Best Forlornness Poems
I turn my head, and there she is once more
in her disheveled, worn, and tattered dress,
one pew behind me near the exit door-
she sits head bowed- an image of distress.
Two weeks now on a Sunday, she is there-
the same pew in the church, the same old clothes.
She shows forlornness that makes me aware
her life is sadly filled with countless woes.
This time, she lifts her head and looks at me,
as tears swell in her eyes and down her cheek.
My heart is broken by the hurt I see
within her wanting eyes so dark and meek.
I gaze into her face and see her fears.
With a slight twinkle in her sullen eyes
and tiny smile, she wipes her falling tears
away; but still, I hear the painful cries
that echo from her heart so silently-
her weakened body, anguished mind, and soul.
I wonder what in life could possibly
have caused her to now suffer such a toll.
And I surmise that homeless she must be.
But still, some faith has brought her to this spot
where healing strength from God might possibly
renew her spirit- when her life cannot.
The mass soon ends, and I arise and turn-
so now, in front of her, I sadly stand.
She grasps my hand and says, “God Bless, you earn
His blessings- for a heart that understands."
November 16, 2014
Categories:
forlornness, emotions, feelings, poverty,
Form:
Iambic Pentameter
At winter’s end, sweet hope begins
to swell until it fills the earth.
Forlornness fades; renewal wins
at winter’s end! Sweet hope begins
as sun looks down at us and grins.
To scatter seeds that blossom mirth
at winter's end, sweet hope begins
to swell until it fills the earth.
1/17/15
for Carolyn Devonshire's 'Hope, Old or New' Contest
Now for Joseph May's Triolet - Old Or New Poetry Contest
checked Aug. 19, 2022 by Howmanysyllables.com and
and by Rhymezone.com
Rhyme Scheme: ABaAabAB
Categories:
forlornness, hope, spring, winter,
Form:
Triolet
By the early years of that ancient decade, the 70's,
I'd tired of my obstreperous tomboyish games:
kickball with the neighbor kids, sledding in the winter,
desecrating the peacefulness of our street's grave yard
with our bike races, tag, and hide-n-seek.
And I tired too of the pastimes of my season preferred:
chasing siblings with a hose, giggling and gleeful,
swimming at Weed Park,
and my perpetual swinging through those long, sweet sunshiny days
longed for during classes in my school.
Old friends grew up.
Boredom anon crept upon the remnant of my childhood.
At times - through infancy and beyond -
I'd been beset by a feeling of loss
over something not yet sought.
It was something kin to loneliness, but no. . .not that.
More a sense of gloom - a sorrowing for what?
I still don't really know.
Despite the days of inexplicable forlornness,
I grew more and more cavalier
throughout the days that came
between those odd forlorn days
because my old timidity, in fact, had waned. . .
Another face, fairer, appeared.
It waxed and glowed - assured -
until those “days - in- between”
had finally surpassed the melancholy ones.
I learned to stifle monotony and squelch the blues.
I became a "doer" of too many things to name
as I went gliding through with the Gibbous moon.
Soon enough, a fullness had arrived.
And now it must disseminate.
In the years to come, I'll be wondering this. . .
Will the shining face I show the world wane too,
and will my youth's strange darkness re-emerge,
eclipsing what light remains as I drift,
having come full-cycle,
into my final
crescent phase?
5/21/14
Submitted 3/30/16 to PD's Any Poem # 38 Poetry Contest
Categories:
forlornness, life,
Form:
Free verse
A lonely figure twirls itself, concealed
by blades of wheat as clouds float through the sky.
The form, a boy, looks up from golden field
and sees the clouds as wedges of cream pie.
He hides despair as if it were that wart
beneath his sleeve. A no-fuss, lonesome lad,
he thinks of things most wonderful to thwart
forlornness. . . He rehearses being glad.
Skipping to the thicket, near a brier,
he spies some lovely flowers; standing there
he uses the demeanor of his sire,
pretends to hold a Bible, thumps the air. . .
and preaching to forget-me-nots, the boy
imagines what might be. . . imagines joy.
For Chris' Anything goes!
Categories:
forlornness, sad,
Form:
Sonnet
Written: October 09, 2023
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There are no blooms to snuggle in the twilight
No promise that it will ever reach the zenith.
Either the sky is clear or a cyclone is brewing
Unpredictable, akin to the whims of fate.
Life sheds its brimful aura and amorphous shells
No longer a folk-waltzing performance,
But an aphonic and agrestal appendices
Shifts sustain, the skin splits and slides,
Revealing the vulnerability beneath,
A skin split that resonates in the heart
Where forlornness resides, tearing at the seams
In this ever-changing world, seasons shift.
Some souls only shine once a year.
Or twice, if they're lucky, reaching even higher.
When you least expect it, or in the spring,
They decry what bestows them delight,
Appreciating the winding road of life,
Finding beauty in the midst of anguish
There are no blooms to snuggle in the twilight.
Categories:
forlornness, analogy, angst, emotions,
Form:
Free verse
time is ticking -
if I listen closely
I can hear it; in the distance
a horn's mournful notes have begun to play -
forlornness wafting to my ear cannot drown what I fear. . .
sweet life t r i c k l i n g . . . . . a w a y
For Line Gauthier's Bite Size Poem no.44 Poetry Contest
Categories:
forlornness, life,
Form:
Free verse
A Palace of Aloneness.
This palace of aloneness is not my home.
It's bricks know only the time of run-off bygones.
Transition past it's thousand entrances
Impaired with creeping ivy
Into it's stately communion hall
For the dead and the living you'll end up.
Look out it's eyes towards blurred views
Draped in so longs never to be clearly revealed.
Gawk at it's floor to ceiling shelves infinitely crowded
With ô so decidedly swollen hearts
Captive inside tightly sealed jars.
To dust them is not my task.
Here, cabinets are filled with illogical medicines
For conditions without extensional cures.
A repository for good and bad intentions.
You'll know as soon as you feel it
That you are there.
I'll take no residence in this palace
On the dark side of it's interference.
Secure no long or short term stay in it.
This settlement has no neighbors
To cheerily comfort with a smile.
No happiness locker, no blowing kisses.
No escape if you accept lodging here.
Move on, let weighty doors close before you
That have no real escape.
About-face before it's dark shadow becomes you.
Recapture only evidence that matters.
There is no recouping backwards.
Offer up your redress to tomorrow today.
Flee past this palace of forlornness.
Avoid it's thorns upon your ankles.
Clutch your heart from head to toe.
Keep your future safe to ascent again.
Stay out and away look up to heavens above
Even now they are clouded with silver linings.
Categories:
forlornness, endurance, feelings, loneliness, longing,
Form:
Free verse
Inspired by Iron Maiden’s “The Final Frontier:
#18 on Best New Poems List , May 16, 2025
I am but one person
on a mission that went wrong -
locked out of the safety
of the spaceship I was on.
Black ink is spilled around me,
vast and never-ending
as into nothingness
I find my body wending.
The oxygen inside my tank
will last perhaps six hours.
I can see stars - stabs of light
that twinkle not – cosmic flowers!
Forlornness embraces me -
a suffocating feeling
so unlike my loved ones’ hugs.
With gloom my brain is reeling.
I travel in my mind
to things I cherish most -
my family and friends.
To them I’ll be a ghost.
A ghost forever floating
in this upside-down endless sea
which will be a graveyard
of black surrounding me.
God, I am imploring you
as I drift and drift and drift,
may I soon be in your light -
my death both peaceful and swift.
Categories:
forlornness, science fiction,
Form:
Quatrain
Written: October 05, 2023
___________________________________________________________
Where the paradisiacal angels reside.
A myriad of creatures, ebony and betide
A dinkum dissolute and a discreet divine,
A degree of dexterity, a denizen decline
Amidst the mahatmas and zeitgeist calls,
An indweller quests for lyricism thrall.
A martyrdom route, an incubus chase,
Eristic battles in the realm of grace
A proponent of verity, a wraith of anile,
Sought to indwell the hearts of enamel.
A sip of soma, a savor of seraglio supine,
Agnostic beyond, for the geist did shine.
Destructive metempsychosis, a mortal plight,
Internal battles, seeking inspirational light.
In the realm of the departed, desolate cries
A crybaby tears, but awe-inspiring skies
Departed souls, once heartsick and heartsore,
Find solace in the trust they restore.
For in the internal depths, a spark ignites.
And as the decedents rise, their souls bear flight.
Absolve afreets, the anxiousness abides,
Embrace the beatitude; sublimity resides.
Rawness of a sentimentalist, troubadour song,
The immanence of duende is pantywaist wrong.
In the realm of the spiritual, the snarl of sin,
Is replaced by beatitude, the soul's win.
Spotless and unsullied, cleansed of all pain,
The spiritual journey is the ultimate gain.
They sully the cosmic force with opulence.
Yet, the sunny glow of bliss starts radiance.
A troll in the netherworld, forlornness abounds,
In the cognition of theosophy, the soul rebounds.
Categories:
forlornness, analogy, appreciation, birth, death,
Form:
Rhyme
Around him is a multitude
of people who appear to be
with partners, friends or family.
Excited smiles display their mood.
He drifts along, solitary.
Among that throng, a ghost is he
whose dead wife’s face he can’t unsee.
Forlornness he cannot bury.
Categories:
forlornness, lost love,
Form:
Other
(The poem is based on The Short Story of O Henry " The Last Leaf". I was reminded of it while I saw a last leaf in the winter of 2011 while living at Concord, NC)
One leaf left on tree
Not a sound of the sadness
Neither the despair
One leaf left on tree
No undue unhappiness
Neither any pain.
One leaf left on tree
All by itself in the air
Feels no forlornness.
One leaf left on tree
It spends itself in swaying
Breathing in the breeze.
Last leaf not the end
When tumbles down as time comes
Hundreds of buds sprout.
+++
January 22, 2015
Form: Haiku
Categories:
forlornness, beauty, inspiration, life,
Form:
Haiku
Admirable Almights all I ask appreciatively allow me to attain,
be beyond bourgeois breeding ballads for the brain.
Create colloquialisms that cast competently into chimeras,
directing dramatists with doubtful determinations to
delightful dactylic discriptions.
Edible expressions that exite eyes and ears,
by freely forming a firm fire you'll flog any frigid forlornness fear.
God glorifies the good, my given gift Godsent thee,
my hardihood's husky, heart hungover with honesty.
I inscribe impenetrable insights, my individuality's
inanimate without improvisation,
other jaws jabber jargon jokingly, my journalistic journey's
like Jesus's justifications.
I know to keep with Christ a close kinship,
lie low then leap to light life is limited.
Maturing moderately I molded motives to mentally
manufacture music,
now naturally notions are necessary, abnormal novelistic natuarlist.
It's obvious this optimist ovulates obscure poetic offsprings,
perception pastel's perfectly personify the pen pusher's
potentcy passionately.
You're quasi qualified like Franz Kafka no question,
respectable written reflection ramble rampant even while resting.
Some scorn and show sentiment towards sonnets I've
scriptured successfully,
the toungue-tied troubadour tallies towering totals of
synchronized terms intentionally.
My untimatum is ultimately unrivaled when using unbreakable
utensils,
my voice vibrates vigorously, visionary with a victorious view.
Why waste what you wrote, wake up, wonder in a writer zone,
poems have vibes like a xylophone.
Heart young, yearn for God 365 times a year,
my zodac is wrong, attitude zealous.
Categories:
forlornness, art, confusion, family, imagination,
Form:
As I roamed into the steakhouse,
I spotted him slashing steak.
He looked up with his dispirited stare,
His despair coherent to me.
He summon me to take a chair,
He had a anecdote to unfold,
About the day his spouse left,
The day love revolved to abyss.
He delivered her the works he had,
His body, soul and heart,
Her addiction got the best of him,
She backslid; he fell discrete.
Off she went on a spree, appear like,
A daze of narcotics and booze–
When he faced up to her, she said,
"Fine," and ran off–just think
Of the agony it caused this man,
His eyes folded into his face,
Tears so actuate, harsh and brutal
They are salting him in place.
Yet he turns up at the steakhouse,
Forlornness not his thing,
Through those depressed eyes I can declare
He’s longing for happiness, although
Dealing with the tragedy of losing
A woman once very delightful,
A woman now astray in her sadness,
His sorrow under her feet.
Categories:
forlornness, anger, conflict, divorce, for
Form:
Ballad
“The rays of setting sun design the unframed dreams
in life’s kaleidoscopic snapshot.” – by Poet
The revolving wheel of the ceaseless time
rotates the contrived kaleidoscope of life,
the riveting patterns change persistently
in the mélange of motif enmeshing the mind.
The chameleon colors transform transiently
the visage of mind’s varied landscape
into the ashen essence of burnt forlornness,
or the beguiled feeling of emerald exuberance.
The dispersed dreams drifting away to the past,
float on the cascade of fantasy stream,
meandering on the topography of the present,
carved out of the bedrock of ebullience.
My emotion replicates the wings of butterflies,
fluttering on the ripples of blissful breeze,
and before they all waft away to obscurity,
form for me a flying formation of fulfillment.
I take my lonesome journey with hope
across the greening wasteland of despair,
or along the glittering garden path,
lined with blooming saplings of bursting colors.
I then perceive my closed mind unfurl,
unveiling the receptive canvas of sensuality,
painted with shifting colors of sublime beauty of being,
creating the kaleidoscopic collage of euphoria.
_______________
March 11, 2023
Theme chosen : Kaleidoscopic
Contest :Writing Challenge - "K" Words
Sponsored by : Constance La France
For A Brian Strand Premiere No 1215 Contest
Categories:
forlornness, analogy, change, dream, life,
Form:
Free verse
Afghanistan’s People
The Eyes Tell It
Written: by Tom Wright
1/7/02
Eyes that search for help,
but relief they seldom see.
Eyes that cannot weep,
for tears long dried are not to be.
Eyes that are frequently betraying,
the forlornness of a hopeless life.
Eyes transmitting anguish,
from lifelong war and strife.
Eyes penetrate, but place no merit,
on life oft passed in utter darkness.
Eyes denouncing that none exists,
beholding life, as an interlude in starkness.
Eyes’ observing other’s free born lives,
both the ridiculous and sublime.
Eyes, that to me appear translucent,
as if inhaled by time.
Categories:
forlornness, war,
Form:
Rhyme