Best Fortresses Poems
I am being told to let go
By almost everyone I know
Release, let it out, let it be
Plunge into passivity
While I cling to bitter beauty
My bruises bloom a thorny tree
Guarding roses of agony
This pain is mine, it belongs to me
My torment is my blood, it breathes
with every breath, it beats with my heartbeats
Within my tears, it weeps
It shrieks, uncoiled, beneath my skin
Where the sin of suffering begins
It is my fertile fury, my hellish choir
My savage soul, my cathartic fire
It is large and lush and livid
Conquering and vivid
It is too precious, too valuable, to trade away or wallow
in trinkets, or flimsy platitudes, or empty cliches, or hollow
promises of unfulfilling fortresses to follow
Their learned words I dare spurn
For to recover, I must burn
So I will keep it, for I know its worth,
even if their unsolicited, unwarranted, intrusive,
Questioning and questionable, inconclusive
Unadvised advisors do not grant it girth
It is here I find
What I want most
Where rage of kindness blinds
My grieving ghosts.
06/06/20
Entered in 'N/A Rerun 7'
1st Place
For forty days and nights, a tempest strange
blew in; the lost unsaved by fortresses.
One shelter only from those winds of change:
an ark that sailed to rainbow's promises.
Elijah, fleeing from his enemies,
protected from an earthquake, fire, and storm,
was fed by angels heeding God's decrees.
The Rock of ages kept him safe and warm.
The fishermen knew raging squalls and throes;
one maelstrom caused their courage to be thinned -
when Jesus tells the storm, "be still!", he shows
himself to be the Master of the wind.
On stormy seas, when troubling winds arise,
sail for the harbor where true safety lies.
Written 23 Nov 2020
I am being told to let go
By almost everyone I know
Release, let it out, let it be
Plunge into passivity
While I howl to bitter beauty
My bruises bloom a thorny tree
Guarding roses of agony
My pain is mine, it belongs to me
This torment is my blood, it breathes
with every breath, it beats with my heartbeats
Within my tears, it weeps
It shrieks, uncoiled, beneath my skin
Where the sin of suffering begins
It is my fertile fury, my hellish choir
My savage soul, my cathartic fire
It is large and lush and livid
Conquering and vivid
It is too precious, too valuable, to trade away or wallow
in trinkets, or flimsy platitudes, or empty cliches, or hollow
promises of unfulfilling fortresses to follow
Their learned words I dare spurn
For to recover, I must burn
So I will keep this, for I know its worth,
even if their unsolicited, unwarranted, intrusive,
Questioning and questionable, inconclusive
Unadvised advisors do not grant it girth
It is in my pain I find
What I wish most
Where rage of kindness blinds
My grieving ghosts.
5/20/18
Frisky, gray squirrels scramble
Beneath a massive, old oak tree
Gathering the best acorns they see
Their fluffy tailed, lively damsels
Opossum wobble on short legs
From their laurel sheltered lairs
Toward the thickets where there’s
Vast bugs and spiders in their webs
Gentle, soft haired rabbits assemblage
Onward, seeking out grassy fortresses
Where they might discover tortoises
And additional special kinds of foliage
Black and white stripped skunks
Bob out toward their furry friends
Reassured they will make amends
So they will help them over tree stumps
Russet colored raccoons with charming features
Searching for their favorite pine tree expansion
Scrambling up through the long branches
To havens above all the other creatures
Big, black bear grumble through woods so eerie
Checking all around for beehives or cherries
Hoping to find a bit of honey or sweet berries
To munch on before the weather gets dreary
Tan and bronze deer clamber up cliffs that deliver
To the meadows where they’re stopping together
To chew long grass and weeds found whether
They make their trek toward the gently flowing river
Forests are thriving with these unique beings
All the different beasts living there from across
Pine, oak, birch, locust, laurel, fern and moss
God’s gifts to us who love this place so pleasing
* This is a CCM (Christian) song that I wrote for Lifeblood Ministries about 20 years ago, and it WILL be on my upcoming album under my music moniker "Bahku". Please visit my web site for updates @ bahku.com. Thanks! *
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Isaiah 64:8 "Yet, oh Lord, You are our Father. We are the clay, You are the potter; we are all the work of your hand."
Intro -
(Verse 1)
I've lost touch with all the things that make You real
Could be the reason why I'm just not sure
Of how I feel inside without You
All the stirrings and the hunger in my soul
Is only now replaced by carelessness
And guilt of who I am and used to be
And becoming the reflection that I see
I am.
(Verse 2)
It's taken all my life to insulate my heart
I've surrounded it with walls of words
And fortresses of self-deception
All the battles that I waged within my world
Were only vain attempts to help myself
Believe that I was changing deep inside
But all I did was find new ways to hide
(Chorus)
I am this man of clay
Lord I need you now to mold me
Please take me in your sculptor's hands
And re-create the one
I am.
(Verse 3)
Is there method to the madness in my life?
All the mortar that I've built upon
Has crumbled to my feet before me
Knowing countless are the times I've turned away
Finding temporary refuge in
The things that I could spend my senses on
Hoping when I turned I'd find the one
I am.
(Verse 4)
I have loved and lost so much as someone new
Hoping others would be taken with
The person that they wanted me to be
Living for the things they couldn't see
And not the Truth my Lord had shown to me
(Chorus)
I am this man of clay
Lord I need you now to mold me
Please take me in Your sculptor's hands
And re-create the one
I am.
Solo Break -
(Chorus)
I am this man of clay
Lord I need you now to mold me
Please take me in your sculptor's hands
And re-create the one
I am ...
This man of clay
Lord I need you now to mold me
Please take me in your sculptor's hands
And re-create the one
Re-create the one
Re-create the one
I am.
Outro -
Copyright 2002 Tsahaylu Music - ASCAP
Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden | Year Posted 2017
Oh Lord please tell me what Isaiah meant
That “the wilderness and the dry land shall be glad;
the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus?”
I look out at the full moon in the morning atop an unfinished Cube Smart
Storage facility, the I-76 highway buzzes in the foreground. The rolling hills of empty tree tops
just barely hiding the myriad of man made shapes beneath
I cant stop looking at the moon, the sunrise at my back out of sight
behind this worthless building
but painting all the clouds around the moon with a gray-pink.
I tear up thinking of a line that I could never quite get to work in a poem
Give back to Caesar this un-beating heart
And unto you oh God my soul depart.
There's something there but its still kind of corny.
Too forced, too rhythmic.
I get a text from my foreman
“Sorry was on the phone coming up now.”
I see you God in the little moments,
But they don't last very long.
“Draw near O nations, to hear
and give attention O peoples!
Let the earth hear, and all that fills it.
For the Lord is enraged against all the nations
And furious against all their host;
He has devoted them to destruction, has given them over to slaughter.
Their slain shall be cast out, and the stench of their corpses shall rise;
The mountains shall flow with their blood.”
A truck passes by using its engine brakes BRAP BRAP BRAP BRAP
“Thorns shall grow over its strongholds, nettles and thistles in its fortresses
It shall be the haunt of jackals an abode for ostriches.”
Ostriches on the highway, I’m into it. I don't really get off on the stench of corpses like Isaiah though.
Why the love of vengeance Lord?
I’d like to think Isaiah an imperfect messenger. But I get the anger over the destruction of nature
Tell me Lord if this world will be destroyed? Will you let our selfishness destroy everything?
It seems like its getting pretty close.
Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done.
Please Lord protect the Earth and let me be an instrument for You, Eternal Love;
And to help usher in The Kingdom
Amen.
Zone A is a flightless bee turning a corner on a wheel. A glowing wheel. Wow such atomic prowess of stripes. But entering under the ocean and travelling at speed is a submerged undetected mobile monster whose instruction is to annihilate an entire side of a country. Wave not at this. The sea life is very confused at the disturbance in the waters. It is not the fault of a fault line. It is merely the beginning of an eradication. This is no underwater pretty specie. It is a journeying destroyer. All trees know. They feel the vibrational frequency through their wise roots. No signal boxes in an underwater roadway. Preplanned movement of murmurs. Akin to an epic blockbuster multiplied by several million. Safety safer still stating staying survives? And a dish of frozen ice cream is never eaten in a grey shrapnel cloud. Take a very large multicoloured multifunctional tent into the centrepiece of a land mass. Reaching residences. No ha no x nothing. Perhaps later. Maybe not. Message mingling minding mince. And a dove flying at over 80000099 feet above sea level. Not good. Not wow. Deviant not a design. Pickled worm. And a fat portly man with a pumpkin face. Darkness's of fortresses with smoked food. And an oceanographic soup boiling. Sap sale spit. And a dog in a stripey square hat laughing. No telephone wire in an earthly clump then. Ornithological 57*90*1
Tears
An irrelevant fact of life
Something that requires an explanation
Something that penetrates you with an incomparable dissatisfaction
Tears
The water that humanity expresses
The true meaning of feelings
That surrounds us with a thousand fortresses
Tears
The dryness that drives you insane
A preexisting force
That makes you feel no pain
Tears
A sign of accomplishment
A happyness that gives you
The powre to be unconfined
Tears
It lurks in your mind
It is an immature state of humankind
That has ddrove us into our
Indissipable worlwide bind
Tears
Something that defines you
Something that describes what
You are and what you are going to be
Tears
A love-hate relationship
Peace
Fair lady, so delicate and refined,
a single touch might sully your beauty,
and so, you have politely declined -
your security, my sacred duty.
Your exquisite, diaphanous skin,
becomes impenetrable armor.
Yet, I feel somewhere beneath, within,
a playful, loving place, much warmer.
Shall I sally forth or softly retreat,
where fortresses and castles meet?
Westernmost in its regional placement and traditional identity,
rare but indigenous is its Arabian flavour,
and a significant bridge of peace
between its brothers and their common enemy.
Displays an open tradition, appreciative of diabolism
as witches are integral part of its cultural settlements.
Typical of its nucleus is a combination of minarets structured worship centers,
Bazaars, sections called medinas and lasbali fortresses.
Its riches in wood stored up through the Atlas mountains
has milked its way from the dashboards of the Rolls Royce brand
and its possession of the “mother of all flowers”
has given the French creative experts a reason to fancy the world.
Public bath are greatly preferred to private ones
to flatter socialization in shrines of ritual purification.
Its rare ideology in liver displacing the heart in love’s symbolism
gives a perceived cosmic effect of its cute uniqueness.
The “assembly of the dead” and the Tomb of John the Baptist
are hugely important in its global historic relevance.
Just the way Aid al-kebir is held highly
so also is handling of food with the right hand
and as well in the acceptance of offered meat.
The glory of such a symbolic geography never stay silent
because the constant whispers of its honour,
despite not a continental union member
is evidenced by its official friendship to the world power
which is the first ever, among hundreds of many more.
She still walks the streets that moulded the
dimples in her smile,
the streets that had her sing a tale song
tailored with a forged rhyme.
She's fond of the trees that cater a platter
of shade towards her mile,
a mile that has so many hearts of weary
travellers on her pile.
What art is she?
She shares a splif with the dukes of our
time,
And walk into fortresses to dine with the
lords we spite.
She feeds on reasoning of fouled grey
widows,
how come, how should, how can: she
mourns.
What love?
In the night the wolves howl in the distance,
As the spring lambs bay, with the first stirrings of life,
Close lies the pack of humanity, those for whom hunger for the
Fresh taste of the blooding’s first strike, at the throats of innocence
Most pure!
Have they gone suddenly silent, these yearlings tender lambs,
In the stilled quiet amongst the melting snows of winter,
The mountain fields run crimson, and an eerie stench oozing
Upon the winds of distain!
The cannibal lies within the forest of the towered halls,
In the giant fortresses of mankind, he does stalk amongst his own brethren,
No wolfed bite of treachery could leave such a mark of
Terror, as he the beast, whom would feast upon the raw flesh
Of his kindred kind!
A gentlemen chamleon blending amongst the tailcoats
Of learned men, sheathed within the amour of intelligence's,
A humanistic wolf moves flawlessly, within the herds of the
Meek and mild, to pick his victims of the city flock
At his leisure of desires pleasure!
Underneath the outstretched wings of the red dragon,
The bubbling caldron pot of truest evil, does runneth over,
With the gravy’s leavening's of the corruption and violence,
Welcoming this creature of the demonic to the dinning
Table of the unrighteous and wicked!
Black sheep, black sheep, do you have any wool,
The whittend lamb does ask, nay but in the woods
Therein, lies many go within the wolves din and take
What you like at your own risk of course, my innocent
Friend, but beneath the blackened skinned wool the
Wolf does smile, with a sheepish grinning!
In an extravagant restaurant a well-mannered gentlemen,
Orders the specialty of the house to go, later he adds
He adds his special ingredients, spiced to the taste
Buds of the cook himself, it sizzles with an unusual
Oromia of well-cooked human flesh, the cannibal
Smiles with delight at his culinary masterpiece,
As the police knock at his door, with a missing
Persons report!
In the jail cell of the lost souls, he the cannibal known
As Hannibal Lector has no regrets, except say one,
The meal he never got to finish!
In the night the wolves howl in the distance,
As the spring lambs bay, with the first stirrings of life,
Close lies the pack of humanity, those for whom hunger for the
Fresh taste of the blooding’s first strike, at the throats of innocence
Most pure!
BY: CHERYL ANNA DUNN
Castles
High walls
Deep moat surrounding
In the Dark Ages
Fortresses
When passion roars
in our bosoms
for mounting on horseback
that breaks through fortresses
or mounting a cloud
to plant in its whiteness
the banners of madness
or ascending a star
to break in its space
the barriers of silence
it’s alright to search for a myth
in whose folds we tuck
a few details that
make known our presence
that they may
give a couple of sparks
or light up a couple of candles
or add a couple of sentences
to the lines of our life, confined
between two moments of the spirit’s manifestations
the moment of its rise
in a dumbfounded embryonic lump
and the moment of its convulsion
in a conquered heartbeat.
(Translated from Arabic)
We stood there in silence,
never asking for more;
we stood prepared for the violence,
garbed in full raiment of war.
In a moment of lightning,
a flash and a flare,
our defenses fell to the frightening,
our fortresses laid bare.
We knew what lay ahead,
and yet we carried on;
we experienced the chaos, the dread,
and still, the still face we don.
We bent our backs through the long night,
battled the forces arrayed against our ragged platoon;
to learn, to grow, to know what it is to fight -
to prove we and our forefathers of the same stone were hewn.
Then, after so long a struggle, finally came the dawn.
The sun rose, and we were men.
The sun rose, and all regrets over the pain were gone.
The sun rose, and we knew strength stood within our ken.
As our leaders spoke words over what we had just fought,
I felt on us the strings with which fate so often intervenes;
heard the call and knew what we had ultimately wrought.
As the colors flew, we saluted; forever we are Marines.
Ever on in silence we'll stand,
awaiting orders, waiting on your need;
the eagle, globe, and anchor forever our brand,
semper fidelis eternally our creed.