Best In The Doldrums Poems
I trudged to levy height, stood upon the soggy ground
with serious intentions that an answer would be found
To the river's rapidly flowing current, I confided my woes
of troubling things that had me in the doldrums of lows
Haunting problems, compelling me to leave and move on
Leading me to this river as if I were crossing the Rubicon
It's not my nature to feel caught between stay or take flight
but in desperation I stood, entreating the river of my plight
Willows on the bank, limbs swaying in the wind, listening—
weeping for my addled mind? In moonlight, tears glistening?
Do they whisper to the river what they'd suggest to me?
If I cross the bridge, then burned behind me it shall always be
My fate lies not on the telling of tree leaves or a river's flow
Two options I discern— should I cross the Rubicon and go?
Should I submit my heart and soul to the dreams of another
and live with wondering, "What if..." Only to die smothered?
It's the moment of truth — a decision too long have I delayed
Perhaps into the roiling river current, my steps should wade
By doing so, I'd avoid making the wrong choice of tribulations
having no need for explanations for my grievous lamentations
It’s a recurring thought –
Over and over again –
Reverberating in my head,
Bouncing back and forth,
Reeling up and down like a Yo-yo,
Like a boomerang that keeps coming back,
Like a song stuck in your head,
A thought that gnaws at your will to live,
Like an army of termites devouring
your soul making you hollow inside,
Like the waves of the sea
lapping its shores ceaselessly.
It’s a nagging thought
to just shut off everything,
Like turning off the light switch
and walking away;
A thought to strip off all my
worries and cares of the world,
Like a snake shedding its skin,
And just wandering away,
Leaving behind petty rivalry,
envy, jealousy, shallow ties,
The promises and perils of life,
And to step forth renewed, reborn,
into a new place with no identity,
no name, no past, no aspirations--
just living for the day
As I like, As I please,
With no vagaries of life,
No yearning for paradise.
Walking away folk free
unrestricted by time or space,
customs, creed or the rules of the law.
But this thought
Like an active volcano ever brewing
and rumbling but never erupting,
Like a seed sowed with care and nurturing
but never sprouting, never coming to fruition.
It just keeps kneading and churning
Forever bobbling in the doldrums
Performing boondoggle tasks
Bearing the burden of the world like Atlas,
Unable to sigh or sneeze,
Fearful that a sudden moment
The slightest shift might cause
an upheaval in someone’s life.
Ah, the woes of life!
Why thou linger willy-nilly in my vicinity?
Why thou not forsaketh me?
Go and befriend the dark, foreboding clouds
And burst down upon some distant shores.
Let some sun shine upon me,
Let love gather me in her warm embrace,
Bequeath to me days rife with joy
and mellow moonlit nights,
Let my path run some distance straight
and not twist or turn at whim,
Let there be spring in my seasons
instead of the cold and bare winter,
Let me rejoice in the day’s toil
And earn me the night’s repose –
It’s a recurring thought,
Over and over again,
Reverberating in my head...
Wait just a minute!
Didn’t we go over that already?
~09/10/15
"Inside My Head" contest by John lawless
SALVATION ACCORDING TO FAITH
“Help, help!”, I shout out loud, in fear.
‘HELP, HELP!’, echoes of my voice I hear.
Over and over, impinge in my mind
Closer and closer, it gets so near.
Louder and louder my cries, my plea
Further and further they go from me…
……they’re gone.
Silence now reigns, it deafens me
Panic has broken and overtakes me
Faster and faster my pulse is raised
Harder and harder the pounding, the beat.
Tighter and tighter I clutch my head
Greater and greater, the feeling of dread.
……I’m lost.
“Why? Why?” I asked the mirthless grass
“Speak, speak!” I bark at mirrored glass
Angrier and angrier, my voice phonate
Wilder and wilder, my eyes gyrate
Darker and darker my thoughts evoke
Uglier and uglier my moods provoke
…..I weep.
'Non Compos Mentis' is my best state of mind
'Caveat Emptor'!! …as I cannot be kind
Nastier and nastier I’m down in the dumps?
Lower and lower I’m in the doldrums?
Crazier and crazier, I spit at my shadow
Weaker and weaker, …my life is so shallow!
….I pray!
“Come, come”, to only You I turn.
“Come, come”, my life is so forlorn.
Dearer and dearer my love for God
Stronger and stronger, my body, my soul
Forever and ever my faith shall hold
Redeemer, redeeming, The Lord God of old.
….I’m saved.
(The Fg 81.5.8)
Form:
From cradle to grave the sun baked
the skin leather, un-oiled
and rain did not fall
for Isis with held her tears.
From the bloody care of womb
children popped like bread from
the oven of women, the urns of life,
earthen were their colors
ocher, saffron, and
some as black as basalt, rich…
with a Nubian glow.
How the small ones squeal
at the wadi’s edge.
How the toes of man and beast
dance at the skirt of mother Nile,
sensuous, rippling with the wind,
or placid in the doldrums of summer sun.
Loose change with frayed ends,
my life feels snagged on acute bends.
Tangled threads surround me,
they seem to wind and bind me,
preventing freedom's trends.
I don't know how others do it.
Missing the rain when it hits.
My path does not stroll with their plans,
thus the way for me expands.
So I won't despair; my path is lit.
This is true:
I've been on my way since school.
Behind challenges left unresolved;
ahead my life's riddles solved;
I am ready to go and eschew
fate's cues that can not queue.
The path's magic I already knew.
I am in the doldrums,
of witch's cauldrons.
In it I follow the call.
The fear of cast inside perpetual.
My solitude is
like drifting in the doldrums
waiting for a breeze.
I'm a ship lost at sea, I have no way to navigate,
no compass to give me direction,
a cloudy sky at night and no stars to guide me.
For I am in the doldrums of a relationship,
recirculated in endless circles never to find my way.
When will the sky clear?
When will the seas calm?
When will the stars shine?
For I'm at the mercy of the sea who is my wife,
and told by others are sea stories of peril and woe,
for who knows where the sea will send you when you think you have control.
Pushing on with my sails ripped,
rudder broken and current driven.
I am the captain on the ship of my life,
lost in the sea of despair and don't know where to go.
I'm stranded on a sailboat
in the doldrums of my mind,
but there's comfort within jail though
when I know just what I'll find.
There's nothing new. Nothing new.
You pushed me to the plank so
I knew I must sink or swim,
and I guess that I should thank you
for that's when I could begin
To be something new. Something new.
My chameleon skin is shedding,
and I'm not sure what I'll be.
Is my compass bearing heading
me to land or back to sea?
But it's something new. Something new.
My Phoenix form is rising like dirigible
towards the sun,
And there's something great or terrible
in what I have become:
Something new. Something new...for you.
10.16.18
Contest: Trying Something New
Boundary pushing rhymes:
Sailboat / Jail though
Plank so / Thank you
Swim / Begin (less boundary pushing)
Dirigible / Terrible
Sun / Become (boundary adjacent)
Beyond the Heart, the Head and the Soul reigns unsulleable Belief
How he blurted in a moment of self-lacerating glory-be pique
Who will in a thousand years retrieve my poems from digital rot
A thousand years grind grim in fermenting ocean-filth freak
Rather think in terms of a hundred or two twisted tight in knot
By then no scales may balance conflicting efforts set adrift
Wild tsunamis would have raged over lands and cities lying low
And the mighty and the rich abandon ports to set up amont aloft
And none will seek to extend meaning beyond the beclouded glow
None will batter brains split hairs over words poets proudly sow
No conniving committees allocate prizes as at musical-chairs play
Past the highest achievements scientific excellence on us bestow
For neither love nor purity of soul will be Man’s cultural mainstay
For the stunted Psyché still wallows in the Doldrums of Belief
By what we impute to holy Prophets Popes and Poets’ mischief
© T. Wignesan – Paris, November 7, 2019
You could call him Mr. Lonely
’Cause that’s the way he feels.
He wants so much to find true love,
But thinks he never will.
He suffocates in solitude
And he drowns in despair.
He wishes there was someone else
With which his love to share.
He’s lost in all the loneliness
The world can ever make.
The deaf’ning silence from his house
Is more than he can take.
He goes to bars and clubs to find
The woman of his dreams,
But ev’ry lady that he meets
Just isn’t right, it seems.
He’s dying in the doldrums
A single’s life can bring.
He wants to find a special girl
And do that dating thing.
He has been lonely way too long.
He can’t take anymore
Of the deep and dark depression
That’s knocking at his door.
And when he thought that loneliness
Would be his only fling,
Then piercing through the silence, yes
The telephone did ring.
Perhaps he has another chance.
There may be hope, you see.
The caller on the other end.
Her name is Tiffany.
It wasn’t monsoon
but toxic rain.
Diya drenched
in the doldrums.
Her head bloated,
brain turned barren.
Her body curved
as a cashew nut.
Her legs and arms
dried.
Aches and anxieties
grow up
in the cashew farm.
Sad sap oozes
out of her mouth.
Her doll lies dead.
Now she isn’t a girl
but a remnant
on an empty mat.
[Endosulfan is a
deadly insecticide.]
Rats in the cellar, squirrels in the tree,
things aren't the same as they used to be.
When I left for school with my li'l lunch pail,
I didn't expect a penguin to swallow a whale.
Such an injustice, I've never seen,
a cantaloupe falsely imprisoned a bean.
It's unheeded screams, uncontrolled laughter,
when it's trolls that live happily ever after.
Doors off their hinges, pancakes are stacked,
biscuits are burning, windows are cracked.
Termites in the baseboards, rabbits that fly,
pigs that regularly take to the sky.
Voices that whisper, mad dogs that bite,
winds that go howling and look for a fight.
Wrapped in cellophane, mixed in a blender,
taped up in cardboard and returned to sender.
Rainbows and ravens, kaleidoscope dreams,
leafless branches, gallows lit by moonbeams.
Music boxes, pink ribbons and bows,
tags come on packages; tags come on toes.
Curtains lifted, sick, unsavory scenes,
gear wheels in gear wheels run strange machines.
Dissected, disowned and double-downsized,
unaided, unacknowledged and unrecognized.
Puzzles, conundrums that cannot be solved,
water plus turpentine make witches dissolve.
Pimentos are diced, harsh words are spoken,
nightmares are jumbled; eggshells are broken.
Lost in the doldrums, eyeballs protrude,
walking on blisters, a horse latitude.
Spineless jellyfish, lackeys and flunkies,
silver tongued vultures, branch swinging monkeys.
Experts and pundits, paid authorities,
Kool-Aid in canisters, down on your knees.
Bishops take pawns, the fat lady sings,
fires ablaze on black nights with kings.
Shattered stars, fragmented stones,
shining splinters, bleak, burning bones.
Songs without meaning, songs without words,
sung by unseen phantoms and silent birds.
Refrigerators with pictures nobody knows,
eyes staring back, no answers disclose.
Spiders and spinning bicycle wheels,
buffalos, bandits, and slippery seals.
Electric toothbrushes, electric chairs,
lethal injections, pushed down the stairs.
Pieces on the floor, a sad state of disarray,
the gift you've left me is insanity's bouquet.
You stole my cookies, pilfered my cat,
laughed at me roundly and turned me down flat.
Mice it in the attic go chitter chatter,
have I lost my wits or gone mad as a hatter?
Now That it is Settled
By Franklin Price
6/8/2016
Now that it is settled
For the Elephant and Ass
Who will be the winner
The answer's in the looking glass
Neither very popular
There are several reasons why
Can one help our recovery
Or will either make us cry
The Elephant appropriate
With all his trumpeting
Running down the opposition
Blustering is just his thing
The Ass is also apropos
She's stubborn as can be
But will she pull the plow for us
We'll have to wait and see
There's talk of a third party
That may come along the way
No super hero I can see
In the wings to save the day
Our need is for a shaker
And a mover as the POTUS
Must determine who to vote for
Elephant and Ass this is your notice
The people of this country
Are tired of government
By those who are elected
And don't care why they were sent
Although we're in the doldrums
Or the wind is in our face
Must vote for one and not stay home
In this presidential race
Old Mildenhall
Beyond the sprawls
Of sleepy vales,
Behind the stacks
Of woven bales,
Lie the dwellings
Of souls that fall
In the decaying ruins
Of Old Mildenhall.
A mish-mash mosaic
Of glass and stone,
The eerie rubble
Of shattered bone,
Where boarded windows
Entomb and hide
Its ghostly citizens
Still trapped inside.
With doors half open
And eyes half closed,
Grey peering faces,
Half decomposed,
Search empty spaces
For a human shape
Where there are no mortals
Nor means of escape.
Twisted, the fences
That surround each street,
Barbed in shackles
That tether their feet,
Nobody comes
And nobody goes,
Lost in the doldrums
Midst eternal woes.
Your spirits wander
Old Mildenhall,
Between heaven and Earth
And I see you all,
You were in my dreams
When, as a child, I slept,
We swapped our fears
But my soul you kept.
Beyond the sprawls
Of my eiderdown bed
They visit me still
Albeit in my head
Calling me, begging me
To help them die,
But without my soul
I'm just a passersby.
© RJVHorton2015
A question that baffles me most
is why some men and women,
at the peak of youthful vibrancy,
opt to exchange the glorious glee
and pleasures of mundane freedom
for a life of somber contemplation?
What is it in the mute adobe walls
of cavernous hallways, dungeons
and catacombs of ancient abbeys
and monasteries that lure them
to a voluntary monastic exile,
a life of deafening quietude?
How can they seem, or be, happy
tending secluded gardens and barns,
or kneeling in candle-dimmed prayer
in the doldrums of deep meditation,
with each ego dignified in humility,
grateful, still laced with childlike awe?