Best Lily Livered Poems
Alliteration always awesome
Ballad beyond barnyard basics
Crystalline calls careful consonants,
Diamante delivers deeply
Enthusiasm excites eager ears,
Fanciful frolicking faerie
Generously gives grateful glee
Hyping haiku to heavenly heights,
Imagery and imagination
Jubilantly jumping joyfully,
Kimo kindles king-sized kingpin,
Lamenting the lily-livered lunacy
Momentous muse modulates melody,
Necromancer normalizes Neverland,
Opulent Opalescent orchestras opt
To pollute poetry previously pristine.
Quixotic quorum of questioners
Respond and recover rhymes rapidly
Serendipitous sentimentality
Turns timely tanka traitorously toward
Unmistakably understated Uranus,
Vindicating verses vilifying Vashti.
Whacking wannish warblers west,
‘Xaggerating ‘Xtemperaneous X’tra special poems
Yet yielding a yeomanly yearning toward
A zealous zany zingaroo of zest.
With a hearty laugh, and scallywag's glee
I've acquired their riches, and conquered the sea!
Like a timid lass... they will turn, and flee
showing their backsides, to the likes of me!
Lily livered, they're fearin' my brand!
Shiverin' they be, till they're walking on land!
Arrgg!! shouts first mate, calling out to the crew,
"Tally-ho!" fills me ears, as the chance now ensues
Setting sail in a race, up high on the waves
I spy with my glass, wily cowards to chase
'Tis we, mighty foes, that will ransom the sea!
Mighty bold is me, with me old pirate's creed!
Alas! there he is, what a fool is he!!
To rush into battle with the likes of me!!
Sailin' the waves on the blimey sea
Stung by a sword, the scallywag flees!
How swift he sails, along in the blue..
Yo ho ho! Thar' he be!
He'll be countin' his days, and soon on his knees
A sorry tale, will allot him, his sword just a broom
Me' cross=bone skull is flying wild
and waves a mighty doom!!
I am Blackbeard the Pirate....remember my name!
You will fill up your froth of my flowing fame
You will guzzle ye' grog, or a bit of ye' rum
Yea' ... call me the devil, with a bit of a scum!
Girdled with face of a hundred scars
Fear of me' wrath, either by sun or by stars
It gladdens the heart of a scoundrel like me
You'll best not forget ....tis' a Blackbeard ye' fear!!
I should have looked before I leaped
now I have been left in a lurch
by my lily-livered boyfriend,
but I'll have the last laugh
when he see his laundry
in a lovely shade of pink.
ALesiach © 9/30/2015
In slumbering slope they lay,
their gaiety snores in rhythmic peaks of cadences,
The lily livered japes
Kings from central castings,
Heroes of one hour,
jostling for President with mere words
Resigned to bed now, save one.
Cowards, afraid of prison walls
seeking fame by fraud.
Oh Fame, how Disinterested
oh time, how revealing
motives concealed but not to all,
they were boys all along
impressing us by publicity
with drama for the surface
But the sternest stood alone
though jeered and calumniated, yet undeterred
taunted by the guns of the oppressors
marooned in their prison
confined to Abuja
denied of dignity
Yet his passion soars with coruscation of brilliancy
The quest for freedom stems from the heart
the cause for which he dared a tyrant
who sought a cause by a fraudulent jurist
to make him bend or make him bow.
unlike the cowards he never stooped,
he stirred the oppressed from their slumber,
and made some men by delayed revolution.
where are all the orators who came to bury Caesar by campaign?
They snore in the bedroom unaffected by the groaning of the people
some seeking publicity by suing twitter,
others purloining at the tables of business felons.
In the struggle for emancipation,
the boys are separated from the men.
Dedicated to Omoyele Sowore
The Nigerian Born Activist
who stood alone when other younger candidates resigned to fate after the fraudulent election that imposed Buhari
The dark of the night sky: clear, unlimited space
Lights and a bright white moon, of clouds no trace
The mood suddenly changes, the lights are faded
The vault of heaven is raided, the azure invaded
Realization in a flash, the barren moon stands abashed
Now fainthearted, lily-livered, her quiet joy is crashed
Hide not your face behind clouds the color of yellow dirt
I know your phases, feel your moods, I know you`re hurt
Battered, barren, lonely, evanescent orb of night
From your cursed dance peace you`ll never find
But I`ll be your fire eater, one who devours the sun
Artemis, Luna, Diana, your true name knows none
HOCUS BOGUS, BOGUS POCUS!
A hex on the dryers of you who owe us
A pox on your socks never to be found
Unwound and pulled down underground
I voodoo better than you do, and you'll rue
The day you walked my way because I knew
If I'm toil and trouble, you're definitely double
So bubble bubble grow no more than stubble
It might seem weird as something feared
But I know you've always wanted a beard!
You think I'm too lily livered to deliver?
Just wait until I conjure... A WOODEN SLIVER
Didn't think this is something you'd fear?
You'll think twice when near tweezers disappear!
Such sorcery the likes you've never seen
An enchantress so mean there's never been
My final vengeance enclosed in this vile
You cry and I smile, I fly while you're in a pile
A potion with eye of storm and tongue of twist
And whatever else is on my list, with a flick of the wrist
I cast a spell you cannot quell that’s straight from hell
You’ll swell as you yell in pain as you fell
Unable to imagine such a fate is more than fable
As your pinky toe catches the corner of a coffee table!
MWA HA HA HA HA HA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lily livered lint of a lizard, let him be called
In pious protest of his primevel name
He who in the spinning sun our death installed
Made history mere cinder for the flame
Why mark me with mortality for your material rage
What treasure in life's flesh yet I cage
He slithers between lines scrawled on a creeping page
And leaf by leaf levers love with lurid rage.
Women rush their cooking
Children talk in whispers
Nursing mothers put the babies to sleep
Darkness descends on the land
The winds are becoming aggressive
The buzzing is getting louder
Like a cockpit;
The ant holes are opening
From them the Akpali spirits are emerging
Their sight makes women miscarry
Make the children to convulse
The lily livered clings to their wives
The braves with a kola nut in the hands;
Sits at their door steps
The catechist doubt its efficacy
Yet his fields are still without seedlings
He too awaits this dance
Tonight the land plays host to them
Our ancestors;
They bring no harm
Without this dance
The land sees no rain
The sky trembles,
the trees aflame,
naked under the spotlight,
but they are not the dancers...
It is those innocent strangers,
shuffling like Kings and Queens upon the deck,
and I, the joker in the pack,
plot with the trees,
all of us about to crack,
and open our trunks,
gather our leaves,
and branch out,
We would, oh we Wood!
We are stoic in our own right,
we never changed,
we just grew,
ingesting the pollution,
we had no choice...
So mother Earth,
there is no need to raise your voice,
we are what we are, not because we chose our path,
we are what we are, at the hands of fate,
and her wrath;
her wreath of tangled wild-flowers,
dried and knotted in a human shape,
hung on the door like a martyr in the gallows...
Those plants couldn't fight back!
God damned pansies,
lily-livered as they were,
they really couldn't scream,
nor let out some bark of dissaproval,
they submitted to fate,
to the cold uncaring hands of the universe,
with her distant starry eyes,
somewhere far beyond our grasp,
like celestial fireflies...
Just like the street lights,
with their dry orange lamps,
flickering, on those strange
Milwaukee Nights.
SNOWSTORM
Now the wind’s invisible hand
Can be seen across the land
With finger, arm and wrist
She’ll grasp and she’ll twist
The airborne masses swirled -
Those princes of the icy world -
And wrestle them to the ground,
Piled in a graceless mound
Together, where they huddle
And give up the struggle -
Pale, white, lily-livered -
From the sky-battle finally delivered,
Surrendering their white flag,
Cowardly white feathers sag.
Their invisible foe now laughing and shrieking
In the trees at the mayhem she’s been wreaking.
……………………………………………………………………………………………
Note: Today in a snowstorm, it suddenly struck me that I could “see” the
normally invisible wind, by the movement of snowflakes. Sometimes
the obvious is amazing to me.
A weather wizard
delivered a blizzard
to Chicago yesterday
If I weren’t so lily-livered
I’d have torn out his gizzard
~ right away
What activates my reflex arc
And causes me to shiver?
Which stimuli come into play
To set my nerves aquiver?
At home alone at dead of night
A creak will make me skittish.
My lower lip begins to drop
In fashion quite un-British! *
And should I inadvertently
Whilst in the garden walking,
Be tickled by a spider's web
The shock will leave me balking.
Don't mention snakes and darting bats
Obnoxious smells and vermin,
Or scraping sound as chalk meets board,
For all will leave me squirming.
In other matters I am bold;
No lily-livered chicken.
But when sheer instinct rules the roost
It leaves my senses stricken.
* in contrast to the traditional British 'stiff upper lip'
08.06.19
'What makes you flinch poetry contest'
Sponsored by Julie Leigh Rodeheaver
Goliath was a big threat to Israel
A giant with intimidating records
Of military prowess which turned Israelite soldiers
To a bunch of faithless cowards
And to an army of lily livered derelicts
As they capitulated in fear
And let the sleeping dog lie
While Goliath had his fill
Threatening God’s own army
But it took a lively faith and just a stone
To bring the mountain of a giant
Crashing to a disgraceful end
As David used faith as heavenly currency
To purchase heavenly grace
And brought the boastful philistine
To a dismal end
Are you faced with any life’s challenges?
Look back with faith on God’s track record in your life
And be filled with amazing strength and power
To overcome all Goliaths threatening your very existence
If it takes a dollop of Dutch courage
to French kiss an English rose
would it make a lily-livered
Indian giver look down his nose
but with Yiddish chutzpah
as a Spanish fly on the wall
and luck o' the Irish
you could Australian crawl
and yet the Chinese fire drill
it's still a safe bet
and a Mexican standoff
are not Russian roulette
but who'd deliberately open the door
for a Portuguese man o' war
There’s beauty in imagining great things;
It lights our dark future with hope-filled dreams ~
Visions of peasants ordained to be kings,
And plebeians crowned as queens, so it seems.
It charts dream paths lit by elegant beams.
Imagination hears each scarecrow's groans;
It squeezes water from dry desert stones.
It carves deep oceans in hot desert sand,
Lifting us from known realms to worlds unknown,
Where minds may wander due to no command.
Imagination lends us its safe wings,
So we can soar toward futures we choose,
To fill our life with hopes and precious things;
Though striking gold is never a mere cruise,
Nor are the lily-livered crowned as kings.
Sweat would streak our face and our skin would bruise,
Our legs may throb and swell with insects' stings;
It's for our future that we pay the dues —
We'll patch our hurts with plasters, cloth, and slings,
On great hopes, our imagination clings.
It’s real hopes that imagination brings,
With peace of mind when reason reigns supreme,
With thoughts that glide without the need for wings—
Yet sometimes birth false hopes no truth redeems.
And dreams may fade like echoes in a stream.