Best Libations Poems
Amadioha the great god of Thunder and Justice
We have gathered at the shrine of Alusi’gwe
To pour libations to you
Even as I do my folk song
Bring me the ogene, to awaken the spirit of my
Forbearers to witness the doomsday they foretold
Give me the udu, to sound out a warning to the futureman
Give me the oja, the special voice of oganigwe the dreaded masquerade
Give the shekere, so that the women of owu can shake their enchanted waist
In love and tranquillity we lived with our neighbours, doing our folk song
Buddha called out to Lord Brahman
Set aside a room for me in the inner chamber
Decorated with beautiful ornaments, to depict love and care
Flanked with candles and incense burner and the beautiful statue of the wise man
To help me escape from the corruption of this world
As I attempt to wake from hatred of neighbours
Focusing on love and purity of heart
Allow me do my folk song living in tranquillity with nature and neighbours
Christed you said you are, servant of the son of God sent from above
Your brother claimed that you are a messenger from Allah
What is this confusion I see, contradicting even your folk song
You came with a sweet tongue of love, yet all I see is terrorism and
A holy war fought by crusaders crushing the bones of the unbelievers
Those who worship idols yet lived a life akin to nature – a life of love
You have created a polarised world of Christed men with less shame for evil
Of religious women without morals
Of Ulamas who feed on the sweat of Almagiris
Oh Christ! is this the gospel you preached on the street of Nazareth?
O! Mohamed is this the Rasuul you preached in Mecca
O! God what we do in your Name, we should be afraid of doing even in the dark
Allow me to return home
To my folk song
In African theism, to the shrines of Alusi’gwe,
To do my folk song with Oganigwe the beautiful masquerade
To solicit corn and groundnuts from old women with sagging breasts
Chasing the kids with a whip in my hand as I wear the mask of the spirit
A spirit of sportsmanship, of equity and love, of fair play and brotherhood.
Allow me do my folk song
Categories:
libations, culture, dance, god, philosophy,
Form:
Epic
Sweet rain is hammering the dry ground
Dirt turning to muddy foundations
Leaves nodding their heads to the sound
Gaia smiling upon her creations
The earth with green is gowned
Eudora now pouring her libations
To Ceres, with grain is crowned
Patron, we give our adoration
The fruits of your harvest abound
Categories:
libations, mythology, nature, rain,
Form:
Rhyme
A Night On The Town
While searching for a book, one that I hadn’t yet read
I stumbled upon a critter and this is what he said:
Although the library is quite cozy and nice;
Could you fancy a night out for the right price?
Howsabout we meet by the bibliotheca shrub?
A groundhog as I adores a good Punxsy pub.
Grab your coat and throw on your hat.
I’m ready to have a friendly chat.
I looked him in the eye and asked him his name
With delight, he said,
“You’re unaware of my fame.
My friends call me Phil, so I suppose you should too
Let’s blow this joint”
And away we flew
We wandered the streets of this charming town
Visiting shops and pubs, up the street and down
We feasted on grub and guzzled much drink
Then, Phil looked at me with a very hard think
“My friend, it’s been fun but it’s three in the morning.”
And he tottered down the street without any warning
I watched as he burrowed under the library steps
Down on my knees and behind him I crept
His words fell on my ears as he waddled out of sight
“My friend, it’s time for you to go as the sun soon brings light.
You see, I don’t mean to complicate.
But in the morning, I must prognosticate.
Meet me again: fight your way through the mob.
That tree over there; in Gobblers knob.
In just a few hours, at the light of the day;
Meet me again; and don’t delay.”
I did just that; I waited on the lawn
When Phil came out with a stretch and a yawn
With a wink and a smile, his eyes met me with regard
Then a man handed me a note. His name was Gerard.
“This note is from Phil. Don’t tell anyone he can talk, or find you I will.”
I took the note from this cryptic subversive
And found it to be written in splendid cursive
"Thank you for the night, full of libations and cheer
Let’s do it all again. Meet me same time next year."
Categories:
libations, humor,
Form:
Light Verse
Beatnik Snaps
Onomatopoeia-topia
(poet sits on a stool in the café and begins)
I could onomatopoeia all day daddio
With cool sounds in the iambic pandemics sphere out there.
“Far out man…far out… Onomatopoeia all the way” (The crowd shouts and snaps fingers in approval.)
On the down winds jive below slow jazz notes I go
Goatee Joe eats the avocado on the down and low
Basements bottomless souls measured tuna outlet cries out
The bongo boys drag on the joint while munching on the tacos loco
Cigarette smoke lays down a cloud…talks to the humming bird
Laying down some heavy tones to the bones with the smooth sax
Cats calling in the alley way cruising on the cat nip trip
Waiting on a little miss kitty called Pussy Meow
She’s a no show Joe. Man, that’s no way to go.
In the wild thick woods of words working on his behalf
The half past 1952 Johnny, goes marching home
Alone down Bluesville Avenue in a zoot suit out back Jack
Slick black jacket looking for some chicks on the beatnik clicks
Snap!
Notes raining down on the sax as some jive time chumps
Get busted by some jive time cop
Flat foot flopping down the street with some flat foot beef to pound
Drowned on pounding grounds outside
Down in the drip drop flop of day….Grazing on the rain.
“Shows over Jack and Jill.”
“It’s been a thrill.” (More finger snaps from the beatnik crowd)
Debaucheries Departure
Sooner or later we gotta blow this café gig…..Dig?
Slurred speech measured beats by bongo boys bid a retreat
In matters like this …..tipping matters….and meter matters…My meters dry man.
We tapped out our tab long ago so….One last drink!
What’s your poison my onomatopoeia friend?…He retorts; “You’re right.”
“ I don’t want to pay it either”…. but we gotta get out of this joint.
What kind of iambic pandemics beatnik friend do you think I am?
In deed briated with liquid libations I guess….. (Snaps)
Categories:
libations, age, culture, drink, life,
Form:
Prose Poetry
Oh my God! Is it morning already?
Check! Yes, I can see things in my room quite clearly now.
The sun, at least, has started on his appointed rounds.
OK, remember to move slowly Brian. Let’s stretch a little first.
But not too hard, those cramps that you get in your calves
Some mornings can take a half hour or so to work out.
And if you don’t message them vigorously right away
You will be feeling the pain of this cramp all day!
Check! I think the tenderness from last week’s muscle spasm
Is on the mend, just a hint of lower back soreness now perhaps,
But there will be no bouncing on the bed this morning I think.
Check! God I miss getting out of bed with no fear of back pain,
But that will come again, I know, I hope, I pray
As it has so many times before when I was younger
And felt far more afraid that my body was betraying me,
When, as young as thirty, I experienced occasional back pains
That left me crawling to the bathroom for a week or so.
I am 72 now and my expectations of a pain free life
Are tempered by years of real life experience
In both overdoing it and making up for it later.
And no, you young whippersnapper, I am not out of bed yet,
But now, my body stretched out along the edge of my bed,
I am ready to move my legs off the edge of the bed
And let their weight pull my body erect to a standing position,
Check! Well, that went well this morning!
Now, I rest momentarily, butt leaning against the bed,
To test out lower leg strength and balance.
Check! So far so good. I take my first few steps
Holding on to the foot of my bed frame momentarily
Before letting go to begin the trek to the bathroom.
It may be hard for you to believe, if you are under 50
But I am hoping to be playing tennis in an hour and a half.
Check! Morning libations accomplished. POTUS on the move!
Brian Johnston
November 1, 2015
Categories:
libations, life,
Form:
Burlesque
behold now everything on this earth;
the fields with abundance of grain,
palm-grove harvests rich and fruitful,
the forests that separate kingdoms and the fires that scorch them;
the brickwork of ancestries and the towers that reach our gods.
behold these crop-fields that we call life and death,
grown on the back of a sludge-like entity
sowed, and heaped, in granaries of self-doubt;
collected by children's dirty hands;
bronze-sickles, charcoal-eyes;
while the storms unwrap in the south...
gales have swept these homes and huts of clay,
the dog-faced pazuzu gnarls at the moon, as inimical as it is revered;
a mother's love for the murderous son is as complex
as the children's dependence on these fearsome steppes.
behold now everything on this earth;
the countenance of the origin-beast-mother carved in the mountains of the north
and the efflux of her genitals streaming to the south of the marshes,
into that great ocean whose shores we know only by myth
and whose waters is the abode of the primordial one,
whom hurls the long-spear of flood and storm
deep into the sides of these lands - for these lands are hers:
when all comes about, has not the lands risen strongly
from her bottomless and abysmal womb?
was not the pleasure that shook the members of the old, old gods
into ejaculation, indeed, the motion of her scaled loins?
is she not the temple to which all sacrifices are offered, all libations put forth:
is she not the shrine; the death-black ziqqurat; the lighthouse emitting darkness?
is she not the stele inscribed with all words of grace,
and the eloquence of our beautiful poets?
over the lapse of a thousand millenia,
she has been constricting the gods of the heavens
in a strong leather noose,
f o r i s n o t v o i d o r i g i n a l t o a l l ;
c h a o s , d i s c o r d , o r i g i n a l t o o r d e r ?
Categories:
libations, mythology,
Form:
Anacreontic verse
Bacchus rose
joy purging
xeric throats
choking upon
libations
conflicted aims
dancing naked
fearlessly awash
escaping
inhibition’s
tyranny
loosing anger’s soul
through merriment
releasing
wingless spirits
thoughtless thoughts
unfettered
voices mumbling
wine soaked praise
to numbing’s god.
10/26/2015
submitted to – Anacreontic Verse 1 – Poetry Contest
sponsor – Edward Ebbs
Categories:
libations, celebration,
Form:
Lyric
The drum, the drum, the Druid in the East
The daylight shattering the glass of night
Behold the mead and cake that form the feast
Behold the glorious blessing of the light
The blazing gorse flames yellow on the hill
Bright shafts of sun surround the Druid’s head
She comes, she comes, my daughter liveth still
Released at last from fathoms of the dead
Her eyes are purple crocuses, her hair
Is woven through with wood anemones
She shocks the eyes, her presence is so rare
And strong, as hyacinths upon the breeze
She wears the sun a-shimmer on her dress
In folds of drops of snow and celandines
And, as befits she with the power to bless
Comes riding on a stag of seven tines
She speaks unto the awed and silent crowd
“I come” she says “I bring the fire of life
I come to cast my seeds on fields ploughed
To quell your hunger and relieve your strife
I bring you daylight from the depths of hell
Where I with Hades am forever wed
Of Christ and Dionysus I shall tell
In sacred stories of the risen dead”
The crowd are stunned to silence, robbed of breath
She came, she came, brought winter to his knees
Defied the dreadful tide of dark and death
To bless the ground with shoots, and trees with leaves
The ancient Druid offers up the cup
The wine of her libations there to sip
He bows his head, as down she stoops to sup
And touch the cup upon her rosy lip
And with this act the sunlight floods the sky
The spell is broken by the touch of earth
And Demeter runs forward with a cry
To hold the maiden that she brought to birth
The seasons come, the seasons go, and all
Shall rise and fall and fade and reappear
And Spring shall once more answer to the call
Of Hades at the dying of the year
But here, by mother love and heat of day
Persephone is made a child again
To run upon the hills; to dance and play
And plant her flowers in the world of men
© Gail Foster 2016
Categories:
libations, england, magic, mother daughter,
Form:
Iambic Pentameter
Libations Temptations
O’Leary poured the draught with finesse
O’Brien slid to the floor for some rest
passed out so quick
foam thick on his lip
Ah, the shame of an unfinished Guinness
John G. Lawless
3/16/2015
Categories:
libations, humor, ireland,
Form:
Limerick
let’s remember the ancestors
the ancestors of the clan –
the infamous and un-kingly kings
celebrate their inglorious libations
all over my land, my clan –
but, my clansmen
let not the clan forget the famous
foundations of the nri kingdom –
let’s remember the ancestors
the ancestors of the clan -
let the name of agaja trudo
be on the marbles of dahomey finest artists
for ’tis nothing infamous
for mansa musa to be versed
upon the new urns of the mali kingdom –
let mai ali ghaji be greeted
with the finest literary trumpeters!
let osie tutu sit seat-to-seat
with nelson mandela –
my clansmen
new are our horns today
let not the old horns of africa
be cut off in the zest of the artists
for my ancestors shall not be
mere spectators, mere winds
flying the history of my clan!
Categories:
libations, dedication, devotion, passion,
Form:
In mind's castle many furnished rooms
In upper chamber, chaste virtue grooms
In lower chamber, strands of civility bloom
In antechamber, auxiliary dreams, visions illume
In the inner chamber, fears, insecurities subsume
In dim, adjoining corridors, venal guile do entomb
From bed chamber, hypothalamus, carnal libations spoon
In library, Prefrontal cortex, sentient patterns resume
In nursery, hippocampus, Id suckles the womb
In hearth's cozy fireplace, nurtured Ego swoons
From dusky, dank cellar, hidden desires fume
In dungeon's dark recesses resides a foreboding gloom
In courtyard, amygdala, aesthetic designs mushroom
Categories:
libations, body,
Form:
Rhyme
the famous age-grade mourns
those who pour libations
are now a mockery
by the sides of my forests
the enemies has come out
with bows, arrows and spears
where are the warriors
who gave these forests life
the fire is out
no new fire-woods are near-by
the few grey hairs are taken away
from the forests
none is here to mend the thatched
roofs of the homestead
where are the okonkwos?
where's obierika?
where's diochi?
where's otenkwu?
the forests have been emptied
fathers have come
to the burial of the sons
aru eme-e, evil has come
to the forests.
Categories:
libations, death, depression,
Form:
At dawn a ********** crowed aloud
The man and women all alike
Woke to the noise and set to pray
Beside the stump, they all did kneel
Pouring libations to their gods
At morn the day was bright to chat
The men and youth all did gather
Talking, laughing really loudly
Calabash filled with raffia wine
Gulping on still, they all lay drunk
At noon they all were still gathered
Around the bushes came great noise
The noise they know to be of war
Topsy–turvy the town did run
Lifeless, they all now lay slaughtered
At dusk there came a dead silence
Calabash broken and wine splashed
The happy noisy town, now gone
The houses now left desolate
Just the cock stood, that broke the day
Categories:
libations, death, war,
Form:
Quintain (English)
Think you know Ben,
is that what you say,
did you know that he scheduled every solitary day...
What good shall I do today?
It is the question he asks at sunrise
to start his each and every day.
A regular schedule to plan out and achieve.
A guaranteed success plan for every single day
he see's outlined of all the work and play,
properly arranged and organized,
no frivolity or silly foray's.
All I's dotted and "T"'s crossed to perfection,
his precise page leaves him no doubt,
as to where the day will go,
not wasted and dithered about,
No stray to Ben Franklin's Day,
again he wanted no doubt's.
His quill,
wet ink sealed,
each line neatly written for the hours of the day,
from early morning rise,
until fine libations fire flows in joy and delight,
Ben and his schedule of affairs,
Building new nations surly would wait,
it should never compete with the mid-day stew,
or the time to reflect during walks in the Pennsylvania pale lite moon,
Ben Franklin's daily schedule for success,
is really his thoughts of all the ways to avoid stress.
in a small condensed scheduled way,
from cleaning,
to walking,
and he never forgot his rest during the course of the day.
No decisions made after sunset....
It gives you time as Ben would say,
to acheive perspective and thoughtful insight,
Ben ol boy knew how to do things right.
So decisions were final until new days light.
From building a nation,
to transcendental earliest thought,
He rang out every day like a rain soaked sock,
no time wasted,
or haphazardly thrown away.
The best part I have found,
is his end of the day,
where the curtains are drawn closed,
but again only in the scheduled way,
his last question each and every night,
What good have I done along this past day?
Categories:
libations, america, father, history, perspective,
Form:
Free verse
The evening air spreading its soft chill,
Playing with the blue mountain to nature's will,
New snow flakes engulfs the barren hills,
Taming my heart with tender warmth and thrills.
At the inn the keeper holds a lighted candle,
For us to follow with our packaged bundle,
With grace I wish to avoid a scandal,
Watch my man close the lone door by its handle.
Firewood burns in the wooded homestead,
Spreads it warmth over the snug cushioned bed,
Waits to partake in our action unsaid,
Melting moments for me to love or dread.
Delightful face turns to look up to me,
Candid sensuality in phantoms plea,
Urges me to be forthwith naked and free,
Passion denudes barriers under siege.
Anticipation now burns to aspire,
Taut space between our naked bodies perspire,
And I blush in its heat with hot desire,
Keep my eyes closed as he sets me afire.
Intoxicants flame touched by libations
Sequesters inflamed wet-lip deviations,
Within pleasure kiss gratification,
Outraging tongue's in communication.
Open my eyes to his tactile fondness,
Soon hands engage the spherical hardness,
Force me to opt with resoluteness,
And lie on my back touched by tenderness.
My desperate palms crawl over his back,
Nuptial quivers awake rapture's with knack,
Crazy teeth dig and wildly bite his neck,
Betwixt the legs he performs his attack.
In anticipation I surrender,
As he sets to probes the naked blunder,
Rave’s down the silky valley to plunder,
Unzipped by the latent strike, I thunder.
Reeling from the quick fervent thrusts I cry,
With rage responding to his sadist try,
As he pulls back to enter and defy,
Totally exposed I shudder and sigh.
Quaking with delirious pleasure I cuddle,
Both legs entrapped within the carnal struggle,
Brace quivering bottom in the muddles,
As petals rock within the moist puddles.
Smiling at my denuded enslavement,
Holding my arms in ardent deployment,
Torments my frail defiance with enjoyment,
While his knee's direct steady placement.
Seething with resistance his hardness grows,
Raw power sustaining his taming blows,
Ecstasy mows the bulging heat to sow,
Freely we climax in its cosmic flow.
Begs reprieve for his ebbed shrunken demands;
While in love he obeys all my commands.
Categories:
libations, lifeme, love, me,
Form:
Free verse