Best Frippery Poems
Inside an inkwell, lives a fairy tale
A classic, filled with love and misery
Where," Once upon a time" has long set sail
And "happy ever after's" yet to be
It's plot, a knight, once schooled in chivalry
His quest for love, the dragons he has slain
From Crusades 'round the world to frippery
The jousts with Father Time who drew disdain
Yet deep inside is where brave knight remains
A lifetime of adventures, good and bad
The love he searches for, still unobtained
Still finding peace, his "grail" this Gallahad
Perhaps, I'll buy a quill one of these days
Release Sir Knight and legends of his ways
by Daniel Turner
Spenserian sonnet abab bcbc cdcd ee
Another anthology appears
Boldly boasting ballads.
Can't construct cinquain,
Ditto deconstructing didactic.
Easy efforts elevate essentially.
Fabulous frippery, fun, fauxmance.
Giving gifts ,gaiety, glory.
Hiding hyperbole ,hailing honesty.
I ignore idiosincricy.
Jubilant jeweled jots.
Krielle knowledge,
Luminates lovers learning.
Masters manage monoku.
No one notices nonsense.
Only ones own oratory,
Presents problems personally.
Quatern quixotically quizzes,
Rhymers,readers, royalaires.
State simple statements softly.
They translate terse tense truthfully.
Unless unabridged,
Villanelles vex vagueries.
Written without wordiness,
Yes,you yearn, yearn yonder, zee's zero
Nature Strives to be beautiful
Morphing myriad, earthly hues
from macrocosmic frippery.
Her perfumed zephyrean breaths
Intoxicate the atmosphere
Stirring those that breathe to wildness
That only her tempestuous
Violence ultimately tames;
Yet her yin can be most tranquil
As not to ruffle a fledglings
Feathers or ripple mountain tarns.
She favors none of her children
within her sphere of influence
sustaining only the strongest.
At first glance I thought
It was a toy, a ragged thing,
perhaps dropped by a small boy.
Lost or abandoned?
Either way
it was being trampled on today
The pavement pushers,
marching through the high street
with shopping on their minds,
they didn’t see it,
Flat and grey,
matching this abysmal rainy day
Against the grain I knelt
To rescue this sodden and
forlorn, forgotten friend.
Its edges revealed,
I knew then
It was not the frippery I had thought
Lurching back, retching,
I tumbled through legs, bags,
Away from the abhorrence.
I didn’t grieve it
that dead rat
I just left it there, all grey and flat.
Surrounded by the glitz and frippery
the ribbons, bells and stars all meant to warm you,
on the mantelpiece, parading with the cards
the one that silently ' regrets to inform you'.
Muffled merriment, jaded joy
from those who gently tiptoe round your loss,
they turn their heads to gaze up at the tree
as you turn yours to gaze down at the cross.
How many times a century ago
was this scene playing out from street to street,
as far away in muddied bloodied fields
the unknown sank beneath their comrade's feet?
You walked those trenches, too, not long ago,
at Ypres bowed our heads for the last post,
stood speechless at Tyne Cot in rows of stone,
raised a glass to those that fell and drank a toast.
Then only yesterday the word came through
you'd lost a bitter battle of your own,
this time the only casualty was you,
and so I raise this glass to you alone.
Sleep well, my friend
It's the end of my purposeful day,
a prostate being in prayer
with much sincere accord,
and my gratitude is not hurried away;
it is persistent in its allegory
already conceded...
Days don't last, time does
and the thought of eternity causes a frightening rush,
not to comprehend its depth
too concise not to discern it,
making many so compulsive to act in ignorance;
time was created to confer, not to condemn a wish...
Making a comparison between days
and time is truly necessary,
because they aren't commensurate,
they only obey a command; and we humans
act in deceit and don't commiserate,
allowing vanity to exude inclemency...
Frivolous with a frowzy attitude,
we put on a frippery image
to separate need from want,
to notice the differences and deny fortitude;
and shouldn't harmony and fairness begin with grace,
or it is another informal demeanor we impart?
Days don't last, time does...
and can a mortal, like me, pretend to be God
and defy death with his ostentatious ego and live?
Every human must die and be buried with others!
Are you any superior or have a greater knowledge,
to be excluded from a fate that is indomitable and savage?
Everything I buy to touch or taste
is made in China, made in China
leave alone my china set, even my toothpaste
is made in China, made in China.
From my pencils to my stencils
to the golden locks on my stylish lockers
all bore labels of 'made in China' in block capitals
and that explains thriving doorbell hawkers.
And for 'economical' me, stuff made in China
does hold a lot of frugal charm
Comes all the way from China, my granny's parka
About 'made in China' I've never had any qualms.
And because I don't intend to fritter away
hard-earned savings on any frippery
for 'made in china' alone shall my purse'n' pocket pay
and don't they play their part perfectly,
both my 'made in China' stereo and frisbee?
And all that 'made in China cutlery and crockery
is just as fragile and breakable as any other
All my life I've stuck to made in China stationery
and their costs haven't been any exorbitant so far.
L
I have seen latest High quality samsung Chinese cellphones
My TV a longlasting decade old, yes chinese Hitachi brand
You can wisely avoid debts and loans
purchasing brand new grand stuff from
the Chinese land
And then to my surprise I discovered
that many people both here and abroad
tended to buy things made in the land of the Great Wall
for similar reasons: esp they're easier to afford.
Ah, I don't like the idea of squandering away
or thoughtless wasting of wealth
No one could ever make a spendthrift out of me
For that would be unhealthy for budget health!
To refrain from prodigality and unfeeling extravagancy
'made in China' seems to me the solution
Let millionnaires make-believe that only the costly has quality
for I ain't gonna buy that pricey notion!
P-lenipotentiary plumes of idyllic and quixotic art,
H-e, In Land of Cockaigne, enchants a fairy’s heart.
A-nd a gift, Glimpses of my village with “rosy dawns,”
N-ay to hear “rooster calls,” “ruby skies,” to fawn.
T-o a Flamingo, pink gentilities and regal, I revere
A- lovely poet, full of grandeur — gentleman in the mirror.
S-imulacrum, frowning face of frippery - no doubt
M-ere pastiche, Vijay will not embrace; calls it out.
A- Summer Rain, he will turn into a rowdy dance,
G-lee of a family gathered, pets hide from nature’s lance.
O-h how I miss you mourns through peace and quiet,
R-aring to hear dogspeak in a dream; be not disquiet.
I-n a Winter storm, he touches my heart with a haiku...
A-nd after all, Vijay outshines many, a man of many hues.
1/5/2021
Contest: Capture The Essence
Sponsor: Margarita Lillico
Vijay’s poetry titles:
1.Phantasmagoria
2.Glimpses of my village
rosy dawns, rooster calls, ruby skies
3. To a flamingo:
pink gentilities, regal
4. Simulacrum:
frowning face of frippery, pastiche
5. Summer Rain:
rowdy dance, indirect reference to family & pets
6. Oh how I miss you
7. In a Winter Storm
Many of us celebrate the time when Jesus lay in his feeding trough
Own a place in our home do not have to knock on so many doors
Put up Nordic fir cut from woods or plastic with fake snow and tinsel
Decorate it with ornaments and try to make Peace for a day or for two
Can we see the tree for the forest of presents bulging under branches
of spikes and needles when we drink up the spirit mostly from liquor
A Pagan winter festival demoted to mercurial celebrations out of context
The shops have been full and many of us are still empty of promise and hope
It used to be about winter solstice solidarity and solemn acceptance
that communities are greater than closed systems of kin and only our own
Once upon a time and place in our heart we believed in fairy tales
mysterious and wonderful symbolized stories of legendary souls
Are our roots more solid today or simply displaced when a lost
angel sits high up on the tip of a conifer and cries in bewilderment
When Jingle Bells and a Little Drummer Boy disgrace an ancient festival
and Away in a Manger is a sales ploy rather than a memory of awakening
Surely trees are important as they give sap and life as Kabbalah depicts
The Buddha sat under one in meditation when contemplating his path
Celtic polytheistic oaks and their acorns spread the message of seeds
Hindus venerate the Banyan tree as life giving shelter and sacred vows
A Baobab stores water for dry seasons and adapts to environments
Indigenous folks don’t cut it down but let the shade guide them to wisdom
Christmas trees and sagacity have surrendered to a projection of abused
wealth and no amount of frippery bibelots can embellish forsaken minds
Once the last tree is cut down the last fish eaten and the last stream poisoned
we will realize that we can’t eat money and low-browed greed has its price
01st December 2018
He avoided florists,
those over-cultivated blooms
in their overheated shops
seemed to be a perversion of nature.
He shunned all those floral gangsters;
the vainglorious gladioli,
eugenically forced greenhouse geraniums
with their large Shar-Pei heads.
Garish claustrophobic hosts of peonies
pressing-in and crowding his mind
with a ballooning menace.
His stomach trembled when confronted
with petulant Pelargonium
or the silent perfumed farts of the deadly Dahlia.
Charles Darwin, thought these latter-day
angiosperms as, “an abominable mystery.”
They are life-forms born of missing links,
genetically modified to eat oxygen
out of human brains.
They are the epitome of those hard drugs
that invade our senses.
For him, the Day Lily
was a pall-bearing pale monstrosity.
Seemingly innocuous bunches of Mums
are well known to gather in smug mobs
at a time of year
when our greatest need
is for fresh air.
Passing all flower shops
he cringes away,
and will not pay a penny
for any kind of noxious poesy
or floral frippery.
Hugs for you
And hugs for me
Hugged is what
I want to be.
Hug a slug
All slippery
Sliming up
Your frippery.
Hug a bug
And hug a bee
Lucky in
The lottery.
Upon my museum walls, pastiche you are,
Pseudo piece of art dredging old memories;
Where I hang now, a fine authentic painting—
Love of my sweet dreams.
You claim I once bloomed your ardent reveries
Yet, I recall your dreamworld quite illusive
When you pulsed my heart in your glory within
Phantasm of deceit.
There I was with you in your place of conceit
Where you waltzed in my life sparkling like gemstone
But soon you were unmasked as spurious clone--
An unwanted stone.
Don't come now, pretending it was real love,
When you still are, frowning face of frippery;
You've no place in temple of divine worship
Where my goddess lives.
June 22, 2020
Pick-A-Title, Vol 19 - 4 Sapphic Stanzas – Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Edward Ibeh
Title chosen: Simulacrum
Each stanza: 11,11,11,5 (howmanysyllables.com)
thesis: strength endures voids and emptiness.
strength constructs no homes (antithesis:
if your house leaks then on swollen days
in sullen seasons there is no home for you)
there is endless repetitious strength
enduring endlessly there is this paradox:
strength is the void endured and consequently
synthesis: enter everybody’s anti-hero cross-eyed,
sees crossed eyes cross-eyed but looking in his eyes
sees straight, sees sick, sees something monstrous
something insect, sees this philosophic frippery:
that is sees man
endures in his mirror that is self-doubt,
his left arm being his right arm
his left eye sees his right eye
and no eye sees his nose right.
synthesis: enter naked the hero’s fists blazing
won’t put up with that mirror is laughing
smashing his left hand smashing his right hand
breaks his wrath–
enter the dumb smile of blissful blindness or
dumb sadness belting down a drink
enter an angel’s colorful rags and bells
enter a man in colorful sights and smells
enter blonde beauty dragging a bulging jock.
there is the entrance where they enter through
the black hole with crescent thin edges
the animal den the fish smell the ocean motion
there is women’s strength endures the stretch
forty-eight hours of warm pain
two hours of sharp pain around midnight
last sight the tippy-toppy veins of its head
bled and blood and body and push push Push–
and the tide goes out,
enter sleep.
To the skies...cries of have we sinned..the seasons spinned...winter grinned as before it’s really beginned...spring’s been sneakily binned..
That bitter wind does cheekily blow...delivers tingling..slivers of mulled wine mingling shivers..oh and..shed loads of snow..
You know it is nature's calling card...as the bleached flurries hurriedly dart. ...shards of frosty farts falling hard....
Slippery slurries beached...frippery start to beseeched.. billow wisps like waspish wafts of blossoming willow..
Chuffed to see a lush plush pillow..fluffed...puffed..buffed..kept aloft from mush.. with crystals soft..silky..stuffed
A natural ebb and flow gush...a smattering...then a rush...splattering to and fro..
Winter’s web.. gleaming coats of teeming white bright light beaming notes...
Dreams of fairies schemes….streams across mystic moats..dairy prairies floats...
Scoops of snowy soup spills..stoops and swoops…down the hills..droops off daffodil troops..
Everything swathed..bathed in wintry tiding...the sodden sky pours... hints of sly footprints trodden hiding…
Huddling crystal clusters grasping.. riding..gliding…deciding detours…
Blizzard wizard’s rasping rally…cuddling..clasping.. contours of the valley floor..
Last post gong of our winter host boast.. sounds like a love song..
In this Proustian getaway... adore the festooned foray..
Marooned yet cocooned…this wild hideaway soon shunning..
Being wreathed in bleakly stunning cunning..
Turns back to being shrouded..sheathed in meekly clouded mild...