Best Freed Poems
ICHTHYS
. C H R I S T S
S O D
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LOVE FLOWERS
Love relates and liberates
Mutual trust procreates,
Enlarging all as it grows;
Love flowers as it flows.
Love's rapport binds and bonds
Affirmed in whispers fond,
And prospers like blossom grows;
Love flowers as it flows.
A pleasured prized and treasured,
Unselfishin it's measure
Requited quid pro quo;
Love flowers as it flows.
We release our hidden grace
As barriers unlace
When each the other knows;
Love flowers as it flows.
Copyright © Brian Strand | Year Posted 2007
YESTERDAYS
Inkwells in desks with lift-uplids
Tables written out with old pen nibs
Noses pressed flat on the window glass
our pockets tinkling ,full of brass
Exploring fields across the brook
studying in nature's real time book
Fishing for minnows with jar and net
oftimes slipping and getting wet
Winding brooklets filling narrow streams
into rivers of childhood dreams
Copyright © Brian Strand | Year Posted 2008
Need
I used to live in a world of need
A dreadful scary place indeed
Needing something God won't give
Yet needing a wicked miracle to live
No food was ever needed more
Water could never tempt me sore
Not love, nor family entice
Not greed or power even might
No promises of healing be believed
Nothing else could fill this need.
The world faded to shades of gray
No thought of the time ticking away
No care for others, so then i knew
I was changed completely as this need grew
In its cocoon kindness turned
Gone or decayed all goodness learned
Truth made into a tangle of lies
Beauty metamorphosised
Oozing out of the shell I'd made
Ugliness and now nearer the grave
Why only judgment? Why does no one care?
“Well…did you ask?” No! I didn't dare!
There will be demands, I'd be force-fed.
“Who would offer a stone to a child asking for bread?”
Expectations, Things I know I can't do.
“You can do all things through Christ, who loves you.”
What if I fail, And everyone knows my sin?
“Take no thought for tomorrow,I've already been.”
Okay, I said, what do I need do?
“Just reach out for me, as I'm reaching for you.”
If I could make myself strong enough to stand firmly in front of the gun,
Do you love me enough to pull the trigger?
Releasing me.
Freeing my mind from this hell.
Captured behind my eyes.
Bleeding in disguise.
Freedom is worth dying for.
Life is worth being free.
I live in a world that confuses me.
I have the world on the surface for everyone to see.
Then shadowed by my mind, I have a world for only me.
Trapped behind my eyes, misery and lies, betrayal and lust,
laughter and pain.
Shatters of un comfort rage destroys the happiness of my reality.
Caught up in the raptured discomfort of what I've created.
Purity is lost, sanity is the cost.
Haunted by my childhood, the curse that lust invoked.
I feel it all around me, absorbing and consuming me.
Attempting escape, yet by my hand just a waste.
I want someone to believe me.
Stand here freely and have the sympathy to release me.
Through my eyes, he sees his true self
and is disgusted by what he sees
Citing vulgar obscenities one moment
and then the next desperate pleas
He knows he is morally wrong
and that I could never forgive
He compromised my health!
Now with himself he has to live
Integrity he has not a ounce
Compulsive liar, I found out!
Was he born without a conscience?
To intentionally hurt, a heart he is without!
I'm glad that I found out what he's about
He would have sent me to an early grave
I know karma will one day find him
and he will get back all that he gave
My guardian angel guided me
Showed me what I failed to see
All my nagging doubts have been answered
I finally found the truth to set me free.
Sponsor Kim Morrison
Contest Name Tell Me A True Story
if days are full of tears,hours will be years
The life in the wood will be revealed by the wood carver.
Chipped away with chisel and mallet; wood displays its secrets.
Wood carvers release the spirits trapped within the wood.
Strolling down the streets of ancient Pompei,
I discovered the tomb of a freed noble man;
unearthed from the volcanic black ashes,
now it blooms surrounded by fragrant lilies
as it appeared in its imperial, glorious days!
Looking closer, I noticed tools itched
on its sides, the trade of a freeman
once enslaved by his wealthy master,
and to prove that he was also of a noble
spirit, he wanted to be remembered
for his achievements and his intellect!
Not all Romans were cruel as History attests,
but had a good heart helping the lower class;
had the Emperor made aware of such generosity,
they would have been killed or thrown to the beasts!
Our greedy society is similar, workers being underpaid;
its an invisible slavery and yet it gives us shivers
for their unhuman condition and horrible abuse:
Rome's mentality of slavery survives to our day!
The proud sons of immigrants will arise to avenge
their fathers rage, they will sit with the prominent ones
sharing the same ideals and status that honor freedom!
Build my marble tomb by the shade of cypresses,
plant jasmines and lilacs around it and let them bloom;
the late image of me on the top with a pen on the right
and a notebook on the left...what a lovely display
of my vocational trade! Will someone discover my grave?
The brief epithet itched in italic letters should read:
" Born a free man and died a free man in a foreign land."
Did you cry for me
when none but the crows
was both black and free
in them cotton rows?
When you saw me hung
did you cry for me
as my body swung
from the lynchin tree?
Such prosperity
must taste mighty sweet
Did you cry for me
when I didn't eat?
Heard you gone some years,
died in poverty
and I cried no tears...
did you cry for me?
Tender eyes, with glow
understanding hearts, did know
fallen tears, now flow
Sleep envelopes me like a soft cocoon, and I embrace,
Trying to chase away memories that I cannot erase.
My mind is freed from all heartache and pain
Of the love of my life, and the grief that has rained.
I pray for sleep to seduce me, and to fall deep.
Then I can forget about my soul that still weeps.
Those few hours are like a Band-Aid on my heart.
It is painless oblivion… a chance for the sadness to depart.
How long does it take for a heart to repair?
I am tired of heartache...I have had my fair share.
Sweet sleep, welcome me into the dark night.
Take away my sorrow until first light.
10/16/16
Words Drowned in Tears Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Broken Wings
Awarded 4th Place
10/16/16
Contest-Words Drowning in Tears
Freed By His Spirit
As a child I remember playing games
like tag and tying each other up
but even a few moments in the confines of those ropes
would cause the anger in us to erupt.
Remember the man Houdini who
went to great lengths to endanger his own life
all for the applause or a fickle worldly crowd
who had come hoping that he would actually die.
We play such foolish and careless games
with our eternal spirit that He has placed so tenderly within
after all He gave His life on the old rugged cross
purposely He did this to free us totally from our sins.
Why then would we play war games with the enemy of our soul
for games oh no he truly does not want to play
but instead he seeks us out to kill and destroy
and with all intentions toward us to mortally slay.
Most of us have seen how Hollywood glamorizes war
with a poignant and heart rendering touch
but we did not smell the stench of death and filth from the prisoner of war camps
and this deceit pleases the devil of this world so very much.
A final plea I will put before you
to bring to mind that dreadful price
Christ Jesus gave His all for us to be free by His Spirit and
I pray that you choose to serve Him then you will find freedom liberty and life.
Written by: Marilyn S. Jennings
July 2001
As I sit adjacent to you
You fill my mind with your carnal touch
Feeling the clouds
Tasting soil
You are the earth
I could be hypnotized
You have dared me to bare
Sneered away from tactlessness
Crawled towards diplomacy
It’s intimate, you and me
Your distinct scent and malicious eyes
Shifted my dry, autumn self on interim.
You have lifted incandescence
Searched inside me and feel me vibrate
I opened up, soul is flustered, our bodies bound
I ache for the butterfly impulse
The rush of blood from my veins to yours
We grew connected, caged in your ribs
You in every bits and pieces, I yearn for, I desire
Remain inside me, fitted.
You are a work of art.
Your art is a hedonistic mystery made of you.
The love we ought to beget.
A honing process between intoxication and sobriety.
I can no longer let go, I’m fertilized.
While the world decays before our eyes, forever in you, I subsist.
As a poet who likes to make things rhyme,
It has been a mystery to me why some prefer "Free Verse".
I rarely, if ever at all, understand how to write in that style.
Perhaps, that is why I chose it here.
Like any poet, I have often been faced by a blank page in front of me.
That is my challenge, my gauntlet, the duel in which I must fight.
My words are the bullet, my thoughts the aim, my meaning the target.
You may ask, "Do I always hit my mark?
No. Like a ballplayer swinging at strike three, it just makes an out.
But, walking back to the dugout of my team with bat in hand,
I hear them tell me, "Good swing, get 'em next time".
That is true in writing or painting or any artistry.
Those droughts come too often, quickly upon me, and last far too long.
Whenever I feel the pressure of staring at that blank page,
I just shut down for a time and wonder if I will ever write another word.
Then, some inspirational line comes into my head,
and I realize that it is my turn to step up to the plate again.
It is only at those times do I write what seem to me,
some of the best poetry that my soul will let me put together.
Oh, by no means does it have the sage of a Whitman, Arnold, or Sandburg.
But, it does have something that none of them ever could have.
It has my thoughts, impressions, gifts, talents, soul, and more.
That poem has only the words I was blessed enough to find.
Even if I strike out with this one...it is me!
I have tried to use allegory and allusion
in writing this. Perhaps it is not your
definition of "Free Verse", but it is my swing at the ball.