Best Lunging Poems
I used to like barbells, enjoyed pumping iron,
my Nautilus* gym was one happy environ.
Those posters of 6-packs and marbled biceps
inspired me to start counting carbs, pounds, and reps.
My trainer would coax, "hold as long as you can!"
Doing deadlifts I felt like a WAS a dead man
The kettlebell, medicine ball - hated those,
since dropping 'em both on my poor little toes.
My dad-bod and willpower soon parted ways,
after only 1 set, I was shell-shocked for days
My back hurt, my knees ached, I'd injured my hips,
after grimacing nonstop, I'd sprained both my lips.
Oy! The sharp pain that shoots
through my quads, delts and glutes...
Now my game plan is shifting
no more power lifting.
To planks, it's "no thanks",
I'm expunging all lunging.
I feel stabs in my abs,
there's a hex on my pecs
and my lats shriek like bats.
When I tweak my oblique
I am sore to the core...
and I want it no more.
The rowing machine is no longer my scene
I loathe those squats lots and I hate crunches bunches.
Do sit-ups or push-ups? Do jump-ups or chin-ups?
I'm more inclined now to do lots of "I-give-ups".
My doc tried convincing me I'd be less tired?
I'm questioning how that poor man's brain is wired!
I felt half exhausted just WATCHING staff clean
the ellipticals, treadmills, and stair-climb machine.
Then... I found when I stood on the locker room scale
That my plan to lose weight was a sad epic fail!
I'm done! I have finished my very last burpee -
I just want a hot dog and super-size Slurpee.
What happened to wanting to feel fit and well?
When it came to workouts, I was just a dumbbell.
I've resolved now to walk more, or swim a few laps
maybe jog, ride my bike, play some tennis, take naps.
That's right, getting plenty of rest seems so plain,
it appears the most challenging muscle to train ...
is the brain.
* Nautilus is a brand of gym equipment
written 2 Oct 2022
Lunging forward a stab to the heart,
vitriol hurled at an unsuspecting soul.
A sarcastic word or comment, thrown in jest,
tearing flesh, leaving a gaping hole.
I was only joking, ha ha, wasn't that fun?
he says to no one.
Why are you hurt?
They're only words you know,
letters put together as one.
Intentional or not, caustic words will burn,
stinging speech cannot be unstung.
Hurtful songs, once sang, cannot be unsung.
Playing the dangerous game of sarcasm,
is like shooting words in derision.
Vitreous feelings are shattered,
only causing hurtful division.
Sarcasm is not innocent child's play,
it bites, it leaves marks, that forever may remain.
Think before you speak there are always consequences to hurtful speech!
John Derek Hamilton November 18,2015
And I witness
Your deplorable “glory”
Hunching over my tattered spine,
So we can have something in common
You walk with glorified shell-shock,
Another sentient tongue,
Straddling on the Eros of vindication
Your sandpaper hands
Reach for an assaulted tenderness
Embracing lambasted lyric
Another tenor’s proclamation
That their oxidized octaves
Are legitimately sound
…
Nobody is listening.
…
So, you try to rectify your ill-erect
Compass
Only heading south
Bound
By meandering prophecies,
Unwritten
Undeclared
Just another pre-historic fool
Believing the Jamaican grass is greener on
The other side
Puff your corrupted beliefs
Toward laundered Benjamins
While I soak in the bloodied joy,
That I remain priceless
…
Approach me
While you suffer tiny warden syndrome
In High Definition
Be the insignificant syllable that
Becomes, you, a fragmented figment
Of your re-imagination
Call in your slobbering pinchers and
Convince them why dethroning my smile
Will be that change you conspire,
Because I stood taller than the arrogant
Umbilical c(h)ord that breastfeeds your high horse
For I am you
I am you
Every kick, every punch, every verbal attack
Every overcompensating, born-again glare
You blasphemously portray
But, it is not me you scar.
IT IS NOT ME THAT YOU SCAR!
…
Your one-night stand with perception
Succumbs your third-eye
Keep drinking from your bloodied, rustic w(h)ine glass,
As you drown in your declarations of dependence
Screaming to be louder than love
Louder than your ordained intentions
To become a speck of importance
To be worth something,
Something more,
Than the lunging foot you believe
Will keep me down
©D.J.E.
I came across a Jumpher
A jumphin’ up at me.
It wasn’t very springy
As far as i could see.
It tried to do someothersault,
Impressing like a tree,
But landed with a thumping thud
And hurt his only knee.
‘How come you like to ravel so?’
I bellied like a navel,
While on the other hand i plied
Some custard on a table.
‘I’m only giving all I’ve got-
A hundred miles an hour.
But if you take it at a trot
It soaks you with a shower.
‘I see,’ i said, came out my head,
And nodding fully clothed,
I asked if he’d seen Ninnynook?
A nose that knows no prose.
‘I likes to smell his gravy soup.’
He jumphered like a sweater,
Then driving like a five wheeled horse
Left home wrapped in a letter.
‘Good luck, you leaphing lunging loon.’
I mouthed in Granny’s gums
Then smiling like a holiday
I went to see my chums.
Summertime Fun – On the Beach
When I’m feeling hot, hot, hot,
the beach is certainly my ideal fun spot!
Wearing sunglasses and floppy hat plopped on my head,
I’m lunging under an umbrella in my bathing suit so red.
As I play with my bare feet in the warm sand,
for me summertime on the beach is always grand!
After a few sun-drenched laps in the salty ocean,
I’m ready for a full-body massage with baby oil or suntan lotion.
Feeling very relaxed, sipping on a frosty virgin pina colada,
this is definitely summertime fun for Pandita!
Just imagine coconut trees swaying in a light breeze,
that’s a picture I like – so freeze frame – please!
05-29-2015
Contest: Summertime Fun
Sponsor: Debbie Guzzi
Placement: HM
I woke to billowing curtains
lunging in the breeze,
and the scent of jasmine
thick against the glass.
This once-orderly garden, gone sparse:
unkempt grass and the bougainvillea—
and that persimmon tree we loathe,
heaving with an over-abundance
of ripening fruit.
The early sun casts a hazy pillar
to weight the bedroom floor.
Don’t wake me.
Boys carry their snow sleds
up, up
to the highest peak
scaling risk
their voices pitched
chattering noise of expectation
frozen giddiness on snow packed hills
boys belly flop onto plastic sleighs
bubble-headed jauntiness launches them
lunging down, down
bewildering "swish" of speed
smashing white drifts
projectiles scattered
boys tossed in snowbanks like pizza dough spinning
baked together in joy
pushing the balance of extreme
runs repeated
brash, blunt, bold
epic span of freedom
ignoring downfalls from ill timed moves
in a lost sense of direction
gleefully tired
snow flecked
boys wheeze the icy air
make their way home
their talk clotted with bravado
beneath it, the unspoken promise to never tire
of boyhood
in twilight, the slopes gleam
gouged by sled marks
that clear a path for growth
targeted direction
and if boys fall from the path
are there souls
who'll notice?
when ruts threaten
when sleds teeter
in unruly spaces
Poem composed February 2, 2022
Shore lights buttress the sky's
vaulted dark and shed
a solemn hush along
the river's reach.
Set upon a calm,
fishing boats drift
the night towing lines
of vicious hooks.
Below them, the sediments
of lifetimes lay in secreted
scores cast in a language
lost to the ear. In the quiet
of evenings you can almost
hear the river breathe.
Something rises to speak,
falling silent as if an affliction
has made what
dwells there, mute.
In the distance, small fish
splash the surface pursued
by predators lunging up
from deep below. Then everything
chokes to a quiet.
The river flows on
and on, sealing in mud
the sad chorus
of unspoken sounds.
** SCENES FROM HOME **
The curtain wafts on an open-window’s breezing air, like liquid
Blue in the room, bringing beauty with magic’s tracing
The woman with her still raining, trickling water-streams
Over her calf as she lifts her leg out of the bath
Above the call, “Daughter!” to the girl running outside, her
Tresses and turquoise skirt flying up in a lunging wind
As a red squirrel leaps onto a chipping-painted windowsill
To dig all through a neglected flowerbox, while he’s squawked at
By a blackbird, bowing over her nest, keeping watch
Nearby where there emanates the enchanting sound of piano
Nocturnes that the son (in rolled-up shirtsleeves) nicely plays
While a ping-pong ball rolling, clacks across the cellar floor,
Beguilling the cat into a frenzied attempt to seize her prey
At the hallway’s end, Grandma asks a mirror about her appearance.
“Is there a flower fairy to bring a blooming loveliness to my age?”
Mirror, ready to answer, “Just look! Radiance grows inside every day.”
But, the answer on-coming, found Grandma, chin-on-hand, fast asleep.
————————————————————————————————————-
(c) sally young eslinger 7/14-15/2023
Thanks be to God—-
Late night's repartee
flashes
dueling swift swords...
lunging
for a point
a masked dancer
slips from his
delicately
balanced beam
Moon sinks
Stars surrender
Poof ~
into darkness night's plunged
Soft is the call of the night
She whispers to me in the rustle
of leaves ‘neath an ancient breeze
For time runs headlong into the chasm
~ lunging at moments already passed
I can't hear, said the man to his wife
Did you say, that you're holding a knife?!
with her hands hid behind
a smile not truly kind
Lunging forward he sprang for his life!
Submission for poetry contest: Spring Forward (Limerick)
He is an oppressive Master of the House
commanding all to follow his beat;
that on a last desperate evening,
I plead relief from his vile craving
When a violent urge attempts to devour my honor :
Through rotten laughter, my primal instinct
Rises---fear to dignity—lunging extended stabs
Upon his bestial chest until red of blood
Taints night’s floor with liberty's pure scent
Washing me a young overseas maid
Far from home yet boldly affirming
Life’s valuable birthright.
*Inspired by the story of Sara Balabagan,
a maid-servant who killed her employer
to protect her dignity.
A Debbie Guzzi Contest … 1/17/1017
You Say You Want A Revolution
Intricate machinery ,
clockwork of emotions,
frail and deadly in all your notions ,
judge of the tainted,
granter of the pure;
a romantics' only cure.
Lost in her gaze I ponder,
lost in her gaze my imagination soars and wonders,
amongst her iris a frosty plain,
I seek her touch but collapse in vain,
the caustic gale bites my skin,
the scorching snow breaks my will,
slowly I'm swallowed by the evil within,
within those very iris with intent to kill.
Gushing blood like a river's surface,
crimson lips where demons dwell,
trapped within the scarlet glaze,
tis' my end I bid farewell,
lunging deep in her seas within,
a lost man,
a shattered dream.
Tired I rest amongst the filaments of her hair,
abyssal black,
weaved with despair,
flowing like water,
a lonely rose,
a dragon's lair,
tis' my ruin,
my curse to bear.
Amidst your gifts I stumble,
step by step I crumble,
as my heart fails my will,
my lungs with your poison doth fill.
Wretched.
Ragged.
Beast.
I tear and claw at my chest,
gouging veins,
snapping bones at best;
my wrath knows no rest.
entwined by the same fate,
engulfed by love’s hate,
we share the same sin,
a sin to which we are both akin.
for we shall burn in fire,
engulfed by our desire,
thus kiss me my love,
and mourn no more,
forever be damned our putrid soul.
You can almost hear the funeral procession
of leaves drifting lowly to earth, symphonic
children’s laughter bounces off crispy tips
rain completing its wash; lost
wet clothes saturated with a day
that will enter history.
Softness of winter foretelling a story
the one washed down storm drains
wrapped in black tied laundry bags,
suitable for the shedding skin of trees.
Swirling wind tosses the pile of dry bones
nature, a chef mixing a salad
water the dressing-- children the tongs;
lunging through piles as if waltzing
without mirrors.
Time, a rake with bony fingers
scraping delicately across
an earthen scalp. Longing
for new birth, sprout your wings
lullaby the past.
Lost within reason
singing without words
wrapping around
the rusty rake
propped lazily
across a skeleton fence.
If we face the east, can the west capture thoughts
a limp wristed boomerang never returning expectations?