Best Inhabiting Poems
Sometimes, in uncertain outcomes, as life agitates,
It can sway either way, maneuvering on the edge,
For a difference rather modest, makes the final call,
When a narrow margin determines a win or a loss.
If a win we choose to celebrate, or defeat we deride,
Prudent to bear in mind, that it wasn’t a landslide;
When results are so close, why not cheer them all,
Cognizant to recognize~ distinction is awfully small.
Slender is the layer between eve’s dusk and twilight,
Between dark of dawn, and luminance of sunrise;
Between safe and danger, there lies a narrow divide,
Where, between cliff and fall, life’s border resides.
Mementos of love embraced, and love sadly repelled,
In albums of beloved, or memories forlorn dwell,
Clamoring from corridors of good or bad choices made,
Between narrow margins of hope, and contours of fate.
O, a narrow margin can be of mighty consequence
Inhabiting elation of success, or anguish of regrets,
When death lingers in the clutches of final moments
Stilled between breath inhaled, and breath exhaled.
Categories:
inhabiting, life, perspective,
Form:
Verse
August wind, glass moon,serendipity...
two chairs gazing at each other in tender flow.
Hundred miles away, clouds gather
to fondle the opening and closing
of after- midnight refrains,
both trespassing a continental divide
to awaken upon scrolls of ramblings
united by the sorcery of mystic spaces
between humid lenses.
On such lit evenings, I will surrender
to the maleness of a trembling heart ;
your cheeks swollen like yeast…a shaven head,
the blue of your shirt buried in my cellar
unbuttoning the heaving pauses
between the nearness of our skin…
Chairs grind in wanton anticipation of palms
touching my hair… you whisper,
“ I adore you beyond words.”... and I; I falter
while a glint climbs into the almond of my Oreo eyes…
The scent of hours lingers as we wrap our fingers
into morn, owning a body language in play of charades…
Your mouth hushed, searching the curves of my spine
glazed by soft bites of an August wind
brushing our lips…until the slide screen fades off,
and we are dissolved into a paradise inhabiting
unborn stars. In raw enchantment, our warmed glances
wait for a next time, as if a tarot of angels
had known about serendipity.
PD's Best Love Poem # 3
Categories:
inhabiting, magic, romance,
Form:
Free verse
Life is a song,
incomplete, yet soothing—
lullabies lulling the world to sleep
with its balladic lilt, gently swaying
to the depths of its nomadic
syncopation.
Where I can subdue archaic
hieroglyphics in hues of
rose gold notes, invading my
tentative aura, glistening upon
tragic horizons,
for the wandering seekers,
freely waltzing to arias of the moon,
escaping unsung passages to
desolate wastelands,
where fiends roam in spite;
surviving the clusters of
rain drenched clouds,
draining the life out of
sunken nocturnes,
lost in cataclysmic paradoxes
overshadowed by waves of
monotonous soliloquy.
Yet I crave the aphotic harmonies of
its flesh and bones,
cocooned in the stillness of
shadows that align,
stonewalling the
world so bent on exposing me—
finding my true element,
inhabiting where life meets its end credits,
resuscitating sentiments long forgotten,
enabling me to breathe.
Categories:
inhabiting, dance, dark, life, song,
Form:
Free verse
Chaste eyes trace my limbs, in the deep of woods
swerving like a breeze moist on fields of grass,
His Latin fire, on edge of twilight moods.
Shape of curves fondled like tender morass,
the call of moaning sprawls into full grind
swerving like a breeze moist on fields of grass
Although he’s roamed my shore , gentle and kind
I still pulsate where musk scent trails. Outside,
the call of moaning sprawls into full grind
My fiery sighs reflect a wilder croon
holding breaths captive in a mesh; a glide
of movement’s tempo sing to rising moon
And kindling now our chaste eyes, they abide
love’s virtue wafts from wings of night;
to hold breaths captive in sweet flow, a glide!
Inhabiting one space where gazes meet
Chaste eyes trace my limbs, in deep of woods...
Love’s virtue blazes skin from curl of sheets
His Latin fire, on edge of twilight moods.
The simple times remembered are worthwhile.
Those memories are treasured gifts to keep.
We were innocent and lived without guile.
---------
Inspiration from Nobel Prize poet,
Pablo Neruda from Chile. Excerpts from
his poem 'Ode to Naked Beauty' follows:
Ode To A Naked Beauty
With chaste heart, and pure
eyes
I celebrate you, my beauty,
restraining my blood
so that the line
surges and follows
your contour,
and you bed yourself in my verse,
as in woodland, or wave-spume:
earth's perfume,
sea's music.
----
Terzanelle Time for Joseph May
Old poem Re-submitted 11/8/2017
Categories:
inhabiting, love, passion,
Form:
Terzanelle
Snow draped folds like loose Cashmere curtains cover the evergreen boughs
pining for the lengthening days of each succeeding sunrise,
reticent to see the cold of night fall once again on the lonely landscape.
In this fallow world of darkness quiet is the norm, hushed silence,
nothingness, invading the shadows that fall ominously across the reaching branches
giving a sense of preternatural sleep to each living creature, each plant,
inhabiting the frigid winter's lonely, desolate abode.
Surreptitiously, the awakening begins, slowly and without notice,
Cyclamen hidden deep in the forest break free from their frozen bed of bounteous soil
oblivious to the naked dreaming deciduous trees that surround them.
Malaise broken, they reach their softly painted petals to the warmth of the sun
in perfect unison dancing the Danse Macabre to remind winter of its inevitable demise.
Narcissus will soon send forth his papery white blossoms to mock the
glow of the radiant gleen of the melting frost.
Summer still distantly drowsing cares not for the struggle of life born
out on frozen winter days and Autumn is but a memory now glowering in its
ostentatious robes of leafy brilliance; though, the
nor'easter may yet blow, just look and you'll see the signs, Spring is coming soon.
03/23/17
Categories:
inhabiting, seasons, spring,
Form:
Acrostic
Wedding wines - rather champagne shines
and bubbly breakout of blushing bride.
Groom with giant heart, gracious, grateful - grips
her hand with his handsome wholeness. Helps
his lovely lady into limousine, longing for her lips.
Laps leaping, longing, leaving the crowd’s “so long!”
Cans chiming cheers. Crowd chuckles at car’s rear.
“Honeymoon here we come!” Coreen casts a shameless
glance at Glen. His green anticipation, Gable-debonair.
Goosebumps and gorgeous view - grand peaks
of her bosom buddies, brimming with lace and brouhaha.
His eyes - riveting, reveling, robust, ruddy and willing.
~
Throbbing thirst, thistles ‘neath terrycloth, while he waits.
Anticipation hurts - artfully, agonizingly. Her appearance
in nascent negligée, nearly naughty, nearly a no-no,
but not, for they’ve tied the knot and into a knot they go.
Get’m tiger! Tongues tangoed, trip to Timbuktu, tipsy
and top-see and no toodaloo - a forever frou-frou.
Silk surrender, sliding, suspend her, satisfaction in space.
Stirring, sipping, inhabiting each other, sensational and sweet.
9/2/2022
Anniversary Contest
Sponsor: Sara Kendrick
Categories:
inhabiting, anniversary, funny, imagery, sensual,
Form:
Alliteration
While transient love is all I yearn for now,
A state of panic engulfs as I imagine.
When my life takes a decisive turn
Hair white, wrinkled face and lack of sin.
Will I see shadows of myself?
Will my contagious grime enthuse my sons?
Have I discovered my faults too late?
Can my heart endure those countless revolutions?
Inhabiting my substance, torturing my world.
A life full of faults and guilt knotted.
I travel aimlessly for an ounce of peace.
Disturbed and heart so cruelly destructed.
My parents whom I did not revere,
Their love, I never answered.
Their forgiveness, I never asked for.
Those words of love, I always stammered.
Oh! Those heart beats, when I came hurt.
My letters, they never threw away.
Their magnificence, and my bag of sins.
A false remorse every single minute of the day.
Have I drowned in my own forever.
Or is this realisation a guide for the lost?
It’s never too late to ask for clemency.
Certainly not late to fulfil the unrequited love.
Forgive me for all I have done.
Let no one in this world have unrequited love.
Categories:
inhabiting, family, father, forgiveness, love,
Form:
Rhyme
Cue music,
I’m sitting on my childhood bed,
Flowers emanating off the spread.
Osmonds, Partridges, “Me and Mrs. Jones,”
Stewart’s “Do you think I’m sexy?”
Magazine posters, boy bands, smiling large
Donny cheeks. Records dropping, spinning.
Scratching. Little sister inhabiting my space.
So what if it’s her room too. Mosquito.
11/14/2020
Categories:
inhabiting, childhood, music,
Form:
Free verse
-------------------
I find myself
with just myself reflecting
on undelivered letters of winters past--
the most bitter front glazing evenings
where a fireplace becomes a chilled shelter
of sharp, dazed musings
as I travel within time's slow compass.
Two quarter moons ago...you left hurriedly crashed by a wheeler,
And my soul burned in the
ragged kiln of night...without
a lint of words between us,
I crawled under spikes of despicaple darkness:
My taut pen scratched paper on
paper--- speaking to you among
tangles of weeds, a wailing through
love-filled notes kneading pain and longing;
Envelopes devoid of a zip code, of
stamps, rimmed by spider webs.
Tell me now , can I bear the weight pinned
by handwritten drafts inhabiting our room?
Your wool jacket dangles tonight
on a hook accumulating debris and stale mint,
while spring floods our garden with radiant foliage--
Papyrus of my ardorous thoughts lay on
deserted tables,
and I'm orphaned...alone by myself.
Categories:
inhabiting, sad, writing,
Form:
Dramatic Verse
RELISH THE RICHNESS
luscious
notions
attempt
to demonstrate
vibrancy
touchingly subdued
original
precisely
endured
refashioned
fulsomely
in
gorgeous
desired
voluptuousness
feminine
apparent nonchalance
inhabiting
&evoking
sevelteness
semi-revealed
conscious
twinned
with entitlement
intriguingly
sensuous
stunningly
nurturing
the surreal
Categories:
inhabiting, poetry,
Form:
Verse
From the Painted Desert, head west
Past sagebrush, brittle bush, desert scrub
And The Petrified Forest at rest
To the Rocky Mountains above
Go past the Continental Divide
Below Douglas firs and pinyon pines
Head down the sunset side
Where the Colorado River cuts and winds
Many generations ago
Native Americans were inhabiting squatters
There were herds of buffalo
Along with now extinct muskrats and river otters
Beaver, cut cottonwoods and willows
Leopard frogs slept on limestone pillows
Mule deer and bighorn sheep
Climbed up and down walls so steep
Follow me down the foot trail
Like indigenous butterflies with swallowtails
In to the Valley of the Sun
Where Hopi civilization begun
Tassel eared squirrels frolic about
Bald eagles fly over and scout
Stream orchids, honey mesquite and arrow weeds
For pocket mice and other rodent species
Gray fox, weasels, bobcats
Spotted skunks, ring tails, and bats
Call this canyon their home
Where bark scorpions and rattlesnakes roam
While gila monsters and red spotted toads
Search for midges, flies and black widows
It took this river millions of years
To make this home for all who are here
an original poem by the "poemdog" Daniel Turner
Categories:
inhabiting, adventure, america, animal, history,
Form:
Rhyme
Cancer it breaks cancer it takes
It erodes and corrodes body and soul
Lingers and takes hold cant be stopped or controlled
Terminal is with an apparent ending
Loss of hope and no point in pretending
Life span is against natures clock
Head now on the proverbial block
Spreads with ease the cardinal disease
Painful fulfilment never set to ease
Deterioration quickens as the body weakens
The illness striving towards winning Beacons
Inhabiting this life just day to day living
Illness taking everything with it unforgiving
Maintain dignity the only plea of life left
Cancers taken everything will be till death
Being the shadow of ones former self
A serious turn for the worst inevitable ill health
Oh its just sods law to over through a bad habit
Of smoking only to contract lung cancer damn it
Undetected unnoticed overseen by mere testing
Cancer accumulating cells rapidly and festering
Agonising pain fills ones veins no relief no escape
The moment of death ones lonely never-ending wait
In the last moments the death rattle echo's consumes last breath
The only hope remaining is there's life after death.
Categories:
inhabiting, cancer,
Form:
Rhyme
At last, the traffic comes to a halt…
the quarter moon peeps between hill tops
as a lingering sigh pinches my flesh—
half weary, half shimmering
in hours moist with late afternoon’s
need for quietude. Clearing
my mind to embrace sweet ardor's mist
and the fire of gentle touches, I feel
all the pinpoints of his affection tingling
my softened face numbed by toil,hours before.
Resting a bit to capture hints
of stillness borne from the wake of a temporal
star, we gather each other --- fondling the light,
inhabiting the pleasure of now.
...................
Contest: Laura Loo's Free Verse About Love--
New or Old
Posted 1/12/2016
Categories:
inhabiting, blue, night, peace,
Form:
Free verse
I appear with the unbegotten
In the hollows of the seen
A shadow of the soon forgotten
I enter through the dream
Inhabiting the void
In the source of germ and seed
I bring forth the undestroyed
As time and space recede
In nightmares where the banished dwell
In spells inciting ire
I swallow up a newborn hell
Bound by wind and fire
Snuffing out a sun or two
As a galaxy expires
I take root in empty truths
With flesh as my attire
As ill-starred seers stutter
And oracles retire
I awake the muted echoes
In the ruins of desire
Written by © Raven Drake
Categories:
inhabiting, mystery, mythology,
Form:
Elegy
I feel it to a small extent - a little tinge of it -
those times I hear about
friends going on vacations to fun exotic places;
friends of mine receiving special presents from their husbands;
women I have known for ages getting plastic surgeries,
losing weight, and looking now like models;
Anyone who does not feel a tinge of jealousy
toward those who are receiving the very thing
one is longing for in one’s own life
I think would not be human!
But most of us can rise above the tinge of jealousy.
All of us are gifted in one way or another.
We need to have security in who we are,
and gratefulness for all the gifts uniquely ours!
Most likely, those whose good fortune we might covet
are looking back at someone else with a tinge of jealousy.
Nobody has everything they want!
We cannot know the many facets of a person’s soul -
their hidden insecurities, their dreams left unfulfilled.
Maybe there exist a few on a higher plane
with not a jot of jealousy inhabiting their heart.
Until we reach that higher plane,
We need to be as happy as we can be.
Congratulate successes of your peers.
Swallow any little bitterness and know. . .
with hard work, you can achieve successes in your life.
Imagine your dream and go for it!
That thing which is of the uttermost importance
will be the thing for which you ought to strive.
What drives you? What brings you the most joy?
Once you’ve answered those few questions,
take stock of your own life.
Are you doing all you can, despite even facing
possible hardships in your current situation?
Don’t sit back and daydream.
Force a smile if you have to.
Be happy for life’s winners.
Envision a dream that is attainable for you;
work for it, being grateful all the while
for the talents you already have.
Those with low esteem or prone to idleness and greed
will not want to do the needful things.
They will feel the tinge of jealousy; then let it fester.
Growing and growing, it will manifest itself
in acts of hideous deceit, or worse,
jealousy can lead to murder and revenge.
It happens all the time,
for it’s the root of nearly every crime!
Breathe. . . and let out jealousy.
Feeling jealous means that you are human,
but never go beyond the tinge of it!
Categories:
inhabiting, jealousy,
Form:
Free verse