seeing the sky
Lying on disgust
Can never bring stars
Into your palm anigh.
Awake
And revive
From those ashes
And burn down those stars
With victory of crashes.
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FAITH NOT, FEAR!
When the ole’ devil tells you that you
are not going to make is and that you are going down
you are going to have to tell him, “Sorry, you’re the one
who is going down, I am going up!
When he says, “You are a failure”, tell him
“No I can do all things in Christ Jesus!
When he tells you, “You are going to die”, tell him,
“Well, for me to live is Christ, and to die is GAIN!
When he tells you, “GOD doesn’t love you and you
are “nothing”, tell him I might not be, but
Christ died for me!
When he tells you, “You are not going to be
healed”! Tell him, “By HIS stripes I am
healed”!
When he tells you, “But, but, but, tell him,
I am a “lamb” not a goat
for that is the way a goat talks!
Again, when he tells you, “But you are going
to die”, tell that devil again, I am a
Lamb and not a goat and my Bible is written in
Lamb Language!!!! End of Story!
And lastly, when I was living in Birmingham, Alabama
I was on the phone praying with my friend one day. That day,
we had 8 tornados locked into our atmosphere around
the Birmingham area for eight hours. As we were
praying, a tornado passed “over” my apartment building
and did not destroy anything! I was under the bathroom
counter in my apartment. As this tornado “passed over”
sounding like a huge train, the LORD reminded me of the
story in the Bible of the Jews leaving Egypt. They put
the “BLOOD” over the lintels of their doors and
when the LORD saw the BLOOD, HE passed over them.
Well, as we were praying, I am sure that we were invoking
the BLOOD of JESUS and the storm passed over me.
Written by: Marilyn S. Jennings 2019 GOD BLESS.
It's lonely on a pedestal.
It's hard when failure is no option.
Everyone deserves a guardian angel.
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: Honorable Mention 2026
Have you ever died, still on your feet?
Did you lay your heart open?
Did it break at their feet?
Did they trample it down?
Did the hurt make you weak?
And how many days will you continue to weep?
Know your worth, and lift up your chin, look forward,
that's where you're going. Not where you've been.
Every step and every day, you, are further away.
From the pain.
But your mind won't let you rest, you see it again you feel the regret.
It dims our whole life, what life we have left.
It steals our dreams.
That's why we keep running... and if you keep looking forward... there will be another adventure worth living.
Failure
By Jan Beaumont
My face is red, my brow is wet,
My temper's really frayed
I just can't do it, it's too tough
My failure's well displayed.
Though many can, it's just not me,
I'm useless through and through
They've tried to show me but it's just
A thing that I can't do.
I've tried my best, but I give up
I need a whisky - neat,
Don't judge me harshly, life's too short
To fold a fitted sheet!
On top of failure
Is a lonely Lucifer
Awaiting my arrival
I have fallen below bounds
That were once so familiar to my feet
So, the ground feels different,
Hotter and slightly unstable
Much like my temperament
And in this case
‘F’ does not signify fantastic
But we all know what it means
FAILURE
You will fail
You will fail as surely as you draw breath
Failure is a part of physical being
In physical history failure outweighs success
It is many times to one
man has failed
yet
The added plus to consciousness is
that rare time he wins
The win may be large or small
But it does increase circumference of the ball
Failure if goodly
If Godly
Sincere
Shouldn’t carry shame
unless one lets the sting of failure
take him out of the game
Persevere
There is such grandeur in a win
Failing at something one tries to achieve, is not a failure
but not trying again once he has failed, undoubtedly, is!
© Demetrios Trifiatis
15 July 2020