Best Familiarity Poems
Having been on my own
for the past ten years
I suppose I am set in my ways
If I’ve no planned routine
at the start of each day
I just come and I go as I may
Awaking each morn just before dawn
I can go where my mood may take me
Disliking routine I meander free
to come and to go as I please
For now there is no one here except me
with my very own idiosyncrasies
Generally I enjoy my own company
Though from time to time
seeing friends and family
is such an enjoyable treat for me
But to have someone
permanently under my roof
It would drive me insane
send my soul in a whirl
as slowly my mind
and my body unfurl
At this juncture in life
I want peace and tranquillity
No hassle
No stress
No irritability
So when I have guests
I pull out all my best
Spoiling them rotten
as we laugh and we jest
But as the days pass
and our moods start to show
It is time to bid farewell
It is time for them to go
Or frustrations
raise their ugly head
and we may say things
we should not have said
So as the old adage suggests
Familiarity can breed contempt
and living too long
with family and friends
is how a good relationship
may come to an end…
Written 14th September 2019
Contest Strand Select U
Sponsor Brian Strand
3rd Place
I don’t write because I ‘like’ to
I do, I mean
but the memories whose door I dare to open again….
is something you do not write about
BUT I DO.
I do because without the agony there is no real me
I find peace in my torture
my anguish
my woe
my endless torment
~I write as the raw pain engulfs my insides while burning them with the same fire I burn through and the demons inside me start gnawing at the inhumanity of me
eating it all up like banshees
as my fingers bleed into the paper and my skin
forcing the crimson to surge out of the vessels
a pattern so lovely.~
I keep writing as the burden on my head
feels like a mountain
who is crushing me slowly
Steadily
into the ground while I keep trying
trying to stand
but it weighs my insanity
my lunacy.
I keep writing as I struggle to come up
while the weight of my past keeps pulling me down
and I struggle
for just a single gasp of air.
but the worst is when I keep writing
when my heart is exhausted from trying to come up
as I descend into the darkness of the sea
the dark all so familiar.
~I burned so much from the fire, that even the coldest of seas could not douse the torment growing inside of me~
the simplicity might seem uncanny to you
but for me, it’s the familiarity of pain
of abandonment
of exhaustion.
I live in it
no
I find solace in it.
and as the last of oxygen leaves my body
and nothing other than a void
of eternal pain is left of me
I keep drowning in it
because that pain at least
gives me a reason to exist.
Pure Black Velvet grasps
diamonds that hold endless thoughts-
we know so little.
Inspired by my Contest - Familiarity Unknown
Michelangelo
Stretched God’s hand to Adam’s;
A bridge to heaven.
* For Gareth James' Familiarity Unknown contest and intended to honor of both the image
and the thoughts it inspired. The natural bridge and its expansion across that magnificent
sky reminded me of the now iconic image that Michelangelo painted on the ceiling of the
Sistine Chapel. I've been chasing Michelangelo lately, so it doesn't surprise me that I'd see
reflections of him in nature (or vice versa?).
What is it about me
that I cannot place you
in the picture painted by the years
the life has already spent?
Do you merely lurk,
and leave at a much later time?
Or,
maybe
you are staying
because
you
are
meant
to
stay.
Then,
stay.
If you may.
I pray.
While I find a place (for us)
in the picture of eternities,
the gods must be
hiding,
conspiring;
themselves amusing.
Ah, the grand scheme of things -
a forgetting.
A familiar spirit we feel -
a remembering.
(Note) This piece was inspiredly written for the beautiful souls - even the
strangers - I have met along the way and will still come upon in my lifetime. To
each special one, you have stirred quite a familiar spirit within. A remembrance
of forgotten past, I suppose. Thank you for letting me peak through your
soul's window. The veil of forgetfulness has never been thin as now to me. You
have so given me a gift I shall treasure in the moments I may tend to forget
who I truly am - a being with a soul.
How can one once so familiar become so strange?
The ease and flow of conversation, so stilted?
Awkward even. Our 'in-commonness' a rarity?
Our connectedness disconnected?
The once passionate embrace a tentative touch:
a 'should I or shouldn't I' interrelation.
Now so different to then - a then quite recent,
yet distant in its memory.
Do you feel the same as I? Or do you not feel
any more? Do you no longer love me?
Or have you simply forgotten that you once did
- or I you, so vehemently.
Where did we misplace it? Carelessly lost
like the guarantee for the cooker.
Perhaps it too can be found amongst the
rancid rotten waste in the bin.
How remiss we have been: carried on the wave
of daily activity. Ships passing in the night
without even a 'hoot' of acknowledgement.
Two separate shadows in the darkness.
This is a dangerous game we are playing.
A contest with two losers and nothing to win.
Come search the contents of the bin with me.
We may just find what we are looking for
in the mucky murky depths of memory.
Or at the back of a disorganised drawer somewhere.
If we search our hearts, maybe it still beats there?
We'll never know unless we try.
What is it about me
that I cannot place you
in the picture painted by the years
the life has already spent?
Are you merely stopping by
Passing the time (maybe charmed)
Then leave later at the frown of sundown
Or at the smile of dawn?
I wonder.
Still, amazed more than bewildered
Finding myself moment for moment
Pondering
if you are staying,
dreaming
that perhaps
you
are
meant
to
stay.
Then, stay.
If you may
I pray.
While I find a place (for us)
in the picture of eternities,
the gods must be hiding,
conspiring;
themselves amusing.
Ah, the grand scheme of things-
A forgetting.
A familiar spirit we feel-
A remembering.
i'm beginning to know them
a bit smudged at first
like spots on my readers, but
gradually, after a few gentle rubs
of my fingers between something soft
like a spritz of sonnet,
they slowly come into focus and
recognition comes to me
i know that one - and that one
and oh, how i loved the something or other
that that one wrote awhile back
i don't remember what it was about exactly,
but feel clearly, know, that it touched me
it's hard to know just how that happens,
yet, dear countenance, you are a friend now
i sit by the fire, welling up at your words,
i stand waiting for an elevator to
take me up, and i rise to your eloquence,
how good of you, to take me along
i lie in bed at night, occasional insomniac
and dream of your touch, your clever wisdom
your warm smile crafted across centuries and
continents to me, a once total stranger,
but now, devoted friend
© Goode Guy 2013-05-23
Lonely I walk through the walls of crowds
Reach out but like shadows they don’t connect
Their eyes are vacant cold and empty
Ghostly people walk on by crossing my path
As I head back home in wonted despair
Where I find solace in the whisper of your silence
I can always count on you
Your soothing presence tangible
Your embrace warm and lingering
As familiar as an old lover’s embrace
The feeling hovering
Haunts me ever so gently
Tired of wandering alone
It’s soothing to find you here
Loneliness serenely dark and faithful
Wrapped in the warmth of your caress
I find solace in the whisper of your silence
Read on air by invitation ~ April 12, 2020 'LATE NIGHT POETS'
AP: 2nd place 2022
Submitted on July 27, 2019 for contest SOUND OF SILENCE sponsored by JOHN HAMILTON - RANKED 10TH
I close my eyes
feel the sun on my face
hear the sounds of the sea
smell the cooking of Greek food
I lick my lips
all around the sounds of Greece
a language that is familiar to me
a smile on my face
But, it is only a dream
and I open my eyes
I see green fields
feel the sun on my face
hear the sounds of birds singing
smell shepherds pie cooking
hear neighbors speaking English
a language that is familiar to me
a smile on my face
one day........ I will
see the Aegean Sea
eat Greek food
speak in my mother tongue
feel a hot Greek sun on my face
and know I survived.
Familiarity, the bridgework of intent,
as common measures rise, or bring dissent,
I plead my virtue, cave to my insight
the road aspiring network asks invite!
Ah, but familiar were the sound of love,
that too would perish, as the listening's groove
would leave aspiring, my own heart the louvre,
so far from thee, condition not to brood!
And that desires framework is intrude
as almost all my ploys and plots extrude,
some deepening, like reliving's interlude
is in the separation longing's mood!
And as I miss you, not as duly good,
but in a faked response exchanging feud
If we that once did not feel understood,
away from thee, the measures now are prude!
And I do love thee more, from knowing's clued
and devious of time still pray resume
were but a moment's chance, thy trust be proved,
I tender mine in searching trials renewed!
It is this, giving up, our lives are nude
and that which wears our time, but function's cold,
what e'er the causing costs, I ask improve,
If I could love thee once, be not removed!
The edge of all regret, dysfunction hued
should stay beneath my feet . . . stamped out construed!
The familiar glazing over of the eyes
The all too strange stare
Mismatched eyebrows
And in-grown hairs
I was sure
Sure I knew that person
Then I opened the medicine cabinet
And she, she disappeared
Just like dew on a summer afternoon
Familiarity Does Breed Contempt
Contempt can often be bred by familiarity,
And an ideal environment appeals to parity;
We tried to find,
But left behind,
Fear from despair they created by disparity.
Jim Horn
after Because I could not stop for Death, by Emily Dickinson
Because I would not stop for Death,
he kindly stopped for me.
A wilted bouquet in one hand—
a reminder of life's mortality.
We began to walk—he knew no haste—
side by side, as we always were.
In silence, no sympathies were spoken,
as he knew I often preferred.
We passed the house where I once strove
to play and know no sorrow.
We passed a creek whisking ashes downstream—
something I was hesitant to let it borrow.
Or, rather, it passed us—
the mist in the air quivering with a dog's final breath—
for only I began to falter
on our beaten and lonely path.
We paused before some foothills that seemed
serene, yet all too demanding.
The soon-to-be graves were scarcely visible here—
urns in my arms notwithstanding.
Since then, it has been decades, and yet
it still feels shorter than the day
Death first took my warm hand in his own
and his comforting coldness became mine for eternity.
Nothing is new
Even me and you
All re-lived
In time frames anew
Thread through this heart
Tread to that soul
Weaved and walked
Million years ago
Warmth of that smile
Recalled by this being
Comfort and peace
No one else could bring
Meet you again
Some day, somewhere;
Different face,
Same old gaze