Best Fifths Poems
Music of Love
On cloudless, starry, starry nights,
you sit on your moonlit patio,
under the cool canopy of Royal Poinciana trees
showing-off their flamboyant scarlet petals.
Cradling your beloved cello between your legs,
you plunge into a vortex of musical love.
Skillfully drawing your bow, you fine-tune her;
testing for perfect fifths, you arouse her.
She thrills you with every expert caress
flowing from your fine, familiar fingertips,
so intimate, sensitive, and silky soft.
Tenderly titillating her, you bewilder
even the stars with your playing,
as the most melodic, harmonious music
breathlessly, seductively emanates from her soul…
more melodiously profound than the sweet,
nocturnal song of an amorous nightingale.
Together you two eviscerate the ills of the day
as you embrace her close to your heart,
plucking and stroking her sonorous strings.
An ardent lover, you tantalize her,
releasing a dulcet, celestial sonata
that causes even the passing breeze
to shimmer and quiver in jealous ecstasy.
Charmed, captivated, and curious,
as if sipping wine from the Holy Grail,
you thirst and hunger to delve and discover
the essence of her innermost secrets.
Lovingly romancing her with every touch,
she senses your love is not fallacious;
for like warm molasses, her music melts…
seeping into your brain, your heart, your very being.
And your soul passionately pulsates with the pure,
rhythmic melody of your cello’s divine voice.
06-17-2018
Contest: Eight Word Challenge – 7 Poetry Contest
Sponsor: John Hamilton
Placement: 1st
8 Words:
Fallacious, Eviscerate, Curious, Bewilder, Plunge, Tantalize, Vortex, Scarlet
by: Eric L. Boddie
"A History Of..."
As it has come to be
Foundations of slavery define my destiny
Relentless jealousy continues our oppression
Only the Black American is subject to such obsession
African American, naw, I prefer black myself
Me being a native to America ever since my first breath
Every act of discrimination, every possible form of abuse
Reflections of the Word Of God being just one excuse
In actuality, only hate can bestow such cruelty upon a fellow man
Can you imagine your mother tortured with observation as your only stand
And that is the history that I and others like me must endure
No humanity exists in my ancestors being three fifths of a human and that's for sure
Something wicked has been revealed....after all, my people are continuously killed.....
written: August 16, 2015
contest: Tragedy in Black
sponsor: Bev Smith
A tradesman’s son and temple secrets die
in sixty nine years, never knowing why.
Contempt delivered their first child perfect,
your childhood gauntlet galvanized neglect.
A mother’s son and her abuse still lie
in sixty nine years, never knowing why.
Too something when her final moments came.
Without confession laid to rest the same.
So was it from the bosom or the flame
the day you heard her call your name?
Consistent honor you bestowed on them,
corollas shredded by thorns on the stem.
Forgiveness took away the rage and strife.
I saw in you, The Way, The Truth, The Life.
With mind and humor, your genetic gifts.
Denatured strands surrendered protein fifths.
All needs provider who was always there.
Divine command parental judgement fair.
Devout corrections laid by word or hand
within a dying culture’s screams withstand.
Alone in Scripture’s cords you did demand
of God’s own virtue, I was taught to stand.
Around your house, collect and to revive
those things of a past that keep you alive.
In every dream that keeps you coming back,
contorts the dawn and colors out from black.
For just a moment, it’s time they defy,
recasts the morning of our last goodbye.
To take a final look and to work through
regrets till each tear welcomes a thank you
When given no tomorrow to be sown,
has sin become the marrow of the bone?
Eternal light now nothing left unknown,
divergent gateways from the triune throne.
The flesh, the bone, to bits, to grit, to ash.
The fires refine the gold and purge the trash.
A common trust in blood for us he died,
to keep our spirits, Hell to be denied.
Forgotten wages slowly turn a knife,
see you again, The Way, The Truth, The Life.
---------------------------------------
Form: Iambic Pentameter
Written: 06.13.19 – 06.14.19
Contest: Move Me
Sponsor: Richard Lamoureux
I AM the voice of erstwhile nations
Mali
Ghana
and
Songhai
I AM the river of all their sorrows
because their well has now gone dry
I AM
Africa
I AM Wisdom
The one who gave the world its seed
I AM the slave who broke his chains...
...behind their backs I learned to read
I AM the sound of children weeping
without guidance
Hope
or
Love
I AM their Keeper, I AM compassion
I AM their strength sent from above
I AM the echo of Blackmen's protests
I AM Dark Hued, Caramel, and Tan
I AM a scholar and not inferior...
...I AM more than "three fifths" a man!
I AM the Sun, the Moon, the Galaxy
I AM the Dawn that brings the Light
I AM the eagle in all its glory
I AM the thought that takes to flight
I AM Maya, Brooks, and Sanchez
I AM the spark that lights the fuse
I AM the Dream that's reached fruition
I AM Woodson, Shabazz, and Hughes
I AM words that are not yet spoken
I AM all of the writers who go unheard
I AM their Spirit, I AM fulfillment...
..I AM..
A mixture of conscious stirred
By Don Simmons
Aka Poetiq1der
Kananaskis is
four-fifths a line of haiku
Kananaskis is
With spring’s sudden warmth
serial avalanches thunder
one triggers the next
Winter’s snow melting
laughing, leaping, running to
valley far below
Green slopes banded red
dying lodgepole pine, memories
of last year’s Chinook
Golden larch quivers
as the first storm of winter
passes close tonight
As a boy, I came
to know this quiet valley
father's special place
Leaving highway to
where mountains reach to heaven
we drove the stone road
Fishing beaver ponds
dad came on bees, lost his specs
on return just bees
One night as we camp
a timberwolf comes to call
returns to dark night
On the upper lake
clouds mask the solar eclipse
but fish go crazy
One spring’s discovery
drawdown pools, teeming with trout
who won’t touch anything
A five pound rainbow
beached chasing Peter’s lure
red stripe - jealousy
Late autumn, Lake B
big browns cruise downwind beaches
only we know where
A ski resort appears
wonderland needs paved roads
we protest in vain
Twenty years later
returning with my children
to an unknown place
If you slow to look
irate traffic leans on horns
rushing to their lodge
My kids and I fish
a borrow pit now a“lake”
tourists' put and take
To a grizzly bear
roads are barriers wider
than flooding rivers
Kananaskis is
four-fifths a line of haiku
Kananaskis is
MM
Symmetrical chords:
Same roots, thirds, augmented fifths...
(Really inversions)
The Large Hadron Collider was built deep beneath the Earth
to help reveal the secrets of the Universe's birth.
I'm not quite sure what benefits this expensive research brings
but I wish that they would give answers to more important things-
Like, when you're in a rush, why all the traffic lights are red,
why every night the missus takes up four-fifths of the bed.
If love has got no spikes or blades, why does it often hurt?
And how does boiled beetroot know you're wearing a white shirt?
So, Scientists, splitting a proton just to find what it unlocks,
maybe in the black hole you'll find a pile of my odd socks?
Savage
Why am I called a violent savage, uncivilized, unteachable, three-fifths of a person?
Yet, it was I who was obnoxiously chased by strange men who invaded my homeland.
As soon as their feet stepped on the soil of my homeland, sensing danger, bewildered and frightened, I ran for my life.
The taste of freedom in my soul was my motivation.
They spotted me, and they hunted me as a hunter hunts his game.
Running with an urgency to escape, my mind whirling like a hurricane thinking about my village, my siblings, my mother and my father.
I am but a young man perplexed, running and gasping for breath.
Finally, I collapsed from exhaustion, not able to escape the clutches of the strange men.
With the look of hostility on their faces they surrounded me to prevent me from escaping.
They were armed with guns, whips, long knives, shackles and chains.
When I tried to escape, they brutally struck me with a whip.
I cried out in my native tongue from a pain I have never felt before.
Violently, they beat me down until all the fight in me was gone.
When they had broken me, they chained my wrists and shackled my ankles.
They dragged me to a ship that was waiting by the river for the catch of the day.
I was cast into a small crowded room in the hull of that massive ship, horrified at what my eyes beheld.
Hundreds of my own people, male and female, young and old, shackled and chained to one another.
My soul groaned within me because, freedom had been viciously taken away.
Therefore, I now understand what a savage is.
America's had lots of heroes through the years
Helping the world overcome many fears
Humankind hasn't always been kind
Look closely at history, see what you find
Our founders succeeded and failed many ways
People of color not treated fairly those early days
Three fifths a human is a void left incomplete
An error future generations destined to repeat
Indigenous people's abuse not a matter of pride
Devastation of natives a story history did hide
The Iroquois Confederacy gave us our republic's design
Its novel concept: states and nation's powers align
All of which helped founders form this great nation
We repaid this gift by invoking near annihilation
The Statue of Liberty invited all to come in
Remember our promise once again can begin
Supremacy, Eugenics, Ethnic biases towards the other
Can result in policies separating a child from a mother
In the last great war the Japanese here were incarcerated
Their concentration camps long since have been eliminated
Still the attitudes of ethnic discrimination persist
We always fall prey to what we resist
Much that hurts you is what you don't know
Amazing how deep "Bigoted Suffrage Suppression" did go
All minorities' suffering here has been vast
Here's how it plays out in the recent past:
1920: Women first get to vote
1924: Native Americans first get to vote
1943: Chinese citizens first get to vote
1946: Asian Indian citizens first get to vote
1950: Asian native born first get to vote
1952: Japanese citizens first get to vote
1965: African Americans first get to vote
Bigotry is deeper and bigger than you knew
Power and domination over others does not make right
Today, we must deal with all minorities' plight
It's our nation's unrealized promise that all will be free
Our union depends on the promise that we all can be
Created equal is what makes us all as one
When we get there as a nation, our work will be done
Every great society has dark secrets untoward
Looking back helps us see our way forward
This is why truth always makes a difference
Lost civilization's ethics is their lasting evidence
America's still young as history does show
Compassion and integrity will light where we go
Ethan was determined to be the best,
to put to shame all other guitarists,
to rock the world in tight, leather pants,
touring like a God across the land.
So at thirteen years he learned three chords,
didn’t think he’d really need any more,
then went to play at the school talent show,
his ‘performance’ brought harsh laughter’s blow,
ghe first time he saw people so cruel,
his first taste of that bitter, failure fuel.
But Ethan was no so easily shaken,
and with hard rock he was quite taken,
so he learned the fifths, mastered drop-D,
and practiced the scales ’till it looked easy.
At sixteen he formed a band with friends,
played house parties with the best of them,
then one day a Battle-of-Bands came ’round,
to see who was the very best in town,
but by the cover bands Ethan was schooled,
another hard short that failure fuel.
Still Ethan was not the type to quit,
changed his line-up, new singer and bassist,
after graduation he bought an old van,
he started touring, and building up fans,
his band started being known in night-clubs,
he even stayed clear of the booze and drugs.
So focused were they that a new label
signed then up and paid to make a single,
but it went no higher than number sixty-two,
his best song was nothing but failure fuel...
CONCLUDES IN PART II.
they say i don't fit their ideal
i'm not the kind that they're used to
they say i'm outside of their mold
and don't behave as I've been told
they say there's no place here for me
to jus' go back, to being out of the blue
they say my sexuality sets me apart
never like them, to be able and smart
they say i should go to where i began
'cause here, i'm maybe three fifths of a man
they say a gender such as me
can only be subservient to their command
they say their faith has led them thus
to proclaim my existence sub-humanity
I say to them, "Will there ever be
a time when you will treat me equally?"
"No" is the reply
© Goode Guy 2013-03-06
You know me better than I know myself
You crave me while I crave our lord
With every fiber of my being
I want that moment back that moment
The holy spirit arrived within me
So divinely separated from man
My being one rib five fifths human being
Why woman only one rib of man
The rest from him his holiness
Nestled beneath my breastbone
An yet you crave me while I desire
Our lord I follow his footprints
Through the sand snow sleet and rain
While you man continue craving my pain
An arrow
nocked by a god
and loosed
beam-straight . . .
Tick.
Tock.
The old clock
would cut it into
fifths,
fourths,
halves,
whole seconds even, and . . .
Tick.
Tock.
The old clock
told us we were part of it.
A clock marks time still,
but . . .
. . . . . .
in silence now;
time’s become insidious
and sly
and moves on tiptoe:
close your eyes and . . .
. . . . . .
it’s gone.
SHE THOUGHT BETTER THAN TOSS THEM OUT
THEY WERE PRIZED FOR THERE PERFECT SIZE
SHE JUST DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO
SHE HAD SO MANY FROM THE FIRST PICKING
ONLY IF SHE HAD MADE BETTER PLANS
ONLY IF SHE HAD THOUGHT IT THROUGH
THEN SUDDENLY SHE SAID " I KNOW WHAT TO DO"
I'LL INVITE ALL OF THE CUCUMBER LOVERS
OVER TO RELISH IN MY FABULOUS IDEA
I HAD BEEN SO TIRED OF SALADING
THAN I CAME UP WITH THIS CONCEPT
THE PEOPLE FAR AND NEAR SHALL LOVE ME
AND ALL WHO LOVE ME SHALL DRINK MY CUCUMBERS
SHE ROUNDED UP EVERYTHING SHE NEEDED
THE CUCUMBERS, THE GRAPES, THE APPLES
THE MINT, THE STRAWBERRIES,AND 5 CUPS OF LEMON JUICE
THIS SHALL BE AN
EXOTIC BLEND TO MAKE ALL THOSE
WHO SEEM PUZZLED LOVE MY
CUCUMBER
SHE HAD 100 CUCUMBERS: SHE SAVED ONE FOR HER
REASONS, BUT THESE 99 SHALL DELIGHT THE WORLD
OF CUCUMBER LOVERS, THEY SHALL FIND MY JUICES
DELICIOUS AND SATISFYING
SHE JUICED ALL THE FRUITS AND VEGETABLE
AND THEN SHE ADDED HER SPECIAL INGREDIENT GIN
SHE MADE TWO FIFTHS THE SECRET OF HER
DELIGHTFUL JUICE
THIS GIN AND ICE SHALL MAKE THESE CUCUMBER LOVERS LOVE ME AND
MY DELICIOUS JUICE.
WHEN THE PEOPLE CAME TO HER HOME TO TASTE HER CONCOCTION, THEY WERE PUZZLED
WHO WANTS TO DRINK CUCUMBERS THEY SAID.
SHE SAT THEM DOWN AND SERVED SALMAN BEEF AND PORK
WITH THESE DISHES, THE CUCUMBER WOULD
SHINE LIKE THE STAR SHE MADE IT INTO BEING.
THEY SIPPED, AND SIPPED UNTIL ONE GENTLEMEN ROSE TO SPEAK.
HE WAS SO DELIGHTED, HE ASKED HER TO COME TO HIS RETREAT AND MAKE HIS
CUCUMBERS TASTE AS GOOD AS THE ONES HE HAD JUST DRANK.
OF COURSE THE WOMAN AGREED.
AND EVERYONE WAS HAPPY
WITH THE CUCUMBERS THE WOMAN HAD MADE FOR THEM.
Sundays we hears de preacher's prays
Hopes ends on ropes, swings 'n sways
Gots ya nothin' jus' coz yer black
Laws gets bent but ya pays no mind
Give up tryin', no peace ta find
Gots ya nothin' jus' coz yer black
Three fifths human ain't enough
Dat yoke's too heavy, way too tough
Gots ya nothin' jus' coz yer black
Whitey gettin' mo, always will
He don't care if blood does spill
Gots ya nothin' jus' coz yer black
Forget 'bout de chillun ages past
They growd up broken, if they last
Gots ya nothin' jus' coz yer black
Sorry baby, I done no good
Best not born in this neighborhood
I tried to do de best I could
Gots ya nothin' coz yer Mamas black