Best Germinating Poems
Like water that flows in a river
Time will not stop and wait
It comes and then it goes
And now will soon be late
The sun will not rise
And forget to set
Today will not stay here forever
Time was born and passed away
While I was chasing dreams
I never dreamt of
Dreaming of things that were
Not for me to dream about
I didn’t know at first
That in my inside
There is a seed germinating
Deep in the roots of my heart
Where veins and arteries
Carry blood in and out
The eyes of my eyes
Could not see
The ears of my ears
Could not hear
The tongue of my tongue
Could not taste
The nose of my nose
Could not smell
The mind of my mind
Was uncounscious
As this seed
Was patiently growing
It was watered by tears
That couldn’t fall off my eyes
When I cried
It was fertilized by my deep thoughts
That denied me time to rest
The pain I felt within
Was manure to it
And now it has grown
It has grown into a tree
it has grown into a green looking tree
A tree that sprouts colorful flowers
And I am hopeful
Hopeful to reap tasty fruits
Of this seed of poetry
Sown in me by God
As words escaped constricted passage
of time from eons of layered myths,
legends of demi-gods thus linked,
in glowing rendition, with whisk on hand
the Orator with staff, sang the Eel to slumber.
As words from parched lips of orchids, flowed
dispersing sweet juices germinating dense spheres
of time in which history was packed in roots,
armed with psalms in measured cadences,
the Orator soothed kings and chiefs.
As words of our ancestors oiled and pampered
by prophesies of aging oracles, songs of lovers
and monotonous chants of old men...slithered
into hiding while physical wars waged, succinctly
the Orator proclaimed the heroic pursuits of warriors.
As words, precision in recitation of kinship ties
craftily sewn by political machinations of unions
vital for survival of race waltzing in purity of blue
when blood flowed thru veins of aging rocks as
the Orator cemented pacts chanting tribal honorifics.
As words, imageries of sky bursting, moon phasing sunsets pertaining to legends of my village heroes,
sweet nectars that put rhythm in his art of tongues
inspired by fruits from my garden, mine own words
the Orator in action, was he infringing my copyright?
As words, our heritage orally passed down in poetry,
set imageries prohibiting meddling with sources,
set quotations where time absolved breaches of patent,
plagiarism, for traditions dictated that the word be
secured in a cocoon of oratory ferried down the ages
by the dynamics of cultural rites and rituals.
the Orator, blessed not only as the spiritual Vessel
...but now deemed as the Spoken Word incarnate.
“WE AIN’T FORGOTTEN…”
You cried a smile
shadowing anger
beneath a canopy
of love
Your necks filled nooses
tied with Christian knots
that never failed
Your wombs challenged
the holding holes
of sanctified graveyards
You kneaded gospels
from the dough of pain
and fed starving souls:
You moaned songs
with groans echoing
echoes from the depths
of suffering spirits—
Suffering spirits
whose fortified bent backs
gave rise to a flourishing nation
The fruits of your labors
have now ripened:
dropping pregnant seeds
germinating liberty
upon justice…?
today
the rain fell
steadily;
her tears
reminiscent
of waters
drowning justice
struggling
to survive
tidal waves
of deception—
seeking to douse
the flame of hope
held high
in hand—
an elusive lady
struggling
to stand
her anchored
mooring
The Easter Celebration
is a day of purest gold
for many sincere people
who believe what they've been told
"The Resurrection of Our Lord
occurred upon this day
and not to recognize it
would be sacrilege," some say.
"The Easter Bunny brought those eggs,"
is what we tell our youth,
for this is so much easier
than teaching them the truth.
Encyclopedias tell us of
a pagan celebration,
a rite of early spring to hail
the rebirth of creation.
The egg is emblematic of
spring's germinating life,
a fresh start from the winter's cold,
its blizzards and its strife.
The rabbit is an ancient sign,
the symbol of fertility;
In sex worship it symbolizes
man's insatiability.
So what if ancient pagans
used this day, protests the pastor,
to feast the Goddess of the Dawn
the Teutons called Eastre.
It's important to remember that
our Lord rose from the grave,
and thus a hope for resurrection
of the dead he gave.
So, a rabbit laying eggs was part
of ancient pagan rite?
He's just the Easter Bunny now
who brings our kids delight.
So what, the clerics cry,
if things we're teaching children might
have come from Devil Worship?
Do I hear, Amen? ...Yeah, Right!
Just another Warrenpiece
so, i got to thinking
about all those words
planted in my language
where fertility grew them
to leave and stalk and pod
the farmer's words scatter
my fields like seed on clod
watered by thundering flashes
awash, fertilized and germinating
progeny seedlings, my own growth
in some time-lapse photography
writhing their creamy roots
into earthy loam and droning
on through a summer daze
into fruits of sweaty labors
on humid chlorophylled days
silks sultry green, stalking me
through rows and rows as far
as i can see, if i squint
the farmer, suspended in time
stands with his hands in pocket
or on some implement toed to soil
and surveys life's prospects
for this season, before the
days bake the green back into
the humus and the cornucopia
spills the field and orchard
this verse of the farmer's song
picked and stowed away cool
eyes closed now, ears gently
strain to hear, worldly phrasing
come from where? my larder
or some ancestor gleaning meaning
and dropping it into her apron
to carry home to hungry minds
to feed them something of today
and sustain them through a fallow
solstice and the chilled breeze
any cultivation harvested over
picked clean and harrowed flat
nearly time to plow it under again
while the farmer gazes the horizon
and sips something in his cup
© Goode Guy 2011-08-22
"The Wormwood Portfolio"
Reams of stories
riddled with worms
wood for burning
all the children
cover their eyes
tears smoked
into the lungs
gender fluid
propheticising
bitter water
electric brains
chipped like
fine-boned China
downloading
overloads
dumps are
damp
the fuse
sizzles and
stops
green as absinthe
gauche ghosts
gone all grey skinned
scales of merit
charred unweighted
vacant and vacating
like dandelions
scattering over
the barren wombs
of the childless landscape
dreaming of biblical babies
suckling the wanton breasts
of Desdemona’s structural points,
a sharp essay, feeding insouciance
mistaken identities and confusion
side-blinded by the light
of the tempestuous kill shot
burnt and scarred
beeseeching open handed
faces turning like time dials
towards two suns
gold gone all black holed
dead verdant plants
hot feet blistering
make no more demands
skipping, games of patter-cake
powdered ochre yellow
here's the church and here's the steeple
open your hands where are the people
like viruses, germinating
no more prayers to enchant
daughters of eve
sons of man
when the Word finally speaks
there is hearing damage
Reams of stories
riddled with worms
wood for burning
all the children
cover their eyes
;
the ides of march
recant.
(LadyLabyrinth / 2021)
"A tear in the brain
allows the voices in
they wanna push you off the path
with their low-frequency wires..."
recant. v.
Wormwood.
Ides of March.
What is this resplendent thing that sparkles ahead,
Pacing faster than limbs of incapacity
Beyond the all-pervasive dakness of want?
Could my eyes be playing upon me some sly pervasity,
Seeing things untrue, askew and errant?
Or is it a reality that they will be resewn
The torn bonds that linked me to the world of bounty,
Where I may be returning soon?
I've had a glimpse of the future;
What a beautiful and gorgeous sight!
Streams of milk do freely flow,
And pots of honey glitter bright
Against the blinding rays of a rising sun.
This days of plenty seem set in the Promised Land,
For I see the fertile shoots of a germinating future
Guarded by an armed angelic band
Recruited from beyond the azure;
A fulfilment of a trashed prophecy.
And children of fate weakened by ages of plight
There do sing day and night;
Feeble frames malnourished for centuries
Enrich themselves from celestial treasuries,
Where the obedient minions of the sky
Gathered in response to their cry,
While they laboured on the red soils of Egypt
Before God heard their cries and His mercies leapt.
Who else can see this vision
Of relief from pandemics of fate
And the gaping gallows of death?
A time coming when sons of men
Shall storm this ogres den
And avenge the murderous terror
Inflicted upon their long gone kith and kin!
And the forbears long dead,
Shall be awakened by cries of war,
And with might reserved for decades
Shall avenge the pain inflicted before
By their wicked adversaries
Who maim parents and drink the blood
Of their offspring left behind.
Divine Dandelions
I found a golden dandelion that must
have been carried in on the wind.
The four whimsical winds are known
to be a dandelion's best friend.
Its tiny ray petal germinating in a patch
of springtime's rain drenched earth.
First seen as a verdant sprout, budding,
then blooming to share merry mirth.
Dandelions, most all gardeners disdain;
killing them with vinegar, salt and soap.
Yet next year they will appear again
against a gardener's fervent hope.
In Moses' time, the bible says they bloomed,
used as medicine, as a food or mild tea.
When the blooms fade to form a downy head,
kids love to blow their soft tufts playfully.
In this last stage with white wispy orb heads
In delicate flight they spread their fine seed.
This worthy divine dandelion I now see
Is so much more than a lowly weed!
4-10-19
As night time sets in, my arms wrapped around you, waiting
Feelings of warmth I share with you, mine inside totally are elating
A field of darkness springs from the horizon emanating
Star seeds infinity planted throughout it, germinating
I hold you as still water surrounds us, your beauty without debating
You exceed all expectations exceptionally in a word, obliterating
My unhappiness that was brewing and percolating
As you enjoy a dozen red scents, twelve times more happiness, I wish for you than I'm relating
Your enchanting, extraordinary, respecting you even after those growing stars no longer radiating
THE BLACKER THE BERRY..
Misconception dims the path that leads her brown Clay
To shallow waters where she can never float like a butterfly but always stings like a bee
She is only good at germinating in dim waters like
Deep intellectual conversations
Always warrant entry into shallow society
Dictating that she could not have possibly been supple at first sight
She needed to be probed without pressing her buttons
It’s her stellar personality that beams like a floodlight in flood times
When it’s raining men but she can’t compete with the yellow flame
So she has to keep her battery charged
When she guides the men easily beguiled by the sparkling light
That has them having need for a yellow bone to chew even when they lack the appetite for it.
“Between us men, it is better than that organic fruit diet
The plate is too blackened by her sunned pigment”
The blacker the berry the sweeter her juice in private
While in public the males ride shot gun on the yellow ferry
It’s the societal Olympics where everybody needs to have the same shade trophy,
She the blacker berry watching from the sidelines while fixing her paint
A by-product of lightening products has her gaining first sight attraction
Because now she can quite be the woman to wear on his arm like a cuff link
Arresting other suitors’ attention because now she dazzles at night
And she can enjoy the benefits of her top coating
Even though deep within she is layered with insecurity.
***Written for all dark skinned beauties who feel less beautiful because of their shade of black
…the seeds of neo-Nazism are germinating
Markus Nierth, former mayor of Tröglitz, Germany 2015
Germany’s rock candy windows and cookie like shingles make seeing the oven inside impossible. At first, the obsessive compulsive cleanliness of Nuremberg’s post-WWII streets is a joy. For a child of the melting pot, born after The Big One, it’s painful to recall the grimmer aspects of the Third Reich with their proposed eugenics. Nuremberg [rebuilt] roots in an elitist past hiding behind half-timbered houses of wattle and daub. Once the seat of the Holy Roman Empire seeped in power, then, a base for Hitler’s wunderkind rallies—now a soul-blighted bloom, a minor stop on the tourist trail.
Street walking pedestrians—the silent middle, staid, detached—stroll or bike along paths, immersed in white dreams. The pogroms of terror, stolen homes, and bridges made from Jewish Cemetery stones lie beneath layers of pristine paint and plaster. The Jews victimized for centuries, and the war trials, a mere subtext to tour guide chatter.
xenophobia
tamped down like an ash banked fire
waits to rise again
on a bellows breath of rage
spray painted on railroad cars
The site of my pilgrimage, The Palace of Justice—walled in panels of ashen mahogany—retains a dour mien. Judges, jurors and those to be tried, still use this hall. After-images of skeletal camp dweller and vain glorious generals rise wraith-like from the polished surfaces, paneling, pews, and copings. Greek God’s glower. A bronze crucifix castes judgment on all who pass: God fearing, or atheist. Justice is not present; horrors are not passed and conscience is now presented to the world as a fanatic in a suicide vest.
First Published in Artificium UK 2016
Word Up!
This just may be
the last poem from the last poet
among the poets of last
who first spoke the word.
In the beginning
the Word was
is and ever will be
the force liberating
both you and me
from the mental shackles
of the new slavery.
Word up!
For a downed people!
Word up! Black is beautiful!
So beautiful to be Black!
Yet that’s not enough
lease you be satisfied
with the present stuff:
“Yo…what up dog”?
(can’t you see)
(What’s
been
done)
(To
you
me?)
They turned the word around
and made us
the chase and the hound:
“What up…dog?”
Word up “G”!
Word up “O”
(Yo!)
Word up “D”
We are the Alpha and the Omega!
Nubian queens! Sable Kings!
Africa!
Jamaica!
America!
Oh can’t you see
What’s been done
To you and me?
Took desegregation
made it integration
of two nations
that we remain to be
from sea to shining sea!
Took the best of us God sent
and left us with a deferred dream
well spent;
and a generation unaware
what the movement meant!
Today, Malcolm
is just a movie money maker;
King is just for a day; poor
Rosa is just another play:
like that about a bus
driving down dat highway!
The Word
is and ever shall be
the spiritual force
that will always set us free:
The germinating force
of your generation’s
possibilities!
This just may be
the last poem from the last poet
among the poets of last
who first spoke the word
that still must be heard:
Word Up!
Round about nineteen 1971-2, yours truly bid adieu
to Henry Kline Boyer Elementary School
(situated at crossroads – then beau
colic rural routes of Evansburg Road and Ridge Pike), where nary a clue
prevails today of such pristine farm country due
to undergo radical urbanization during my boyhood edu
cay ting this sensitive kid asper flora and fauna drastically became few,
but primary aim of poem intent to focus
on grievous sobbing from lifelike goo goo
doll (cries and whispers ken still be heard within beef jerky
ladder day grown man body electric) hoo
vividly recollects scathing stabbing, torquing twerking,
survey monkey wrenching “IDO
NOT WANT TO BE ALIVE” reaction from manifold factors,
which exponentially increased goy tar attacks
targeting thine mideastern suffer tick Jew
such baiting (though nary a hint
how mean neighborhood kids gleaned this information),
since not one kewpie doll,
nor telltale Star of David dead giveaway, no one knew
such sacred symbols never adorned, deployed gripped ourselves,
(Unitarians encompassed family of origin), which credo Matthew
best describes as a hodgepodge, pastiche, ragbag, et cetera of pew
pills amassed from a gamut of disparate Parochial spew
wing litany trouncing as heresy
any diametrically opposed sanctified religious treatises
secular regents questioned plants seeds of white lily
germinating, sprouting and teasing out through
logical, oratorical, rational invocations such a heretical view
which synoptic backstory of mine, now allows,
enables and provides an opportunity for you
to read what I intended to be main essence
of this notion communicated
from one to another primate within the human zoo.
Dreams of spring
The violent storm has passed
The sun has risen
Hopes have been resurrected
Phototropic dreams have been awoken
The skies are at peace now
Their tears have dried up
The clouds have lightened up
Sorrows from the sky have ceased to flow
Arids lands have been watered
Plants have garnered strength to shoot
Streams are no longer stagnant and silent
Nature's bread has been battered
Seeds of survival are germinating
The mighty waters have fallen
Oaks and shrubs have been swayed but remain standing
The soil's soul has been quenched of thirst
The wilderness is singing joyfully
We too celebrate the rain, and treasure the sunrise;
Then we go home and tilt the soil
And let nature sing the praises.
Omnipresent is Joy
Barefoot morn walk in garden
Soothing sight of silky blanket of grass
Morning dew globules sparkling
As if bathing Blades in freshness
Greenery splashed on earths canvas
Buds swinging, radiant Natures canvas
Eager to unlock youth freshness
Flowers gleeful as butterflies perch joyfully
Esoteric on pollination in garden
Fragrance radiating, amidst grass
Aroma filled atmospheres sparkling
First Rays splashing golden on natures canvas
Aiding photosynthesis,energy joyful
Plant and human balancing ecological freshness
Plants in orderly arrangement in garden
Seeds germinating in silence with invisible sparkle
Sacrifice, seed for tree, uneven blades for uniform grass
Mountains, rocks forever fresh
Treasure of minerals,herbs,grass
Wall to rain bearing clouds,life of many gardens
Mother to many rivers, oasis in natures canvas
Treasure of minerals, herbs, grass
Seat of saints for Peaceful joy
Protecting ecological sparkle
Changing of Seasons add sparkle
Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, varied freshness
Spice to atmospheric environment joy
Enthusiasm for new clothes, cuisine, party on grass
Nature bestowed different seasons canvas
Knowing, human love variety as desert love garden
Compassion garden
Love dotting rest of emotions as on blades dews sparkle
Inner light dispelling darkness in lifes canvas
Smiles, hugs, kisses, pats, way forward fresh
Individual joy as gardens each blade of grass
Spreading garden of cosmic joy
Futile is garden without dews sparkle
Cheer is soul of lifes canvas, inner search only lends freshness
Inner bliss smooth as silky grass, search futile for outward search of joy
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© Hitendra Mehta
(Entry for Members Contest - "Joy to World” by Deborah Guzzi)