Best Gotten Poems
Peeking through my corner bedroom window
playing hide and seek
the ocean's breath pushes through
the semitransparent white curtains
allowing the sun to shine and smile
upon my half-opened squinted eye.
I close my eyes and try to dream
dream of that night
dream of you and me
that star filled summer sky
laying on a blanket overlooking the sea
that glimmer as I gazed into your eyes
I remember your killer little smile
as we talked of the future
I blushed when you touched my chest
oh how fast my heart did beat
after only one sip of wine
I knew you were going to be mine
and I was going to be all yours
It seems just like yesterday
enjoying a perfect moonlight kiss
you wrapped in my arms
how could one ever forget
now twenty years or so have passed
and I still haven't gotten over you yet
Peter has gotten a new job
as a bookstore clerk from one to ten
down by the river
in a sunny little house.
I've come to visit and I'm thumbing through
a book of poems
by Robinson Jeffers' brother.
Incoherent but
more interesting than this.
Out of the river rises a bum of a blob
dripping with water and begging a yen.
While he shivers
I call him a louse
and say This isn't Nippon, you!
So off he roams
probably back to his mother.
He was a nut
because he wasn't a fish.
Suffering with a toothache
Started on the weekend
Appointment on Monday
See the Dentist at ten
This was no wimpy ache
A “King Kong” of a hurt
I kept on popping pills
Still pain would not avert
By that Monday morning
Pain spreading through my chin
At the end of my rope
Somehow this pain must end
We were at the building
A little before nine
We arrived there early
Hoping to save some time
Office on the third floor
I said, “Let’s take the stairs”
“No”, said my lovely wife,
“Elevator’s right there”
Push button number three
We started going up
Got between two and three
When it stopped abrupt
I pushed the HELP button
Then we heard someone say
“Maintenance has been called
So help is on its way”
“I’m in pain, need relief
Just how long might it be?”
“Takes them an hour or two
At worst it could be three”
“Should’ve gone up the stairs
But I listened to you”
"WELL",
“Here’s another fine mess
You’ve gotten me into”
Deep into my soul you have gotten liking running through a field of fresh cotton. the color purple in the mist of my horizon. no longer afraid to love or show compassion. Deep into my soul you gotten. you've found you diamond in the rough. Deep into my soul you my soul you have gotten. Irefuse to go searching, looking, or shopping for a mate. Are you real or are you fake? shall you be another I love and you walk away? for you see my brother Deep into my soul you have gotten. I have let of my pain from the past Lord I hope this is not a game, pray it will last. Deep into my soul you have gotten. take it slow is what the mind keeps saying I only want to swim to the depths of your ocean. Deep into my soul you have gotten. slowly but surely you have me fallen. making me believe love can once again bless me with being in love with someone who loves me back. At your touch I'm amazed at our chemistry, you've set an explosion within that's filled with fire, lust, and passion. Deep into my soul you have gotten. Everyday I have you in my life I'm slowly fallen. For deep into my soul you have gotten.
Anxiety ridden and broken down;
I back out of the deal and I cash in my hand-
All before I even know the stakes.
Or the taste of your sweat.
I watched your body hit the ground;
I watched your chest heave its last breath.
Now again, I try to reach for that same fallen star-
Forever waiting to hear a final cry.
That scream of discontent;
That sigh of malediction or lack of repent.
It is all the same to me
When I forget to breath.
It is all the same to me
When your hands strengthen around my neck.
Believe what you will about my ill-gotten gains;
It is my glory, my payment for sins and mine to spend.
I dash about in a great hurry to go nowhere
And now and then,
I stop and I look anxiously around for you.
Hoping you will soothe my battered soul,
Forgive the sins I scatter recklessly about.
Although I've Gotten a Bit Wiser
There is of course the ruin of the old,
when the dead pass through them
like dreams or shadows, darkly
and without purpose-
drinking wine and prune juice they
forget the dead in a hideous chair
outside the GS supermarket.
How do I forget the dead?
How do I forget myself?
... and then, as if by magic,
reason prevails...
although, I've gotten a Budweiser.
We shouldn’t have gotten a shed
For I’m sure you can guess where it’s led -
Saving things we don’t need;
With it gone, guaranteed,
We’d throw things in the garbage instead.
Now the mice have a place they can hide
When it’s freezing or raining outside.
They leave droppings behind
Which, of course, I will find
And I can’t seem to take it in stride.
I should simply just clean the shed out
For there isn’t the tiniest doubt
That the things I have saved
Make me look quite depraved,
Which confirms what this poem is about.
*PoetrySoup would not let me include the apostrophe
in the word Shouldn’t!
I thought I had gotten away from this part of my childhood,
but I turned at lettuce and ran into my cousin Linden
in the grocery store last Thursday.
He was delighted and dragged me back to their house
to observe more of their childish games.
Unlike in the movies where they pop a gunny sack over your head
and capture you,
Linden enticed me in a different whole-hearted way that made me
want to be dragged back into their drama.
With methodical guilt that appealed to
my niceness, and the reminder we are “blood” after all,
my notoriously personable
first cousin coaxed me back into his brother Tweedle-Man’s troubled waters.
I sat mesmerized, watching them do all the stuff they used to do,
when we were kids, only harder and meaner.
This used to be my circus, but I had long ago given up the three rings.
They are going on sixty, acting twenty-two, proud of their inflexibility,
and retention of youth.
I admire their eagerness to never change things
that have never in any way worked for them.
They valiantly hang on to a selfish life that has
never created a fulfillment for either of them, and has helped no one.
I resign myself to the socialized fact
That for a few more hours I will sit here,
pretending politeness. I do not exchange phone numbers or tell
them where I am living or with whom.
They do not care. It is all about them.
The ringmaster and the clown.
It would be an inconvenience for them to reach out again.
They are too inebriated and too high in other ways to find me again
Or even remember who I am or that I still exist.
I sit patiently a few more minutes.
Waiting for them to bring on the dancing bears.
Tweedle-man is wearing oversized glasses that light up. “Funny huh?”
Linden falls off the couch, laughing maniacally.
Just a few more minutes…
Written 3-17-2019
Contest: Bring on the Dancing Bears
Sponsor: John Lawless
The moon wears a mantle made of a rain cloud
This is the reason that he’s soaking wet
The moon might have gotten a bad cold
His pale face looks like paper under dim light
Please take off your mantle of rain cloud
To brighten my nostalgic dream that is fading out
To light up my feet standing on the snowy ground
With joy from the profound truth I’d like to taste
12/27/21
Did poorly or was doing just fine
The outcome was negative or had a plus sign
Always not just sometimes
Being one of a kind
Under the moonlight and sunshine
When it took a turn for the worse or was sublime
No longer getting brushed aside
Seeking what it is that I must find
On the frontlines
Can't force it
Or forfeit
Held true or was horse
Bought it or couldn't afford it
Crystal clear or distorted
Unavoidable or able to be thwarted
Saw it coming from the crows nest
Meanwhile, most think they know best
As they struggle to clean up their own mess
Very quick to protest
In their ways they are so set
For the greater good or due to greed it was commercialized
All of this, I could not internalize
Something still stirs inside
It's tragic that humans and animals got burned alive
Better be something you're sure about
Or it'll have an unsuccessful turnout
Close and far from any birdhouse
So many rotten games
It has gotten strange
All about the profit gains
Not any pocket change
I am awake
there is no sun
Continue to arise
Yet the day feels like it's done
Cold and silent morning
there are no automobiles on the road
The trees have eyes
They are the only ones to stare back at me
Coffee on the table
Morning dew dripping from the ceiling
The paper boy forgot to bring me the news
This city is deathly silent as the pain of nothing ensues
I slowly turn to get myself dressed
The fear is within me that much to confess
Earl of the daylight
Pauper controls the night
when the work day(without anyone around)is done
Gentle man is weary,the younger folk has won
They have left an old fogey to moan
Treading off to the country side
They want John Denver to take them back home
it is irony that I wallow in misery
Generation Y goes back to a simpler Songwriter's story
Ill -gotten Gains
False premise
Path falsely taken
Road stolen by feet
Not meant to roam
The road ahead
Came to bit in the ass
Plans obtained by false
Appearances of many years
Of falsehoods portrayed
An I'll fated attempt at
Trying to impress another
Who never truly gave a ****
“I must have gotten that from you”
That’s what my daughter Edie said
In reference to her perfect feet
Which I so often said I had
My math class is easy for me
“I must have gotten that from you”
That’s what my daughter Erin said
Taking calculus at the U.
My daughter Ellen plays guitar
And she has said these words to me
“I must have gotten that from you”
As we play for the family
Both of my parents have passed on
Yet, I see them in things I do
That’s when I wish l could tell them
“I must have gotten that from you”
At last, Mr. J Bugman is now a retired Judge-man.
For many years he has punished many, spared few.
His verdicts never alter even if there is no hangman.
He had no rest, no serenity, working is all he knew.
Retiring, he sought peace by sleeping with content,
He has never slept; yes, he has but not in true sense,
Now, sleeping his first real sleep is his sole intent.
He is slave to none, lies on the bed of own manse.
Night was silent, his eyes dimmed with drowsiness,
Suddenly, there was a soft noise, then, it was louder.
Switching the lights on, he crept towards the mess
Of Newspapers on the base, something was there.
It was neither a thief nor a beast, it is a cockroach
That has spoiled his much-awaited plan, he howls
With rage, he will not relax until he makes poach
Of that tiny rascal, He aims at it with books, bowls.
Pages of books fly, glassy dishes shatter into pieces,
But that swift creature is unharmed as if it’s charmed.
Bugman picks up his ever-faithful Stick, then, chases
And slays it with one blow, its death is now confirmed.
Next night, he makes sure that his sleep is undisturbed,
He has already sprayed repellants, a good night’s sleep
Is waiting for him, his eyelids shrank and eyes dimmed
But again a soft noise hurt his wakeful ears with a beep.
Disgusted, he left the bed an turned the lights on again
And found a rat that eating biscuits loudly that can undo
His sleep or already has. He sighed, “O God, O heaven!
Well, here is another nice mess you have gotten me into.”
How To Have Gotten
Many answers exist how to get over a hump,
That are sung to the tune of Throw Out Trump;
At odds always,
Nights and days;
In the road, he sure has been one big bump.
Jim Horn
Did you see or hear any onomatopoeia,
or similes or metaphors anywhere?