Best Garrote Poems
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
While waiting at the river Styx, in twisted time untaught,
from branches of the gallows tree, in recollections wrought,
your soul, a beggar’s blanket, hangs in crazy quilted knots,
with dangling pearls and diamond studs in dripping crimson clots,
midst gaping wounds and bulging eyes like fouling apricots,
for wrapped like rope around your throat’s the Reaper’s grim garrote.
"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." (Matthew 19:24)
Continued from Part 1
“Upon your knees in golden naves, while peeking through the slots,
You horded thirty silver pieces, downed a whiskey shot,
Then crossed yourself and wrapped yourself in furs of ocelots,
And danced on cleated cloven hoofs in purple polka-dots,
Then drank His blood from chalice cups with pious afterthoughts.
“You’ve treated men like mongrels chained, like little flies to swat,
By doing what you wanted to, instead of what you aught;
You’ve wiped your nose with dollar bills and paid your serfs with snot,
But when you’ve paused to preen your pride, you’ve scrubbed a scarlet blot.
“In ashes of our victories: the diamonds that you sought,
The crock of gold, the Golden fleece of bogus Argonauts -
In mirrors of your lifelessness, the evils you begot.
“The haunted winds strew leaves of time across a shallow plot
Where now, beneath the frozen stones blanched bodies bathe in rot,
Disintegrate, return to dust to feed Forget-Me-Nots
Amidst the bane and pits of pain where broken bones lie caught.
“In fields above the catacombs and tombs of Camelot
The black and withered tree of Death arises from the spot
Where oft beneath a bleeding moon you hid your gold in pots
Embedding doubts neath barren bogs where roots of wormwood squat.
“While waiting at the river Styx, in twisted time untaught,
From branches of the gallows tree, in recollections wrought,
Your soul, a beggar’s blanket, hangs in crazy quilted knots,
With dangling pearls and diamond studs mid dripping crimson clots
And gaping wounds with bulging eyes like fouling apricots,
For wrapped in chains around your throat, the Reaper’s grim garrote.”
Yes, that’s the fate of all your kind, disclosed by Wise Men taught.
But that was, oh, so long ago, by now you have forgot…
End
He loved to take his ladies to the Point,
a place that only locals knew about.
He hated bars or any kind of joint
where common folks with wagging tongues hung out.
The Point had a view of all the city.
Far from the crowds, it had the perfect spot
where he could take each woman oh so pretty,
and place around her white neck a garrote.
He loved to see the terror in their eyes
and feel them struggle with their strangled breath.
His stunning looks and charm were the disguise
that led them up that mountain to their death.
The point is that no woman could discern
his truth until their point of no return.
Dec. 9, 2016
Grandma’s brown knuckles crinkled
As she gently peeled the heirloom
Potatoes, discarding the brown-
Skinned strips into the garbage
Bin. She was at home here, alive
And aloud, tastes and scents mingling
In the air like wispy fairies in Neverland, mingling
With the mauve, sun-kissed raisins lying crinkled
On slices of butter-brown toast. She is alive
Here, sheltered by the pots and pans, heirlooms
from her mother Wilma, who once was the garbage
Lady, the help, for a white family uptown. Wilma's brown
Skin was the softest variety of brown,
Likened to silky mocha-hued beads mingling
With glints of the golden hour. Garbage,
However, was her epithet. She was crinkled
Black plastic to that white family. Her heirloom
was the oppressive garrote of Jimmy Crow — alive
And well in the hearts of many, still alive
Today in the gashes and slashes brown
Men, women, and children still absorb, heirlooms
from a past infected with rankling vehemence mingling
With entitled gall. Wilma's old hands were dry-crinkled,
Just like her daughter, who now throws the skin in the garbage,
Who marched hard to not be viewed as garbage,
Who plans to keep Wilma’s soulful memory alive,
Who cooks until her freckle-speckled hands are crinkled,
Who is loud and proud to be her shade of brown,
Who gets straight to business and foregoes the mingling,
Who works so her progeny can be have the proudest heirloom:
Pride. Pride in those gently-knotted heirloom
locks, pride in the skin that was once garbage,
Pride, pride, pride. Her ever-beating heart mingles
With the cosmos — she is a celestial being, alive
In the splendor of black joy. She also likes her toast brown
And her sun-kissed raisins ever-so-crinkled.
And while her heirloom knuckles stay tightly crinkled,
Her heart will mingle with stars and keep the love alive,
Because she — we — will never be garbage again. We’re just brown.
Gasoline tears
The truck
Plows forward
Into the masses
Blood and destruction
Morality hijacked by abduction
Evil deeds pervade these cloudy days
Compassion is tossed into the sea in place of the devils seduction
Humanity dances with both tears and foe, the meek shall be the victors
Satan’s followers shall face the garrote, headless will be those boa constrictors
Do not be fooled by silent ones and men behind masks disguising their petty angers
Humanity dances with both tears and foe, the meek shall be the victors
Rays of the sun, the glow of the moon, and the beat of loves heart
Flower gardens shall grow tall, on the soil of the rotten evil ones
Goodwill shall peak behind the clouds, hugging humanity
Compassion shall dance on angelic wings
Love and passion triumphant
Plows forward towards
Eternity
Who knew that I would need
shoestrings to escape rape?
I felt safe on a double date,
the “safety in numbers” misnomer.
He came on like a ten-armed
octopus with suction cup hands.
The couple in the back seat
were obviously in full accord,
based on sounds my ears
were recording.
Out-manned in size and strength,
I searched for a weapon.
I found it in the glove box.
A single, unattached shoestring
serves well as a garrote
when applied to the neck
of one whose hands are
occupied elsewhere.
He took me home.
The hurt is pooling in my throat
and to avert the watershed,
you build the dams I tolerate,
make my demands the stagnant moat
where if the bridge is drawn, I'll drown
So I hold on to stay afloat
Then, once I'm safely back onboard,
your gaze, a hazel gray garrote,
will take my breath away, instead
I tolerate the dams you build
for fear I'll find no other boat
What doesn’t kill us …. may smother our soul
while brain and body breathe yet, as ever so;
Fragile core pieces may splinter and ache,
mourn the sparks fate did not wake
while notions continue for motion's sake;
What doesn’t break us …. may garrote our spirit,
burn our ink to day dark dust
where no write pens a peaceful brush
or pain stroked hush.
This Bard Doth Drink From The Same Well As Thee...
Everybody sharing planet Earth means,
they moost breathe
the same befouled air
encircling the webbed material,
physical, and terrestrial wide world,
where noxious poisons get spewed
from industries,
that wantonly belch and blare
seemingly, indiscriminatingly,
and deplorably - toxins affecting
all living organisms - care
lessly damaging, harming,
and extinguishing offspring
at reproductive stage
of Mother Earth, who dare
ring lee fight back with tooth,
and nail despoliation polluting,
unleashing, and
zapping sea and sky e're
decreasing biodiversity necessary
ditto clear cutting,
encroaching habitats,
and killing off vital
linkedin ecosystems fear
row huss lee trump glare
ring depredations here
and now exacerbated inhere
rent lee by overturned
ecological/environmental
bulwarks jeer
ring lee scrapped by a president,
who stole winning ballot
springing trapdoors to garrote
legislation supporting
jerryrigged oblate spheroid,
with mean temperature so hot
to evaporate flora,
and fauna protections
eventually rendering *****sapiens
a metrical footnote
with only an umlaut
to punctuate how greed
spelled what their
own extinction wrought!
5/23/17
Put you to sleep
And six feet deep
Instead of turning the other cheek
Toss you in a box of pine
Where the light never shines
Meanwhile, close by masses pray at a shrine
Every Sunday at nine
Eating a cracker and taking a drink of wine
As the planets occasionally align
Since far before the dawn of mankind
Swinging down from a vine
To put 'em in a bind
And choke another out with garrote instead of twine
Then cover it up with lime
Thinking like Einstein
Drawing a fine line
Among simple or intricate patterns and designs
I'm drenched in slime
And so much grime
Yet still on the climb
All the time
Will look you in your eye
Until you die
Without saying goodbye
Birds still or in the sky
As they fly and glide
She wanted to be my Bonnie if I'd
Be her Clyde
She sent me a valentine
And kept giving me all kinds
Of signs
Saying she wanted to be mine
catching his goat
my dear
if you aim on catching his goat
you best stop beating around the bush
you best not play in the pasture as a sheep
just go for his jugular
a garrote would do
words in poems, too, work
a contest placement, too
the worse is silence
connie pachecho
1/13/17
The pen is tidier than the cord.
A garrote provokes an unsettling gurgle
That reverberates in the midnight hour
When one is trying to pursue a guiltless sleep.
The pen, however, resonates
With an uncanny mystic harmony
That allows the comforting lullaby
Of literary reprisal to carry out the hit.
Character assassination: a cowardly villain’s vengeance.
Hardly, a Human Being!
Get a hammer and garrote that
brainchild,
That demonic smartphone, I propose.
That mutant who seduces you,
With most amorous rings!
Put the sultry siren to rest,
Tune into the real world, as it's
simply the best!
Above all else do not invite family or
best friends over for dinner.
Place the sultry siren on it, next to your
sweaty palms on the table at dinner,
Then start taking calls, checking messages,
and avoiding human contact, you dolt!
If you are alone with this devious device,
have at it, play with it, stay up all night!
But never avoid human connection!
Thinking, mistakingly that the human
is less than that interruptive thing?
See...there you go!
Already?
Like Road Runner racing, entranced by
ear bling,
Lost to its call~ to her captivating
insidious ring!
Panagiota Romios
4/9/2019
A spider came crawling from my mouth.
Obstructing my thoughts, its view uncouth;
Wet-plaster egg-sacs lined in rows,
Frothy-white gluey strands stand aloft.
A whistling through teeth, acerbic garrote,
Like a ed-up chord, one shrieking note.
With spiked legs, lustrous eyes, it wriggles,
Inside and upwards, black shadow in throat.
In its dew-filled cavern, a spit waterfall trickles,
Eidolon eyes, the spectre reflects superficial
Light from gentry degenerate troughs.
My tongue swells purple, sour and fickle.
Odious fangs consume the decaying flesh
Of voices and whimpers and virtue lost.
In pellucid, idle husks, his venom flows -
Dripping acid, his wolf-grin, as I cough.