Best Flipped Poems
At the appointed time (you know not when)
your spirit will kiss this world goodbye.
Sands of your earthly time will then
have run their course. Folks will cry.
Your progeny will be
left behind, and words
hopefully kind
about you
will be
said.
The
hourglass
at this time
for you alone
will have flipped. Dear ones
will keep on their own path.
With spirit eyes, you’ll view them
from behind the veil where you will
slip, knowing that the hourglass of those
whom you so love will also soon be flipped.
Feb. 6, 2022
For Edward Ibeh's Pick-A-Title, Vol 28 Poetry Contest
Title 4: Flipped Hourglass in double etheree poetry form
In my vantage-point the vast oceans are warming,
The sea levels are rising, while today is melting,
Cracking thick ice-shields crowning Artic, Antarctic
And ferocious intensity is churning Atlantic, Pacific,
As yesteryear in rear view flashes blunt warnings,
And future is admonishing~ morrow is drowning.
Snow-white Alps, soon forgotten dreams of past,
Rockies, Himalayas, barren as dethroned crowns,
Productive farming lands, infertile lacking rainfall,
Breeze of winsome winds, belching carbon dioxide,
Elixir of life poisoned by chemicals in water supply,
Paradise on earth soiled by callous human assault.
Proponents believe it’s true, deniers claim it’s false,
It’s an inexplicable dialogue of a human paradox,
Some assert it’s here now, others are nonchalant;
Tomorrow is troubled~ warns the flipped hourglass.
God! here comes the flood, here comes the storm,
Here come the disasters, hurricanes and cyclones,
Here comes the famine, here comes the drought,
Here on our display~ are shortcomings and faults.
Raise your voice, shout aloud~ dares anxious heart,
Apocalypse now! clamors an ubiquitous time clock,
Time to act is now, commands a flipped hourglass,
Before shore-lands vanish and coastal towns drown,
Before the earth’s scorched, before life is parched;
Before the game’s over, before checkmate is called.
February 8, 2022
Placed 1st: Pick-A-Title, Vol 28 Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Edward Ibeh
Title chosen: Flipped Hourglass
Flipped hourglass: a slipped tide or a passed second,
Has moved, like drop in a flowing river, beckoned;
Hourglass, an automaton, cannot run itself,
Humans must be at its beck and call, like an elf...
Flipped hourglass: a slipped tide or a passed second,
Has moved, like drop in a flowing river, beckoned;
Hourglass, an automaton, cannot run itself,
Humans must be at its beck-and-call, like an elf...
Times bind; we are bound; we at the mercy of time;
Wrist watch ties us; rather, us tying its chill chime;
With time we slip; unable to follow its flow,
Flipping with it we flip; our movements being slow...
Doesn't flip hourglass denote human existence?
With its fleeting, flowing and flopping in tight, tense;
Sand filled in is like air puffed up in our body,
Leak enough to leave the clock and body, shoddy...!
I had an hourglass, so smart-looking, glamorous!
I admired its function, and almost stood speechless;
My obligations and dead-lines remained undone,
Sand slipped; I slipped with it unknowingly; Like fun...!
Flowing with the time we could flow the time for us,
Buddha said, none can dip in the same river twice;
Time is fix flex flux; changing, churning, endlessly,
Pleads us to care it; keep going eternally...!
28 January 2022
Pick-A-Title, Vol 28 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Edward Ibeh
We flip the hourglass for time,
use moments as each hour's pawn.
Then store Today, when past its prime,
midst Yesterdays--now finished, gone.
If we could make one moment stay
just by flipping the hourglass,
how to choose the hour, the day
so many moments come and pass.
Or, as time's measure disappears,
will we, in greed, pound on the door
of hours, minutes, days, and years
that come but once and then no more.
Time flees--its hours hurry on,
a moment's look, and then it's gone.
February 2, 2022
for Pick-A-Title Vol. 28 Poetry Contest
Flipped Hourglass
Honorable Mention
by Edward Ibeh
Emotions vibrate through the heavens
Crying out desirous of a love
Beseeching it’s warm embrace
Yet it goes unfelt, unheard, unanswered
Hope for a pragmatic love just a dream
Expectations being preconceived
For the universe could not grasp
the greatness of her yearning,
This she had come to grips with
Because surely none could
provide fulfillment
Melancholy settles over her,
as she carefully wraps her love,
back up in the ribbons of longing ,
placing it into a box of disappointment
Sitting upon her bed of sorrow,
absent of emotions
For tears dried up years ago
and only out of habit did she release
its vibration into the heavens
Like a flipped hourglass time
seemed never to advance
For she knew she would remain
a castaway on this island where
love seemed not welcomed
2/3/22
Sponsored by: Edward Ibeh
Flipped Hourglass
Bits of unwrinkled sand, harried ageless seconds,
Rush through a narrow neck
Pushing to birth
Moments of elegance or horror
Shoving aside other grains
Like words of regret flowing unrestricted
Into a ballet arabesque of transparent history
Irretrievable
Uncatchable
Lost like a tear drop in desert sea dances
Prodigals or prophets unable to caress or cling
Only rush headlong into the past.
When Heaven’s hand flips the hourglass
Second chances dash forward,
Free flowing jive of refreshed possibilities,
To animate a nameless tidal stream
In a cadence of options
That takes no long lost baggage
Through gravity’s flowing fountain
Irresistible
Unstoppable
Choreography of charity recaptured
That speaks in immutable tones
Of free flowing grace.
Each spiraling grain speaks of steps renewed
Waiting to articulate
Gliding strides of spoken blessing
Or pirouettes of consecration
As one grain falls upon another
In a transparent time window,
With intervals of oblation tarantellas,
Irrepressible
Uncontainable
Until the dance routine runs its course
Dancers lie inert to hear echoes of eternity whisper
“Save your last dance for me.”
2-9-22
Contest: This or That
Sponsor: Edward Ibeh
Title Chosen: Flipped Hour Glass
Running after chimeras
I realised not that
Life's most precious essence
Was being left behind
Racing against time
I strived to rule over oceans
And to have rose gardens
Blooming in their midst
And each time I would look at my portrait
I would shudder
As the painting was getting old
And little insects had even started
To nimble at it
Time was eating me up
Time was dancing joyfully over my thirst
For that which was not fated to be mine
And like an angry demon
It kept rejoicing at the pain that
Was slowly breaking me into pieces
But then
I just stopped in my race,
Looked all around me
And flipped the hourglass
Before throwing my portrait into a fire
And igniting a flame with its residue
In my very own heart
Life is not meant to be a channel to assuage
Our greedy monster growling inside of us
But life is an opportunity to make
Of our stay in this realm
One worthy of being remembered
For the way we treated others all around us
The flipped hourglass had me running backwards
To where nature was revered
And simplicity was worn as a crown
There where smiles sparkled
And trust shined on
There where I could sit
And watch waves peacefully,
Content and satisfied at the gifts that are my own due!
Written on 1st Feb 2022
For Contest Pick A Title Vol 28
Sponsored by Edward Ibeh
Life, here hangs on a filmy thread of hope
Unskilled acrobats, making tight rope walks
With the deep chasm gaping below
Some too fatigued to feel the stress,
Empty beds bearing
The scars of lost battles
Shaded rooms brooding in the gloom,
Pervading silence speaking mutely
Of burnt hopes and dreams,
Of flipped hour glasses!
The morbid stillness
Occasionally broken
By stifled groans and whimpers
In a corner room, he lay,
A dead heap upon the bed,
With no one to keep vigil,
Loneliness, his only companion!
Crowds of fans queued up once
To have just a glimpse of him!
Now suddenly grown older
With all energy vanquished,
He stares into the claws of Death.
His frail emaciated body,
Rejecting the drops of toxic drugs,
The dried up neurons refusing
To send signals to the brain,
Eye balls sinking deep,
Cheek bones sticking out,
Tentacles of cancer tightening hold
On every lobe of his lungs,
He lay looking at the granules of sand
Sliding slowly down, so slow at snail’s pace
That he wishes if the hour glass, all of a sudden
Had flipped upside down!
He lay- on his bed,
A dead log tossed by the currents
Moving in and out of consciousness
He was finally trapped in the snares of Death.
The vanquished soldier exited out,
Sans songs, sans fanfare!
Placed First
Jan.2.2022
Pick-A-Title, Vol.28 Poetry Contest
Sponsor- Edward Ibeh
*Image of Hourglass by Pixabay.
AUDIO: Tip; Right-click on volume then click on Loop of the drop-down menu for continuous play.
Flipped Hourglass
Count, onward we go, pivoting seized dunes,
Tempestuous pilgrimage outstretched phase,
Tick - tock, flops, 'tis a dog's day afternoon's,
O'er perpetual movements like scarred toons,
Lunar ... solar, yond the masque, nowadays,
Count, onward we go, pivoting seized dunes,
Small sand on big sand, tea time, macaroons,
Some glass menagerie extreme breadthways,
Tick - tock, flops, 'tis a dog's day afternoon's,
Fitting bits of earth, pour drain, honeymoons,
Time swings on, crystals encased pair relays,
Count, onward we go, pivoting seized dunes,
Scheherazade misses a night, whole moon's,
Bear flight you hefty load, back in someways,
Tick - tock, flops, 'tis a dog's day afternoon's,
A wonderment, gadget, like boom-box tunes,
Shifts drift collared in this time capsule gaze,
Count, onward we go, pivoting seized dunes,
Tick - tock, flops, 'tis a dog's day afternoon's.
2022 January 28
*1st Place*
Pick-A-Title, Vol 28
~~Edward Ibeh: Judged 2022 February 13
we will flip our lid
hearing that we have COVID
of want to get rid
Thought spirals
Eating us alive
Remorselessly
Gnawing our soul
We lift our hand
As a stop signal
The bubbles burst
Noiselessly
In staid silence
Tranquil equipoise
Flow of time ends
Melding with the void
Awareness self-aware
Porous and receptive
Invites bliss currents
To suffuse our heart
Dance of polarities
Rotates with each breath
Essence of presence
Celebrates divine union
01-February-2022
The burden of the world
on his frail shoulders
The man in the White House
has never seemed older
But he's the leader we've got
and that counts for a lot
When he's said to veer off-script
perhaps the script has flipped
Flipped Hourglass
Bits of unwrinkled sand, harried ageless seconds,
Rush through a narrow neck
Pushing to birth
Moments of elegance or horror
Shoving aside other grains
Like words of regret flowing unrestricted
Into a ballet arabesque of transparent history
Irretrievable
Uncatchable
Lost like a tear drop in desert sea dances
Prodigals or prophets unable to caress or cling
Only rush headlong into the past.
When Heaven’s hand flips the hour glass
Second chances dash forward,
Free flowing jive of refreshed possibilities,
To animate a nameless tidal stream
In a cadence of options
That takes no long lost baggage
Through gravity’s flowing fountain
Irresistible
Unstoppable
Choreography of charity recaptured
That speaks in immutable tones
Of free flowing grace.
Each spiraling grain speaks of steps renewed
Waiting to articulate
Gliding strides of spoken blessing
Or pirouettes of consecration
As one grain falls upon another
In a transparent time window,
With intervals of oblation tarantellas,
Irrepressible
Uncontainable
Until the dance routine runs its course
Dancers lie inert to hear echoes of eternity whisper
“Save your last dance for me.”
2-9-22
Contest: This or That
Sponsor: Edward Ibeh
Title Chosen: Flipped Hourglass
Trinkets, salt packet from road trip sixteen years ago
Collected, cafes remembered, ripped open with age
Spilt among treasure, a twig, tickets, torn butterfly
Bits familiar, shrine in a tin, tired feather, belated
Harmoniously decompose, shipwreck's chains
Filter their links, flakes floated, flipped coins
Emboss truth funnelled through decades
Grains falling, fabled chamber drained
Recollections creak rocking chair era
Carpet of moths, floorboards erode
Sanctum split, heirlooms fracture
Hailed scriptures huddle in fog
Divided cortex gorge cool gap
Glide of pendulum grandfather
Silent rhythm discards old habits
Distance in dust, leaf littered history
Compiles mottos rotting ignominous
With inter century bold blended injection
Contemporary tips in, new version junction
Mingling dissolves old into fresh vessel joined
Relentless generations mark intended kamikaze
Ebony ivory rivals reflect empathy kindered
Measure of Yin Yang our future ligature
7th February 2022
Written For Contest
Pick - A -Title
Sponsor: Edward Ibeh
Today while I was at the grocery store
getting some food and whatnot. I saw
the strangest thing. While I was headed
to my car, two guys were arguing in the
parking lot. Next, I couldn't believe my
eyes. One guy got flipped the bird. He
was in total shock. The other guy’s pet
parrot did a mean summer salt on his
head. He couldn't believe it. You know
what? I couldn't either. Could you?
Alexis Y.
07/31/2021