Best Laboriously Poems
A view of the ragged woodland from
The window:-
Slender branched trees that shed
From high above to low below;
The faint, mauven peaks
Smattered with barely visible
Scatterings of drifted snow;
Across the matted undergrowth
A bronzed carpet of copper coloured
Leaves
Whose rusting hue,
Momentarily ignited by stray
Sunbeams weakly smouldering,
Briefly refurbished -
Deceives with all the colours of a
Rainbow...
From vibrant red through to shy
Hints of indigo;
Those vague outlines indicating
Receding hills;
Here, arising, long ago, every waking
Dawning,
The creaking structures
Of groaning and imposing mills;
Soon a slow thawing that quickly
Spills
Into the trickling replenishments
Of many gushing and silvery little
Rills.
Enchantment gripped me!
And I found myself wistfully
Thinking...
Maybe, perhaps, maybe, somewhere,
Just behind where the great
Flattening Orb
Is now rapidly shrinking,
That I might, by perchance, find,
If I did so hope to bravely dare,
To happen upon a hidden and
Sedentary way of life up there?
That, forgotten, has turned its
Back on the social conflicts
Plagued by the curses of ingrained
Vice;
Encumbering a soul with its petty
Squabblings,
Imposing upon with demands and
Avarice...
When placing unnecessary burdens
On a honest bodies daily call
Of grinding toil and wearisome
Strife!
And still stood,
With hands outstretched upon the
Painted sill,
At the waist half-bent,
Now troubled by quiet mutterings
In an inexplicable sorts
Of self-imposed discontent,
My staid consciousness almost
Unawares,
As, momentarily distracted,
I hesitated, and, unseeing,
Inattentively stared...
Until...
A ragged chapter of cawing Daws,
Loudly jabbering overhead,
Suddenly wheeled -
And upwardly soared!
Whereupon, in murderous haste,
Awkwardly fled
When laboriously stealing away
Back inside the stubbled fields...
Thus causing me to slowly straighten;
Whilst, with a singular heartfelt pang,
Liken a moorland mist slowly rolling
Over
That indivisibly conceals...
Drew shut the sullen curtains, which,
Heavily embroidered with indeterminate
finality,
Dejectedly hang...
Each draped aside of the cold
Reveals.
Categories:
laboriously, life,
Form:
Rhyme
A euphoric emptiness that lasts forever
An eternity trapped in tangled time
Emotions that fly through the nilpotent never
A lasting love with a calamitous climb
Floating memories that sail through space
Where tears are shed and shadows weep
And saddened souls have lost their place
Within the dumpsters of the desolate deep
Mind and matter creating crystalline hells
There demons roam with a restless rule
Where blood turns cold with crusted cells
Slowly salivating with their demonic drool
Can love be found in this cabalistic cave
Or is it laboriously lost but only to enslave.
May.30.2016
Categories:
laboriously, emotions, heartbroken, lost love,
Form:
Sonnet
It is a gorgeous spring day, there are greens on both sides of the road.
The smells are fantastic, and my hair is blowing like I’m on a cycle.
I’m actually driving my new purple trans am, windows down, music blaring.
The white racing stripes might have been a bit much, but
Not for me. The sun is beaming on us with magic happy.
BRRRR BRRRR GRRRR
Should I try to outrun him?
He’s gaining on me fast. I glance at speedometer. Swear.
82 m.p.h. This is what happens when I listen to the Oldies.
I pull off, waiting, heart beating fast.
Lanky patrolman pulls himself out of car, gets younger as he gets closer.
“Hi,” I say, brightly.
He says, “License and registration, Ma’am.”
He is carrying his ticket pad, and a pen.
My hands are shaking as I start stammering nonsense.
He studies my license a second, says, “Just a minute, Ma’am,”
Walks back to his car, slides in, sits down, spends an hour or two in there.
I get worried I might have accidentally handed him my big-limit Visa card.
My heart is thudding, as I watch him laboriously walk back to my Trans Am
Who is not feeling so fine and foxy now. “It’s your fault!” I tell her. “You did this!”
“You were going 81,” he tells me. Eighty-two, I wisely don’t say.
“I am giving you an opportunity to slow down, and today, I’m giving you a warning,” he says.
No smile. No expression. He could give a mannequin a lesson in subtle.
I cannot help it. “Why?”
A glimmer of an ant’s smile starts in the left corner of his mouth, for a second, but he quickly snaps it off.
“Here’s the deal, Ma’am,” he tells me. “I stopped this car yesterday, on this same curve. I wouldn’t feel right about giving you a ticket on the same corner, at the same speed after letting your 17-year-old daughter off with a warning.”
In my head I picture my adorable blonde daughter who was wearing white hot-pants yesterday.
As a last hurrah he says, “I’m going to be out here for another two hours, Ma’am.”
We both smile.
This is the best warning I’ve ever had!
Categories:
laboriously, 10th grade, 11th grade,
Form:
Free verse
It was once the pride of a prairie farmer not too many years ago.
Now, long abandoned it stands forlorn on a wind-blown plateau.
Its rusting blades slowly turn at the whim of every passing breeze.
It has weathered the storms of summer and the bitter winter's freeze!
It leans a bit askew and a couple of blades are missing from the shaft,
And it squeals a lot as it laboriously turns with each passing draught.
The rusty weather vane dangles lifelessly having served its vital role.
No life-sustaining water doth it draw for this once busy watering hole!
A couple of stately cedar trees grow nearby as if standing guard,
Over the old windmill's enfeebled frame so twisted and so marred.
The water tank that once over-flowed with cool waters from the well,
Now lies in a corroding heap where not a living thing doth dwell!
A once sturdy barn leans in upon itself nearby in a terrible shambles,
Nearly hidden by ancient oaks and creeping blackberry brambles.
What was once a prosperous farm, alas, is now torn asunder.
Who once dwelt in that archaic homestead, I am left to wonder!
The once beckoning oasis sated the thirst of a multitude of creatures.
A well-worn path is seen leading there - 'tis one of its lasting features.
The verdant prairies for many years with working windmills were replete.
Graceful windmills that graced the landscape are, alas, nearly obsolete!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
© All Rights Reserved
Categories:
laboriously, nostalgia, water, water,
Form:
Rhyme
THE CRADLE OF MANKIND.
The archaeologists of this era
Were about to excitedly find
The Cradle of Mankind
Where the origins of humankind
Had been found, the news was about
To be revealed to the whole world
And so the ears of our globe were glued
To their radios in 1947, they heard,
About this mammoth remarkable finding
Painstakingly excavated , it’s evidence binding.
Mrs Ples’s skull was found,
And with carbon dating,
Archaeologists were rewarded
Most certainly worth waiting!
Estimated to be 2.3 million years’ old.
Mrs Ples (as the archaeologists named her)
All this time had been hidden
For many a year
But there is still more to hear!
It is said that she is the missing link,
We may each think what we want to think!
Archaeologists were about to discover
Other unbelievable phenomena,
Which supported the belief of evolution,
And steered many into total confusion!
God is omnipresent, and
The Alpha and Omega, He has been
Looking down on earth for millenniums
From the beginning of time,
He is omniscient, He believes in me,
And I in Him, He is the Divine!
The Sterkfontein caves are now famous,
Planet Earth was listening, this story was big!
In 1998 archaeologists discover
Yet another important find,
This boggled the mind!
They laboriously dug in this one excavation
Over twenty years, Layer upon layer of ground
And thus Little Foot was found!
He, some say it’s a she, was gently assembled,
And lies in a Pretoria museum,
Together with Mrs Ples,
Archaeologists still dig,
They insist, that there are still hidden treasures
And take great measures,
To work carefully and diligently
Excitedly say there is much more to find
Underneath and beyond the Sterkfontein caves,
Patiently, waiting to uncover
Yet another, one of a kind!
I believe with soul, heart and being
In The Almighty, maybe He even lent the
Archaeologists a helping hand, we cannot
Ignore these finds, they are not fantasy but real
Furthermore we were given the gift of logic,
And ultimately the archaeologists will kneel,
And praise and thank God Almighty!
Categories:
laboriously, god,
Form:
Free verse
The first weakening of night
picks out telephone lines,
black against sky.
The eyelid of a garage door
lurches laboriously up.
A car coughs blue breath.
With aerosols and plastic scrapers
clandestine delights of frostwebs
are raked to chemical sludge.
Starter motors whine.
Windscreens cloud with pain.
Gears grind teeth.
An electric train
gingerly
utters inarticulate from the sheds,
groaning over cold joints.
Thinking grimly
of tunnels ahead,
it flares with ill-humor
crossing the points.
On unworked land beside the track,
a fox is heading home.
Gliding through
beneath the "keep out" sign,
he grins at the engine,
which just judders along,
headlights trained
on parallel lines
which glint ahead,
reflecting lurid signal red,
extending out, but never meeting,
towards the vanishing point.
Categories:
laboriously, society,
Form:
Free verse
Wondering if she will give me the chance
To share my primal love with her alone
Adds to fostering feelings of romance
That have infested my form to the bone
But had she not played it so hard to get
And given of herself to me too soon
I think that I would then live to regret
Not laboriously working the swoon
It is an unfulfilled romance that beats
The lustful, swollen heart within my chest
And too easy a prey the game defeats
Preventing carnal love known at its best
So play the game my beautiful dove
The wait continues in boosting my love
Categories:
laboriously, lovelove, me,
Form:
Sonnet
All his tomorrows rattled by
rumbling along the predestined track
an endless freight train passing
as he sat in traffic at life’s crossing
Lulled into pseudo sleep by the monotony
of the swaying flashes of daylight
he had stopped counting the passing cars
sat in his loneliness, longing for the caboose
That fantasy of life’s last tomorrow
laboriously lumbering into view
blindly following all his yesterdays
disappearing in the hazy heat of passing
John G. Lawless
©11/7/2018
Categories:
laboriously, age, death, life,
Form:
Free verse
She’s coming! Mom said this in a sing-songy way.
She knew that my twin and I were fascinated with Florence,
she was like our new toy. We had been afraid of her for years
due to her wizen face and her propensity to look like an older
version of the witch from The Wizard of Oz.
We ran out there like salivating puppies,
waiting for Florence to regale us with stories of hangings
or killing snakes, stories that gave us nightmares.
We were ten, ten-year-old girls live for nightmares, right?
She was leading Charming, one of her favorite goats,
as she laboriously walked toward us, head down, black hat,
nearly touching her shoulders. Her white gray hair was flying
out on one side. She stopped right before she reached us,
not looking up.
“Hey, Florence!” my twin and I both said at the
exact same time. I could tell she was smiling.
“Came to see Charming, huh?” she asked.
Then she giggled, but it was more like a cackle.
A cackle that used to terrorize us, but now it delighted us.
She was our new toy, she and Charming.
Categories:
laboriously, 10th grade, 11th grade,
Form:
Prose Poetry
The first weakening of night
picks out telephone lines,
black against sky.
The eyelid of a garage door
lurches laboriously up.
A car coughs blue breath.
With aerosols and plastic scrapers
clandestine delights of frostwebs
are raked to chemical sludge.
Starter motors whine.
Windshields cloud with pain.
Gears grind teeth.
An electric train
gingerly
utters inarticulate from the sheds,
groaning over cold joints.
Thinking grimly
of tunnels ahead,
it flares with ill-humor
crossing the points.
On unworked land beside the track,
a fox is heading home.
Gliding through
beneath the "keep out" sign,
he grins at the engine,
which just judders along,
headlights trained
on parallel lines
which glint ahead,
reflecting lurid signal red,
extending out, but never meeting,
towards the vanishing point.
Categories:
laboriously, work,
Form:
Free verse
Nevermore, Translation of Paul Verlaine’s sonnet : Nevermore
(In this translation of Paul Verlaine’s « Nevermore » , I must say I felt inveigled into adhering to the fixed form by making some unnecessary allowances just in order to respect the rime scheme. It would have been better if I had abandoned the effort at laboriously keeping to the original’s end-rimes. T. Wignesan)
Souvenirs, souvenirs, what do you want of me ? Autumn
Invites the thrush to fly through the air lifeless sans tone,
And the sun beats its rays down : relentless monotone
Over the yellowing wood where claps the North wind’s thunder tone.
We were walking all by ourselves as if in a dream,
She and I, haïr and thoughts buffeted by the wind’s non-esteem.
All of a sudden, she turned towards me her looks agleam
« Which was your most beautiful day ? » did her lively golden voice beam.
Her voice soft and sonorous, a fresh timbre angelic.
A discreet smile she did redeem as a reaction cyclic,
And her blanched hand I kissed with devoutness.
Oh ! the first flowers, how their scent liberates perfumes !
And the first sounds they emit akin to charming murmur
The first « yes » that escapes the lips of virgin dames consumes !
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2013
Categories:
laboriously, love,
Form:
Sonnet
He was laboriously looking
for that one perfect peach
with soft salubrious skin,
radiantly rounded with
robust, rubicund curves,
crying to be caressed,
coddled and cuddled.
Her bashfully blushing rosy red
cheeks on pale peach skin
immediately caught his attention
as she sat right there for the picking!
Oh, to kiss those juicy joyful
lovely lips, again and again!
She stood out among her friends
who were gathered in hues of green. . .
For she was ruddy, regal
and romantically ripe--his type!
Her body sweetly, softly stimulating,
and so tantalizingly tender to the touch;
Her sensual scent, pure peach!
When he held her in his arms
and she coyly conversed,
he had vestige visions of
copious cobbler on his mind!
Categories:
laboriously, passion, romance, sensual,
Form:
Alliteration
The Birth
1
Breathe baby—breathe.
2
Out of the darkness of night
crept the dawn;
steaming with thirst
the dry mouth sun rose
inebriating its self
with the morning dew—
leaving empty blades of grass
scattered across the landscape.
3
The lazy old sea
urged on by quite winds
laboriously spat out
lethargic waves—whimpering
tears of fickle frothed faces
repeatedly slapped at the shores.
4
A lone sea gull sliced
through the salt laden air
leaving a pasty white trail—
an umbilical reminder—left
behind the perilous journey’s end.
5
Laying in veranda hammock
of roped womb, I cracked a smile—
whispering to the Creator—singing
praises for yet another birth of day.
Categories:
laboriously, allegory, analogy, birth, celebration,
Form:
Prose Poetry
Boxes and cupboards, closets and drawers
I am retrieving everything from my past
And freeing them to a world of usage
Even old wine will be opened
And that set of china too expensive to use
Except on special occasions will be used again
Because today is my special occasion
Just as will be everyday in my new beginning
Those rose-shaped candles will become
Puddles of wax and the silverware
Brought out only to laboriously clean
Will be used on hotcakes and omelets
I will resurrect all the things that were preserved
Bottles of cologne and after shave
From Christmases long past will find the bathroom shelf
Where they will be used until exhausted
What has passed the fashion or current vogue
Will be given to the poor and photos
Once too painful to see will find walls to live upon
And jigsaw puzzles will be joined into their rightful image
And old records played with a tinny remembrance
As I bring life again to my somber world of aloneness
Where memories thrive without validation
And need the reference of old things long forgotten
Categories:
laboriously, freedom, introspection, philosophy, world,
Form:
Free verse
Under sun's warm breath and winter's frozen moon
To the river's fast current and society's torment
I promised to enshrine you in my cocoon-
Save you when all others' did circumvent.
They saw you exhausting and jaded
A mind turned mad- full of tragic despair
I knew you as exuberant and unweighted
Full of life, love and amiable flair
I loved you- serving was no favor
I sought to be your crusading savior-
Dear friend- you were so frail
Tried though, laboriously,
fate had another plan -
In the end, my friend, you- I failed.
For the Nailed or Failed contest by Black Eyed Susan
Categories:
laboriously, friendship, loss,
Form:
Rhyme