Best Leavings Poems
Inspired by the write of you
creamed through a paper sieve to cup
with both hands the leavings that you trail
the write of you
like the chewed edge of hand pressed paper
like the apostrophe of lash on the cheeky page
I ogle the syncopated semen-antic drop of
the write of you
how often does the wonder of you flash
across the film of my eyes unable reach
for I am so enchanted with the coffee-au-lait
write of you
Categories:
leavings, romance, write, write,
Form:
Free verse
The moon so bold seems cold
with a halo of midnight glow
I sit mesmerized as the night grows old.
I bleed still, even after all these years
and I wait again through the night
aching in the depths of my soul
that no other seems to know
the Loneliness that has become my companion.
In the darkness we wait and confide in the other
our deepest fears as memories fade
in and out each season of change
the nostalgia tempers the wars of pain
this tempestuous foe of ours
wails at the gates of midnight
howling the warble of humanities last grace.
How the comfort of minds and hearts
turn from light to deep dark in the face
of eternities long time clock...
I ache with wanting, with need and passion
it is a lie that time heals and wounds scar
each night is fresh like the first
when I faced realities shock.
Who can wait with me?
Who can hold this hound at bay?
Who can cherish what little love left in me
and make the broken whole?
I ache to be loved again as the love that burns
and waits inside of me.
Who can comfort this emptiness and fill the void
that so many leavings have left?
Cherish and love to honor and protect
but who can slay these demons that hold my heart in wrath?
Who will walk the sulfur clouds of hell to save my mind
and deliver my world to the gates of heaven
with life, not death bridging the distance of pain?
I sit and wait at the floor of the moon each night
waiting for that bridge to carry me yonder,
this moon who hangs heavy and ripe with the yearning of my soul
with clouds aglow as if I could sweep them across a canvas
with the brush held in your hand
I rage at her as I wait, but still I wait and weep
as Loneliness and I keep each others company
wishing the clouds of that great moon could truly create
a way to find the lost, a pathway to home, lit by the legacy our love.
Internal rhyme
Imagery
Assonance
Alliteraton
Repetition
Synesthesia
Categories:
leavings, absence, analogy, cry, december,
Form:
Free verse
Quarried, and carved from our earthen mother's skeletal
Backbone and under belly, were the Moai solid rock deities,
Stone guardians of Easter Island.
A mystical place, a harvested paradise, but nothing remains
Of the people whom built this land of living statues, except
For these harden faces, looking towards the ocean, as if in
Wait for their native worshipers to return.
Sit and listen my friend, to the whispering in the wind,
Do you hear the low humming sound, rolling across
The rocky and jagged surf.
It is the Moai, calling unto the five raw elements of the world.
Let us live again, to walk among the heavens vast
Divides, and to feel the winds breeze at our faces
Once more.
Slowly the ground shifts and moves, rumbles and
Quakes, lightening splits as thunder strikes against
The harden ground, nature itself has heard them,
And answers their wishes with life anew.
Shedding layers textures by depths degree, piece by
Piece, stone turns into gravel, rough rock is smoothed,
Hued by mystic incantations spell, brick becomes
Bone, and nature answers their wishes with life anew.
Living giants pull themselves up out of the earth,
Shaking away debris's leavings, and thus shall
Stone breaths, inhaling freedom's fresh air at last.
Behold the living god's of Stone, guardians of
An ancient culture lost unto time itself.
But at dusk's fading sunset, the spell is thus
Broken and slowly these giant figures take
Their places once again, melting as if it
Never happened, yet the humming still
Lingers echoing across the ocean.
For stone God's never forget, and waiting
On Easter Island do they so sit, monuments
To a people whom disappeared without a trace.
But their deities shall call unto them until
One day they'll return, and then maybe
Giants again shall walk this earth in
Celebration, to feast amongst their people
Once more.
BY: CHERYL ANNA DUNN
Categories:
leavings, adventure, art, beauty, culture,
Form:
Free verse
Be not soft upon the morrow
For the maliciousness it contrives.
The future beckons unending sorrow
To gamely catch the vulture's eye.
'Tis the destiny of mice and men
To be laid waste by nature's curse.
Where foolishness belied of ink and pen
Will by the margins burst.
Persist not in vacuous dreaming
To make bold some vague intent.
Obviate all grift and scheming
To survive the main event.
There are those with want of glory
To lead sluggish minds astray.
With a foreshadow of song and story
For those with one foot in the grave.
These stygian forces stand ready
To make dark such days to come.
They seamlessly evoke some cosmic eddy
Where weathered voices go unsung.
We are pawns to this game we borrow
With our future slaked with pain.
If your happiness lies on the morrow...
You will be despondent once again.
If you're consumed by fear and trouble
With clouds toned a spectre-grey.
Prepare for further ruin and rubble
With a new sunrise on the way.
Put away burbling of blissful leavings
You think the morrow may provide
With the approach of another evening,
You will not long survive the tide.
You may bloviate a ray of sunshine,
Pushing hope where none exists
With an ignorance to the grand design
Where winds of chaos oft persist.
I will grant the morrow stands untainted
With yet no mark on time and space
But remove this cheer you've now acquainted
And forever leave my hiding place.
The End
*Follow my cartoon at Webtoon Bob's Your Uncle.
Categories:
leavings, dark, humanity, judgement,
Form:
Rhyme
I slept beneath bridges, I ate from the trash
I begged outside diners at night and in day
No home to go to, no belongings, no cash
And picked up the leavings that folk threw away
I baked in the heat, I froze in the cold
I weathered long winters and welcomed the spring
Wanting some comfort before I got old
Wanting some care so much more than some thing
Then one day while I lay outside a pub
The swells of the smells coming out strong
In want of a drink or a morsel of grub
Through swinging doors a man came along
My muzzle nuzzled the man and his bag
He ruffled my fur, my tail gave its first wag
Categories:
leavings, best friend, hope,
Form:
Sonnet
You’re always dragging on me--
got your sticky icky leavings all
pver the place,
any place most inconvenient.
Always kind of spooky, nervous
but defiant too, back up
step out, get nose to nose
as if to say you’re here for good.
I know it’s you, at night, tasting
my eyes, making me wiggle
and a little itchy
squirmy but never squished, somehow…
One day there’s one of you,
lurking in a corner, the next, a window,
under floorboards, cupboards, skittering
all over my floor and ceilings
and in my clothes so when I undress
there you are, sitting like a star
right on my breast. Okay. I needed that.
To scream. Whack at something
so terribly invasive, biting,
so terribly unobtrusive, until
you leave your icky sticky leavings
as bumps all over me. When
were you walking over me, in the dark
while I dreamed, taking over
saying I’m a leaving little spider left.
Categories:
leavings, animal, betrayal, environment, giving,
Form:
Quatrain
The Carrion Crow
Crows abound in the
neighborhood and around the
yard. Often in early morning a
great, noisy caw-fest occurs.
A carrion crow
sat on an oak, fol de rid-
dle, lol de riddle…
Only tiny oaks sprout here and
there, as planted by industrious
blue jays. Crows sit in the
neighbors' incense cedar,
redwoods and other
miscellaneous, unlooked-after
bushes.
Watching a taylor
Shape his cloak; Sing heigh-ho
the
carrion crow, fol…
Crows are very smart, it's
known. They can pick latches,
love to collect small shiny
objects and are good thieves.
Wife bring me my old,
bent bow, fol de riddle, lol
De riddle, hi ding…
Crows in this neighborhood are
urban crows. It may be this
makes them smarter than their
country cousins. Nevertheless
they are well nourished and
sleek for living on the city
streets.
That I may shoot
Yon carrion crow; sing heigh-
Ho, the carrion…
Crows often crack a walnut by
dropping it repeatedly from a
street light standard. There's
an instance in town where a
house down-spout was clogged
with too many shells. A crow or
crows opened nuts while on the
roof.
The Taylor he shot
And missed his mark, fol de
rid-
dle, lol de riddle…
A crow across town enjoyed a
left-over, smashed-flat-in-a-
parking lot, bag of French-fry
and hamburger leavings; held
the paper down with a foot and
picked it clean.
And shot his old sow
Quite through the heart; sing
heigh-ho
The carrion crow,
Fol-de-riddle, lol de riddle, hi
ding do.
Wife bring brandy—in
A spoon for our old sow is
In a swoon! Heigh-ho…
Categories:
leavings, animal
Form:
Haibun
The Bitter End of the Road
Travelers coalesce as if from as dense fog
about the grounds of the retreat.
The lodge shimmers silver-gray
amongst the changing autumn woods.
The gravel way diminishes in rearview mirrors
with the pinging sound of pebbles against
the metal horses of the day.
Civilization, ever trampling,
encroaches upon what ages ago
had been a pristine forest, now swarms
to the Lodge’s gates:
ants to the picnic
late comers in search of the scraps,
the leavings,
of much abused nature.
Slamming car doors, buzzing cell phones,
endless chatter accosts the forest’s skirt.
Beaten paths awaited those stalwart enough
to venture in, rushing ever forward
and upward
through the crunch of fallen leaves,
the snap of branch,
the distant warble of unseen birds.
Water, when near, adds
its own rush, and babble.
But, the smaller critters seem to have vanished
tracks and spoor, trampled
whether in reverence or disregard;
it matters not.
In our ever onward rush to enjoy,
the sounds of cricket,
cicada, the squirrels chitter,
the owls call;
we by our mere presence
destroy.
First Published by Poetry Quaterly
Categories:
leavings, nature,
Form:
Free verse
Condemned to fifty lashes.
Skin split...blood flowed
from the quivering flesh.
Helpless, she suffered the pain.
Time healed the deep wounds
leavings ugly scars on her back
a stark reminder of injustice,
shouldering the blame for being
an innocent victim of male rape.
Permanently, she carries the scars,
ugly, yet beautiful....
when compared to the invisible
emotional scar that hurts forever.
--------------------------------------
24th November 2015
Contest: Beautiful scars
Author: Paul Callus
Sponsor: Laura Urbaniak
Placed 2nd
Categories:
leavings, sad,
Form:
Free verse
In a house by a highway by a railroad
Eyes open to a self-set sleep-destroying buzzer
That waking mind impudently pretends
To ignore.
Penetrating the window barrier
The air conducts a heavy diesel lullaby.
Over wealthier suburbs slips a transport,
Supersonic, though no sweeter music,
For rich and poor alike a boon to sleep;
Heard only by more wicked insomniacs
For whom the watch's competent hum is a dirge.
Descending in a shower of metallic disintegration
Three men ignite the atmospheric blindfold, survive,
Do not plunge white-hot into the sea, a common meteor,
But drift coolly down on nylon wings
To the waiting Carrier of the 300 lb. Angelfood.
The mind shrinks
From the prospect of that confrontation,
From the phallic disruption of Christian paradise,
Then cries,
'Oh, let there be nothing on earth but leavings,
Nothing but star-ships on a photon sea…'
Now begins man's search for a Southland.
Yet, as light passes venetian blinds,
Like music through classical guitar strings,
Touching the softened form of familiar Love,
The rods of the eye wander adagio
Along the bars of a century-old sight before rising,
'Dethrone the convict from electric eclipse,
Redress the squalid in disposable, dust-free clothing,
Release the lovers to their denouement…'
The earth womb trembles in the last pains
Of the dark hour,
Heralding man's difficult birth.
Categories:
leavings, life, nostalgia, , Lullaby,
Form:
Blank verse
(In the 17th c, many women were falsely accused of being witches. Many were banished, and more were burnt at the stake. Of course, none of them were witches, but due to ignorance and intolerance by so-called educated clergy, the women were falsely accused and condemned to die).
Like black rain over the meadow grass
Crows hover amid cackle and harsh laugh
To feed on seed of tomorrow's harvest
Leaving us all with meager leavings.
There they stood with gowns flapping
Like black wing of flocking crows
Cackling in judgment sober and stern
To deprive us of life and liberty.
Caged in a dungeon cold and dark
Beneath the kirks lofty roof
Without water and our daily bread
Were starved and scared into confession.
With false witness we were condemned
Sentenced before a trial took place
Tied to a stake and burned alive
Our souls travelled into paradise.
On Orkneys verdant green grass,
Graze our kye and our yowes
Since time began has it been thus
Shadows float black in sky above.
Categories:
leavings, abuse, allegory, bird, culture,
Form:
Ballad
Non descript hedge rows sculpted into ornamental animal
via botanical artist wielding pruning shears and chain saw
carved, limned and sculpted with wrist wrought voila uber
prestidigitatiously head turning botanical picturesque Sun
kist animals at an exhibition transformed miraculously via
Te Deum divine fist bumping, whence realistic fauna burst
alive with an explosion of colorful twist and shout of foliage,
where scalloped superfluous detritus manna for naturalist
deciduous detritus capacious carpet boar animation punk
chew waiting groundswell Liszt ghost would arise from the
grave to produce magnum opus without a beat missed such
shrubbery mimicking the likeness sans glistening fleshy sin
yew, and gist about ready to become bone a fide (green be
hind the ears) thriving vox populist, per species and genus
wrought thrashing into birth as delicate craftsman promised
to imbue life, liberty and pursuit of happiness whittling away
leavings, thus did exist the nascent then omnipresent visible
entity emerging from cocoon an herbalist metamorphosed
from the imagination of a skilled, practiced and mentalist
conniver viz extracting the initially obscure blessed beast,
where with august magic wielding tools of this specialty vis
a vis bringing breathing manifest destiny ala Pinocchio (trans
formed from wood to flesh), whereby finest dexterous
chiseling blistering hands baffle onlookers as coterie of
topiary harvest breaths mind bogglingly astoundingly
authentic rooted ready to frolic in the grass menagerie
a gamesome group of linkedin live progeny, the Michel
Angelo of dirtiest canvass, an earthen tabula rasa of sorts
where application threshing re: electric cool laid ahs hid
test brings out chlorophyll doppelganger green hued key luster.
Categories:
leavings, appreciation, art, beauty, creation,
Form:
Along the alleys of my old village
a squalid dog followed me
flee-bitten, rabbit-faced
Give me some leavings, he whined
just a bit of left-over heart
I am starving to death.
I was coming from the poultry shop
so I gave him some chicken giblets.
He said, Now you are mine
since I ate your heart
and he always, always follows me
ill-fated me!
Categories:
leavings, allegory,
Form:
Free verse
inspired by nature contest theme
The wood pigeon awoke on her roosting perch,
fluttered with a nervous jerk;
warilysearching for sustenance,
above the peregrine made a fateful entrance.
The winter harsh and icy cold,
driven far from its familiar fold,
seeking food further afield
to an urban garden that might increase its yield.
Under a biting wintry sky
the short tailed falcon hovered high,
an efficient killer from above,more than a
match for pigeon or dove.
Taking its chosen meal in flight,swooping sudden from
a great height,
the momentum imprinting our window pane,
her throat slashed she soon was slain.
Talons sunk deep into the pigeons chest
this finicky eater pecked at head and breast.
The lawn strewn leavings of a ravenous raptor,
as nature's journal leafs another chapter.
Categories:
leavings, bird, death, nature,
Form:
Dramatic Monologue
Forever in the wind, the gale, the tempest gone……
though, lingering caress of cheek and thigh remains
as does the precious memory of fires glow.
Winds leavings lesson, shreds the sheets of time’s retreat
and, at last, the snow melts listless in spring’s arms, warm.
Soft breezes tease her auburn hair, she sighs “Oh, love..”
The flames of brash passion bank with his absence,"Love.."
The woodland cottage shutter bang , they say “He’s gone…”
Around her unclad form, he’d wrapped his cloak so warm,
where maiden laid abed within, his sweet scent remains.
The war had come and he must go, he must retreat.
The ripening moon has passed behind the clouds a glow
Yet, deep within a single seed, follows nature’s glow.
The pulse, the heart, the art, of tales, unbridled... love.
No amount of jeers or warnings can bring retreat,
for he is not removed, dismissed, a leaving gone.
See his eyes reflected from the face where she remains?
See the brand he’s placed upon her heart, so warm.
Clarity can not make more clear, the trace of warmth
No prismatic glass can intensify the glow.
The brilliant bloom, the blush, so, it doth remain.
When willow weeps upon the wind, she shan’t for love.
Ne’er lay like Ophelia on the water “He’s gone…….”
A gifting he has left, a grace, in his retreat.
That winter wind which blew the fairest love to his retreat
left empty days and nights of gloom no longer warm.
“Oh, he harried all the dark emotions….gone…….”
and left a different brightness, a face a glow.
Soon, with the fall of maple leaves, she’ll bare his love
and all that matters in this world with thus remain.
A wee bairn will birth from such love and will remain.
Upon bosom blessed, he’ll rest with pain in retreat.
The fairy folk will not receive her dearest love.
The skirt of meadow grass will not his wee frame warm
for her longing has been fulfilled with this child's glow,
the forest god’s and she can see that he ne’er gone.
The bairn remains, his gift, memory unwrapped, warm.
The retreat of fire forces internal glow
for love she’d given all her heart, and he ne’er gone.
Categories:
leavings, devotion, lost love, love,
Form:
Sestina