Best Horn Rimmed Poems
See this girl in the painting, this skinny girl
working on a puzzle at the bottom of the stairs.
With big rimmed glasses and her plain brown hair,
she’s an ordinary girl, with nothing seeming special.
Now see this girl. . . really SEE this girl.
At age 12, she’s just been fitted with new glasses -
They are black horn-rimmed - an utter disappointment
in the life of a young girl.
Some guys now call her four-eyes, and they don’t even notice
the beauty of her light green eyes and
long lush lashes behind those big-framed glasses.
But still she likes to fantasize, and in her dreams
she’s idolized by every boy she likes.
Always having wanted to be part of the “in” crowd,
she was a girl that struggled for popularity.
However, she’s been learning of another way to be!
Seeking out girls more like her, she hardly has to try
to fit in with her new friends. And now she’s much less shy.
With fun new friends, she is witty. She makes them laugh.
She’s even feeling pretty, wearing lipstick frosty pink.
She’s discovered she is smart in all her classes.
This girl who now is wearing black rimmed glasses!
She gets into the Glee Club, even sings on PBS!
With her athleticism, she also has success.
She makes Top Twelve in tryouts for cheerleading.
And though the student body does not vote her through,
she’ll soon get over it. She’s blossoming!
The glasses she will change for contact lenses,
and she does not know it yet,
but soon enough - a number of boyfriends she will get!
Also years of dance lessons and being in recitals
has boosted her self confidence.
Both her body and her spirit are transforming!
See the girl in the painting; a puzzle she assembles.
She does not know that one day
her mind will be on puzzles of a very different kind:
She will be assembling many words inside her mind,
and she will be partaking in an art called poetry.
I know all this because
the girl inside that painting - that ordinary girl -
is the one I used to be.
Based on the painting "Assembling the Pieces"
from Contemporary Figurative Artiste Stephanie Deshpande
for the Contemporary Free Rhyme Contest of Cyndi MacMillan
I hope you will see the painting at this link. When I saw the girl, I was
struck by how much it looked like me as a young girl: http://www.stephaniedeshpande.com/porfolio/
WHEN LETTERS DANCE ON THE PAGE
“Disappear,” I said.
They denied.
Didn’t the Casanova at the theatre
Return my ravishing smile last night?
The burgundy magic on greys!
Ironed with botoxed shots
The dry asparagus turns glossy;
Ready for the salad?
Midriffs declining, disappearing -
Decelerating; the passion of aping
A teenager for a climacteric but works.
The dried raisins, falling leaves
And the faded chrysanthemums-
Augmented, tucked in, liposuctioned.
The one who was being stared at,
Loses it all ; the pretence withers,
The efforts in vain.
I loved them the most
But they now scare me-
The letters diffusing, hyperopic.
Behind the lens, the zombies
Make me close my eyes- the mirror
Was never so unfriendly.
Progressive, focal, horn-rimmed,
Rimless – nothing works. They just
Simply refuse to go.
At the restaurant, travelator, bus
My glory shrouds as I struggle to
Settle the glass diptych on my nose.
“Disappear,” I say to them.
They deny.
Plain as she can be
She who sat next to me
Freckled with horn rimmed glasses
And late to all her school classes
An outcast, she thought by her peers
Dwelling on her chronic fears
Not wanting to be noticed
As like the beauty and grace of the lotus
Flying under the radar screen
Hoping she would not be seen
Blending into the background
One day she blossomed and was found
Like Cinderella and her glass slipper
Not even a prince could resist her
Suddenly she became a swan
One that others lavishly fawn
I hear once more the lyrics of this song I'm listening to-
a gentle blast from my very youthful past,
and I am back in middle school,
an attractive skinny girl
despite the horn rimmed glasses
which have gotten me the nickname of “Four eyes”
and the large beehive hairdo
I have to rat with my comb painstakingly each morning.
I am in the music room of my eighth grade
practicing with Swing Choir,
the group that I’ve auditioned for
and am thrilled to be a part of.
A cute boy stands tall among all the others
in the back row of the male section.
We are all singing -
“This Guy’s in Love.
This guy’s in love with You.”
My heart is pounding with the melody
as I watch my current crush so longingly,
imagining he sings the words to me alone.
Could my life yet to be lived
ever compare to my happiest vivid daydreams?
“When you smile, I can tell we know each other very well.”
I think he sees me watching him. I look away.
This scene will be replayed again and again
in other classrooms
where I’ll be watching other boys
that I'll be crushing on
and hoping they are watching me as well.
But now, just for now -
I sing the words with my group -
“Don’t let my heart keep breaking. . .”
My soul fills with teenage angst.
Oh to be young again
with such sweet aching
not yet knowing I’ll soon be getting walked home from school
by that cute tall boy
named Chico.
Written Feb. 7, 2016 for the Solitary Moments Poetry Contest of Mystic Rose
The song is "This Guy's in Love" written by Burt Bacharach
and performed byHerb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass. (please hear it in the link above)
Happily, I entered the class
I laughed with friends, but then alas
Joy was replaced with sudden fear
Knowing spelling bee time was here
Last time I had misspelled ADJOURNED
My tongue went dry, my stomach churned
Now one by one the others failed
ODYSEY... BROCOLI... UNVIELED...
Precisely feeling unprepared
Quizzes had always made me scared
Reading my word she called my name
She glared at me through horn-rimmed frames
Tracing her finger through the air
Under my breath I said a prayer
Vainly I pondered her request
Without a clue I blindly guessed
X-Y-L-O-T-O-M-Y
"Yes," she said. I had spelled it right!?
9/7/2016
The milquetoast Henry Limpet looks
through horn-rimmed glasses at the books
and four dull office walls each day.
He dreams someday he'll get away.
The sailor's life to Henry seems
the stuff of grand and noble dreams.
Attempts to join the Navy fail.
He faces facts; his ship won't sail.
Denial of his fondest hopes
confound his mind. He walks and mopes
for many hours--then suddenly
before him lies a deep-blue sea.
He knows about the oceans. How
can this one be before him now?
Confused by this discovery,
he falls into this strange new sea.
He doesn't drown as you might think.
He transforms before you could blink
your eyes, and now the Limpetfish
will have great deeds to accomplish.
The townsfish soon become aware
this new one's special and declare
they've never seen so smart a fish.
To make him Emperor's their wish.
He wears a crown in this new world,
a splendid one that's gemmed and pearled.
When asked to name their kingdom, he
says, "Limpet World the name shall be."
His former life's a memory
dimmed by the grandeur of this sea.
The gaping void has now been filled;
his constant need for meaning, stilled.
199 words
posted 11-26-15
March 25, 2018, entered in Deborah Guenther Beachboard's Fantasy Poetry Contest placed 3rd
September 8, 2019, entered in Caren Krutsinger's Your Choice 333 Words Maximum Contest
I hear your voice;
standard American,
perfectly Midwestern,
nothing out of the ordinary.
Enchanted, I want more:
I press play, I press pause;
I rewind, and repeat.
My eyes rest on your horn-rimmed glasses,
on the lines around your smile,
on your salt and pepper hair.
you know me so well,
though you don't know me at all.
Tell me more about myself
and about everyone else like me.
Our thoughts are numbers on your scales,
our pain reduced to aggregates,
the cuts on our skin
are graphs projected on the walls
of a cold conference room
one brisk Saturday morning.
I could hate you.
You butchered my beautiful chaos
and packed the parts in sterile boxes.
You look down on me from your lectern
but, your eyes say something else.
Do you really want to know?
Ask me; I have no idea who I am.
Spaghetti Grandma
She scratches her pulpy ruby nose,
Heaves, and leans her heavy bosom
On the pitchfork, dangerously bending
The prongs over the swollen tomatoes.
Trying not to stare at the weary body
Enlarged like a blimp, obediently,
The child’s eyes avert the navy blue smock
Resting on her grey-green eye, the only
window she has left on the world.
She readjusts her horn-rimmed glass
On her nose,
Briskly slips a big copper coin
Into my pocket,
And in a spicy voice
Accented with the fragrance of another sun,
She speaks of another time and place
Magically spinning tale after tale
And my mind is agog and reeling with delight
Filling with the words she feeds me.
Anne-Marie Coreggia
03/15/2017 - 117 words
I entered this poem about my Italian grandmother
in the free verse contest.
If asked to define the word “dorky”
I guess I'd describe it like this
Wearing stripes and checks together
A sight you surely can't miss
I'm not the ultimate style leader
But at least I do have some taste
Aside from an occasional style faux pas
At times when I dress in haste
Never be seen in horn rimmed glasses
An extreme example of dorkyness
White Adidas with black knee high socks
Now that's really hard to digest
When mom gets really behind in her chores
Hasn't washed my coordinate attire
Forced to wear stuff a little bit dorky
Not something to which I aspire
If asked to define the word “dorky”
Usually try to describe it like this
Stripes, checks and horn rimmed glasses
An example of ignorant bliss
© Jack Ellison 2012
My friend, do you know how bold you are?
I look beyond your invisible scar,
You flutter like butterflies in spring
When given the chance to bring
A rare smile across my face
Ever since I lost my grace,
Without you, the world would be
A colourless painting oh! So lonely
So I tell the mortals, look beyond her ways
Bet you cannot survive in her maze…
Look beyond the horn-rimmed glasses,
The frame hiding her eyes from masses
From seeing change in abundance
Or the tentacles of her loved ones
Follow the secret contours of greed,
Snatch her imagination and pay no heed
Look beyond the white shirt,
The buttons refrain from the exotic flirt
From breathing some fresh air,
Or smelling the rain-kissed bare
Bathe in the sunshine for many carefree days,
Or let go and set the veils ablaze!
My friend, do you know how bold you are?
I look beyond your invisible scar,
Your torrents underneath, one cannot bind
And the silly snobs will never find
The world we share in our golden blues
The most colourful, in black and white hues.
Hark! That rustling of the leaves
makes me wobbly at the knees,
or did I dream of Thatcher’s ghost
chasing "wets" from post to post?
·
When Tony Blair bashed up Hussein,
no Robin Hood at home bought gain.
Who then yet may save the day?
Who remains to show the way?
Bill Dozer is this man, I say!
Trouser? Loser? Boozer? Hey!
Who the heck's Bill Dozer?
Like Superman he flits about.
cosh in hand, with mighty clout.
He is a man of iron fist,
the last remaining socialist.
He hears each worker's woeful cry:
like Joe Hill he'll never die.
When Marx shall rise from Highgate's tomb,
capitalists will meet their doom.
Horn-rimmed his specs, his suit dull-brown,
he swoops like an eagle down.
He'll give each grabbing boss the boot
and share with us the ill-gotten loot.
Bill Dozer is this man, I say!
Trouzer? Loser? Boozer? Hey!
Who the heck's Bill Dozer?
But if still the point you missed:
He's the last remaining socialist.
PERSPECTACLES’-‘the sight of the blind’
Perspectives according to the eyes
Spectacles perspectives
Spectacular perspectives
The eyes perspectives
The perspectives of the eyes
The thoughts of the eyes
Fired by eye-sight
The in-sight; the sight within
In my own eyes
In the eyes of my mind
In my mind eyes
For the eyes do think
With a horn-rimmed spectacles
It is spectacular!
It’s the sight of the blind
The vision of the visualless
It’s insight; the hindsight and sight within
It is perspectacles!
And its spectacular
The blind see
The blind see still blind
Is it a miracle?
No, it is a spectacle
It is particular
Well, maybe a miracle
But it is spectacular
It is PERSPECTACLES
I was little but had a crush on you
your rubbery funny faces is what got me through
singing off key about your little turtle dove
whose your little whose-y, my first comedic love,
Having boundless energy while bounding up the steps
to wait on his demanding stepmother he was a nervous wreck
always hearing "Fella, do this and do that!"
continually braking while chauffeuring around the old bat,
Having to hear all about the patients gripes and pains
Jerry would listen but the details would drive him insane
trying to help a patient whose television picture was snowy
adjusting the tube snow came pouring out in a fury,
Horn rimmed and buck toothed you craved love
a professor whose potion made you mean and tough
your girlfriend telling both of you right away how she felt
teaching you just to be your funny four eyed self,
So thanks Jerry for all the memories and laughs
a comic actor whose funny movies were goofy and unabashed
such as Cinderfella, Disorderly Orderly and The Nutty Professor
leaving your theatre audience with a chuckle and smile out the door,
PS. And thanks especially for doing the MDA telethon all those years
I'm sure a lot of MDA survivors tonight are wiping away their tears…
Rest in peace Jerry…
8-20-17
"Don't know why I fear butterflies,
But I never wanted to kill them,
Maybe squash a fair wing and cripple
An odd strand of feet,
Never end..."
Said the horn-rimmed shadow to the sun,
And the horizon was bleeding
For Night's footsteps didn't feel mercy.
She was elsewhere,
Chained to the rugged corners of the unruly mind,
Silently slumbering in the darkness that never ended.
The wind was no good, but only stirring...
Stirring the sun, stirring the sky,
Stirring the leaves and the butterflies!
Naive fliers wandering like impure ecstasy,
Wrapped in velvet couture,
Off Nature,
But the shadow fumed!
At why they rippled in water?
And curled in disorderliness?
Stomped without pain
Glided without gain,
Always after...
The wind was glad,
The butterflies should have been too,
Since they were only grounded,
Only if shadows were stirred too!
Where my art begins
Pencils computers and pens…
Behind glasses lense