Best Gleaned Poems
Was it a sheer accident that I became a poet?
Poetry, I didn’t pursue, rather it cropped up
As a late-night guest, quite unexpected.
A teacher’s career, I have been bent upon
And prefer to be known more as a teacher than a poet.
In my eyes, teachers are a venerable sort,
Happy that I could belong to that ‘special’ lot,
Instilling in young ones - newer insights gleaned,
Enriching their lives - with atoms of knowledge pooled,
Brightening their paths - with millions of lanterns lit,
Rowing them away - from the perilous shoals of life,
And leading them to be anchored on safer shores!
A teacher sure stands taller above,
Every other mortal who serves!!
Numerous are the guise a teacher has to put on,
And cleverer the tricks she has to play,
To tackle the wards in her all-out care,
And launch them out into a world to fare.
I have played all at once myriad roles,
More of a mentor and not just a tutor,
A physician who heals, a nurse who tends,
A parent who cares or a pal who shares,
A patron who supports or a lawyer who argues,
A scholar who learns and a master who trains.
As Christ taught his disciples - with parables many,
As Socrates instructed the youth - through endless queries,
As Sullivan led Keller - to the new dawn of light,
As Aesop enlightened kids - with countless tales,
I strove to be a TEACHER.
An erudite soul with a mission!
A sculptor who sees an angel, veiled within a rock!
An architect building an edifice to last a lifetime!
A warrior uncompromising in war,
On Ignorance – the most ignoble foe!
I don’t know where I presently stand,
Nor do I know how my students would rate me,
Though often floundered or failed to act,
In the manner I ever so longed to do,
I would rather be a TEACHER all my life,
A ‘guru’ out and out, from hilt to heel.
And I would wear that mantle with pride!
French trader Tavernier in a greed-inspired way
Glared at an idol of a temple in Mandalay
Prying a gem from its eye socket, a curse prevailed
Tavernier died bankrupt soon after making the sale
Louis XIV bought the stone, 1668
A gift to his mistress, Louis had it cut heart-shape
For dabbling in Black Magic, this madam was burned
A century passed with the curse’s power unlearned
The diamond was then bestowed on Marie Antoinette
For wearing it with boastful pride, Marie lost her head
She lost respect from the commoners of her nation
This gem has since been linked to the French Revolution
Cut far smaller, the gem resurfaced, 1830
When a London banker bought the rock of infamy
Henry Thomas Hope survived; the curse appeared to break
For 70 years the Hope Diamond’s wrath lay in state
A Hope heir’s marriage collapsed; his wife evoked the curse
As she foretold, subsequent owners’ fates would be worse
French broker Jacques Colot went mad, suicide his road
Sultan “Abdul the Damned,” insane after being deposed
Then to an American the Hope Diamond was sold
Washington Post owner Maclean watched horrors unfold
Other household members died, but it was Maclean’s son
Ten years old, struck by a car, his Dad’s mind came undone
Ultra-light ray tests caused the mystery diamond to glow
With safety in mind, Hope’s eerie stone found a new home
It remained locked on display in the Smithsonian
Could it be to blame for all that’s wrong in Washington?
Tragedy also tied to raiders of King Tut’s tomb
Perhaps lessons can be gleaned from those who met their doom
Robbing temples, burial sites, outcomes always bad
Greedy souls’ quests for wealth can leave them totally mad
So don’t expect me to purchase a diamond in the rough
Considering this gem’s history, a sandstone’s quite enough
I am
Still I wonder
Who I am
Am I who
Am I what
Am I where
Am I here
I am
Yet I am not
My words travel beyond myself
I am made up of small and large
Sometimes broken discarded pieces
I am not
Who you think I am
I am one who lives between the spaces
Of those words you choose to describe me with
Perceptions gleaned
Through abbreviated sentences
Those moments I bored you with my existance
You were too busy being yourself
How could you ever know me
I am the one who can see
For I am a watcher
I am present in the silence
I am quiet
Do not confuse silence with weakness
I am who I choose to be
I am not a slave to the trivial
I am not one confined by convention
Those things I am supposed to strive for
They hold no allure for me
I am a free man
Free to think as I think
My thoughts remain my own
For your questions rarely greet my ears
When they do
I answer
I am willing
Yet you are unable to hear
For you think
You alone hold the answers
So I smile
For if nothing else
I am pleasant
I am polite
I am not thought of as bold
I am to you
Who you think I am
I am
For a time
What I want to be
Other times
What is expected of me
Sometimes
What confuses
What limits me
What shrinks
What trancends
What I hope is good for me
I am selfish for generous reasons
I am willing to give lavishly
I am what and who I need to be
Today I am different than yesterday
Yet at my core
I am still me
I am where I've been placed
For the time I'm needed here
I am at the intersection of belonging and alone
I am temporary and eternal
I am living where angels fear to tread
For I am human
I am flawed
I am willfully questioning God
I am on the verge of disappearing
Only Jesus truly knows who I am
He knows where my thoughts travel
How I have used who I am
To coerece others
To see me
As different than I am
More perfect
Less fearful
Confident
Insightful
So I say
Here I am
Naked
Exposed to your elements
Willing to risk it all
Here and now
Will you look close
Ask me your questions
Reserve your judgement
I am meant to be
Here and now
For in knowing who I am
You can begin to discover
Who you are!
For Frank Herrera's " I Am" contest.
Winter’s cold chill cuts through my chin.
Within its bleak and brazen embrace,
My brisk days are turned brief and barren.
They are lengthened into sordid sepulchral insomniac nights.
I slither and slip and am hurled into hibernation.
Once I stood with you immune to wanton winter’s wild whiplash.
You wrapped me warm from the wrath of winter’s whirlwind.
Our life moved in homogeneous harmony.
With one glaring glance from you, my heart hummed halcyon tunes.
I danced blissfully in tandem to your sweet soulful songs.
Your luminous, lambent light shone brightly,
Blazing the dark and desolate caves and crevices within me.
Now I stand and stay rooted like the trunk of a leafless tree,
Giving no shelter or shade to anyone.
With despondent dread and disappointment,
I watch the sap and serum in me going dry,
And the feathers on my wings wilt and wither like dead leaves.
With the flaming fire put out, winter has brashly barged into my life.
My lips once so eloquent now have fallen still and silent.
All the words I have carefully gleaned and garnered,
Have slipped and slid into a bottomless abyss, never to be heard again.
My lulling lyrics are replaced with the reverberating refrains of a lament.
An icy crystallization is speedily spreading,
Through my sentient soul like an ache, I have never known.
Grey cumulus clouds of pain have rolled into steal,
All light, luster and luminosity from my bright sky.
Now my world has cracked and crumbled into a bleak void of grey.
I twitch and tremble in cold as you have withdrawn your warmth.
A late realization has now daringly dawned outside my door.
I am not to perish and putrefy in this cold,
But be dauntless and dashing to fight, thaw and tread my way,
Battle the intense cold in flaming, flaring fires.
After every frosty and freezing winter, other seasons will arrive .
Summer is an inviolable and unassailable power within,
And in its warmth I can vanquish the chilling cold.
I shall wake up with a syrupy sweet song in my lips
And find myself in the luminous light of a dawning day!
Now is the summer of our discontent
Made glorious opportunity for change
And all the clouds that lower on our land
In the bosom of the media rearranged
While I who have no mind for fair concord
Determine to conspire and prove the fiend
And hate the idle pleasures life affords
Ensure conflict is harvested and gleaned
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
To instigate a man against a brother
Black history I will exploit to thrust
In deadly hate one race upon the other
Soft hearted folks I will manipulate
And play upon their heartstrings for my schemes
Their sympathy emotions shall dictate
Virtue signalling conformant to woke memes
To activate my hidden plan I’ll move
Self righteous useful pawns - give delegation
With peaceful protests (who could not approve?)
Though they shall lead to ruinous conflagration
The people will rise, call for a redeemer
When old regime has made a full contrition
To save the nation, be a chaos healer
I’ll, with reluctance, undertake the mission
Then my control shall be with iron fist
Surveillance of the people I’ll refine
And cohorts of young zealots I’ll enlist
The name: ‘Beloved Leader’ shall be mine
18 June 2020
Your wrists smell of fig sap and October rain
your shoulder blades two furrows turned for seed
your spine the long fence-row the sparrows read
at dusk, each vertebra a sheaf of grain
The vineyard heaves into your windowpane
as roots cleave—slow, below, agreed
and where your collarbone dips, the ripe world feeds
its split apricot, moth-wing, what my palms have gleaned
I turn toward you at the sink, your hair still wet
and lay my ring along the small of your back
the pear boughs laden, the foxes at the run
the creek gone sloe at the farthest bend
what forty years of kneeling cleaves in earnest
one body known, the soul brought into harvest.
======
Jungle Drums
Well known was Molly by gossips
Words fell so easy from her lips
They always found ready ears
Revered was she amongst her peers
A casual meeting Molly made
Good conversation she displayed
Invited then to mothers meeting
Where received a rapturous greeting
For all the ladies gathered there
Knew Molly had a tale to share
About the folk at forty eight
Procured across a garden gate
Passed along tongue to tongue
It must be right, it can’t be wrong
Second hand, thrice removed
Each time the details are improved
Behind her curtains, Mrs Rose
Who sees all that comes and goes
From her shadowy oasis
Offers Molly on the basis
What she tells her will be treated
With respect and not repeated
Knowing only far to well
Molly cannot wait to tell
Everyone she knows
All she’s gleaned from Mrs Rose
And Peg the paper shop assistant
Said “It’s true”, she was insistent
She had heard the news confirmed
By Mrs Smith, who had learned
About the tale and of course
From a most reliable source
It’s not hard to understand
How she holds them in her hand
Like ducklings on a pond to feed
Molly delivers to their greed
Her listeners are now captivated
By her words uncomplicated
Said with such simplicity
Masked by dark duplicity
Who would believe, ill intent
From a face, so innocent
Having spilled out all her news
Others offered up their views
Ever wilder each new claim
Fending, proving, placing blame
Then Ginger Adams put her spoke in
“ I had heard, “She’s done her bloke in”
With a glare from Molly’s eye
Ginger just wanted to die
For she had not learnt quite yet
Where the sights they should be set
Which appears to be somewhere
Between uncaring and unfair
With no way to recognize
Which be truth and which be lies.
Please forgive the implication that this behaviour is
exclusive to the fairer sex, it is simply for the purposes
of this write. I have known men that easily equal any
woman in this sphere of life, and be just as catty, hahahha
In our lives, we’ve been rendered feelings
in varying degrees of happiness -
prickles of gladness
derived from such events as those
of tasting victory,
of making someone smile, of giving aid,
of basking in the company of friends and family.
And who cannot remember the euphoric bliss
of his or her first romantic kiss?
Eventually our recollections of contentment blur.
Sensations once so strong become
as paltry as the particles of sand washed
again and again by waves of time.
However, fond remembrances
are never totally repressed.
It’s what we keep of them that keeps us strong-
. . . . that keeps us going on.
It’s our human lot to be
longing for an unfurling of fulfillment.
And for far too many, joy is elusive,
coming but in bursts before it fades. . . .
Life and lessons gleaned from it
all point to the way. but
who of us will ultimately know
the joy that sweetly stays?
For PD's 100 in a ROW contest --3
The greatest minds are mocked and heckled,
but are usually right.
The greatest knowledge, is usually found,
in the simplest places.
Dreams if not a catalyst, to initiate the revelation
of truth; often contain the truth.
Look within for the golden chalice; the legendary
“Grail”; you’ll find it wrapped in the “golden fleece”.
Wisdom is gleaned in flight across the veil;
no soul, seeking light, is abandoned to the dark.
Mind comes from mind, returns to mind, lives in mind.
The enlightened never use the word, can’t.
If “ignorance is bliss”,
skeptics must be the happiest creatures on Earth.
The gift of denial never pays to light one single candle.
Light is provided free, to the open mind;
the greatest minds are the wires, through which,
the human batteries are charged;
universal mind initiates the transfer.
The light in the darkness, the dreams that come true,
should never be doused by the waters of ignorance.
The sky slid across a thinly iced sun
As clouds collided amid piled up heaps
Painting noses pink, where powdered breath spun
Webs of frost surrounding when minutes creep
On skittish feet, wary of time’s upkeep
When their passion’s reckless young Romeos
Discard stoic gray for flashy road shows
What impatient eyes fail to calculate...
A serene gleaned as the wisdom of snow
Lands quiet, where wounded hopes hibernate.
1/03/21
N/A in Just Thinkin contest
Sponsor: John Lawless
judged 1/05/21
Threw two trees a heart was seen
Two trees bent, shaped by time and wind
Threw these trees the truth can be gleaned
Hards times shape, make, and blend
(Threw in this instance means strategic place.)
Dredging up scuttled dreams you'd once let go;
stirs up muddy waters laced with regret.
And at times, time seems perceptibly slow,
pausing on the things you want to forget.
Memories, lacking both substance and weight,
can't control the emotions they release.
And when deceit sets the course of your fate
tears of loneliness: will only increase.
As Fate pays no attention to your cries,
anxieties increase: that much is plain.
And so, you look for ways to compromise,
while crying eyes spill the tears they contain.
You accept defeat with an angry heart,
for love's a miracle gleaned from the soul.
And though trust's foundation was torn apart,
hope gathers the pieces and makes them whole.
Initiating change is always hard,
and you hesitate to trust love again.
Yet forsaking your dreams without regard;
will inevitably fuel more pain.
Lush pretentious garden sculpts to be gleaned.
Fullness of repose with sweet quiet sound,
fruitful, and forbearance draw nature's ground.
The sensuous feel, oft seasons has seen.
Butterflies noiselessly stir round fragrant
sweet allure angel's tears; with airy grace
scatter elsewhere to perennial space.
Ants, beetles, and birds herald, spring vagrants.
Wind nimble bend forth, leaflets surrender
mere fragrance in its resilience breath span,
devour one complete, hence its roots began.
Spring vernal equinox, has force to render.
Spring arises in gallantly through ardor
in the wake of hints still left from winter.
2/22/2019
Five after four in the morning. Night-sweats
rumple silk bed sheets. Vague cusp ‘tween night and day
blurs chiseled contours of sanity’s sharpness.
Dreams half-way loosed into consciousness waylay
snuggling comforts. Wee hours’ vague demons lurk
tucked beneath pillowcased hopes, threatening melee.
Coffee at four twenty, brewed under knee-jerk
rituals uncritically gleaned in tender years,
won’t clear the spider webs. Thinking is hard work.
Terrible, really, yet recently shed tears
obscure simple joy’s sole right to imminence,
caking like blood drawn by yesterday’s spears.
‘Til mercy’s sunbeams despite grief’s vehemence
melt bitter frostbite of long lost innocence.
She sang a wonderful enchanting melody
notes that echoed through the motionless trees
while in a stationary pause for just a moment scant,
she resumed her song as if it were a prayerful chant;
she glanced up and down, left and right, brown eyes dancing
then a skip, a hop, a bounce, then slow walking,
crunching dried leaves beneath her tiny feet
off to the sides along the cool grassy edge out of the heat;
she gleaned the view of multitudes of flowers renewed
familiar spring budding, now in full bloom,
probing roses, peonies, irises in wafting perfume,
bobbing she rushed to dabble her feet on waterfall stones,
the garden seemed to speak her name
calling out to her, drawing her interest and attention
that soon waned in more pensive somber thoughts,
scanning fluffed puffed clouds up high and deep blue azure sky;
enough she thought - if only I could fly
then in recognition of her place with God's grace
she stretched her feathered wings and softly fluttered
taking swift flight up and away
she could not stay
but would return again
the little wren remembered well
the garden of her birth.