Best Lined Poems
I sauntered down an arbor walk
by myself, no need to talk
Yet I surely wished so ardently
to thank each and every leafy tree
Tree lined avenue
Ochres and yellows display
Graciously they fall
In carpet gown, soil enriched
In life they shone, now they're gone
.
over qualified
redundant and out of work,
too old to fit in -
downtown,it is pouring down,
the umbrella's in the hall
the sun shines brightly
on a cold, blistery day
loving the feeling!
A silly superstition enwraps and grips me,
It holds me and will not loosen its vile, crushing deathgrip:
It is a numerical one, this foolish superstition to which I have my subscription,
For this is the numerological sorcerous fallacy to which I've subscribed:
That, as I have yet published a baker's dozen of poems hereon,
(Though this poem or that preceding it, might have in fact made it fourteen),
I must exceed the number somewhat, and do for today the writing of
Four poems, yet the dilemma in which I currently awash,
This quandary, this conundrum, this balk and qualm of mine,
Is as follows:
In my troika of notebooks and journals and leather diaries I've earmarked
For poetic use, the tally of poetries I've written therein today is but two,
Thus I would not reach the somehow sacred number,
That numerical goal I've set for myself of seventeen,
Unless I were to write two more poems, extra-notebooked ones:
Being ones beyond and without the notebook,
Beyond the papery, lined realms of the manifold pages of my
Threefold notebooks.
So to solve the insoluble, and resolve it, what was I to do?
I tasked myself with reaching the putative goal of seventeen,
But how would this devoir I achieve?
Only by the conception and composition of a pair of extra poems,
Thus, to accomplish that total, this poem and the one that preceded it.
So, have I paragraphed this page thus, in the manner most befitting
That of the poem.
And now this emptiest and most filler-like of my poems yet, it be done.
Form:
The emptiness I fear, is all too real,
Still seeing everything as if I was there,
Burning in my hands, the itch on my face,
Screaming...yet nothing escaping my lips,
Feeling the warm blood as it pushes it's way up,
Bubbling against my teeth.
The paramedics came,
But I was never found,
A part of me was left in that place,
To die beneath the silver moon,
That seems to hover above my resting place.
Death...I was never scared to die,
Only scared of what my life was,
Wishing that death would change my perspective,
Clear me of the doubts that troubled me,
Vanquishing all the spirits that seemed to haunt me.
The bandages were always there,
Constricting me from moving,
Like twisted chains bounding me to this world,
Confining me to an eternal life,
Where the light felt like the fires of a thousand suns,
Roasting me alive.
I believe now that the veil has been lifted,
The days just seem to grow dim,
My heart aches so badly from within my chest,
As I feel the jolts shoot through me,
Knowing this existence must come to an end,
That I'm far too long gone...
I've flat-lined...
Form:
They Lined the Road
On the isle of St. Kitts, they lined the road
They lined the road on St. Kitts
Deep in their hearts they carried a load
They lined the road on St. Kitts
Waiting on word from the search for the boy
Hoping and praying for some words of joy
They lined the road on St. Kitts
He had gone to the store a block from his home
Just nine years old, he had gone on his own
They lined the road on St. Kitts
Picking up Kool-Aid for his birthday party
A happy young boy so healthy and hearty
They lined the road on St. Kitts
The National Guard and the local police
Searching just searching as tensions increase
They lined the road on St. Kitts
Praying they find him alive and unhurt
Every heart stops - someone calls out “a shirt”
They lined the road on St. Kitts
The soldiers come out with their heads bowed down
And everyone knew what they had just found
They lined the road on St. Kitts
The family and friends with tears in their eyes
None of them knowing the who, what or whys
They lined the road on St. Kitts
He would have been ten on his birthday today
But somebody somehow took his life away
They lined the road on St. Kitts
I just returned from vacation where this occured. A very sad day in St. Kitts
~An Haiku from my window~ an example for my contest~
snow lined power lines
glistening blanketed roof
fire escape iced
~ Tree-lined Streets ~
Tree-lined streets
display their wares
brilliant colors everywhere...
I stop my car to stare
at a somber, stately oak
whose branches nearly bare --
her fallen leaves reminders of
warm summer days we shared
A life in tree-lined poetry
Once I was a cook on the high seas and worked long days
seven days a week; Eater and Christmas meant more work
baking cakes and baking bread.
It was not only tiring but boring to seafarers like solid
food that they are used to from home, which makes
cooking into a job of blindfolded ennui.
No wonder cooks turn to drink, the combination
of long hours, infinitely making meat cakes and mash
can send anyone into the abyss of insanity
For my next job, I learned to cook books and found
I had my latent talent how to make stories, to make
the numbers tally; I could sit in a soft chair doing this.
For a reason, lost in the fog of the past, I ended up
a counsellor, a strange occupation, telling the unlucky
not to drink, when at night enjoying a whisky or two.
I was found out and sacked; how shocked they were
the justly seniors took my license and nameplate on
the door, hounded me out of town.
There was one escape, back to sea and cooking stuff
long were the hours when not reading self-help books
until some said: “aren’t you the one who got fired?
A very old vessel lined with gold
They tell me it is very old
Within each crack a story told
To fix this treasure mighty bold
And from destruction's door paroled
A new master work to behold
Its future now is not foretold
A keepsake to forever hold
This old vessel all lined with gold
Written 12Jan14 for contest Kintsukuroi sponsored by Roy Jerden
Regalia awakens upon nightfall
Roused within rules proudly signified
Routine of midnight procedural
Robe wearer draped solemn dignified
Voracious moon grey devil face
Oak double doors crosses engraved
Vestibule commands reverence
Flung open so mortals can be saved
Behaviour carefully monitored
Moonshine in aisle to alter pointing
Father's guidance Penultimate
Spotlight slides jacketed anointing
Pulpit a pillar of scripture's page
Builds focus for lamp stuck fly byers
Formality chapters archaic sage
Impales twisted gargoyles on spires
Stitched into sleeves invisibly
Satin lining sheen hot cardinal flame
Shape of garment disciplining
Secure bounds by pockets contained
15th February
Fitting into Religion
In the seamless sky of my fervent yearning,
I let the enraptured songbird of my heart soar high,
glide in the spring-rippled amorous breeze
that carried your jasmine fragrance to me.
The dawn splashed the sumburst spectrum of delight,
blossomed the budding euphoric dreams
in the dormant domain of depthless desire.
I didn’t see the concealed clouds of betrayal
slither in the somber horizon of deception.
Through the falling night specks of darkness slid,
in its flood as my longing essence sank
I couldn’t hold on to your hands as before,
for you freed yourself from my abandoned embrace.
Splintered in the threshold of tarnished twilight,
in the vortex of turmoil I saw the debris of me disappear
with my devoured dreams in the stormy night.
Demolished, I was sucked into its virulent void.
In the empty cauldron of emotion,
engulfed by the raging sense of consternation,
I was submerged immobile within the state of stasis,
while the frozen response shriveled my mind.
Unfulfilled expectations hit my heart hard,
promises unkept flung fiery blows of torment.
My mangled mind caught fire of the desolate wild,
blazed the tender time of elusive endurance.
The flame flowed from my burning mind,
singed the sensual meadow of my love.
Through the billowing smoke, thick and blinding,
I came out of the ruins, saw the beauty life was.
Before my ember conscience burnt the soul,
I rose from the ashes like Phoenix,
self-consoled and sane.
In the burnt down psychic terrain deep within
I discerned the piled-up wreckage of lilting life unlived,
turning the flushing garden to an ashen dump.
The innovative impulse of self-preservation
invented the arcane acumen of alchemy,
glittered gold in the rusted crust of ruins,
crowned by the sapphire sky canopy,
spread seamless in fervent freedom,
waited for me to scale the height of ecstasy
and to dwell in the silver-lined clouds.
They are ghosts that whisper haunting words to me - words that I cannot hold in my head long enough to put pen to paper. Like water seeping thought cupped hands, they fill me up, then escape me just as quickly.