Best Fates Poems
Life's thread is spun, measured, and snipped
By three dainty pairs of deft hands
To weave the cold words of life's fickle script.
Clotho spins life with a valiant grip,
Her spindle ablaze with gold strands.
Life's thread is spun, measured, and snipped.
Lachesis measures without pause or slip,
Deciding the length of life's band
To weave the cold words of life's fickle script.
Atropos carries the scissors that clip
The thread where her sister commands.
Life's thread is spun, measured, and snipped.
Every last soul becomes a conscript,
Drafted to heed their demands
To weave the cold words of life's fickle script.
With each stolid snip, our free will is stripped
As Fate's fluid flames are fanned.
Life's thread is spun, measured, and snipped
To weave the cold words of life's fickle script.
*Based on Greek Mythology's "Moirai"
A new sunrise, a new time, a new day
Sunsets past, just a memory, time gone.
Yesterday we cannot live for, or pray
Tomorrows, there are many more, not none.
One body, one mind, one love, never late
The fates cruel, or be they kind instead.
To never love, how wrong, was that our fate?
To die unknown alone in a large bed.
Benevolent the fates have been to us.
Though many years too late, never shed tears
To writhe in pain and swear and cry and cuss
No we are one and will be down the years.
The fates were late, but kind when said and done
They gave us each other and we are one.
© 3/02/2014
"Road Kill and the 3 Fates"
Daughters of Nyx
the sisters
Stand strong together
when darkness
feigns innocence
next to the forgotten
Road Kill
Nyx becomes Themis
a memory
infiltrates the mind
prompting the true law
and order of things
Backwards towards
a beginning
Inside resides
the female Titan
somewhere winning
Collecting the threads
of each life enlightening
the golden chords copacetic
the beginning chapters
come in far too late
back to front
Road Kill and the
3 Fates
Empathetic
(LadyLabyrinth / 2020)
llb-klb-mlb
“Gold” / Chet Faker
https://youtu.be/hi4pzKvuEQM
“At the instant of drowning
he invoked the three sisters
It was a mistake, an aberration,
to cry out for Life everlasting"
"He suffered the enormous agonies of passion
Writing poems from the end backwards,
Brushing away tears that had not yet fallen."
Rosemary Dobson, Poet. Sydney, Australia
(extract The Three Fates)
1. Moirae (Moirai)
https://greekgodsandgoddesses.net/goddesses/the-morai/
2.a
Themis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Themis
2.b
Nyx
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyx
3.a
“The Three Fates” by Rosemary Dobson, Poet. / Analysis
https://poetryprof.com/the-three-fates/
3.b
Rosemary Dobson, Poet. Sydney/Australia.
(18 June 1920 – 27 June 2012)
https://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/dobson-rosemary
Anthology of Poems/Rosemary Dobson.
https://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/dobson-rosemary/poems
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary_Dobson
Oh crushed the buttercups beneath our feet
Hand in hand to walk the sweet green meadow.
To hear the lark and nightingale so sweet
Side by side, sit on the stile in shadow
(A new sunrise, a new time, a new day)
(Sunsets past, just a memory, time gone)
To sing with the tinkle of the small stream
Here with you it is more than life’s true dream
To laugh as the bees fall, sweet nectar filled
A touch of hand, a thigh, leaves me thrilled
(Yesterday we cannot live for, or pray)
(Tomorrows, there are many more, not none)
(One body, one mind, one love, never late)
(To never love, how wrong, was that our fate)
An angel does touch your most loving face
But no, not then and yet by who’s good grace
(Yesterday we cannot live for, or pray)
(Tomorrows, there are many more, not none)
(The fates cruel, or be they kind instead)
(To die unknown alone in a large double bed)
To take you for their own I do believe
Twas not the time to go or time to grieve.
(Benevolent the fates have been to us)
(To writhe in pain and swear and cry and cuss)
(Yesterday we cannot live for, or pray)
(Tomorrows, there are many more, not none)
(Though many years too late, never shed tears)
(Now we are one and will be down the years)
In love a gentle kiss upon the lips.
E’er more the fight to grasp at life he grips
(The fates were late, but kind when said and done)
(They gave us each other and we are one)
(Yesterday we cannot live for, or pray)
(Tomorrows, there are many more, not none)
Oh crushed the buttercups beneath our feet
Hand in hand to walk the green meadow sweet.
Mandy Tams
INTERMINGLED CONTEST ENTRY
Meadow Sweet 1/16/2014
The Fates 02/03/2014
Yucatan, etc.
Cortez, DeMille are gone.
It's now the locus
of postgraduate honeymoons,
urban fugues, a minor literary genre.
Knowledge and ejection predispose us
to technological parody--
antique busses, burros, plumbing, pyramids--
as if nothing ever caught on.
There is no CHRONOLOGY, the pace and mores
are too counterproductive--
poster Indians pee along the road,
the women never dust.
We like the Sartrean-Spanish askewness--
bugs, sex, dysentery, moonlight--
as if, though settled with us,
the Fates vacation here.
The fates of newborn children were marked in separate cards
Long before their souls flew in their clay figurines like birds.
Beyond doubt, all cards are marked and all fates will collide.
Like the clashing objects in rough whirlwind or Tsunami tide.
My destiny is written, imprinted in a veiled card, so too yours.
All of our fancies, desires, wishes, aspirations will encounter
With engraved truth in cards. The Reality always overpowers
The fake phantoms of Fancy. More or less, we all must suffer.
Let the Cards clash in swirling winds, waves of Providence
For we all are destined, bound with a resilient string of Fate.
Some unseen Hands are weaving the gyrating yarns, hence,
The clashing Fates will blow the trumpets of Love or Hate.
Ah!
The cruel fates
of comets and kings.
To bend
around the arc of Archimedes,
swaying and swelling,
to be crowned on its
next flight around.
Followed by trails
with wind in their sails, until
new laws are lain on the land.
They so love the moon,
they would encase it in granite.
Again, they'll rise from their knee
with the next passing planet.
Slung into
the far beyond--
the golden thrones
blaze and tumble
through the
dreams of princes.
Andromeda indeed!
White roses grew in my mouth
Drunk in ambrosial poetries
Craving for love from a butterfly
'til perpetual darkness.
Argentine crepuscule stole my happiness
Caliginous skies swallowed my entity
Still waiting for her to come
Seems I have to wait 'til morning sun
When will you come butterfly?
The flowers are dying, still I haven't seen you
Slowly losing my ephemeral hope
What is love without the sun?
Petals furled, leaves dried
Flowers in my mouth evanesce per hue
Shade after shade, I learned to forget
To end this perennial blue.
Leisurely accepted the things that I shouldn't
Heart just closed that once was open
Forgot and moved on, learned stop hoping
When eyes have noticed that she is coming.
Age's bloodiest showdown looms,
Or such it seems by its lurid form;
Spirit's sharpest arrows must fly
Swifter than is their agile-witted norm.
Now Armageddon's most savage sword
Cruelest aim of softest landings takes,
Though target's dexterous fightback
Its most foolproof arsenals stakes.
Thus unfolds time's deadliest flare
Under high heaven's beneficences;
Watching on with an eye dimly fair,
Umpiring blows with arcane mien.
And though its yet baffling to tell
What dismal odds in virtue's favor stand,
Eons of war-waging jurisprudence repel
Smiling wins for Gaol's tempestuous fates.
I can vividly recall the moment it occurred.
I can recite in my mind each particular word.
We were hanging around by the locker room door,
to congratulate the team for winning once more.
It was a tournament game with a large rowdy crowd.
The fans had been cheering especially loud.
Caught up in excitement for a moment or two,
I reveled in victory with friends that I knew.
Then suddenly I realized my hands dangled free.
He was no longer there, anywhere I could see.
I looked all around and called out his name.
I sternly demanded, “Stop playing this game!”
I searched through the building, raced down the hall.
I heard no response to my heart-wrenching call.
I ran through the gym, then out past the gates.
I fought off the fears of unthinkable fates.
Panic ensued as I questioned everyone.
“Have you seen my boy? Have you seen my son?”
I tried to hold back but the thought entered in,
what if I never get to see him again?
My anguish was causing my body to shake,
as thoughts turned to desperate measures to take.
A feeling I’d never confronted before,
I fell to my knees, right there on the floor.
I yelled out, “God please, don’t take him away!”
Tears filled my eyes as I knelt there to pray.
That’s when I saw him come running down the hall.
Every possible emotion, I’d been through them all.
An answer to prayer on his jubilant face.
He jumped in my arms, a welcomed embrace!
“Dad, what’s the matter? I said I’d be back.
Grandpa was showing me his new Cadillac.”
I still don’t remember him telling me that.
But, I’ll never forget what I had to combat.
The thing that I learned from facing my fear,
was don’t take for granted he’ll always be here.
Bazaar
The nights’ chest opens up -
strings of illusions
rattle in palms
the knowing buyers haggle
for a dream
while the fascinated women
try on
toles of princesses or odalisques.
In the shell of hope
genuine perls are priceless.
Silk labyrinth
of amber and incense,
amulets of shamans hidden in death,
a mirage in golden cases,
the drug of success
paths and passions
unknown potions
scaffold question.
Merchants with epheb faces
skillfully spin shadows,
scarves, dependences, embroideries,
compasses, elders, rings, sapphires,
open
conspicuous roads.
Rubys, gold,
sealed fates
days delirium
forgotten writings
bracelets and silver girdles,
old things,
new objects
disturb the untold air.
The world’s cornice
crunches upon the stalls
heavy stars
cramped into bags
shriek
with undecipherable voices.
Thousands of dead and living worlds
rise to the skies
from eyes
touched by temptation.
Almost all people just try to steer
their own life cars
in their own ways,
few, through wide highways,
a great number,
through narrow lanes
with no gains
but in too many pains
so they all swear
at not what they haven't done
that they should have done,
but at their own fates
Love is a conquest, a journey
A story waiting to be told
Next years best seller written to be sold
So hold my hand love me here
Let our lives become apparently clear
Understanding love holds me cold
It creeps up inside of me growing old
Steals my common senses leaving me without a care
And then again on a whim
The cards are dealt with carme'dem
i saw you in a dream in pasadena when i found an old miniature tape recorder hidden in the
wall. that day i went to photograph the orange wall surrounding the estate reclaimed by
the government and chain-linked fence to keep me out
that night i tried to do a pink-fenced painting, only to keep seeing figures of you
popping out in all directions
in 1980 i married the person
in front of that
orange wall.
I don’t write Sonnets,
or Limerick verse
I don’t write Haiku,
though often terse
I don’t write Ballads,
or Horacian Odes
I don’t write Parables,
to self-implode
But I do write in Rhythm,
and often in Rhyme
With meaning that’s buried,
and metered in time
All verbal indenture,
I must disavow
For the meaning to rise,
—when the fates allow
(Villanova Pennsylvania: November, 2016)