Best Gracelessly Poems
I'll tell you a tale
of our own Devil's Island
and the demonic crash
of the waves in the swell.
The smell and the taste
of the ball breaking weather;
the ghosts that deliver
poor sailors to Hell.
We were out in the water
in the Magdalens
the wind plucked the ropes
of our rigging at sea.
We looked for a port
and saw many lights flashing
"That's old Devil's Island,"
said the skipper to me.
Tongues began hurling
their fierce imprecations
"to come to the island
safe landfall to thee."
But the skipper turned round
the ship with a vengeance,
"That old Devil's Island
will never get me."
I thought he was mad
to be scared of a legend
it was my first time
in a storm on the sea
and two men washed over
to Davey Jones locker
"God bless 'em, they'll rest now,"
the skip said to me.
Protesting the treatment
of two forlorn sailors
I said to the skipper,
"It's not very well."
"It's better," he said,
"that they're resting in Heaven
than entering into
the portals of Hell."
The wind lasted the night
then the voices did falter
the lights blinkered out
and I saw very well
so many rocks, jagged
just waiting to smash us
the Devil's Isle gateways
await in the swell.
If you're on a ship
and the voices of demons
come tell you it's safe
in their harbor a lee
remember the shoreline
at old Devil's Island
then turn the ship seaward
and gracelessly flee.
Categories:
gracelessly, adventureold, old,
Form:
Rhyme
Who would believe your slim elegant body would win my affection,
when you gracelessly step on toes? Your soft doe skin of cream
spotted brown, floppy ears I threaten to turn into gloves as a joke.
Through many chain jangle calls for walks where you race and lunge
and bark fighting for the right to be with me, how could I turn you away?
When you almost die I am ready to give you away to death, hating the sick
green puke, you become skinnier despite the surgery until finally
one simple shot brings you back to us alive, slurping our hands and faces.
Busy days of science and humanities and government tucked up in a chair,
I forgot you, but you begged let me even eat your apple. let me sit in your lap
but you’re so big now you don’t fit and don't like apple. Chocolate chips cookies, though, a whole batch scarfed from the table and then you wiggle and wag tail,
snarl, your teeth clenched when I offer just one more. We all know who is guilty,
not you, your innocence, your steadfast defense, says it is our family who has forgot.
Finally, it is too late. You hurt too bad, spine enflamed, barely able to walk
or eat. Tomorrow your last day. I pick up the chain, you race happy to join me
down the row of maples losing their last autumn leaves, where my brother and I lead you plodding like an old man, stopping to breathe, and I see stars in my eyes,
saying goodbye. Goodbye to the lady of our family, the Dalmatian Duchess
who loved us best, walked beside us through our childhood days like a guardian.
11-16-2013
Categories:
gracelessly, age, animal, best friend,
Form:
Elegy
Some people do not fall in love
They jump, headfirst, heedlessly
With little thought of where they'll land
Others dip in a toe and then
Either slide in cautiously or
Retreat with great haste, in contempt
Still others trip, most gracelessly
With much unseemly splashing
And left quite without their pride
Often, its some combination
Of the three above here listed
Categories:
gracelessly, funny love, love, pride,
Form:
Blank verse
just sitting outside
chewing on this gum till i cramp up
the stress of going through it with you is making me drown in my own flatulence
i can barely walk, and i feel myself sinking without the help of feeling
then the tears come
i collapse gracelessly, and then the fears come
every catalog in the library of me contains information that is unmarked
here i am with a million footprints all over until an adequate description of tattoo tattletale
love was supposed flow flawlessly in flamboyant flight
love was supposed to be the epitome of fascinating free fall
however love has left me....just sitting outside
out goes the man, and in comes the boy who cries when he does not get his way
i sit indian style on the damp grass like i am playing duck duck goose
i do not know if i will ever stand up again
you see, i was standing at my most erect when you were here as wood to the fireplace of my life
however here i am like repetitive clockwork....just sitting outside
pretending your butt is strategically warming a particular area acting as a sleep aid
the pain of going through it makes me want to put my hand on your heart and stomp you to the ground
however i walk away from this unnecessary scenario in my head
instead i pick myself up off of this damp grass and drag my pathetic self....back to you....
when i get back home i find you sulking with another dose of smeared makeup teardrop coffee....just sitting around
Categories:
gracelessly, love hurts, recovery from,
Form:
Free verse
Encapsulated, trapped,
energy reserves tapped,
vitality gone, sapped,
lost, though we penned our own map.
From the wings we watch, raging,
at the play they are staging,
we attempt disengaging,
meanwhile gracelessly aging.
Snow is building on the roof,
we believe, but have no proof,
grimly pondering lost youth,
children deafened to the truth.
Watch the fire as it dies,
astonishing, how time flies,
yesterday, sang lullabies,
tomorrow gone, with a sigh.
Categories:
gracelessly, introspection, life, time
Form:
Rhyme
A thousand midnights tread,
Highwire circus acts
Traversing the lavender Horizon-crease;
I memorize such sudden perforations,
Keep them under my swollen tongue
Only to purge them gracelessly
Back into your fist.
Replace my stumbling almost-words
With vastness:
A self-induced universe freckled by
Cauterized cigarette burn stars
And half empty beer cans.
I fill my lungs with feral smog,
You fill your head with smoke;
My nose trickles blood freely.
And if it was not for such ongoing facades--
Psuedointelect, rabid romances,
My world on unstable axis--
We might have,
By now,
Enshrined our Hearts in plaster molds,
Traded our eyes for seaglass pebbles.
The cherry blossoms have yet to bloom under
This hemisphere of the city:
Bare branches claw against dusk
and, in masochistic frost,
You burn your fingerprints into
My back.
"You Must Set Yourself on Fire"
Jenna-Nichole Conrad
Wordsmith
Categories:
gracelessly, allegory, faith, history, hope,
Form:
Free verse
Ghastly Grave Gathering
Gran and grandpa are gone
Giving grandchildren gifts
Generations greedy
Guilty, grabbing for gain
Granted gratis gold goods
Girls grovel gracelessly
Gluttonous grandkids grief
November 2016
Categories:
gracelessly, bereavement, betrayal, death, family,
Form:
Verse
In the endless ether wander aimlessly,
Words and images dying gracelessly
They were creations fondly reared
But on the net they disappeared.
Heartbroken and bereft,I do recall
That one did try Raphael to enthrall
In my feebly frail effort to outline
What poetry and painting do define.
The other did lightly glance at the naming of the parts,
More venereal ,rather than the military arts.
Lovingly it was my wish them to draw
To fill my reader with a sense of awe.
My one fond hope is they can truly be found
To complete the corpus of my writing round.
Should you know where they might be
What great joy that would bring to me.
Categories:
gracelessly, hope
Form:
Rhyme
The bird cuts across the sky
slicing the heavens up
like birthday cake.
Its wings acquire the hot breath
of life and it rises higher.
The bullet rips through
air, sending cake and icing
everywhere and the bird falls
gracelessly, swallowed
up by death.
Categories:
gracelessly, animal, death,
Form:
Free verse
Did we finally just push things too far
step over a sign warning us "Avert"?
Roads newly cluttered and freshly tarred
with bodies of those our trodding has hurt.
Did we laugh, throwing caution in the air,
watch it bobble, wobble, gracelessly fall
Caps, but no masks, smiling "I don't care,
freedom is ours, we will march to its call!"
Judges, juries, jargon, jousting, and jails:
none up to the task of saving our lives.
Speaking quietly over loud, angry wails,
reason, persistence may help us survive.
Losing Democracy our biggest dread,
it hangs tenuously by a truth's thread.
Categories:
gracelessly, america, anxiety, corruption, freedom,
Form:
Sonnet
I saw a dog one day, as I walked down the block, taking my exercise for the day.
I saw a dog one day, chained in my neighbor’s yard.
I jogged past a dog one day, hearing his bonds clink as he trotted
To the edge of his confinement to sniff curiously my way.
I saw the dog again and again, my breaths quick and shallow,
Barely registering his dark brown fur,
The pink tongue that hung gracelessly from his mouth
As he panted in the heat.
I try not to look at the dog as I jog by,
I try not to notice the hissing grass and harsh sun
He is not sheltered from.
I try not to notice the mats in his fur
Or the shiny reflectiveness of empty metal bowls
Meant to feed and refresh him.
I look for the dog as I jog past his owner’s house,
Noticing at once his absence
When he was no longer there to try
So painstakingly to ignore.
I slow down by his house every day,
Eyes scanning the yard,
But even the chain is gone,
The soil disrupted from where the stake was
Wrenched from the Earth.
I try not to notice the dog-sized mound
In the side of my neighbor’s yard.
I jog faster and faster past their home everyday.
I try not to think of how long the dog has been gone.
I try not to think of what I could have done,
Try not to think of the water bottle in my hand,
The one I always carry,
And how easy it would have been
To give the poor creature a drink
In the exhaustive heat
That surely created the dog-sized mound
In the side yard of my neighbor’s home.
Categories:
gracelessly, animal,
Form:
Blank verse
When I look back and see
those bright white lights,
those colored balloons in clusters,
I think about regret.ƒ|
You danced gracelessly,
and I didn¡¦t dance at all. ƒn
Would it have hurtƒn
to tap your fabric shoulder?
Maybe it would have ruined that
night, and the crystal perfection
of our conciliatory wine glassesƒz
the sparkling ginger ale, our laughter
like the rapidly rising bubbles in
our drinks.
I think about regret.
I regret thinking of this.
Categories:
gracelessly, life, loss, nostalgia,
Form:
Free verse
This vexing pencil in turgid fingers I gracelessly hold
Sorcerer's lead conjures up casuistic captions, fools' gold
My peripatetic purple pen winks at my commands
Dancing to a distant drummer on sun-scorched parchment sands
A cunning keyboard mocks me, in cast-iron briefcase locked
Contrarian bent, loaded for bear, at my Muse pointed and cocked
What with erasers missing and forever low on toner ink
It's a wonder the poetic process has not driven me to drink!
Categories:
gracelessly, poetry, satire,
Form:
Rhyme
Winter marches south
blanketing the world in frost
every time you turn to walk away.
Volleys of arrows from
your eyes stop the sun
from thawing out my hands.
The words roll from your tongue
to he seas teeming
with aliens, buckling
my legs as I sleepwalk on deck.
The gates slam their iron
spikes into my side as you
push away with hands pink
as embarrassment.
The birds fall from perches
in the clouds, tumbling gracelessly
when you close the door
behind you and the
doorknob burns my hand
as I try to breach the house
you’ve set aflame.
The conflagration spirals upward
and the searing current takes
you home, alone.
Categories:
gracelessly, longing, lost love, love,
Form:
Free verse
an early mourning stroll, and hours spent passing through as many neighbourhoods,
and sometimes you sob so
violently that you cannot contain
noises breaking past your lips, sounds
usually repressed. sometimes you can only
sob while pacing the streets, and sometimes you
must spend hours shaking, shaking, pacing the streets.
step after step. you roll your shoulders, gasp;
i think of making you a playlist. i think about the order of the
songs so i can communicate to you my witness. oh,
how precious you are. my Love, we sit on secrets. there is more
to say, that which surpasses language. perhaps, music could help
approximate; and Dearest, i digress.
not a playlist. a poem instead,
gracelessly splattering ink
in an attempt at abstraction,
to bring another viewpoint of Love into focus.
just for you.
the house gardens contain miracles.
wrong pillow. neck knot. ache.
Categories:
gracelessly, betrayal, cry, garden, morning,
Form:
Free verse