Best Loosens Poems
From among the poets who fired my imagination
whom shall I choose, can’t bring myself to pick
and place from dozens, just one above all the rest!
With all romantics in line, the one who has touched
my heart chords most, is none other than John Keats
In my eyes, he wears the mantle of a great poet
for the sheer beauty of his diction and the images
woven in the loom of his exorbitant fancy,
tumbling one on another!
Sad the scythe of Fate cut him down at the age of 25!
Had he survived the autumnal blasts and seen the beauty
of lovesome springs and sunny summers unfolding
none could have been commensurable to him in name or fame
When seasons change and summer loosens its fiery grip,
who cannot but welcome Keats’ Autumn,
the ‘Season of mist and mellow fruitfulness?
When I hear a lone bird singing in the far fringes of the woodlands
I strain my neck to see if it’s Keats’ Nightingale
staying unseen and ‘pouring forth its soul in such ecstasy’
Ode on a Grecian Urn lifted him to stellar fame
who saw, in the rustic scene painted on the Urn,
life in its fullness, but’ frozen in time’
where he identified beauty and truth as one
‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty’- his immortal line
keeps resounding and its echoes rippling in hearts many
Sad, like a rose whose petals were knocked down
from its stalk by the mighty wind’s powerful breath,
he fell, but stays deathless among the dead
emanating sweet fragrance in the surrounding air
and his ‘plaintive anthem’ never ‘fades’,
Jan.16.2023
~ Placed tenth~
Beloved Poets Poetry Contest
Sponsor- Regina McIntosh
in this place
now
here
in the safety
of this languid afternoon
I close my eyes
and listen to her voice
her sigh
with your hand on my thigh
knowing as I do
that there is no pretense
or disguise
no need to hide
I am who I am
She assures me
It's fine
Awash in need
I let my body plead
I care to dare every hindrance
to disappear
because I deserve
to let the woman in me
be free to feel
Ecstasy makes her appeal:
"Make it REAL"
roles reversed in revelry
the pleaser now yearning to be pleased
the giver becomes the receiver
and all is as it's meant to be
for you and me
I let my thoughts fly
no earth and no sky
nothing matters
forgotten the where and why
no need to be shy
nothing
except this build up
sensations born of feelings
this surging urge
for sensual supremacy
to be
to arrive
knowing it will come
knowing
the world will stop
as it has before
wanting it again, once more
pausing at the pinnacle of passion's pride
all things having been played right
as it should be
release
of pain
of hurt
of everything...
everything but Ecstasy
who prolongs her stay
I don't chase her away
I hold on
let her play
have her way
in the wake of her spray
I lay
Sated sigh
on my high
I cry
eyes closed
slowly
slowly...
She loosens my hold
and with kisses on my face
she starts to recede
back into the realm
of fantasy freed
echoes of "I love you"
coming through
the haze starts to lift
and I drift...I drift
fingers in my hair
kisses everywhere
Ecstasy exhausted
my eyes flutter open to see
my life back in focus
it resides
there in your eyes
my destiny
Let it be
Oh, let it be
Always...
Ecstasy and you and me
Eileen Manassian
In the puddle of monsoon floods
Autumn boughs are quick to erode
From the grate of colder evenings
Finely whipping each earthen lode.
Yet for all I bemoan the end
Glowing through lambent summer’s blaze--
Who could not be enthralled by fall
Its rain and hued portrait amaze.
The slow wilting ‘midst vibrant tints ,
Now paints an oak tree that loosens
A tight grip upon mauve-lined twigs--
O fall…a beauty in ruins! ~
..........................
~Writing Challenge- Decay-Poetry Contest
For Constance La France 9/25/2020
I wrote the word
then—
lifted
it
from the page
and something
(not silence)
opened underneath
a small dark root
taking hold
where the word
had been
not grief
no—
not yet
only the hush
after
a name loosens
from the mouth
and does not return
The words I buried
did not die
they turned
pale
listening
whitened underground
drinking—
slowly—
the ink
from my crossed-out lines
feeding
on refusal
on absence
until
the page
itself
begins
to open
after midnight
not with speech
never speech
but with petals
insistently
pressed
pressing
against the paper
from
the other side
The magic of coffee, the spell of my tea,
The allure of the vapour swirling up.
Every day I am caught in a beautiful trance,
Hypnotised by a small coffee cup.
It’s a risk with no milk, how hot is the drink,
Will it burn my tender lips to the flesh?
Or is the moment just right, right now for a sip,
A sip that’s spontaneously fresh.
My mind jumps for joy, my insides are all warm,
My body feels hugged in a rug.
A rug that’s surreal, made up of my soft,
A soft filled from a small coffee mug.
This magical cuppa I sip every morning,
Relaxes, loosens up, every day.
This is a home away from home, a seat to relax,
In the corner of my local café.
Awarded 3rd place in contest
All the little pieces
Shards of broken flutes and ripped flowers
Of handcuffed hours
Of burning showers
That had gnawed at the soul
Hammering and thrashing the whole
Into pieces of pangs pathos and spasm
Chasm in psyche
Cactus spiky
Time teeming with tattered twigs
In battered towers and disheveled churches
Leaving the life in lurch
A meaningless mangled moon
But it is time that prevails
Time ultimately treats tempers and mitigates
Its hurts and traumas
Life lightens liberates loves and lures
Loosens the soul to listen to
The deep blue music of life
Swapping the sores for the humming beehive
And lo
Now there flows the river
Boats with their swollen sails
Holding the wind from those broken pieces
Wrinkles and creases
Releasing them in crimson emotions
Into the wind and ocean
Palm holding dew
I love you
________________________________________
22/9/2016
For All The Little Pieces Poetry Contest sponsored by Broken Wings
“Embrace and Release”
In the quiet of night, I pondered—
the art of severing ties, like pruning a tree.
The weakest links, once tightly bound,
now set free, like a maiden’s unclasped bra.
2024 dawns, a canvas for transformation.
Covid’s grip loosens, and clarity emerges.
Meltdowns yield to focus, tears to savings.
My sex life, like New York’s winter, chills.
Raw verses spill forth, unfiltered and true.
Yet my smile softens toward strangers,
and I find myself liking humanity anew.
Trust remains distant, a horizon to reach.
Biblical tales echo vulnerability—
the weaker devoured by the strong.
Have I surrendered my worth for fleeting moments?
No tears stain my words; they remain silent.
As I gaze upward, pondering thoughts,
my brain’s triad—forebrain, midbrain, hindbrain—
collaborates, yet sometimes drifts apart.
Do I know myself anymore? Today, I listen.
Goodbye, old lover; hello, new friends.
Life’s tides carry me forward,
and I embrace the journey, raw and unafraid.
May vulnerability be my strength, not my undoing.
He stumbles on the subway
Initially I cringe
I'm put off by the way he smells
From alcoholic binge
He mumbles incoherent
I start to feel ashamed
I slide my hand in my front pocket
Fumbling for some change
But I don't think he's asking
And now I feel confused
Why suddenly he's deathly still
In contemplative muse
It's then I sensed my pity
That's founded in this thought
This vagrant's smell is rank with failure
Surely mine is not
But just as surely comes the notion
That my thought is wrong
That maybe this man's always been
My equal all along
And in my mind I contemplate
Why I refused to see
My world won't be so bad a place
If love is given free
And so my judgment loosens as
I know not where he's been
A brotherhood in harmony
Absolves the need for sin
I owe this man his right to freedom
The same that he owes me
I spare myself the cost of pain
And simply let him be
And from that moment on I'd ponder
My inner vagrancy
But was it me who smiled at him
Or him who smiled at me?
autumn mosaic
summer’s formal farewell gift ~
lazy leaf loosens
(October Full Moon – Anishinaabe)
Lightning
flashes brightly
outside our front window.
Rain's falling fast and furious.
Feeling IT in my fingers, vibration
jolts and loosens the window pane.
Delightful, but frightful,
quivers follow
lightning.
Tag game
mommy shudders;
I'm deaf, but I sense IT.
My sister covers up her ears
awaiting, anticipating something.
I wait for looks on their faces.
"You're IT!" you make me shake
like a sudden
tag game?
Growing older is a carousel
of highs and lows, each spin a memory, each turn a change.
It’s the morning ache in places you never thought could hurt,
the pizza you once devoured now a restless night’s companion.
Your vision softens, sounds blur,
and the quiet hum of life’s smaller details becomes elusive.
Doctors' visits and pill bottles mark the passing months,
while hair thins, and skin loosens where once strength resided.
Nights grow lighter, dreams grow heavier
with visions of a younger self, running through the past.
The faces of friends and family fade, some taken too soon,
others by the slow hand of time, all leaving empty chairs.
Yet gratitude remains a quiet current,
a whispered song beneath the noise of change.
For the laughter still brightens days, the tear still falls,
reminding us of what remains, what we hold close.
The quiet between us settles into light,
a hush that weighs more than any word ever spoken
Your breath leans closer as if to speak my name.
Yet nothing breaks the air, no sound is heard.
A shaking pause:
time loosens its embrace,
the fading light leans in,
holding our hearts in place,
I feel a promise hover on my lips,
a secret tide that sways then slowly slips.
No language superior to this quiet vow,
no music sweeter than the moment now.
The silence bends then deepens into bliss.
The world reawakened within one tender kiss.
And in that silence even stars confess
love grows deepest, when it speaks no excess
On such days
what holds my senses
to the world loosens
and all becomes a background
blur, a kind of peripheral haze
as seen through a rain glazed
window to that place ‘out there’.
My mind drifts and soon
I am here where time
has stood still and a hot
summer sun prints the cool shade
of almond trees on ground
where I lay during those long, lazy
afternoons on school holidays
seventy years ago,
dreaming of a future,
the adventures I would have
in a world to come, the one
I live in now.
Last night my son stirred
between half wake and sleep.
I stroked his soft hair,
And I kissed his small cheek.
He said, “Mummy, these cuddles
tonight were the best”
and wished for forever
with him in our nest.
When a baby arrives
through the heart of their mother,
they’re laid on your chest —
you belong to each other.
There’s no room for choices,
for burnout or fear.
Your instinct is roaring:
just keep them near.
But life slowly loosens
the threads as they grow.
Your heart doesn’t want to,
your mind must let go.
They trust other people,
They want to explore.
New voices will teach them —
And guard every door.
When the nights feel too quiet,
the silence too deep,
I’ll remember that whisper
between half wake and sleep —
how he held me so close
in his small dreaming world,
and for one perfect moment,
love quietly unfurled.
I spread layers of laughter in a long baking pan,
with a rhythm that twists the smoky scent I can scan.
Five lines per slice, I assemble carefully quick,
make this dish pulsate and glint like a limerick.
First sheet, a town and a person, famed or unfamed,
second, an odd trait that need not be tamed.
The rhyme goes A-A, then loosens its tight grip,
repeats at the last layer with a tag line flip.
Short lines on top, longer anapest pasta below,
the meter stumbles slightly, then steals the show.
B-B ricotta and spinach creep in the middle on the sly
with simmering mozzarella that doesn’t overflow dry.
I season the dish with nonsense spice, lively and loud,
a crispy curl at the base makes the last layer proud.
With light ragu sauce I garnish the humorous trait,
just with the perfect comical timing I bake it great.
The final ingredient is hilarity with melodramatic bend,
with a twist at the end to be served with fun to a friend.
Topped off with a punch line parmesan. that is hot,
I cook the best meal, limerick lasagna, in poetry pot.