Best Flayed Poems
His day had come, and so He went and prayed.
The woes of all mankind upon him weighed.
His brethren slept; He knew what would befall.
His enemies conspired and did not stall.
A midnight kiss, and He would stand betrayed.
First seized, reviled, then stripped and flayed;
A scarlet robe on broken flesh then laid,
He bore the brutal cross and drank the gall.
His day had come.
A final breath. . . . the sacrifice was made.
The land then quaked. God’s sorrow was displayed.
The Son in linen. . . . on the earth a pall.
But in the sepulcher, His final call –
To conquer death! Man need not be afraid.
His day had come!
Submitted 3/12/23
for the Easter Poetry Contest of Regina McIntosh
Encased in an isolated castle of an old fool’s paradise,
A decaying dagger rests upon a distressed oak table.
Frayed book pages scatter across termite-riddled floors.
The calligraphy carries echoes of triumphant battles,
Vividly etched in ink.
A revered legacy is forgotten in decades of decay,
Its inked glory fading into disarray.
Reminiscing of bygone days when youth was a sturdy partner at my behest,
Now weathered crimson dahlias adorn the windowsills
Of a desolate dynasty,
As the last petal falls.
Echoes of faded footsteps can be heard within the empty halls of waste.
What remains is a golden crown with sanguine marquise
Resting heavily upon an exile’s head.
How do I conquer the bloodstained fear trickling within the fractals,
Reflecting off the scorching sun that swallows flames,
Swirling around the ashen pyre
Of the poetic corpses I’ve slain for validation?
An inquisition paints a vicious vermilion
Within the sobbing stained glass.
The once-perfect porcelain flesh of our legacy is flayed,
Surrounded by the whispers of forgotten souls.
Cobwebs drape over shattered dreams,
As beams of light punctuate looming shadows.
Concealed beneath cold stone lies the family crypt,
Patiently awaiting its reluctant visitor,
Beckoning the exalt through clandestine corridors.
Within the hushed chamber of undying slumber,
He recalls the tragic tale.
Before him stand his beloved wife and children,
Forever ensnared in the clutches of eternal sleep.
Echoes of the past replay like eerie shadows,
Retelling the grim chronicle of their demise.
His envious, wrathful younger brother succumbed
To the greed of his own ambition.
In the darkness hour of that dreadful night, the dagger-wielding usurper
Plunged their existence into oblivion,
Casting spirits of suppressed speeches to weep
Within wailing walls.
Now I am the cerulean dusk of the gloaming,
A burnt-out waxen ivory,
The candle before their tombstone.
Transition From Deep Dark To Brightest Light
(Chained Sonnet--100 words)
Within dreams sent into this world of shades
shades full of heartaches and long slashing blades
blades severing sleeping rest on soft nights
nights of diminished hope and sharpest pains.
Pains of death at this sad door now knocking
knocking that promise evil in the flesh
flesh burnt hot, flayed back exposing raw nerves
nerves once made of black iron and hard steel.
Steel born of ancient warrior's deepest pride
pride in truth, honoring family name
name reminding one of future promise
promise of blessings and rewarded fame.
Fame's generosity and greater love
Love pure, in serving only God above
Robert J. Lindley
3-21-2017
Chained sonnet-- and in 100 words
Syllables Per Line: 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10
Total # Syllables: 140
Total # Words: 100
Note- This sonnet was inspired by my reading this morn, a truly magnificent chained sonnet, written by my great friend Teppo Gren
Note- This is my first chained sonnet, theme is the transitioning from Dark to Light.
FOR MORE ON -- "CHAINED SONNET FORM"- CLICK LINK BELOW
https://www.poetrysoup.com/poems/chain
A twinkle in her eyes tonight
evokes the thought that they invite,
though I recall, not long ago
my absence seemed more apropos.
The laughs that linger on her lips
bare more than many verbal slips -
the times they pierced me, sad and grim,
lie in the past, though far from dim.
She flayed me once... nay, more than twice,
she flayed me both with flames and ice,
and once again, predictably,
she primes me for catastrophe.
Our friends and foes naively watch
her try to carve a deeper notch,
for even they don't seem to know
the depths to which she'd really go.
Upon my face a pose appears
which hides my thoughts, obscures my sneers,
for now I too have learned the rules
from her - ah, yes, the best of schools.
Because I'm acting somewhat cool,
thus pouring on her fires, fuel,
she burns and yearns and wants me more
than when I was her cuspidor.
She (unbeknownst, I'm not the same)
pursues again her guileful game.
But when her tears descend and swell,
will she be proud she taught me well?
The others leave, I stay behind
(they all know what she has in mind) ,
embrace her in my arms once more,
beguile her through her bedroom door.
She whispers secrets in my ear,
as I once did (she didn't hear);
I listen, flash some mirthless smiles,
my thoughts adrift to desert isles.
The night is passed, her trusting grows;
I leave before the morning glows.
Aroused, she'll seek a waking thrill
but find instead a dollar bill.
His day had come, and so He went and prayed.
The woes of all mankind upon him weighed.
His brethren slept; He knew what would befall.
His enemies conspired and did not stall.
A midnight kiss, and He would stand betrayed.
First seized, reviled, then stripped and flayed;
A scarlet robe on broken flesh then laid,
He bore the brutal cross and drank the gall.
His day had come.
A final breath. . . . the sacrifice was made.
The land then quaked. God’s sorrow was displayed.
The Son in linen. . . . on the earth a pall.
But in the sepulcher, His final call –
To conquer death! Man need not be afraid.
His day had come!
Old Women
Old women are forgotten wombs
whose graceless bodies have fed
the word, then been sent
to sit in its shadow
not quite seen, not acknowledged,
not nurtured
They are more patient than God
Old women are crucified
with nails of oppression and poverty
Equality is a Damoclean Sword
when age freckles out-number
soft, sweet patches of youth
Old women have scarred and bloody knees
from kneeling in submission to lesser minds
who felt bigger from the looking down
A rosary of sorrows is strung
through the weary fingers
of old women
They are hung on the crucifix of youth
and beauty to wither into dust
Alone in cubicles and corners,
frayed photos beneath their coats
Old women remember children
who have long forgotten them
They do not seek a man’s arms,
for that is not a refuge, but a honeyed trap
where souls are flayed beyond recognition
Such wondrous minds
Living libraries of life
Vision and experience left untouched
because it is not behind a pretty face
Behold the woman
She is a wealth of wisdom, power,
beauty and courage
yet she is left beside the road
of living
Her reckoning will come
Until then...she endures
Steel Gray skies with threatening rain and restless wind
My breath gathers as mist on the inside of the window pane
...as I watched for the school bus
A slender birch tree with spiral scars
of flayed bark against its white skin
like curlicues of sharpened pencil shavings
Still clutching many bright yellow leaves,
Some collecting at its base like a discarded garment
Sunlight, just a small shaft flickers bright dapples on tiny dancers
Ocherous curtains against the bruised sky
Prodigious vibrant final act
Just for me
The tree manages a sly curtsey
in my direction,
Sacrificing more of her fragile costume
My beautiful rosy-cheeked child kicks playfully
through the saffron sea of discarded programs
“Here are some for you Mama” he says
as he bursts into the kitchen smelling of peanut butter and early fall
There he deposits a chubby handful of my regard
gently into my apron pocket
And into my heart's hiding place as well
Perfect poignant performance;
Beautifully done slender birch,
Most beautifully done
I never missed you
nestled high upon my chest
lovely soft round pillows
full haughty globes.
Admired. Yes,
even by me.
Prideful I was,
blessed among women.
Even when you were gone
it was no tragedy . . .not then.
I never missed you in all these
years, twenty six and more
to be exact.
Not through nights with spouse
or after with that one lover
who never noticed or, if he did
I couldn’t tell.
I never missed you in all these years
well, maybe just the sensitive
erotic brown nubs that stood erect
like attentive soldiers when it was cold
or when I was hot.
And I’ve been hot,
so I’m told.
I never missed you in all these years.
No regrets for cut of scalpel
no second thoughts
for flayed flesh
until now.
Until Him.
I never missed you in all these years,
but I miss you now.
The sorrow of your loss
has come home to roost
but tears have no magic
to heal my scarred disfigured chest.
HARMONY 69
The night of twelfth December `69
knotted together an icy storm wind
that whipped False bay`s waves
to white -frilled blankets.
Thunderclaps against primal rocks
resonated through a ghettoe of glowing tents
on a dark, rough ,bushy patch .
Rising plaintively above the din
of drums and flapping canvas,
creole strains solicited the capricious gods
for a clement Cape .
Love songs , sweet like wine
would even tittilated mermaid`s melons,
stranding them breathless, with tails scaled.
In my sixteenth tempestuous year,
I was sickened and sullied, spoiling for a fight
with that ever- prying, ever-lying police-state
denying us
dividing us
deriding us
ripping us
whipping us
in an all-pervasive racist propaganda storm
Harmony,was forced ethnic relocation right there
in a stamp-size sea-resort next to a stinking dump.
Our yearly anticipated salty baptism,
fouled for a full ten years,
dunked in fascist soil
of a false bay with a real bite….
rubbing coarse salt in our opened wounds
Rubbing it in the flayed
William, my sire, of the black turf belly
Rubbing it in the lashed
Maxie , my ma , of white-on-black graft
Rubbing it in the spurred
Dot Adams, my oracle , of the pearled-truth tongue
imprisoned to a silent ninety-day solitary confinement. .
Yes, a full two hundred scar-studded waxes
avidly saluting the wretched who rose in revolution
drowning exploiters in the oppressed`s precious blood
Algeria whilst raped,unveiling herself,
firing fear into bared French fascism
exploding the myth of a benevolent colonialism.
“Lumumba will guide the Kongo to freedom”
grandpa agitated hopefully as revolutionary Patrice,
our dark prince of peace
died on the bloodied butts
of neo-colonial carbines.
My seven-year heart burst
in anger and pain.
A companiable heart`s balance
tilted with unease at justice , unhinged.
the periodic uprisings of people in far-flung regions
against the arrogance of anglo-saxon imperialism
salted my youth with the tears of broken children,
their blood ever spattering my angry brow.
I passed a church today
glanced at the 12 foot cross
with hanging replica of Jesus
beaten, flayed, crucified.
I slowed my pace,
almost turned to ask:
"Why do they think you'll come back?"
I pondered the question
walking slowly in the darkness
trying to see in passersby
what he claims to have seen...
the divinity of man....
I once held out hope
that it was still hidden
buried somewhere deep
awaiting re-awakening
then tortured myself
wondering how it was
allowed to go to sleep.
Perhaps it was drugged,
incapacitated by some
satanic aphrodisiac
lulled into lethargy
waiting for someone,
anyone, to replant
the mustard seed
of faith, of belief
in themselves,
in their inherent nature
to express the divinity
that is their heritage,
their gift, their essence.
I walk still in the doubt
that he would return
to awaken a world
of slumbering saints
disconnected from the
ancestral roots of angelic expression
sitting idly inside a church
praising an iconic God
while denying
in their actions
the truth of His.
John G. Lawless
3/2/2021
Broken glass world
pithed with black flags
madmen and misfits.
Where is our god in all this fantastic muck?
Atop an out of touch mountain top...
Salving wounds of savant sons?
Far below all the rest flayed and salted.
mostly forgotten
Our collective-depressive monkey minds fleeing to
origami boats.
Drifting upon shark finned ponds.
Flaming arrows line the shores.
Ribbed strays and one-legged orphans
turning tricks for milk and crumbs
and the rustic prosthetic called
love.
One by one
yellow-fins are gathering.
Their salty hearts gently filling
with the indigo currents
of struggle -of living.
Tide treading the present...
back-stroking(grimacing) the past.
Front-crawling into future's moaning crag.
Dorsal fin topped dreams and crimson cream
never seem to last...
or do they?
The wicked wield wicked nets... squeezing tighter.
Calloused gaffs move in-greedily.
The joy of yellow fins is flayed...
One by one,
as foul minded sea lice gobble down
a million future suns...
You find in the slime of indecency
The rotted hollow of an empty skull -
A mindless mind allows redundancy
Repeated repetitions till it's full.
Cogs in a wheel turning round on a run,
As sparrows share their madrigals at dawn.
The tulips muse about the idol, Sun,
Iconoclastic papal paragon.
Once baptised in the bounty of my birth,
Religion's regal razor ripped and flayed;
When double mothers claimed one child of earth
The mighty sword of Solomon was raised.
A wisp of willow in the wind will bend
As will the will of wiser men who found
The sterner tree is broken in the end
To join the lowly loam below the ground.
CONFOUNDED ( COLLABORATION )
by~ S.Jagathsimhan Nair
When tension grips and the head reels
In its ever accelerated twirl
When two rays dangle from two flayed poles,
And the dumb loss of a moment’s truth
Looks so conspicuous and an eminently
Forgettable lapse of an inoffensive world
When the gentle genre to which the slamming
Of an ever open door in the face of
The rare perspicacity and purpose shown
By a soul, a land and a generation belongs
Looks so commonplace; when the benign
Visitor’s countenance does indeed despair
And crave a black visor above the originality
Of its expansiveness and the staggering degradation
Of its vitality; I have this great ache’s abundance
Stirring in my cupped palms, held out in supplication,
Till it rests, for an ever lasting understanding
Ever in the vision, ever into its aftermath.
by~ p.d.
The "aftermath" of any loss seems to consist in any form.
An aster plea subsiding every look.
Behind glory behind redemption~
Giving rest to the velocity speeding force
Creations of fantasy and religion and imagination
I paint the skies with my fingertips, to feel the mass
The world trembles at the knowledge of relativity.
"I sit in displeasure, injecting every generation into my veins!"
New born babies, born into this puzzled abyss.
Bewildered minds accepting stupendous addictions.
A poison to taste every sunrise,
Forbidden tongues baffle the night
Mental representation, stirring up conflict
Foiled toes to hold and worship.
Steady vision behind these eyes so confounded.
a collaboration with* S,Jagathsimhan Nair
my collaboration contest
Beyond the trembly weald to glassy glane
beneath the wooden breath where thoughts remain
'twas a harkened land called Wordingtane.
The Wizard of Words ruled this land
in grips vernacular he had sturly hand, gimbly grand.
None in Wordingtane fair match for him
he needn't fiat, he could whim
his ekel pronouncements in spelling fusion
for peasants quiet conclusion.
Speaking by riddles it's easy to say,
save a fool, the perfect way.
Long swiffen over time to mumbly masses
in rhyme, it nestled in just fine.
Amber all who would argue
fribbled and frambled tied up
and scrambled, brains rambled,
fell off trillig tracks while
simpering sloggers couldn't get back.
The Riddler tacked to try who came
from afar he posed an answer assert
that vored in abyss and he lost his head.
"No place for his hat", the Wizard said,
"That was that", the crowd anored
in callactic dord their cries flayed
and all obeyed.
Then the Fiddler spun his music trick
and the Wizard metered in time,
felled him with a trocken rhyme.
Then proclaimed the silly Fool
entered his aclaim so tangled a wordmess
he'd profess, using words unheard,
the Wizard unslurred, spinning in a web.
So rilly and rich the "Wiz" confused began
a twitch to twitch he did till flabbergast
through the night till morning past.
Whence he fell asleep at foolish feet
with his verily own vorpal blade in hand
the Wizard's head, in a wreck left his neck,
and the fool would rule in grim humor
this land to tell so trundly true,
the end 'twas justine jewel.
Now the sky is bright, land just right,
'tis the wave whilst the Fool did fight
and twisted foils stretched in hand
he won his refrain, startling reign.