Best Incongruous Poems
October: I'm eighteen, shortcutting home
through an autumn-burnished churchyard -
copper-lustred leaves, moss-skinned stone -
a jaunty swing of skater skirt and arm,
college folder square-sturdy in my hand.
In the moment. In the last pale pulse of sun.
Hey, can you tell me...?
I halt. I turn...
Cold earth. Colder blade dimpling my skin.
My coral cameo earrings scatter,
daisy-dotting the green.
My back is spiked by needles of yews.
Sun skews, sky side-slides
until his face is the firmament.
I'm staring into the tumid blank-bloat of blue;
the ground hardening beneath me,
the death-spike trees stiffening.
Heavy Special Brew breaths.
Grubby, moist fingers
like grubs crawling over my breasts,
and, weirdly, I'm smelling pepper -
horror-spice of pungent lust,
its acrid nose-thrust -
and woodsmoke is drifting from somewhere...
lung-flame, tongue-flames
of searing words - his words -
blazing like the umber tumbling leaves.
Please...Please...I'll...
Fear-forced bargaining, but I'm beyond care.
And I'm aware
of the church steeple rising,
its phallus penetrating sky.
The tilting church could topple
as tears crystal-crush in my eyes.
Fear-faint, already half gone
in a soundless scream, my muted mouth
mouths silent goodbyes
to Sarah, to Mum.
Time slows to a crawl.
I try to call. Nobody comes
but the man who has me ground-pinned.
Bleachy stink of semen
whitening my ripped skater skirt,
but some things don't fade
and there is no clean in this, just dirt,
wet leaf-mulch, shame.
Ineradicable hurt.
Sacred soil is soiled, sullied.
Stunned, I stumble
shoeless, knickerless,
into the trees and heave
into the mud, into the leaves
strings of spittle-sick,
my thoughts strung out,
reality spun out.
From stinking, pulped leaves I retrieve
crushed coral earrings,
ground-grimy knickers,
my white court shoes
that whitely scream the 90s,
the scattered tatters of essays -
white, like fallen feathers, sunk in the sludge,
muddied, the red-inked words bloodied.
I gather them together.
Gather myself.
I go
forward into my future, stained from pain
and tainted touch, the smears of fear, self-disgust.
And oozing slime-soft into my ears
the mire of incongruous apology: I'm sorry
don't tell anyone - I won't.
I don't.
Categories:
incongruous, abuse, violence,
Form:
Free verse
Dreamers of Dreams
Incongruous realities of microcosmic minds
Torturous awakenings in lives raging reminds
Dormant and deceived are rapid eyes moving
Absorbent are neurons firing fluidly brewing
~
Images living through altered consciousness
Stages changing forever falling bottomless
Distortions within space of timeless events
Portions parallel admits mysterious segments
~
Death opening doors amongst dreams coming
Breath filled Angels of harmonics humming
Creation awaits upon celestial sailing seas
Imagination of paths through eternal keys.
...in reverse
Imagination of paths through eternal keys
Creation awaits upon celestial sailing seas
Breath filled Angels of harmonics humming
Death opening doors amongst dreams coming
~
Portions parallel admits mysterious segments
Distortions within space of timeless events
Stages changing forever falling bottomless
Images living through altered consciousness
~
Absorbent are neurons firing fluidly brewing
Dormant and deceived are rapid eyes moving
Torturous awakenings in lives raging reminds
Incongruous realities of microcosmic minds.
...in reverse and backward
Dreams of Dreamers
Keys eternal through paths of imagination
Seas sailing celestial upon awaits creation
Humming harmonics of Angels filled breath
Coming dreams amongst doors opening death
~
Segments mysterious admits parallel portions
Events timeless of space within distortions
Bottomless falling forever changing stages
Consciousness altered through living images
~
Brewing fluidly firing neurons are absorbent
Moving eyes rapid are deceived and dormant
Reminds raging lives in awakenings torturous
Minds microcosmic of realities incongruous.
Aug.28.2018
Winged Warrior...^WW^
Not for any contest
This poem is dedicated to my dear friend Silent One...in response to the recent passing of his Grandfather...and to my Mom, who passed away last Oct...may they always live in our dreams...
...I don't know if this form exists or if it's even acceptable...but is very challenging and fun...just for the heck of it...I'm calling it...a 360 Double Helix Reversible...if you have another title, please soup mail me...love & light... ^WW^
Categories:
incongruous, death, destiny, dream,
Form:
Rhyme
Dear son,
I am told I should tell you things not in books
It is hard for me to begin
Your mother said only what is in the book I know
I think my dilemma is neither you nor I
But the whole purpose of the book
This letter may turn into if I try to understand me.
And if I am not in the picture
Then your existence becomes questionable. We must
Establish our need for more than mere presence
And this makes us listening to each other significant,
Make this letter existentially important
And you significantly more important than either of us think
I do not read books because I believe all books
Books took a wrong turn just by their necessity to speak
And to make speech more permanent than memory
They disrupted a whole tradition of history to write
What we were, and are becoming
By making picture out of words for reflection
As they tell us who we are
Without beat of tongue, and rhythm of gesticulation
That surrounded the melody of oral communication.
The literary man made an ulterior civilization
Telling us with barbed cynicism: the pen is mightier than the sword
I handled all books carefully like a weapon
For in them are seeds of destruction
Not intended alone for our history
But for the civilization of our identity.
My dear son
Every structure and fiber of our imagination
Is no longer about us
For we have been reduced to incongruous metaphors
Supplanting faith in history
Supplanting us with toxic ideas of utopia
Knowing full well for this dream
There is no remembrance after sleep
For waking is an hypnosis for those in too deep.
Even as I proclaim this preamble on clutches.
Categories:
incongruous, father, books, books,
Form:
Free verse
We laughed at each other’s jokes
not more than a full moon passed.
On a slick surface, half-smiles crack
a wintry face. My soul abandons
breath in a lifeless bird’s nest
unsteady on a teetering limb.
Under bare trees, my roots
tangle in decay. Nearby,
February dips a toe into warm
streams cried, connected by
frozen acquaintances. I am
no more than a shiver
in late spring, bits of fallen bark.
Did I call you clever or cruel?
Your burly charm crumbles
like brittle bone. A silver fox
traces my lines, the comings
and goings of my own mistakes,
naivety, iniquities, my slips, stains,
incongruous existence. Winter slaps
both cheeks till summer burns
tender flesh. I called you mine or
whoever I dreamed you to be.
When did I get old, lose
my evergreen glow, my ability
to grow and stand alone?
Your laughter follows, echoes
from mockingbird skies. Love strays
into a thinning wood, more sly
than I. An enemy came disguised,
carried away my better days
with lies, came to chip at shells,
fragment smiles. I wish
for more than days connected
by endless seconds –
acquaintances, pretenses. I sip
black coffee to remind me
of your bitterness. I start days
with a half-smile because
it’s a start. I trace, get-to-know,
embrace my own lines. Dawn lifts
veils, finds my smudges -
my little gifts of
mottled, hand-me-down colors.
We traveled side-by-side
too long on far less
than a quest, more like
our own tour guides on a hike
to nowhere. We wasted time,
called each step a discovery.
You, like a cult, tried to suffocate,
berate, till silence was all I knew
of me. Tomorrow marks
the return of hazel-eyed summer.
Tonight marks the return
of a full moon's bare-backed ride
across striated sky, over my lines,
where I will find I.
(a work in progress)
Categories:
incongruous, break up, fear, introspection,
Form:
Free verse
Firm against the tempest we stand
Hip to hip and hand in hand
And when your hair flicks my nose
An excited shiver reaches my toes
As we stand beneath shining full moon
I shuffle a little to create room
To fully appreciate the breathless sight
That is your beauty by silvery light
Then I look upon that incongruous stanza
Doubts roll through me like a German Panzer
But stressors melt at the touch of your palm
For when we embrace my mind goes calm
We hang our destinies on the same hook
And into a hazy future together we look
Categories:
incongruous, humorous, love, romance, soulmate,
Form:
Sonnet
I’ve been here since the beginning
in some form or another.
I’ve showered the earth with molten lava
and quenched it with wind and sea.
I grazed with dinosaurs
and was eaten by their kind;
Yet I outlived their demise.
I emerged from the sea as Man
executed the first murder
the young earth had ever seen.
His universal love and hate
defined by incongruous beliefs.
I am Truth, which is the distinction:
endless beyond His own extinction.
Categories:
incongruous, spiritual, , cute,
Form:
Verse
Almost always, as additional allurements arrive, ask as a Being...
By better borne behests become best Causes ?
Can causes create concise concepts Diligently ?
Do doers do decidedly dumb doldrums Ever ?
Each eek echoes egotistical efforts enduring Familiarity...
Faith fathers forgiveness for flaunting fabled Gifts.
Gasps give great grief, growing gruesome Hatreds...
Hasn't humanity had hurt hearts hung Innocently ?
Is insistence in increasing irritation inevitably incongruous Justice ?
Jimson jars...jitters...joggles...jolts...just jocose jurisprudence' Knell.
Kerfuffle kin, kickshaw kept ken, kindly knaves kneading Lamentations...
Leaving love's loaves, lordly lotharios, looking like lowlifes Made.
Marking more madmen mere moronic monsters meting mayhem Nearby.
Now, not never, nab needed nerves, nurture nasturtium near Openness !
Once only one, ordained our ostracism, outrage outdone on overwrought Plight.
Perhaps pride precludes passable patience, posing portentous prolapse Quickly !
Quiet quandaries, quarrelsome qualms, quivering quixotic quirks Resplendent...
Reaching relapse, revolving recidivism, reconstructed reflective reform Seen !
Searching secretive states, seemingly simple, sincere serenity sought Through...
Tender tears, touching together to total tympanic transformation Unjust.
Unique union...unimportant, unbending, unpopular, unless universal Veracity !
Verbose verbalism, vertical vignettes verify vital victory Won.
When written with wit...watershed words work wonderful Xerography !
Xyloid xylography, xeroxed xeno X, Yet...
Yesterday's youth, yowled yummy young yips Zanily !
Zeitgeist, zombie zealots zapping zonked zingers...Away !!
Categories:
incongruous, conflict, fun, imagination, introspection,
Form:
Alliteration
Baby birds, it's said, are born not knowing
their notes. They learn them from their mother's
throats in the way children learn their ABCs
at parental knees, muh muh muh becoming mother,
da da da, daddy; cheep cheep cheep, a cantata.
That being so, do poets find a poetic ear
in the sphere of their predecessors?
Young, with island sand and salt my milieu,
my concerts were the calls of shorebirds,
the forlorn foundling cries of gulls, the staccato
siren of a tern, should you carelessly venture
too close to her nest; the stuttering dance-step
of sandpipers, miniscule but mighty. Then,
there were the rest: foraging land birds, seeking
fare left by the incoming tide, their darkness
incongruous on the purity of a beach.
There was a time, walking to my garage
when I found a songbird dead in my driveway;
its small body supple, still warm to the touch,
not ready to die just yet like all of us. I
placed it in a box (ashes to ashes, bird to sky),
laid it to rest under the fig tree in my backyard,
and not knowing its persuasion, I
fashioned a cross of sticks over the fresh
earth, believing we shared the sanctity of
simple beauty, the brevity of life.
Near a lake where I live now, sibling to the sea,
briny by proximity, birdsong is rampant
in early spring. I have heard the 'death bird',
he of the shrill one-note filled with foreboding,
who heralded the passage of a dying husband
in an interminable summer of illness. Here,
there are the sharps and flats of ordinary
choristers, and one whose mother was surely
a coloratura soprano in a former life.
This one whose concert halts me spellbound,
turns me to stone (not salt) with his serenade of
couplets, no two the same, some so comical I laugh
out loud to the absent cars and senseless concrete
of my parking lot. He sings and sings, never
abated, nothing by rote, and I? I wait, heart in
my throat, should he be the songbird from
under the fig tree, reincarnated.
Categories:
incongruous, death,
Form:
Blank verse
While some are always compelled to incite
Others reap rewards by being polite
Civility is challenging when views contrast
But much is gained when anger's surpassed
The social conventions of propriety
Reduce stress in a multicultural society
Acceptance of others' points of view
Even without concurrence carry you through
Exploring through debate, avoiding anger
A productive path for civil anglers
Failure to allow for differences
Wins no friends, no spiritual references
You may think you're "right," but get real
How does antagonism make you feel?
Far better to realize we've something to learn
By reaching across the aisle, respect we earn
Civility and Congress seem incongruous
Perhaps that's why we're in such a mess
So open your hearts to others' opinions
Learn from the actions of a wise Virginian
By reaching compromise in his Declaration
Jefferson gave birth to the world's freest nation
Categories:
incongruous, philosophy, political, social
Form:
Couplet
Super Sonic Sonnet
Complete are my lover’s thoughts in dark brier
With airs of aristocracy’s sweet critique
Her mind takes flight, a supersonic liar
Smiles warmth wears deceit like a prize unique
What grows outside your lovely courtyard facade?
Quadrangular, fortified thick gray walls
Hubris, incongruous, flourishing macabre
Infamous fragile beauty flaws, that’s all
Speeding to the grave, your love is there, dead
Daughters take the splendor, learn mother’s ways
Build other fortresses, stronger, to life’s dread
Days go by, to ponder the doomed accolades
Destinations for lovers and daughters pass
Become the past without wealth that never lasts
Categories:
incongruous, age, beauty, betrayal, mother
Form:
Sonnet
Bright coloured chalets, (very dear !)
Stand close in military line,
Along the prom, beyond the pier
“NO CYCLING”, please, observe the sign.
The waves roll in with thunderous roar
To dash the pebbles on the shore.
Incongruous lighthouse in the town
Looks out above Edwardian tiles,
Across Sole Bay and looking down
Shines out for more than twenty miles.
The pride of Suffolk, on the coast,
For many not an idle boast.
Victorian sleepy seaside town,
That’s Southwold, home of Adnam’s beer.
I stroll the prom, first up, then down,
Sip coffee on the antique pier.
I love its charms and golden sands,
Categories:
incongruous, beach, sea,
Form:
Verse
She hurried on slowly
Behind my footsteps
Now smiling
Now anxious
She hurried on
Into the dark tunnel
I sensed her presence
Her charm, pervading
I steeled myself, longing
Sensing her beauty
I trudged on
Defying the senses
My memory
Clogged thus with defiance
My weary feet
Tethered to my race
My thought- sullied
I tripped and fell
She, beside me, whispered
‘I’m sorry about that, pretty face!’
‘I love you,’ I blubbered.
‘Welcome to my lips.’
That innocence
That was my virtue
Now seemed incongruous
That flicker sent ripples
Of jollity, soothing:
The magic of chance kisses!
Categories:
incongruous, kiss,
Form:
Free verse
Harsh! The asphalt sac circumscribes my spirit
drowning the spectacle of sapphire ambiance
That whirls a blue crush over my suntanned face,
whose temples are rippling with shimmering grin
And ,merry bustling the spontaneous chills smothering
my qua-spirits yet spray a fiery furnace of detesting
Scandinavian epidermal whimpering over my incongruous
antics with the talismanic chemist ritualistically rebirthing
my vexed spirit chaffed away with enduring rejection of
a taciturn corps that writhed aggravatingly for it dresses
a being that is obvious of a race,say human identity....
Categories:
incongruous, death,
Form:
Burlesque
It is alone in a field devoid of comforting color.
Surrounded by a sea of incongruous behavior
choking life from sparse recollection.
Alone as to confirm existence beyond
the confines of natures ability to balance.
Rooted deeply,
resembles, nutrient poor soil failing to sustain;
panged by malnourishment of
interaction.
Alone destined to wither and finally, to succumb.
The only survivor, incongruous behavior.
Loneliness, alone, ever alone.
Categories:
incongruous, feelings, hope, life, loneliness,
Form:
Free verse
I'm the monkey on your back, I'm the whisper in your ear.
I fill your heart with want, stare, covet and leer.
You think I'm not a part of you, believe that I'm not there.
And then I curl up on your lap and take you unaware.
The cattle always crave to graze the grass beyond the fence.
No matter who the landlord is no thought of recompense.
Likewise the dog will gaze upon the bone chewed by his mate.
It must be worth more than mine, no reason for him to wait.
You think that you are the one who is always in control.
Insidious as it may sound I can get to you, right to your very soul.
Incongruous it really is I don't like to be known.
I plant the seed, water it and wait until it's grown.
I'm sure you've worked out who I am and the work I can perform.
You convince those close to you and even yourself, that you do not conform.
I make you wish you had it all, then drop you feeling empty.
I'm not your friend, compatriot, you know my name is envy.
Categories:
incongruous, desire,
Form:
Rhyme