Best Maimed Poems
We are polar opposites trying to connect,
Walking through a field of land mines.
Sometimes we don't make it through
Without becoming a bit maimed.
I am the steadfast flower in your garden,
The one that always grows back.
Even if abused, I find a way to blossom.
Tethered together by an invisible cord
Our deep love somehow endures.
We knew how different we were before
We felt compelled to share our lives.
We told ourselves opposites attract.
Now as age and illness becomes entwined
We have become shells of our vibrant
Selves who once took on the world united.
I refuse to succumb to the harsh winter
As I cling to the hues of our harvest years.
I will keep it at bay with songs in the sun
Warming both our hearts 'till winter comes.
7-5-15
Moonless Nights over South Sudan
heartless Moon, don’t tell me
that you weren’t looking
when soulless soldiers dragged me
from my mama’s terrified arms
in our village in Rubkona County
I know you covered your ears
so you wouldn’t hear
my screams piercing the fetid air
as those butchers dropped their pants
repeatedly ripping my body and soul apart
and I saw you cover your eyes
so blinded that you wouldn’t see
the stark horror reflected in my own eyes
the hot tears scorching my cheeks
sobbing for childhood forever lost
oh Mother Moon, Mother Moon
please cover your face
behind billowy black clouds
so that you can’t see
your daughter’s dejected, dead eyes
cowardly Moon, I forgive you
even after you turned your back on me
filling my days only with your dark side
as I sink deeper into a black hole
with no hope to guide me safely home
but helpless Moon, how can I blame you?
for you’re only a mere observer
powerless to defend me
feeling guilty for abandoning
your innocent children
Moon, you’ve witnessed it all before
the torn and bleeding
the tortured and maimed
all tied tightly to weeping trees
reeking of despair and pain
Moon, will you soon forget
my body dripping with bloody shame?
will anyone even remember me?
am I no one…with no name?
will you, Moon, mourn for me?
like you Moon, I am already ancient
over a millennium it seems
yearning for freedom…
waiting for death…
and I’m only twelve years old
Note: This piece is dedicated to all the women and young girls who have been abducted, raped, and/or killed in the secret rape camps in South Sudan over the past two years. According to a human rights investigator, many of them are held indefinitely, tied up with hundreds of other women in these camps and used as sex slaves. Those women who escape from the sex camps are the lucky ones.
09-29-2015
Contest: Must be Read
Sponsor: Silent One
Placement: 3rd
July 29, 1890
Colored daubs and swatches
crave artist’s practiced hand.
Justice, nearly blind, yet watches—
unwrought art upon a stand.
Regard the brushes in a row—
the palettes and the sponges.
Genius maimed by status quo,
vain a hope that fate expunges.
Guttered myriad lifelong dreams—
in desperate ruination.
Fading now the piteous screams
of self-inflicted termination.
Time Passes
Abruptly then adoring praise—
contrived their sudden expertise.
Rude cabal who would appraise—
byzantine their guileful sleaze.
Each masterpiece a servant
of craven yearn and greed.
Bang the gavel, swift and fervent;
sate purveyors’ inveterate need.
Justice now is truly blind;
vanished those She would impute.
His final piece is left unsigned;
and undisclosed, for now She’s mute.
4th Place: I Love Rock and Roll
Inspired by Don McLean's song, Starry Starry Night
CORONA VIRUS (COV-19)
The Black Death, or bubonic plague, which happened nearly 700 years ago, (in the three year period of 1347 to 1351 in which it lasted) took the lives of an estimated 75 to 200 million people. It stayed dormant for 300 years. It then reared its ugly head in Spain and London. The plague is certainly a devastating entity to be reckoned with. The attack by terrorists on 9/11 was a dastardly deed perpetrated by cowards and the death toll was horrendous but by comparison, the Black Death is by far the worse catastrophe ever witnessed by mankind. In Biblical History, leprosy was the most dreaded disease which maimed and killed many. But rest assured there are days coming that all the combined plagues of history can compare. In the Book of Matthew 24:6-13 it reads: "And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name's sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another." There is already great evidence of this taking place in government today and all around the world. You may ask the question, "What does this have to do with the Corona Virus (COV-19)? The Corona Virus can be controlled. The chaos and devastation of Armageddon cannot be stopped or brought under control. Therefore, it is an undisputed fact that the world will experience a catastrophe far greater than anything that has ever taken place. Matthew 6:33-34 reads: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."
Friday, 13 March 2020
Curtis Moorman
For the Corona Virus (COV-19) contest
The soul is but a vast ocean of vigilance
Streaming with incresent colours towards life
Infinite within its parhelion possibilities
Relentlessly searching, betwixt the everflowing tides
Whereupon all things approach these providential probabilities
Of endlessly prolific visions thus beheld
Within the grasp of pristine pictures brushed and painted
Afore the overtures tubular bells; now sounding
Strewn, beneath the curatives silverish moon
Sirventes tunes, born, within fascinations bloom
These meant to be rhymes, amid Dorothy Gales times
Over somewheres prized amphoric rainbow
Arched imaginations, of fantasias floriferous creations
Breathing their pollinating light, within every breath that they breathe
Escaping the carcinogen caverns through torchbeared passages
Beyond the flesh rent falls and encumbering shawls
Carved crude, these animus meshed jackets
Encased within the chamber once laced
Unto broken bricks of concretes chained
Like Percivals plight....
Unmentioned between the lores, this wondering upon metaphoric shores
While barricaded by the calibrated stone engraved
Until antinomy could devise no more; yet
"If all we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream?"
Scream, and shatter these williwaws window panes
Awakening, beyond their oblique orbs of obscurities, void
To find 'The Holy Grail,' amid incarnadines blinding night
This veil removed, as clarity becomes now focused
Stepping from the shadows of the corners once webbed
Crossing, these sunsoaked sands of sunrises preached
With reaching hands, to touch the braille upon windings trails
Which only led back to the same gruesome pangs
Of a souls once upon a times, bound in maimed
Reading the writings on the wall, as cascading waters broke
The pinnacle of lost, tumbling and crashing to the reef
Belief, of a life breaking free from the dampened day
When faith became submerged beneath the assailant currents of
Hopes castaway possibilities....
Branded into their eyes, by the father of disguise
But no more as the clock struck three, and inversion, began to flee
Awakening from a dream, where nothing, was what it seemed
Dorothy Gales amphoric rainbow, draped upon a cross ~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Percivals Promise!?
Form:
two bible-blabbering, prattling pastors
from two denominational sectors
ended up in stitches and bloody plasters;
those around said it actually began
when one yelled, "faith alone can save a man!",
the other screamed, "only charitable acts can!";
swinging bulky bibles, shouting curses,
they whacked each other's eardrums and noses,
bludgeoned and bloodied their righteous faces;
so ironic, how they maimed each other
for faith, for charity and didn't bother
to heed the Lord's words: "Love one another."
With hands outstretched,
Lifted a small distance.
Palms to the sun, warmth
Felt, heartfelt. Eyes aimed
At the light, all seeing.
You are, embody who you
Want to be. Who you see
To be. Make your choice,
Yours to make, you see?
Whoever says you’re maimed
Fails everything, it’s etched
In your whole being:
You are who I am seeing,
Complete and whole to me.
***
April 13, 2017
Copyright © Darren White
A legendary tale of love I know
about two very brilliant people who
were soul mates living centuries ago.
They shared much hardship but their love stayed true.
Truth seeker Heloise sought Abelard.
Great teacher of philosophy was he.
But people’s thinking in that time was marred.
Then Heloise got pregnant, secretly
the couple wed, but Heloise was forced
to give her baby up, which broke her heart.
When Abelard was maimed; both were coerced
into monastic lives and lived apart.
Found letters prove their love could never die.
Together in a tomb in France they lie!
March 6, 2020
for Chantelle Anne Cooke's "Your Favorite Legend" Poetry Contest
I guess it's not 100% certain that they are together in that tomb because their remains got moved around. For sure, they are together in the afterlife!
I'm smart, crippled with knowledge I never sought,
things I wish I didn't know.
The song of a kiss so brilliant it's like an x-ray,
the voice of the red rose, the yellow, the white.
The whisper sound where the petals meet and overlap,
the dew that nourishes.
Listen: This is the difference between an object and an idea,
between love and desire,
hope and faith.
This is what's left when there's nothing left,
when the past is soaked up like oxygen
into the blood of the future.
This is an image in a mirror,
imperfect.
When love looks into a mirror and becomes aware of itself
it becomes bliss.
Ecstasy becomes rapture,
sorrow becomes anguish,
the world turns silver and night never falls.
This is a song of extremes, of haste, of not looking back.
These are the words.
The music is the sound that time makes when you're
buried beneath an eternity of its ooze,
the voices that come unbidden and unannounced,
the screams that make you say, I wish, I hope, and finally,
I know.
This is the knowledge that maimed me,
the secret I spread like a contagion with a kiss,
a whispered word,
a touch.
This is the truth I'd sell my soul to be rid of.
Believe me, I've tried.
This is the truth about being buried alive, about being utterly alone,
about missing boats.
And this is how I told it--in a whisper, in a scream, in a song
As a joke in the light of day,
as a prayer in the darkness.
Listen.
Oh Lord, Our Heavenly Father of all creation
We rely on you in all tribulations of life
Hope you will come down to touch and heal
Our bleeding hearts, for your mercy exceeds all bounds
You cannot turn your eyes when your children sob in agony,
You cannot but mend our torn and splintered hearts
When fears and tensions swivel and rake us
Shaking the very hinges of our existence
Anchor our minds to faith to proclaim with conviction
That you alone are our sole armor and refuge
That in every trial of ours, you will be there by our side
You are the only one who can gauge the depth of our pain
You are the only one who knows our weaknesses
We entreat you to heal our hurts and purge our hearts
When numerous sins and vices tacitly remain
So that we shall shine in your grace and grow in your love
When we stagger under the heavy weight of life
And when no one is around to ease our grief
We see you standing lovingly within our reach
With hands held out beckoning us with assurance of relief
Like a loving father out and out to help his wayward kids
You are the great Shepherd who will never desert his herd
But will come searching for the missing lambs
When our legs grow weary with every forward step
Oh, come and carry each of these staggering lambs
Lend your hand in our tightrope walk, that if fallen
We can spring back and hop, without getting maimed
Grant us true light that we will not grope in dark alleys
We know, the opulence of this transient world
Can never ever fill our hearts or give us lasting joy
It is in Thy love, we find our life’s whole comfort
It is on your shoulders, we want to lower our burden
When the skies are cloudy, when burdens are heavy
Oh, friends, tell yourselves never to feel troubled,
With such a great savior around
When we are lost, He will kindly lead us home
Solve our problems if we partake in His love
And shelter us in his great bastion, day and night
Brian Strand 1090 Poetry Contest
Feb.24. 2022
Inspirational Christian Poetry Contest
Sponsor- Regina MacIntosh
White marble stones
Stand proud in the sun
To remember my colleagues
The heroic fallen ones
Many a battle
Many a campaign
Some did return
For some never the same
On the green grass I stand
Blue sky above
The souls of my comrade's
Like peaceful sitting doves
The name on this stone
Reminds me of the day
My best friend and brother
Was taken away
An offensive was launched
Brothers at war
Bunker to take
At the top of a tor
Smoke screen exhausts the view to the hill
As we wind our way through
Zipping bullets, blood spill
Noises of lead, as they rip through the flesh
As we hit the barbed wire
Now a scarlet stained mesh
Objective in sight as we approach our aim
As I hear the groan of the injured
Many dead, maimed
Grenade pin pulled
Bunker window we lob
Hands sweating
How many lives will we rob
Explosion flash, shouts of pain
As the smoke lifts on this bloody terrain
We enter the Bunker
To witness our task
The enemy lie distorted
Faces grimace, death mask
I turn to my brother to signal it's safe
As a shot rings out in this theatre place
He stands still for a moment
Eyes glazing and cold
The death of my sibling
At 19 years old
As I open my eyes and turn to my son
I see what I have as he holds my grandson
Family values, love and a bond
As I remember my brother
Of whom I was so fond
I proudly walk past, salute as I go
The white stones standing proud
Peaceful doves in a row
I find myself fortunate to stand here and tell
To talk of my brother, and the fallen as well
.
Anne Murray did have quite the flurry, voice as a brook without crooks
Canadian born, songs of forlorn, beautiful vibes, I subscribed
Such singing as a bird, the world has never heard, she splurged
“O Little Snow Bird”, in the words I heard, calming of Vietnam
O spread your wings and fly away, words of God’s love I heard
Mind level love, forever untrue, so what’s new, `Tis festering spew
O but little snow bird, an alpine of cleansing snow, God’s Love
Spread your wings that brings, renewing, from festered spewing
Providing for me a way to go, by a cleansing snow
Innocence, a purity, of life’s promising security
Some leaders said only fate, this atrocity of hate
Maimed, lamed and defamed they came, to claim their bitter fame
State side they now abide, holding inside, Our leaders lied
Leaving the lamb of their souls in Nam, for uncle Sam
Atrocities, of hate, never abate, mind’s sickening fate
The Vietnam of late, laid at the mind’s creation of hell’s gate
O beauty of little snow birds, spread your wings, fly back this way
Cleans again, the glean of mind’s sin called fate, lain at heart’s gate
Like an alpine of purity, Love from Anne’s heart was sung
Maybe only to ease her own pain, but her timing was plain
The answer is blowing in the wings, of even a little snow bird
The such of which the mind of itself has never learn or heard
All humanity will not learn, but precious few will return
By their trust in Love, the snow white Dove, spewed forth from above
Anne Murray sang away I know, some of my own heart’s pain
Honoring all Vietnam veterans, be you not in fretters
From your hearts of security your love is your surety
Let your Alpine of pure snow bird, be Love’s word you’ve heard
Dane I am sure you’ve at least heard this song that this poem is about.
It somehow caused me to think of you, as I was writing it. Therefore
I dedicate it to you and all veterans for your service to our country.
Sincerely, Love, Moses
12-19-09 johnmosesfreeman@yahoo.com
White marble stones
Stand proud in the sun
To remember my colleagues
The heroic fallen ones
Many a battle
Many a campaign
Some did return
For some never the same
On the green grass i stand
Blue sky above
The souls of my comrade's
Like peaceful sitting doves
The name on this stone
Reminds me of the day
My best friend and brother
Was taken away
An offensive was launched
Brothers at war
Bunker to take
At the top of a tor
Smoke screen exhausts the view to the hill
As we wind our way through
Zipping bullets, blood spill
Noises of lead, as they rip through the flesh
As we hit the barbed wire
Now a scarlet stained mesh
Objective in sight as we approach our aim
As i hear the groan of the injured
Many dead and maimed
Grenade pin pulled
Bunker window we lob
Hands sweating
How many lives will we rob
Explosion flash with shouts of pain
As the smoke lifts on this bloody terrain
We enter the Bunker
To witness our task
The enemy lie distorted
Faces grimace, death mask
I turn to my brother, to signal its safe
As a shot rings out, in this theatre place
He stands still for a moment
Eyes glazing and cold
The death of my sibling
At 19 years old
As i open my eyes, and turn to my son
I see what i had, as he holds my grandson
Family values, love and a bond
As i remember my brother
Of whom, i was so fond
I proudly walk past, salute as i go
The white stones standing proud
Peaceful doves in a row
I find my self fortunate to stand here and tell
To talk of my brother, and the fallen as well
http://www.thehighlanderspoems.com/war-2.php
There is a little land that's built on sand in the Middle East
To listen to the world complain, you'd think it was a beast
Yet it's more diverse, and dynamic, than the USA
100+ countries immigrants' flourish there today
As for democracy, why there's nothing to compare
Fully 20 parties over there vie for electoral shares
Freedom of--not from--religion is absolutely guaranteed
And no one's made to recite a pledge
To a flag he can't believe
Minorities ARE protected there; they make a real impact
Arab statesman constitute 10% of Parliament, in fact...
By now you've surely guessed the country that I've yet to name
For to even say the word today can get you killed or maimed
But eventually the truth will out, as it always does:
Those who bang the drums today for tiny Israel's death
Will come tomorrow to recant their misguided shibboleths
A rose is guarded from prying hands
By thorns along the stem
Reality makes the truth known
A heart can be kept safe
From those who wish it maimed
By icy spikes of bitterness
And distrust
Thorns are beautiful
As are my own version of such a Godsend
Serrated barbed wire
That hurts both the offender and the prey
It works both ways for us
We had some bond
That the fairy tales paled against
Though what naive child was I to ignore
The untamed look as you swept me off my feet
And killed the innocnce
I longed to preserve
A wound carries infection
When left untreated
A shattered heart
And useless dream
Will not infect
But most surely
Scar
My burning heart
Bleeds for salt
To make it worse
And yet
To make it feel so much better
Now I have played my part
And those thorns that once looked
Deadly yet respectable
Made me see
Time does not always heal all wounds
The memory will stay caught
Onto those pikes of self preservation
And your Betrayal within me.