Best Garner Poems
In memory of----
Solely in my room, I can't stomach the sound of my pulse
I sit here alone to forget the taste of air.
Overwhelm by the scene -unbelievable footage
18 seconds long, "I can't breathe."
My judgment "GONE" stressing all night long
I use to fear dark colors, now I fear spinning bright lights
Red, White, and Blue, I spew the NY crew
What's wrong with your blue eyes?
You see him, you want him to die
What a day to trade -- a life for illegal cigarettes
Persecution and judgment day, sweet life - taken away
"I can't breathe", executed in broad daylight!
Bullets left and right
Who's policing the police
What happened to mind our business?
Moneymaker refused to be singled out
A hurting voice tackled by racism
Free to see, pouring his heavy heart,
Oinkers demand the ground, shutting down his testament
8 times too many, "I can't breathe!"
Where did his vitals go?
No one to tap him out, pound the pavement!
What the hell, why are you just standing there???
Stress, anger, madness, the voice of innocence
"I can't breathe." the volume to valium
"Officer, did you not hear the man?"
Are you deaf, have you forgotten how to save a life?
Is it just the NYPD or is it every other badge,
Insinuating crime's a one-color show.
We are all criminals, why the excessive heat?
Shot, tasered, beat down, pepper-sprayed, now on the ground
The mother of all chokeholds, murdered, outnumbered
The echoes remain "I can't breathe!"
- The truth!
Eric Garner robbed of his own natural path and youth
One man down eyed suspiciously
Perplexed minds suffocating him instantly
The mistrusted, the awe, the hate,
So tangible, uniforms using deadly force
One asthmatic in a chokehold
Slamming his head on the floor
Open wounds, worldwide tears
My heart goes to the family and friends left behind
A courageous last breath, for the first and last time
"I can't breathe," now deceased.
You left this world unwilling, waking up a strong community
Strolling in a safer world, where racial discrimination doesn't exist
"I can't breathe," Eric Garner Rest in peace!
By: PD
There is an abysmal void in the hollow of my breast
where once my heart pulsed, now weak and weary.
I cannot quell emotions your death has repressed
since our cord of silken threads has come unraveled.
Malaise in my heart leaves me cold and dreary.
I long to embrace you on the doorstep of time,
never allowing it to deprive me of you again.
I ache for the warmth of your breath on my nape,
and inhale the virile scent of you that lingers.
From these cherished memories I seek no escape.
Chilled are my nights, even beside the fireside,
while reading romantic sonnets you wrote.
I can quote your verses, every line in verbatim
but the sound of my voice in an empty room
leaves me yearning for silence, death by garrote.
I swear I hear your steps over thresholds I cross.
Wisps of your hair remain in your bristled brush.
Your laughter seems to float upon the air,
and your footfalls tread upon the creaky stair
until I whisper, "It's not him. Hush, please hush."
Dear memory, how long shall you torture me?
Each reverie, a dagger thrust to its hilt in my heart.
Answer me, when shall I live a life of quiet repose?
How long shall I be haunted by the illusion,
of the man who vowed we would never part?
Timid is my approach to the room's tenebrous corner.
With his vestige close, I cling to him in the night.
Our shadows dance. In his arms, I'm swept away.
With each swaying step his presence I garner,
as we waltz across the room in the glow of moonlight.
November 26, 2022
2022 Poetry Marathon ~ Mile 21 Contest
Sponsored by Mark Toney
Rodents can be loquacious
That includes your average gerbil
They love to prattle, chat and blather
They really are quite verbal
Hamsters are talkative too
Just as garrulous as can be
With running mouth and wheel to match
They are a sight to see
But I am loath to squander words
Sparing usage is my way
I gather them like so many acorns
Against a rainy day
Yes, word collecting is the passion
Of this precocious squirrel
I garner adjectives, verbs and nouns
Be they singular or plural
The park is fecund land
There a plethora may be found
Vociferous, vehement and vex
I lately scooped up off the ground
The verb tree is prolific
Its discovery quite a boon
The other day it bestowed upon me
Flaunt, foster and festoon
All along the sidewalks
Concrete nouns lie strewn about
How blithely I did snatch up
A lummox, a laggard and a lout
To command a better view
I nimbly scampered up a pole
From this lofty perch I spotted
Wheedle, coax and cajole
Away in the distance
I spied a tempting pile
Heaped up for the taking were
Enticing, alluring and beguile
What do I with so much verbiage?
You would be fair to ask
Squirreling away so vast a lexicon
Must prove a mammoth task
The answer lies in my arboreal abode
Where these many words I stash
In alphabetical order they are arrayed
From zealous to abash
In a capricious mood one day
I grouped them by part of speech
Such a cacophony arose from clustering
Banter, badger and beseech
No matter how I sort them
The wasting of words I spurn
Reserved for rarest use I keep
Reticent, laconic and taciturn!
_________________________________
by Brian McClain - Feb 17, 2016
Originally posted Feb 17, 2016
Accidentally deleted Feb 22, 2016
Reposted Feb 22, 2016
Line of inquiry:
"discarding narrow thought flow crutch
we learn directly by soft touch
and what we garner we relay
to the vast void in childlike play
entwined thus with the universe
we dance without need to rehearse"
In an erratic existence
this ad hoc state of mind,
treads upon random paths,
to reach the doorsteps of my fate.
Those who find structure in scriptures,
let them be guided towards their remedy.
I hope they find what they seek,
but my spirit keeps spinning
like a whimsical roulette,
relying upon the universe
to weave rhythms of cosmic threads,
nourishing my soul in ethereal elixir.
I have read so many scripts of stone,
but my quill writes in impulsive ink,
rebelling against confined expression,
composing an unrehearsed sinfonia,
in an attempt to create and connect.
Unlike the moon,
we appear and disappear
like impromptu stars.
Burning into life, but blameless,
full of innocence, purifying eyes,
briefly guiding those who choose to gaze.
There is an art to being human.
Interpretation is an abstract perception.
Our hearts portray kaleidoscopic emotions,
so in my palette of unscripted intuition,
I shed the chains of conscience doubt.
In the essence of every brushstroke,
I breathe life to improvised affections.
I eavesdrop on chatty breezes
whispering words of gibberish,
amidst the sound of rustling leaves.
By setting the leaves aflutter,
they garner secrets from the trees,
interpreting their sighs and heaves.
Autumn creates a fairyland,
at the first hint of Jack Frost's breath,
stripping all the trees in the park.
And rays of light freckle the ground,
playing tag with shifting shadows,
cast by naked twigs, bare and stark.
Strolling through Fall's kaleidoscope,
my anxieties disappear,
and I tend to manage a smile.
The sweet laughter of the children
frolicking in piles of gold
makes Summer's departure worthwhile.
The experience of penning one's thoughts to paper
for the perusal of others
offers a certain inner satisfaction
that must be experienced to be appreciated;
letting your words guide you
to a deeper appreciation of your surroundings and self.
Poets do not garner feelings from their pens,
but from their hearts;
for the pen is but a brush and the page a canvas
upon which to paint dreams, desires, and thoughts.
The underlining passion
and potency of the written word
can be cathartic;
when it is your thoughts that embroider the page.
Intimate feelings are allowed to drift
through those thoughts,
and gather between the lines of each verse.
A poet's words, like a poultice,
can draw emotions
from the wounds of memory,
and catapult the reader into a reality
previously undiscovered.
A poet, using a creative collage of tinder thoughts
stirs the embers of conformity,
hoping to ignite sputtering flames of awareness.
In a ballet of restrictive and
stifling carriage, we strike into
the depths of our imagination
and boundless intuition on a
rollercoaster soaring free from
rigid clips, venturing into a cosmic
sphere where dreams take flight,
on Saturn's rings,
exhilarating twists and turns.
Firm on the grand stage,
we play roughly and smoothly,
each length, a part of nature's layers.
Flames cannot be known by names
alone, until a touch signifies its
friendliness, an improvised whirl
flows from each planet's curves,
a feeling extended to its neighbours.
We shamelessly surrender to
the rhythm of the divine,
navigating each realm
through our inner voice,
slowly bringing it to reality,
where we find our worth in
positive existence.
Nature's wings sting through the
murmurs of rustling trees.
The twirl of the winds sings
whispers of vibrations.
Silent energy embraces the soul
of the moon, giving us insights
where we paint through without
worrying about the result.
Entangled in the sweet rhythm
of unknown tones with languages
that stir you into another dimension,
beating to the smile of strangers,
soaring high just to see low.
Play tags without keeping taps.
Read dialogues to friends with
no lines, go unnoticed in perfection,
craving attention so you live without scripts.
Discarding narrow thought flow crutch
We learn directly by soft touch
And what we garner we relay
To the vast void in childlike play
Entwined this with the universe
We dance without the need to rehearse.
They said there will be days like this
Where my heart refuse to beat
Or my feet refuse to move
I came too far
To want to halt this journey now
My eyes can only see so far
But my faith keeps whispering
You still have a mile to go
I don’t want to quit halfway
And deal with all the questions
That might garner
I will rather take it slow today
Move at my heart's pace
But I refuse to turn around
I refuse to look back
Like someone who regrets
The choices they've made
I will rather deal with the challenges
That each day brings
Than refuse to try
That boils down to refusing to grow
Ultimately when I do look back
I want to see those tears and those broken moments
As elements, that made me; me
They didn’t break me
They fashioned me
©180820151335
It begins with the joy of giving birth
Continues even after the moment of death
Life, like the scope of all man's music
Opening and closing passages of love
Messages sung and carried on the wind
Written in the deepest part of the heart
That palpable place we call the heart
Emotion long before the first cry at birth
Scent of beginnings carried on the wind
Unable to imagine the notion of death
For her baby, mother's unconditional love
The crooning sound of her sweet music
The years pass, so changes the music
But not the forever melody in her heart
Children grow and so does her love
A bit different than the day of birth
But constant and hopeful until death
As perennial as blows the winter wind
A young man's story is written on the wind
With pen in hand he writes his own music
With hardly a thought of the canvas of death
But tucked away in the corners of his heart
The certainty known from the moment of birth
That in her life he would always find love
Still his mother's eyes are filled with love
Vision dim with age , acknowledging time in the wind
The spring will bring again the miracle of birth
The lambs in the fields will make their music
The joy of rebirth will fill the simplest heart
Beauty will reign even in winter's death
Facing now the certainty of her coming death
He looks at his child with a new depth of love
Knowing with certainty that breaks his heart
Letting his tears be dried by the gentle wind
Believing he will still know the joy of her music
Hoping that in death will come a new birth
Garner strength in your heart to face death
Remembering from birth a life full of the joy of love
And as the wind of time blows, hear the music
The Lumberjack's Hard Days Of Toil
Salty sweat, from deep axe strokes to lean hands
heavy cotton shirt soaked, mark of the man.
Lumberjack, strong, cut of a different breed
hard at toil, to fulfill his family's need.
With each hard day's task, his heart grew stronger
morn to night, his time away seemed longer.
Wife and children, rarely got to see dear dad
yet all knew his sweet love and were truly glad.
As his axe bit into hardest of trees
mother sat at home shelling garden peas.
Each one doing family duties and chores
living sweet melodies of musical scores.
Work done, rushed he, to family to rejoice
duty performed with honor and by free choice.
R.J. Lindley
Sept. 16th , 1996
Syllables Per Line: 10 10 11 11 0 10 10 11 11 0 10 10 11 11 0 11 11
Total # Syllables: 148
Total # Words: 112
Note: My father started out as a lumberjack, back in the day when so much was done by strong hands and not ease of machines! To be a lumberjack back then meant that you were a strong man and willing to work hard.
Both are strong and positive attributes.
My Dad, later after several years decided to use his brains more and his arms less.. I remember he saying often, "Son use whichever you think best, strength or brains but regardless the free choice made -do so honestly, fairly and with honor!
This poem, is dedicated to that man, the guy that saw honor in hard labor and
in using intelligence to garner a brighter and better future.
I have cut trees, carried and sawed logs, and split wood as a boy on the farm.
TRUST ME, IT IS HARD BACK BREAKING WORK.. but it also yields positive dividends and builds good character in a man.
Black lives with a president full of black lies
we vote in donald trump thats bad news
like a card game trump we reached to the
end of the stump no longer growing like
trees more like falling to our knees or falling
leafs stressed so we blowing trees youth please
go out and make a change it aint a game lives matter
poems full like a bottle of overflowing emotions man i
miss obama he was sturn you know sort of like yo mama
on you going to school even when you act a fool eating
healthy foods fats im stating facts it dont matter if its
fat man or dat man at the end of the day its who we pick
and choose trump is who i refuse hes fraudulent hes a fail
hes a frail this aint no fairy tail black lives theres a thin line
between greats and snakes we wont find peace unless its
justice we seek black lives like the jim crow law until changed
we get beat by the feds with crow bars when will it stop we
lost michael brown,eric garner,trayvon martin,freddie gray,
philando castile, these are just an exampile(example) not
even old enough to make it to 90 like castro black lives
lead by that role i pray our brothers rise black lives
Hens and Roosters in the barnyard
living in symbiotic relationships
each searching for kernels of corn.
Taking turns with beaks they snip
scorned and pecked. What the heck?
How hard should it be to get along
even when some foul fowl are wrong?
Cockadoodle don't squawk at me...
Why can't you see
peace in the barnyard is a reverie.
Squawk squawk...scratch scratch
Roosters and hens don't get along
Farmer, unlock the gate latch
to free those who don't belong.
Don't scratch, peck and complain
when you don't garner fame.
There should be no pecking order
Don't point the finger of blame
when you don't know the root
from which the clawing came
or you'll feel the farmer's boot.
Don't be misled by words of ruse
from roosters or hens on the loose.
They're out to suck up the worm
in the early morning sun...
their charade has just begun.
Squawk squawk...scratch scratch
Roosters and hens don't get along
Farmer, unlock the gate latch
to free those who don't belong.
Don't tell me this is a fabrication...
of a chicken barnyard story.
This is merely an observation
of things that are not hunky-dory
Beware the fox, lurking near
feathers ruffled in the barnyard
Cockadoodle don't live in fear
of a fox, a wolf, a fraud.
Keep safe the eggs in your nest
Don't leave your children unguarded
Outwitting the fox is a test
One for which you'll be rewarded.
They squawked and squawked
scratched and scratched
Roosters and hens in the barnyard.
"Cockadoodle Don't Will Open the Gate,"
is the title to a new hen house song.
I have no wish to partner with armor making my defenses sharper –
it is spiritual truth I seek to garner
I choose to never deliberately hush any moments passing brush –
but try absorbing its full blush
I strive to never miss night’s surrender as her curtain unfolds tender –
flaring my sense of splendor
I retain my dreams with no border or restrictive list for order –
to nurture even as I grow older
I will not abandon laughter as one sure inner joy crafter –
well worth sharing and looking after
I shall never avoid emotional pain or swallow their teary refrain –
though I refuse to tote their stain.
I decline to record my mistakes on any lined journal page -
errors serve my life's as my sage
walk slow and light my feet
to the corner of my time
where my best self is dwelling,
waiting to be claimed as mine
Unlikely anyone would look for me
But if they did I'd not be hard to see
Catching my attention might be harder
As it is seldom with it's bodied partner
One possibly could find me in a book
Distracting me might garner you a look
If looking from a sub under the sea
The bottom is the place where I will be
Go into outer space and search the stars
My secret hang out is the planet Mars
If music is a place where you elope
I'll be hanging on the passing notes
Since time has now become my enemy
I often hide inside a memory
Should you see me sitting near a stream
You'll find I have withdrawn into a dream
To say that you have found me might be true
But truth be told, you only have these clues
March 13 2016 by Daniel Turner
Shall I leap for the sky to then capture a star
Or be stead on this earth and admire from afar
Would I journey for miles to sense sunsets on shore
Or be sated with every day views from my door
Ah, my soul yearns for love that seems planets away
Know my soul of what love it needs beyond today?
For tomorrow it may be my heart breaks in two
Lest I take half for me and then bleed half for you
Then a love comes along and it echoes my song
Though my heart yearns to sing the refrain seems all wrong
It’s a question I’m certain eternally asked
Yet in fearing a heartbreak those answers are masked
So my heart asks why then do you question your fate
And my mind interrupts and says cease this debate
As I garner my heartstrings again reel them tight
They resiliently come back bereft of a bite
But tomorrow I’ll cast them again far and wide
In the name of sweet Eros my will please abide
I am certain a line cast just out of my sight
And the twin to my flame destined souls reunite.