Best Increments Poems
3/2/03
I saw no way- The heavens were stitched
I felt the columns close
The earth reversed her hemispheres
I touched the Universe
378: Emily Dickenson
The Shape of Death
Because I could see through all the eyes of men,
Pandora's sin,the sum of every joy and sorrow crowded in
I felt the paucity of greed.
The simple mood of life enriched by guileless generosity
I asked, "Are good and evil mixed?"
I saw no way - the heavens were stitched.
And stitched perhaps until the hour of death
Because I could see through all the eyes of men,
I knew of life's inevitable end
that closure, that omega rose
that brings eternal sweet repose.
That stealth of life in increments
the broken bond of flesh to death
Within its marble tenements
I felt the columns close
The columns closed, my mother passed,
Because I could see through all the eyes of men,
my solace weighed in beauty that we gathered,
in all my childhood hours
In sunsets, birdsong, clouds, and dew
in measured memory of her face
I turned myself away from our lost years
The earth reveresed her hemispheres
Reversed - that algebraic leap,
Because I could see through all the eyes of men
All wisdom spilled to unity of life,
Death un-veiled - benign as the blank page before birth
returning that Divine immortal leaf
like the shape of space that waves traverse,
when split, between a particle
And I can say with nothing to coerce
Perhaps....I touched the Universe.
Categories:
increments, death, meaningful, mother, mystery,
Form:
Verse
The blood that remembers
That of brother-to-brother or sister-to-sister
The blood that holds a family together
The blood that brought us here from a far and distant land
The blood we share in toil and strife and in war and death
Who made this blood and why do we have so little of it?
Shouldn’t we be able to farm it and grow it like tomatoes on the vine?
For it is our blood. We own it. Who can take it from us?
War, most certainly, but that blood is given for righteousness and should surely be returned post haste.
Can we cut ourselves like the Indians and become blood brothers? Does that strengthen our numbers? Or is it just some silly myth or rite of life.
I would like to think that blood would give strength but as it pours from my body I only feel weakness.
These two slits in my wrists are conduits to another world right?
They will make strong and give a warrior the strength to shoot the arrow straight and ride the pony hard.
My giving is their strength. It is a good day to die.
I bleed myself slowly for I know that they will need the energy in increments. My soul is that of a warrior and it can only strengthen their cause.
From Wounded Knee to DaNang the dead have given their souls so we could be free.
Why would I stop that tradition now?
Categories:
increments, suicide,
Form:
Free verse
The kiss of chaos
chaotic kisses,
what a gaudy
goody
this
is.
Tiny increments
of change,
lick your lips
and rearrange,
molecules
and atoms
charged,
with a random love
at large.
met you in a laundromat
feeling old and feeling fat
kissed you on a daring whim
chaos dancing on the brim,
of a mouth
like
neverwas
in my dreams and just
because.
Kiss of chaos,
random acts
altering
chaotic facts
stack the cards and
tilt the game,
I just relit
an old
flame.
Categories:
increments, passion, people,
Form:
Couplet
I am told that Time
are increments...the
happy man counts
his by kisses – a family
hour, a dream for the
thrifty~ wise, a short REM
seeming somehow linked
to greater eternity –
I am told that Time
is precious – or burden
to those without Power,
to those hungry –
alone as empty and sad
Time with God I've never
found wasted...
Though I've managed
good use of all these
Time away from you
has always been, pure hell....
Categories:
increments, for her, inspirational love,
Form:
Free verse
As much as anything,
we are our words --
increments of twists and
turns, joys~ inevitable burns
(one's acrobat of verbal
written being)
As much as anything
what we think we should
feel -- important less right
and wrong~
At our best when together
keeping it real --
Reams of letters freeing
can also be a bound fetter
less important is the letter
If only lines of division
let that paper go up
in flame! We are far
more than our portraits
and names, marble busts,
insatiable art-lusts
States have their politics
and God far above
a mere poet, inclined I am
more often to humbly settle
for simple verses of love --
Categories:
increments, inspirational, language, love, perspective,
Form:
Free verse
In the language of Spirit
it is said: “that we must die before we die.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In the language of Sprit
it is said: “that we must die before we die.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It kills me,
a lot of things kill me.
I mean the kind of ‘killing’
that blinks you out for a moment,
that kind of little death.
Such instances can be exquisite,
like when your life unlatches,
you stop in mid-throttle,
halted upon a careening mania.
There are no increments,
no gradients,
you just jump out of yourself.
A powerful ****** can kill you
with one thrust of bliss.
Holding your baby for the first time,
a sudden inexplicable gnosis
obliterates your present,
past and future.
Writing a killer line in a poem -
that can kill the reader
for a bitty twitch of time.
Those quiescent extinctions happen,
in a single tick of abeyance,
transient wipe-outs
(too abrupt to me measured),
when we forget
to be both happy or sad,
in nothing-flat
we have ceased to be, we succumb,
only to return.
Between each taken breath,
these little deaths may, at any time,
undo time,
revealing much more than we,
the living,
might care to admit.
Categories:
increments, poetry,
Form:
Free verse
Life changes come in little increments
along a fated journey fraught with twists and turns.
But once in a while
changes come on sudden and dramatic
like the day you passed away.
A fatal blow ~
the instant when I became unwhole
a widow
a casualty of love.
Categories:
increments, change, death, grief, journey,
Form:
Free verse
Garlands draped and strung.
White creeper blossoms
reminiscent of snow
penta-hedron, vase shaped,
single bells. Five sepal-ed,
finial, fillistered,
flower bowls.
Such delicate geometry
predestined from a seed
Destiny, fate and duty
will always mock one another.
Power struggles between courage
and cowardice, rest in the lap of higher powers.
Increments, irrelevant to atoms.
All that will unfold
is manifest in flowers.
Suzanne Delaney
Categories:
increments, beauty, courage, destiny, future,
Form:
Free verse
(a 7/5 Trochee)
Once upon a time, I got
Right inside my ear
An infection that was bad;
I could barely hear.
It was like those times you fly
In a plane so high
And your ears start popping,
But not up high was I!
I was told to see the doc,
But that costs so much
I just googled for myself
Homemade cures and such.
Hydrogen peroxide was
One I thought to try:
Soak a cotton ball with it;
To your ear apply. . .
So I’d tilt my head, press that
Cotton on my ear,
Gingerly at first, for I
Felt a little fear.
But a fizzling then began
Just like Google said -
(kind of cool). I kept putting
It inside my head!
Once you’ve got it all cleared up,
Bubbles should abate.
So in increments of time,
I would stop and wait. . .
When I thought that fizzling part
Couldn’t stay for long,
I would try that “cure” again.
Bubbles came on strong!
So I gave up in disgust,
Worried now that I’d
Put into my ear too much
Of that peroxide.
To the doctor I would go
With my $hundred plus+.
Doctor looked into my ear;
Saw a lot of pus.
He allayed my fears about
My home remedy,
Saying it could do no worse
Than just annoy me.
Doctor's cure was not to be
what I would suppose.
I should have to put, instead,
something up my nose!
Sometimes eating apples won’t
Keep that doc away.
Ultimately. . . to get well,
Be prepared to pay!!!
For Deborah Guzzi's "The Road to Well Ville"
Categories:
increments, health
Form:
Rhyme
New fling
Lust clings
He shaves
She raves
He aches
She fakes
He veers
She sneers
He winks
She shrinks
Categories:
increments, love,
Form:
Footle
There's this special day that comes once a year
A day for that someone you hold so near
A day where one's age increments by one
A day when you're greeted by everyone
It's the day when you're the talked about 'who'
It's that day when the spotlight is on you
It's that day you receive various greetings
It's that day you can't seem to stop smiling
This is when you express much gratitude
A day that proves that you are much valued
A day where food's simple or luxuriant
There's a dish or two, or even variants
A person then counts to serve as a cue
A day they sing "Happy Birthday to you"
A day I thank God for another year
A year He's added for my daddy dear
Categories:
increments, birthday, blessing, celebration, dad,
Form:
Rhyme
My spirit faltered once again, on the landing of the stair
Each step would lead me further still, from yesterday and you
I forced myself to walk awhile, and savor morning air
While hoping I could clear my head and take a breath or two
I did not wander out too long to watch the golden strand
Of sunlight warm the distant hills. It held a sense of calm
The landscape that surrounded me, I knew like my own hand,
Was holding heartache, and my faith, so gently in its palm
The rim of light behind the hills, and as so well it should,
Had come before the moon took rest, they both claimed separate skies
Of course the time was running out, and yes, we knew it would
While silent hopes were found, then lost, within dark circled eyes
A long night spent of holding on, of letting go the hours
Our whispered love in increments, unspoken farewell words
Sought fragile woven memories, so held as tender flowers.
To treasure after dawn would bring tomorrow's lonely birds
So, up the stairs I'd climb once more, to hold a sleeping hand
It wasn't long before the sun reclaimed the summer skies
One moment watching flowers fade, would parch the golden land
But tomorrow comes with butterflies. Against the sun, they'll rise
_______________________________________________________
For Brian Strand's Contest: FEB 2018 STANDARD CONTEST,ANY FORM OR NONE,ANY THEME UPTO MAX OF 20 lines
(Rhyme Scheme abab)
Categories:
increments, death, goodbye, sad,
Form:
Rhyme
Like bakers kneading moments for their draught,
that using once, discard for the new taught,
is wisdom learned mistaking from honed sought,
nor guilt could so define, for none is wrought.
A newness of prevailing is condensed,
from virtues needing tithing, thereby naught,
as even sin unconquered leaves it ought,
so building in thy grace, would seem as sensed.
Design of living's faith, not piled or fenced
has no regard for guessing - love not dense
is as the widow's coffin, fully whence
love meant to love as endless, no expense.
To love so, ne'er durations's increments,
but true eternal posting, new ... intense!
Categories:
increments, love, love,
Form:
Rhyme
I have a capacity for love
that stretches every time he makes me
a dust-mote in the iridescent
ocean of eye-light.
I’m suspended in time and in
place, yet I swell.
I know I could grow forever,
glittering like amethysts and pearls before swine
until I puncture the universe
and leak out in increments
through the stratosphere.
He makes me stop breathing
and still go on
-heedless, regardless, relentless-
I could suck the stars dry,
but until my lips touch his
I’m only this:
The air you hold in your lungs too long
before your first time flying.
Categories:
increments, lovetime, time, universe,
Form:
Dramatic Monologue
Some fireflies lit the way of wishful whim,
the expectations fired diminished vim.
The lack of lucence rendered chances grim.
Design of great foment—I hugely now repent.
The flowers vie with scent—their vibrant colours spent
when light from Sun in lower meadow mean.
The crows at dawn abated soon to preen.
A gibbous Moon in western sky still seen.
Yet rainbows will succeed—the face of Moon must bleed;
the rays absorbed thus freed—its cast expressions knead.
I guess my chance to win your heart is slim.
Tenacious Moon by day espy torment:
From arduous labour I tire and wean
myself by increments in chocking plead!
Categories:
increments, romance,
Form:
Sonnet