Best Level Best Poems
Dear Children,
I can only give you a deep love that lasts
The span of my lifetime, nothing less.
On a quotidian basis, you will feel
The warmth of my embrace.
You will inevitably make mistakes,
And it's okay to make them.
You learn and grow from them.
They make you a better human being.
Never be wounded by constructive criticism;
Welcome it, give it to others when warranted..
They also help people learn and grow.
Don't be defined by your shortcomings,
You're human because of them.
Trouble me with your troubles, anytime.
Yes, my dear children, you can talk to me
About anything, and I mean anything!
I promise always to be emotionally available,
To tell you uncomfortable truths about life,
To be of comfort to you when you feel pain,
To dry every tear I see you cry,
To help push you to the summit
Of the highest mountain,
To help you reach the pinnacle
Of any dream you may dream,
To do my best in explaining the confusing,
To protect you from harm of any kind.
Never be less than who you truly are.
Shine your light in this word, my dear child.
Always strive to do your level best.
Always trust your instincts,
And faithfully follow it; never question it!
Always treat people with respect and dignity.
Waste no time with toxic people
That want to bring you down.
Waste no time dwelling on conditions
beyond your control; God is always at the helm.
Practice patience, it's really a virtue.
Believe in God and say your prayers, always.
It costs absolutely nothing to be
A good person. It gets you far in life.
Categories:
level best, encouraging, meaningful, wisdom,
Form:
Didactic
Why the long face, son? Did someone die?
Aw, Dad. I flunked my math exam
Did you do your level best, son?
I did, Dad. I studied so hard for the test
You know that's all I ask of you, son
And everything is always for the best. Right, Dad?...
What's up, son? Are those tears streaming down your cheeks?
Aw, Dad. I didn't make the varsity basketball team
Did you try your level best, son?
You know I did, Dad. I trained so hard last summer
That's all I can ask of you, my son
And everything is always for the best, Dad...
Is everything ok, son? You look like you saw a ghost
I did lousy on the law boards, Dad
Did you do your level best, son?
I don't know, Dad. I thought I did. But--
--But everything is always for the best, son. You know that by now.
You're right, Dad. Everything is always for the best...
Dad, you're not here with me on this Earth anymore
But your words live on inside me, and
They are of great comfort to me now, Dad
And you were right. Everything is always for the best--
I flunked the math exam because I was not meant
to be a statistician or a computer programmer
I didn't make the varsity team because I was not
cut out to be a great basketball player
I did lousy on the law boards because I never
really wanted to be a lawyer, not in my heart...
I'm a part-time poet now, Dad. That's right
My wonderful poetic friends and I are busy, busy
We create tempting, tasty dishes of Poetry Soup
~ And hereby serve up today's soup de jour, Dad
Everything really and truly is always for the best
February 11, 2019
Entry in "Repetition" Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Cecelia Hopkins-Drewer
Categories:
level best, father son, inspirational, relationship,
Form:
Free verse
I woke up
With a headache
In that morning with a sombre sky
With my tea cup in hand I opened the newspaper
Got struck with a front page news: Fire in Book Fair
Ah! That’s why the vapoured wisdoms and burnt poems
Have created this grim nature – to mourn their comrades death
I was excited to experience the feelings for the first time in my life
Doctors told me “there is risk, the baby may be premature”
But we didn't have any other choice than this one only
Let the baby come out to get some fresh air here
I heard the cry, Oh! My god, the baby was okay
The Sister came and called me up to see
I jumped in the air in joy -
My fatherhood
07.03.16
It is very difficult to create any shape with two stanzas. Still I have tried my level best to represent the morning sun through my piece.
Categories:
level best, bereavement, books, father, joy,
Form:
Shape
Honesty
By: Miracle Man
8/7/2019
When things go awry,
It’s man’s nature to place blame.
Accusations and innuendos,
Become the name of the game.
While ignoring the shortcomings,
In our own persona.
We explore our list of prospects,
Seeking out our next Jonah.
But when good things happen,
Pertinent facts we’ll edit.
Doing our dead level best,
To find a way to take credit.
Categories:
level best, integrity,
Form:
Lyric
To post, or not to post
That is the question
Does it dance? Does it flow?
If so -- and not until -- then post it
Does it sing? Resonate and ring?
If so -- and not until -- then post it
Is it spare? Does it show?
If so -- and not until -- then post it
Is it from the heart?
Does it touch the soul?
If so -- and not until -- then post it
Does it make you cry?
Grin? Grimace? Purr? Exult?!
Or laugh out loud?
If so -- and not until -- then post it
Are you satisfied?
Is it your level best?
If so -- and not until -- then post it
Categories:
level best, poetry, poets, pride,
Form:
Free verse
“For I have seen you from far places
Shinning in bold light because you are made
Of Copper and tellurium; CuTe,
You are like the transition metals
You display love of many colours,
You are the sunshine that speeds up the release of
Oxygen I breathe in gears of photosynthesis,
How cute?
Periodic table of my love,
May we physically bond?
And be like the ionic bond
To display our love like graphs on the Cartesian plane
May our love be hard to fuse like
Like ions with the intra-molecular forces of attraction
Be like an equal sign,
And you call me “Lo” and I’ll call you “Ve”
So we can produce a product called LOVE when we fuse?
Damsel you are like a sensory neurone to me,
You act like an enzyme on my happiness,
You duplicate my happiness to its level best,
You become a protractor when I’m down there,
My oxygen,
My love gene,
My star akin
That shines my goal scene
How?
You become a kinetic energy
When I’m drowned by poverty
Caused by long struggle of loneliness,
My love,
My heart,
You are the love in the oxygenated blood
That enters my double pump
Through the pulmonary vein,
You are like a scientific calculator that smoothens
My number struggle,
May I say?
May I play with you like letters of algebra?
May I be the gradient in that steep slope
That will take us to the home of our love?
I mean the periodic table of our need
Let’s heed through like a linear sequence
And be like…
Periodic table of my love.
Let’s make love and shine like crystals obtained
After crystallisation,
Accelerate uniformly like a pair of ethanol as it slangs
Between bonds of chlorophyll,
Let’s chill and make our love our quadratic homework,
So you will tell me when I’m wrong like when it reads Error 1,
2 or 3,
My periodic table of love,
I want to watch your curves that reminds me of the brackets in
Mathematics,
Touch your majestic body that makes me to cry when I’m about
To slice an onion,
May our love be like the mitochondrion?
May you be my nucleus?
And guide me like equations of motion,
Drive my innocent mind into your bosom akin to
That of an angel,
Periodic table of my love,
Be my love,
Be my time,
Be my tickler,
Be my world,
Be the periodic table of my love.”
Categories:
level best, africa, art, love, ,
Form:
Ballad
Limericks crochetés : Once a Bar Student in the fifties
Once a Bar Student in the fifties
Hoped to finish quickly his law studies:
Some students tipped him off
Pass-list clerk Good Enough
Will shift around marks for Five Guineas!
One late Singh Bar-at-Law, Seremban
Took finals with student Wei Ni Shan:
May nineteen-fifty six
Trinity exam fix:
Who was called to the Bar if not Shan?
Said Singh: “Week before results are known
At Council of Legal Sovereign Crown:
In open envelope
Put five guineas like dope:
Clerk will to refectory come down.”
Now Singh had booked his return passage
His fee reached clerk by special message:
“What! Only five guineas?”
Wei Ni Shan made much pleas.
“Once on Pass List give more to assuage!”
For decades choice invitee at bars
Was you know who: O! Do-good-er woes!
Look up or down: East-West
Never at him in jest:
Think: all the good he did to Yahoos!
Wei Ni Shan twice went to refectory
Early one morning at nine-thirty:
Saw West and East Indians
All shot-up onions:
Drop their envelopes in mail-rack tree!
Mister Do-Good-er was good enough
The hundreds of lives not to think of
All over Empire
Famished straits all dire
Waiting for Barrister to lift off !
When empires crumble on last legs
Old Masters then hatch sly loaded eggs
Ensuring level best
Way to scuttle the rest:
Yahoos make enslaved Houyhnhnm dregs !
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2014
Categories:
level best, education, england,
Form:
Limerick
We hope that Early English dance alone retains its zest,
to charm and please our devotees, we do our level best.
We’re not quite sure if all we do, has quite the Morris ring;
but, anyway, we’ll strut around then try and do our thing.
We ring our bells like this, we tap our sticks like that;
we know it looks preposterous to wear this silly hat.
But if it’s not exactly right, we hope you won’t upbraid;
you can’t arrange a jig or set, like trousers - ready made!
~
For Debbie's Native Cultures Competition.
Categories:
level best, confusion, dance, hope,
Form:
Verse
I will still be here waiting
Long after time is called
And every opportunity has been spurned
Because at this moment
I am so endlessly tired
Find myself craving sleep
And in need of a break
Some precious rest
Or merely a change
And if that doesn't come anytime soon
I am eventually going to be forced
into letting go of the string on my
lead balloon
And embrace another impending doom
way after noon when I finally stir and
try my level best to awaken
To the impending sunset followed by
perennial darkness eminating from
my black tar molasses heart and soul
For I am he who for who the Midnight
Christmas Mass Bell's Toll
Categories:
level best, slam,
Form:
Free verse
That cancer has ravaged my family, it is true
My mom first with melanoma at age forty-two,
Bone cancer took my Uncle Cladie for a ride
Until the pain caused him to commit suicide,
My dad lost his battle to non-Hodgkins lymphoma
Then, my wife Deb succumbed to a rare carcinoma.
I believe most forms of cancer we can prevent
Doctors say our lifestyles can cause us to present,
Not availing ourselves of many self-cancer tests
While ingesting carcinogens and being stressed,
Using tobacco products like there is no tomorrow
Will sooner or later cause us more than sorrow.
If one of your close relatives died from the disease
It’s a warning signal you cannot do as you please
Eat nutritious foods, exercise, get plenty of rest
The least to be said is doing your dead-level best
To maintain a healthy lifestyle with a regular check
Do not say, “We’re all going to die—what the heck!”
Yes, it is true, we are all going to die…someday
Experiencing the suffering from cancer, I can say,
Leads me to believe there is a much better way
So, heed the advice I am sharing with you today,
Believe me, my friend, tobacco use is not okay.
Please, do not let a frivolous habit make you pay!
FIRST PLACE WINNER
May 31, 2021
written for the "Cancer Ivy" Poetry Contest
sponsored by Chantelle Anne Cooke
(an abbreviated sestina)
[NOTE: I purposely chose the provocative title to attract
as many readers as possible. It's an important message!]
Categories:
level best, cancer, death, family, history,
Form:
Rhyme
Never Quit
If you broken like tamarind stick
ONCE
Try not quitting your pleasurable life
PLEASE
Think about it positively many times.
Dear why you thinking to quit
JUST
Down to shame, regrets and discomfort
HAVE
Hope and try your level best to get a reward.
If not believe these smiling words
THEN
Open your ears and get this lesson
INSIDE
Many quit when they were close to success.
Categories:
level best, education, emotions, encouraging, inspiration,
Form:
Rhyme
There is no nation
That can succeed unless they
Try their level best
Categories:
level best, inspirational, people, social, visionary,
Form:
Haiku
Paper planes and paper boats linger ever in my memory
As reminders of my joyful childhood days
My dreams and fancy used to soar high along with the planes
On seeing them first, how my curiosity happened to blaze
With much interest I watched them being made from paper
My elder siblings cut sheets of paper in square and folded them intact
In no time, planes were made with wings and pointed beaks
And they verily resembled the cute little sparrows in flight
Back from school, on sunny evenings, they would go out.
Though they tried their level best to make them fly,
Soon after 'take off', some would awkwardly crash land
Tottering and diving down, never rising into the expanse of the sky
As I watched them play outside in great excitement
I wished to join them and share their animated joy
But never was I allowed to go out, still seen as a 'babe'
Confined to home, I was content playing with my toy
As I grew up and started school, made paper planes myself
With friends, I enjoyed flying them into the sky
We frolicked with passing wind and flowing river
There was always something to keep our spirits high
Years have elapsed with the speed of supersonic planes
And as time pulled the blind on my carefree childhood
Those paper planes continue to remain as emblematic totems
Taking me to the sunlit alleys of bliss as I grapple with adulthood
August- 30.2022
Paper Airplanes Poetry Contest
Sponsor- John Lawless
Categories:
level best, childhood, flying, games, passion,
Form:
Rhyme
As I stood gazing through the windows ,
A light lit in the far way meadows .
Wondering at the sight ,
I tiptoed with all my might ,
Only to find a stranger in the isolated hut .
He lowered his gaze as I stood there mouth shut
and requested for a night's stay,
for he was a lost traveler without a way.
His speech belonged to those of high stands
and garb of those of the Grand's.
With a tinge of pity ,I let him rest
Providing him with the things to my level best.
As the dawn broke ,I hurried
Only to find him good in his limbs.
He bowed down to me and wished a hearty goodbye
For he was none other than the Prince of Molokai .
-Ism
Categories:
level best, adventure, dedication, good night,
Form:
Well, me and them rats polished off them chicken legs and I headed fer the door.
The sheriff handed me my 44s sayin, "Son, I don't wanna see you here no more!
Now git outta Santa Fe and don't go stealin' no man's horse or his saddle!"
With that we shook hands, I grabbed my hat and made a hasty skedaddle!
I hopped the midnight freight headin' fer El Paso whar that preacher man was at.
I was gonna git religion and straighten up and that's all thar was to that!
He was preachin' hell and brimstone at a revival meetin' at the edge of town.
With my hat I brushed the dust from my britches, strolled in and set down.
He was up thar a-wavin' his arms like he was fendin' off a swarm of bees!
When they sung "Jes As I Am" I ran to the altar and fell upon my knees!
I give my soul to the Lord and vowed right thar to become a preacher man,
To save the souls of thieves, soiled doves and gamblers to carry out His plan!
I ain't gonna git rich a-preachin - collections is sparse, but what the hell!
(Er 'scuse me Lord! I've gotta control my cussin' as Ya can tell!")
I got me a hoss legal like and a Bible and started out on my mission.
I was hell bent (scuse me agin Lord) to bring about the devil's disposition!
(He preached in saloons with his 44s and Bible spread out on the bar.
He did his level best to save their wicked souls from sin and hellfar.
For fifty years he preached and saved souls throughout the rowdy west.
When he reached the Pearly Gates, He said, "Son, ya did yer very best!")
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
© All Rights Reserved
Categories:
level best, funny, me, bible, bible,
Form:
Rhyme