Best Grafted Poems
An almost stillness came about
as she strode into my door,
like breath itself refused to move,
fearful of touching her mysterious beauty
But her obsidian eyes betrayed her.
Sharp and gleaming,
with a silver sheen
she looked at me,
and I knew…
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Molten lava spilled forth from her mouth, melting our clocks—
eighteen hundred nightmares compressed in two hours.
Long hand moving forward, as the short hand moved backward
How can memories persist in such an acrid life?
She spoke of a beast in the guise of a man,
one who ravaged innocence with the flick of a click
A coward that collected milk teeth for hardened bones
of other horny beasts with no spine
That throaty tenderness when she spoke
sprinkled crystal seeds of frustration in me
She says he loathed him, denied she loved him
but her obsidian eyes betrayed her
There she was, a bud he plucked from the nuns’ garden
He grafted then he pruned her,
spreading her pollen, wafting her scent
yet folding her petals to himself
Caterpillars feeding upon her leaves,
she lets them devour her,
yet once they are wrapped in their cocoons to sleep,
she stabs them with her thorns.
Tears then slid down from her midnight lace eyes
and it was all I could do to catch them
She said she was weary of curtailing butterflies,
of tearing their wings before they can even fly
I had to ask, how many… how many winged gems?
She lifted her sleeves, and showed me her scars
One ugly mark for each innocent child plunged deep,
my heart getting slashed at least three hundred a beat.
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A certain stillness came about
as I strode into her door,
like fear itself refused to move,
letting breath touch her mysterious beauty for the last time....
Her obsidian eyes had betrayed her.
Sharp and gleaming,
with a silver sheen
I looked at the knife beside her.
Maroon-mapped sheets, a stunted womb.
Strains of Bon Iver’s “Flume”
flit past the sighing air like a butterfly,
and I knew…
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My family is everywhere like wild seeds sown
On the whim and bluster of a wind
Some left for Cuba before the revolution
Bring green stalks of sweet grass to sugar
And are still there, root sunken in the earth
Grafted branches without memory now
Or recognition of ancestral home,
Separated by language and new history
Thick as the depth of our watery boundaries.
Some in Panama built the canal, but no bridge
For home when their meagre cents were spent
Too soon. I met a few with little knowledge
But no anxiety for early morning mist of blue
Over the mountain, looking still to see them
Coming home like birds when summer is done.
Some went to Venezuela to see the oil
They said was black as Africa in the new world
Brazil: there football is more than economy
Gladiators: bloodless troubadors of the new army
And many drifted into the squalor of Costa Rica,
Nicaragua, Ecuador, searching for light
Amidst old civilizations brought to ruins
By Conquistadores majesty and Roman might.
The only one who report are those from Canada
Is it because of the language, because they proper
As they do in America. Is there nothing in them
That longs for home, to leave the Mexico to her Aztecs
Her cactus lace with golden strands of sun.
When I was in Germany, Austria, France, far away
As Holland, Rhine and Danube linking invisble
Heritage, I met them, distancing the old decay
"We are thinking to move to Taiwan or Japan"
They told me, poverty does make a barren land
So I understand the boat people, not lying
Like Columbus, they seek the same treasure
And yet for their truth reap some displeasure.
I could package it for them to sell, but cannot agree
When the wind rattle the wattle of desolation.
My family is everywhere scattered like wild seeds
In fresh forests fretting with the burden of the wind.
Winter's whimsical nature comes with
fickle freeze, cold pervading every fibre
How I remember you, red hot
against the white snow
Smoking volcano
against permafrost desolation
How your aura lingers in my brain
fleeting perfume, breeze of ozone
The sweet sweaty scent of long nights
leathery lines grafted in my skin
The fragile steps we took, tension
of our vulnerability in closeness
Sweet brokenness, tender hurt...
Worlds of ice can not find my
Duvet of snowflakes, simulation of
soft warm goose down
Mirroring remnants of our souls
that sleep in dreamless reminiscence
***
May 17, 2017
Copyright © Darren White
Daughter crime
hooking up with felon Father time
Both got incestuous, crooked desires in mind
Two thieves in a thug hug,
secrecy intertwine conspiracy vine bind
Mother brood
raising a wild pack of dog sharks
to feed on
minnow murmuring moods
of bottom dwellers street schooled
Imprinting runt dorsal vig tales
with a devouring loan interest attitude
Like father, like daughter
Evil is, evil become
Like mother, so are the sons
Wicked poison flower, wicked petal blossoms
Family of privileged gangsters;
from rotten fruit, spoiled seeds sprung
DNA genie-ology:
witches ~ warlocks conceived
by blood occult umbilical wizardry
Inherited death
will be all in the family
Cursed wealth,
it will estate all in the family
Snake in the grass grifter grafted stealth
give get you
adopted into this viper family,
so devilishly easy
Destiny rooted in brimstone soil,
be any branch from this evil tree
Two becoming one.
with hearts of purity
Grafted together.
With your stem of Beauty
Together producing new buds
Deeply rooted
Intertwining with Love
Thorny days with rain
Sadness when petals fall
Yet, the sun will always shine
As our love grows together
Entwined forever.
From the beginning of this life,
Man somehow knows that he is at war.
From childhood games, to stories of the imagination.
We are aware of a conflict, a glorious conflict.
Long ago, a dragon was cast down from light.
And his fall upset the fabric of the universe.
What once lived eternal now stood imprisoned in cycles of death and decay and
all of creation mourned.
But from the darkness, God’s champion.
The Holy One of light, Made man in his image.
Chosen from the beginning of time, to fight for our Creator and return peace to
the cosmos.
We were grafted as warriors and it was our destiny to ride victorious.
In the bosom of God, we were created by the expert hands of the Maestro and
were given all things.
But the snake deceived us, and we fell.
Yet the Snake himself was fooled, for in our weakness God would find strength.
In the fall of man, so too would he find his destiny.
To ride with God victorious and set creation back in light.
We God’s glorious symphony, Ordained in Eternity to reign with him forever.
For many years we wandered in darkness, longing to regain our birthright.
The snake had made us his slaves, and perverted our hearts to death.
We, God’s warriors of light, were turned to darkness.
And for millennia we warred against each other for scraps of pleasure,
Like dogs we served the Dragon, all the time blind to our Destiny.
But our Champion, the Lion of Judah, Saw us and had pity.
He came to suffer at his own hand, and take on his own wrath so that we once
again might rise.
And now the truth is ours, for he has already claimed the victory.
We, God’s anointed, chosen in light yet deceived into warring against one
another.
The Lamb has saved us, and it is time for us to take our rightful place in
Celebration of his crowning.
Jews, Muslims, Siks, Suphis, Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Atheists, and
Agnostics too.
It is our time for the Lamb prepared a place for us in his army of victory ever
lasting.
The time is now.
The time is ours.
So grab your sword and ride to victory!
Poetry often starts outside
of one's self – on a distant hill or near
greenhouse shelf; our-cultivations
as the consideration of a grafted rose
goes; the meandering, dripping of a stream
or nose; submerging of our toes in
chilling clarity – we see to the bottom,
sometimes fooled by depth –
or that of a winged flight, wingtips tossing
sparks of light, dipping and scooping
winged ladles of air, unseen but yet
we see them there, pouring out there,
back into our fanciful sky, our fanciful
eye -- in a heart's invested sigh -- up
high in the atmosphere, sighted unseen
spirit -- looking and listening for the echo
of angels -- turning us more inward, where
deeper observation and motion begins,
the pen is lifted, and the paper stained
finally, fondly into lyrical submission –
They loiter
in memory's mausoleums,
old chants,
those gilded liturgies,
ready to resurrect
and eat through the ear
with promises
under the finery
of polished myth.
Grafted onto our very bone,
these structures scaffold history
and who we are.
Now, stripped of flesh,
they moan
and rattle the dark
when given voice
by savage winds.
I have heard
the haunting echo left
in the wake
of their going.
Emptied of substance,
these vacated vaults
house only noise
from human ghosts.
I have listened
for the faint whisperings
beyond the worn out
replays of the dead,
for something transcending
numbers and name -
hear only the wind.
I keep telling myself
this is enough.
Written: July 30, 2025, for contest Sponsored by: Robert James Liguori
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The carnival dazzles—
mirific mosaics of midway magic
woven with whimsical calls from barkers
who strut boldly on boards
slick with popcorn oil and neon promises.
I, the aficionado of the absurd,
immerse myself in spectacle masquerading as
celebration,
a Falstaffian extravaganza,
a sockdolager of strobe-lit sensation,
where circus rages as horology gone amok—
clockwork chaos camouflaged as joy.
Here, even dyspnea dances:
lungs tight from laughter,
feet blistered on the boards
where the locals jive
to tunes sung in xenoglossia tones—
languages lost or learned
in the jamboree of jest.
We picnic beneath paper moons
and eat Easter-colored candy
as if Lent were long forgotten—
in this nefarious fair,
Time adumbrates indulgence.
I stumble past scantling booths
where prizes lean akin to broken teeth
and prayers cast unanswered
in the apiary buzz of sugar-rushed view.
One iconoclast offers nepenthe in a cup
with carbonation and broken fortunes—
And in that moment,
an epiphany unfolds as a palimpsest,
laughter scrawled over ancient pain,
glee grafted onto grief.
There is no paucity of pain here,
only its parody—
a meritorious mimicry
for those who can bear the weight
and yet select the lighter path.
A temporary guest of the night,
I own nothing,
but borrow every flicker of joy—
every flick of flame from the festival's fire,
every tune from the gala laughter.
Even illeism fades in festal light,
where I am not the observer,
but the observed,
not just the poet,
but the poem itself,
drawn toward this lodestone of longing.
And at last, beneath Ferris wheel stars,
I whisper into the abyss—
a cognate cry to the cosmos
_The feast is fleeting
but oh, how glorious
the festival finished?
from jaws of detention arise
enslaved a mystery alive
onward come
thrive
on thy bounty
swallow'd
a hallowed sanctimonious cry
together we shall cry
letting of the darkness inside
dripping of blood
upon my alter wine
I drink
and I'm inside
aligning within the labrynith
tongues of gold n silver collide
shining upon valleys we find
and here I ride
and here I'm lost
where I've been found
where we stop the world
but don't stop
we spin
as one
skin grafted upon skin
wound tight in each other's wounds
for it's never to soon
nor ever too late
to impress the one you love
hold high above
the noise
a mystery no longer
a life no shorter
Time does not change --
distance and consciousness
does. Things can work for
entirely different reasons than
thought. Man has many grafted
bibles. To some, Science is a
truer messiah. Love, then, par for course,
to the same mindset, is a mere figment.
Man conjuring up what he believes he
needs – thinking what he imagines
he cannot exist without.
My well-searched opinion,
Love is not Love until it is clarified, rendered
a unifying reality. Released from the palm of
Ego Driven Grip. Freedom, a double-edged sword.
Possessing both lengths of good and evil.
I had thought no God could hold me
the way your hands do.
I feared the image I was created in
But if you were carved from the same stone
that made me,
if the same hands that grafted my heart
designed yours,
then maybe he did once hold me sweetly,
kiss my face,
and bless me that I can be more than my anger.
I feared the image I was created in,
until I saw it created you.
Strong, resilient, iridescent
Trapped in folds, they are translucent
Culture cultivate grafted right
Pearls don't sparkle they reflect light
Mollusk secretes nacre layers
Wild pearls fetch prompt giga payers
Placed right they are prettiest sight
Pearls don't sparkle they reflect light
Implant good in delicate soul
Ego, pride, hate, lust can play foul
Turn to true source to be moonlight
Pearls don't sparkle they reflect light
Kindness, faith and love are virtues
Rare, admirable true values
They attract source and return bright
Pearls don't sparkle they reflect light
We had saved our precious stock of grandpa’s grape
prepared the ground and amended the soil.
After laying out the orchard, we planted cuttings with our own hands.
Fed the young vines with love and creek water
and waited for the work of the rain and sun
before giving birth to the wine.
To insure that his family would produce the best wine.
Grandpa, tho’ as straggly as his grape
cleared trees and topped them to admit the sun.
He would not purchase plants for his soil
and dug the trenches wider and accessed our water.
He was self sufficient and he propagated vines by his hand
We prevented winds from whipping vines out of hand
to best grow and mature the soul of our wine.
The vines followed the contour of steep site which brought the water.
The rows ran north and south to suit the grape - -
this presented light while drying and controlling the soil
allowing the plants to follow the eastern and western sun.
We placed much faith on the drying done by the sun.
We had one to backfill. We wished we had more willing hands.
We had two to dig holes, and one to hold the vine and tamp the soil,
as the fruit began to ripen to marry our precious wine.
A crew of four was used for setting the grape.
The Vines should not be sprinkled with too much water.
We made plans to prevent soil erosion and loss of water
to the harden the wood and expose it to rays of the sun.
The Niagra White and Riesling grape.
Both needed pruning and the waste hay cut our hands.
We made sure our methods were best for the wine.
They would mature late, even in warm soil.
We found that more humus was wanted by the soil.
Some magic was performed to deliver more water.
alas, for the reward of a not so remarkable wine.
Again the wait, the prayers, the morning dew and sun.
More work, more time, sweat and callused hands.
The next year we tried a grafted grape.
We had saved our precious stock of grandpa’s grape
prepared the ground and amended the soil.
After laying out the orchard, we planted cuttings with our own hands.
Fed the young vines with love and creek water
and waited for the work of the rain and sun
before giving birth to the wine.
Our final wine was surrendered by the sun.
We captured the prize from our water and our soil.
My hands, today, still stained with the color of the grape.
sapience’s brain fossil
grafted on metals