Best Low Lying Poems
July is the month of monsoon rains in our part of the land when there will be incessant downpour and flooding in coastal areas and low lying lands
In the vast expanse up so high,
In the caliginous July night sky,
A lone star trailed along from Heaven’s arch,
And through hindering clouds it did march.
Its lambent rays dancing in gleeful light,
Making everything luminously bright.
All starlets cowered in shame,
Hiding in corners, fearing blame.
It got stationed above a thatched manger,
Where baby Jesus lay swaddled in rags in rainy weather
Promising the gift of love and joy to mankind
Assuring everyone salvation and peace of mind.
The wind that blows is icy chill
Freezing cold is the water of the rill
Trees stand washed in rain
The sky, in greying clouds remain
Lights from nearby houses shine
Sending out a radiance divine
Christmas trees stand finely decorated
Cribs are colourfully illuminated
Stars and festoons can’t be hung in the open,
As in pouring rain, they may be broken.
July is not a month fit for the king to take birth,
Who has come to bless the world with cheery mirth
Yet, the whole land is vibrant with festivity.
The pouring rain hasn’t doused the gaiety.
Sunshine or rain, no matter the weather,
Friends and family are happy together.
Christmas wraps every heart in cheer,
Though it falls in July, the rainy month of the year!
July.11.2022
Christmas in July or July celebration Poetry Contest
Sponsor- Tania Kitchin
Categories:
low lying, birthday, celebration, rain,
Form:
Rhyme
Fear, a liar that can delude or mislead you.
It tells you that you are cursed and doomed.
Have courage to stop and look at Fear in the face!
It comes, like hooded serpents from dark holes,
with venom in their fangs ready to snap at.
Like, monsters from roaring seas
that rest on the sands
as boulders on a low - lying ledge
Or, vampires hurtling down
to suck your blood in dark
with their outgrown canine teeth
Fears are wasps swarming round,
like embers from a furnace
or scorpions with poisonous stings,
hidden in their tails.
Living with them
is like getting enclosed in a blind alley,
pacing forward and rushing backward,
seeing the gates fastened tight with iron shutters,
or being chased after,
by an elephant on rampage.
Never succumb, but defend its onslaught,
for your arch enemy sure shall
shred you to pieces if you let yourself to be subdued!
Jan. 21. 2023
~ Placed First~
Fear is a Liar Poetry Contest
Sponsor- Sotto Poet
Categories:
low lying, allusion, angst, dark, fear,
Form:
Free verse
A withered and separated flower lay squashed in bent stature.The wind silently erodes the remaining petals sequentially, with each pulse of the air.
A distant nightmare, tangibly manifested, the echoing warning from the past.
A trapped piece of newspaper married to a low-lying hedge branch, concealed from notice, dead from purpose.
An hourglass society, scuttling around in organized vice and engineered hypocrisy with time to dictate and money to distract.
A plague of opinions in this boundless possibility never reaching bedrock. A gash made upon the earth, a slow
puncture untreated in our hourglass existence we believe isn’t moving.
Categories:
low lying, age, allegory, angel, beautiful,
Form:
Classicism
Man is a jumble of contradictions,
I know, a hard nut to crack!
So unfathomable, so mysterious-
at once a Satan and an angel.
To the outer world I am someone.
But in the well-guarded cellars of my privacy
aren’t I different~
hiding my innards to light, as every other man?
Am I not a masked player in life’s pantomime?
At times, I feel so proud,
excessively in love with my own image,
like Narcissus, the poor hunter boy
fated by gods to languish
on the bank of a pond,
over his own floating image!
However, with all my strength within,
do I not feel as helpless as Prometheus bound,
waiting for a Hercules to come
and save me from my plight.
If Prometheus’ bondage was God willed,
mine is self- willed…!
Is the difference so very crucial?
Sometimes I feel I am Janus,
looking backward and forward
into my past and my future,
never living in the present.
Or am I more a Sisyphus,
eternally rolling a rock over to the cliff
from where it keeps falling down?
Sometimes I wonder,
amid great splendor, do I not starve
like Tantalus of Greece in the pool,
beneath the tree, with the low- lying branches of fruits
constantly eluding his grasp,
and the water, ever receding before
he could take a drink!
As a poet, how I wish I could
equate myself with Calliope,
carving my mind on the wax tablet
with stylus, my pen and coloring it with my fancy.
Or Orpheus, so skilled in music
that with my sad musings,
I can make even Hades, weep
and the rocks to fall in line!
I shudder to be a Medusa,
turning everyone to a stone
with my sinister glance!
Instead, I want to be one of the Graces
and never one among the Gorgons.
Pitched in this gallery
of strange mythological entities,
I wonder how I appear to others
with all my multiplicities
of character and identity!
Categories:
low lying, confusion, identity, irony,
Form:
Free verse
“The Big Blues and Baptismal Alice”
In the land of the dirty politician
Steely resolve was borne bidding
farewell to thinly veiled conceit and division
that particular brand of milk had long in the tooth turned sour
in her red-hot mamma kitchen
A racing Greyhound on the Going Nowhere Road
forever chasing the White Rabbit named Godot
counts time from its pocketful of ticking time bomb clocks
watching Pterodactyl hormones fly in formation
eating low lying ducks in a row
while the young Velociraptor sitting in her room drawing blood viper tongue fast,
has gone all Poe
The Greyhound turns tales around
and heads back towards Emerald City
flying fast away from a plague of Bubonic Black Crows
She says adieu to those dealing cards that were never real pretty
sitting at the Tea Party Table pulling Voodoo dreams
out of the Lyrebird’s duplicity
Departure
New journey
Two tokens
One kept aside for the Love
that’s steadfast and outspoken
the other for Bee Queen standing stellar
left-field not broken
The Buzzer claims the Chance Card
and moves way out past “GO”,
The Usurper Spell is now fully broken and blown
There on the open road destiny is cumulus now known
Face turned towards Big Blue Sky and Sunshine
a new life tapestry is sewn
Mystery mist whispering over Mountains of Blue
where angels set secret prayers
on the wings of swans who only speak home truth
soaring high upon Heaven’s stairs
singing loud and clear
new dreams do bloom
through cool clean white cotton clouds
face to the sun
feet on the ground
a new day has arrived
strong magic is found
Black ink words swallowed
charcoal spits out a burnt offering
through bitterful and twisted blisters
A New journey forward -
Home is calling her to the
Forest of the Three Sisters
There ensconced in her bucolic benevolent black heath of a palace
Born again in the Big Blues sings the bushfire burning in Baptismal Alice
(Lovejoy-Burton, August 2018)
"She's Leaving Home" / The Beatles
https://youtu.be/VaBPY78D88g
"Sky Above the Clouds", Georgia O'Keeffe 1962
Influences of Magritte, Bosch
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_(chess)
Categories:
low lying, courage, freedom, imagery, journey,
Form:
Free verse
Summer nights in Centerville, sleeping on the top bunk bed;
A transistor radio playing low, lying right there near my head.
The Big Red Machine was in their prime; those boys could sure play ball;
I fell asleep every night listening to the play-by-play of Joe Nuxhall.
I entered my life of puberty with Charlie Hustle running to first;
Davey Concepcion turning two and Joe Morgan with a speedy burst.
Johnny Bench throwing out would be stealers, Pedro Borbon with a bending curve;
All happening on the summer of my first kiss – once I finally worked up the nerve.
With Tommy sleeping in the bed below – nary a care in the world,
George Foster launched an enormous shot while I tried to figure out the girls.
Jack Billingham was striking them out – an apt metaphor for my chances,
As I fantasized about dating girls while two bases Ken Griffey advances.
Tony Perez was still strapping them on; Don Gullet piled up some wins;
Cesar Geronimo owned center field while my hormones multiplied within.
Coming of age in Centerville, back in nineteen seventy-four,
Meant listening to the Cincinnati Reds while thinking about the girl next door.
Categories:
low lying, baseball, growing up, nostalgia,
Form:
Rhyme
When Paradise Returns
That first year we cursed
the flood, channeled from
the border creek and basin of lakes
that added their support
King tides gave flux to sheets
of water, rising silently after falling,
following the low-lying land
spilling once again between
the waiting paperbarks
Our cattle, cut off from us, stood
utterly dejected - birds came
with the sounds of pardise,
re-claiming their natural habitat
That next year we waited with
the paperbarks, watching for the birds
to fill the wetland
waiting for them to fill the silent
fields again
EARLY DECEMBER 2018,ANY FORM,ANY THEME,UPTO A MAX OF 20 lines
Contest Judged: 12/3/2018 11:40:00 PM
Sponsored by: Brian Strand
First Place
Categories:
low lying, bird, change, earth, nature,
Form:
Free verse
The grey oppresses;
surrounded by fog,
I traverse this shadowland;
Dorothy in reverse,
stuck in this land of monochrome
Xerox grayscale in 2-D.
Hoping it is but a dream,
valiantly, I stroke in Technicolor
Only to see it erased, again
It is no more real than the specters
haunting my thoughts.
Still I stumble around searching;
hues of hope hover out of reach
as these low-lying clouds
cast a pall-- blinding me to joy.
Perhaps, I'm trapped
in Tim Burton's sketch board;
these monoliths of grotesque
caricature evidence such.
At every turn there is a new one,
popping out of the mists.
Large, unmoving blocks of black granite
ring me like Stonehenge-- surrounded--
Leaving me wandering this maze of dark surrealism.
Glimpses of color reveal themselves
in the distance through the shroud,
ephemera teasing my senses.
Blow! benign zephyrs;
sweep away the haze
invading my peace.
Rescue me the confines
of my self-induced prison.
Let me walk in daylight, once again.
Categories:
low lying, dark, depression, introspection, sad,
Form:
Free verse
The Mutaitho hill zigzags its way to the borderlines of the sky
And to the opposite poses the historic Muilu hill once a shrine;
Now there between slithers the Kimongo River where huge rocks lie;
It’s on the banks of this river where the bachelor beekeeper lives.
His bald head is not worthy a ballad
Nor are his words so many to deserve a hoot,
It is his bee keeping zeal that stirs your blood;
An enterprise he’s run for years thirty and three.
And don’t think of the sophisticated box hives
Where you ferry the insects and lock them in,
He fells a log and hollows it all with his knives,
Till a home for bees he fashions there.
Not the low-lying things folks call hives,
Well-smoothed wooden objects lodged up the twigs
Of the most slippery trees with leaves like chives
Where no cunning badger would ever dare venture.
And he does his seasonal harvesting in the dead of the night,
While softer men curl to listen to the snores of their wives;
A night traveler will see his hairless head reflect the moonlight
And think they’ve spotted the nightly escapades of a ghost.
Now why he remains a bachelor at sixty and three
Is a secret only known to his beekeeping mind,
Perhaps nothing charms him more than a flourishing hive,
Perchance no girl would enchant more than the honeyed bee.
Categories:
low lying, crazy,
Form:
Verse
Good Friends:
This is a solo Renga, which means "linked verse". There are several types of Renga, this
one is a 12 Verse Shisan.
A Night of Many Dreams
Thick low lying clouds
A slate gray extended dawn
Silent, with no wind
I put on two pairs of socks
Then begin making coffee
"Good morning," she says.
"Did you sleep soundly last night?
I had many dreams."
**
In the travel magazine
Stories of distant islands
Windows are open
Now that the snow has melted
Afternoons are warm
He is the first one this year
To see the apple blossoms
**
From the worn out road
(It's scheduled to be repaved)
Commuting to work
She cell-phones her closest friend,
"Stuck in traffic, in this heat!"
On the horizon
Clouds slowly accumulate
Over the forest
**
We tend not to notice change
When it happens step by step
He reads some stories
To his three year old daughter,
Her two favorites
Moonlight slips past the curtains
Under the door, down the stairs . . .
Categories:
low lying, life
Form:
Verse
Firstly, skies grew dark, whilst the winds grew strong,
this ominous progression, showed it would not be long
before towering clouds released their thunderous load
of torrential rain, on the land below. Though rain bode
well for much needed relief, they held great danger too,
for a lengthy deluge lasting hours, which might ensue,
could flood the low lying regions, when the dry soil,
baked hard from weeks of drought, would likely foil
the penetration of water to the parched depths below,
where roots wither unseen. Essential for plants to grow,
they’d wait in vain for relief, when heavy cool rains
racing pell mell to the lower reaches of flood plains:
sweep all before their gathered cascading might!
Although rain is needed, it is never a welcome sight
to see it fall heavily, then race away in unseemly haste.
Though desperately essential, it is a diabolical waste,
and further devastates the already stressed, parched land!
Of late Mother Nature shows she wants us to understand
global warming effects are a result of man’s thoughtlessness,
and this is why we see extremes of weather related distress,
manifested all around the globe, as severe rampaging storms,
replace once benign weather systems, accepted as norms.
Lately however, we’ve been fortunate inasmuch as the rain
from damaging storms has passed us by, and we gain
satisfaction, whilst our garden, over which we’ve slaved,
will reach its full potential, with our distressed plants saved,
from the effects of several windy days and oppressive heat.
From life giving rain, which fell:, our day is complete:
with our brown landscape becoming refreshed and green;
changed from the recent dull, ochre brown that has been
our lot. Due to changes in our weather patterns of late,
the welcome rain coming as it did, has changed the state
of our land in a way that is seen by many as a miracle.
Although this transformation is natural, for this spectacle
we give thanks, hoping nature forgives our ignorance
if we contain our natural greedy ways and exuberance.
Should we show firm resolve, to change our ways,
then she in turn may ensure we enjoy our future days.
Rhymer. Aug 5th, 2016.
Categories:
low lying, nature, summer, weather,
Form:
Narrative
Let me tell you a story...
It has not happened often in our neck of the woods;
I can remember only one time we've had snow on Easter.
The Ohio River had flooded earlier
that March of 1964
causing many disruptions in our lives.
Our town had a floodwall which protected
its low-lying residences from damage;
but my aging grandmother had to evacuate her area
and come to our home ten miles north.
This flood was second only (in her lifetime)
to the disastrous cost and destruction
triggered by a 1937 deluge.
Her visit was haunted by the memory of
severe damage to their home and business
twenty-seven years earlier
during the worst flood ever on the Ohio.
She worried the whole time - re-telling stories
of how folks had taken sick with scarlet fever and pneumonia.
How they had to stay with higher-ground relatives
and the back-breaking clean-up after the water receded.
They had just bought a new square grand piano.
She told of how they put ropes under the
legs and hoisted up it to the ceiling to
protect it from the water damage.
This was the first time I ever remember
her spending any time away from her home.
She and my grandpa ran a small grocery store
and made their mark in the community
by also selling homemade ice cream.
Just prior to the era of swirling soft-serve,
Tom's Ice Cream was known for miles around.
When grandma finally returned to her home,
the damage was more than her eighty-five years could bear.
My German-immigrant granny died on Good Friday
and was buried on the following Sunday, March 29, 1964.
I remember well, we had a light dusting of snow that Easter,
a kind of heavenly eulogy
marking her entrance
to eternity.
April 22, 2022
Sponsor Constance La France
Contest Name Form N - Narrative - New Poems
I chose a family theme
Categories:
low lying, 11th grade, easter, family,
Form:
Narrative
See someday! Without a sound,
In the calm midday of midsummer,
That hard by clump of woody willows.
Standing, lay your soft shoulder with one’s meek bark,
Under and amidst the bending branches
So clement and lingering.
Civilly! Eavesdrop the brown sparrows talking in soft shade;
Look at there, the animals, feeding in the pebbles-pasture;
Visit, the humble herders, their tall goats, their big-headed dog;
Hear, the roaring of that rocky creek, the din of that bouncing brook;
Smile at the low lying cloud, stare long those cedar- woods:
Of mine ear, of mine eye,
For me, for me, for me, O friend!
Categories:
low lying, nature, romantic,
Form:
Free verse
Sung from the tip of the top of the sonic mountain
The voice of the drip of the drops of a tonic fountain
The shimmer that possessed the wolf to howl at the moon
The demon in the lion’s roar to the elephant’s trumpet at noon
Reverberating through hearts and minds like white noise
Catching unsuspecting hearts off guard like shooting arrows
The dynamic song from a passionate climax and uninhibited shouts
The unapologetic magnetic crashing of waves into low-lying clouds
Primal cultic and Nordic echoes of ages long forgotten
Soothing memories of paradise in a once scenic garden
A phantom re-emerging from mist in the valley like dry ice
A newborn’s cry to her mother’s ears like mint to her eyes
Strung from the acoustic spring that propels that first step
The loud drum that is the beating of every obstacle we meet
The lyric that carried our voice as one through the dark
And broke the ceiling to our minds and to never look back
The stop to our tears on the ground to look at self like a watery mirror
The musical notes pulled from the air with a fist into our soul’s desire
Far reaching, the cure to the broken heart that’s lost its rhythm
Without freedom, there's no solemn, and no source of wisdom
Categories:
low lying, freedom,
Form:
Rhyme
Powerfully pandered not pondered and plotted
Ostensibly organic not overtly originally spotted
Liars lipping lethargic lies lavishly construed and truly
Ire inducing ignorance imputing irresponsible foolery
Terrorizing timid tepid taxpayers to respond fast
In an impatient ill illegal inconceivable idiotic mad blast
Callously cold and cantankerously conniving bastards
Assiduously aspiring and aggravating masses mastered
Low lying lingering and living Luddite like lumberjacks
Limping 'long labored roads ludicrously lacking facts
Yet yearning yearly for yuppy snacks
they wouldn't even know what to do with it, nor deserve it.
Categories:
low lying, philosophy, political,
Form:
Acrostic