Best Middling Poems
Most of life is spent in
hope for better things yet
expectation of what is to come
or anticipation of what could be
and while this is good, even necessary...
Focusing on the few
more “memorable” moments
misses out on much
of the spaces in-between:
Time with loved ones
time amid others
time to ourselves
time spent going places
and getting things done
time spent sitting utterly still
Such seemingly mundane spaces
on life's broad canvas
are the underpainting of the portrait
that our life becomes
the basis of the character we create
moment-by-moment
day-by-day
While more exciting times
are mere small fragments
on their own, a sad display
an infinitesimal, tiny sample
of the grander scene of life
So slow down, dear ones
Breathe deeply, remembering that
rushing only leads to rudeness
Instead of slopping through
these middling spaces...
Correct some of their ugliness by
brushing them with beauty, a little each day
Carefully choosing each word and action-
coloring them with kindness
Be honest, but without cruelty
Stop tolerating the intolerable
stop committing to what you don't want
stop rejecting what you truly need
life is a limited commodity
don't squander your time or anyone else's
Clothe yourself with humility
artist's smock of life
the covering that allows for
mistakes, creativity
and continual learning
Make the most of every moment
especially
the ones in-between
you might find that in the end
they were the most precious times of all
Categories:
middling, community, growth, humanity, identity,
Form:
Free verse
she rises and floats
in a lacy dress of white
skirted by heavens own light
soaked in morning thought
the rainfall caresses " life "
in creative fanfare time
charcoal middling clouds
singing songs, await her not
she is happy as can be
lofting in God's house
as soft as angel whispers
her voice carries me away
7/14/2019
Used image # 1
for the fives and sevens contest
Categories:
middling, analogy,
Form:
Choka
As I lay me down to sleep, for the last and final time
I leave you, my daughter, with this testament's chime
No matter the temperature, no matter the weather, no matter the clime
Be it ever so nasty, be it fair-to-middling, or utterly sublime
Be grateful, my darling, for our sun's constancy, rising anew every day
For its steady course through the Heavens toward sunset, wending its way
Appreciate the warmth of a Spring morn and the Autumnal evening glow
Even bone-chilling Winter, huddled round the fire in a cozy chateaux
Thank your lucky stars for Summer's finery midst weather resplendent
View each drop of rain as a scion of its climactic rainbow ascendant
For when you fill your heart with gratitude for what in Nature's indelible
Sure you'll stir the soul of your betrothed with Love un-dispel-able
June 25, 2018
Categories:
middling, appreciation, light, love, nature,
Form:
Rhyme
Hum ditty hum
Fathom my fumbling thumbs
My fat fingers were fiddling
A tune that was middling
Never a merrier man than me
Categories:
middling,
Form:
Limerick
Hugs can be like mangoes
sometimes difficult to disengage.
Some are so worth the effort
others are just fair to middling.
Next, compare cling peaches.
Categories:
middling, 11th grade, fruit,
Form:
Free verse
I Do Not Know The Secret...,
Asper Art Of Writing Acclaimed Poem...
Not purposeful intent,
when tasking self (Das Scribe)
a nondescript member of
*****sapiens village people tribe
metaphorical spear in hand ready
to unbridal strong arm as vibe
resoundingly resonates, sans
(crackles, snaps, and pops)
optimal instant to expunge bribe
bing fountainhead of creativity
oft times screed or futile diatribe
no matter smug satisfaction appeased
as mental delectation on par with eclair
for taste buds, a reward dare,
I acknowledge mine appealing talent
(undoubtedly a slightly biased opinion)
with fast break for game of Solitaire,
or sink concentration matte tear
real awaiting with bated breath
comments, feedback, input...usually fair
to middling acceptable,
though frequent occasions blare
ring liberal dollop of adulation,
warms hearty cockles of this hermit
comfortably numb in his lair
which decency, humility, modesty...
of mine to avoid trumpeting pomposity
as if yours truly snooty billionaire
keeps in check (ma mate)
cognitive firmae tubby beware
boot up pawn occasion, the errant knight
within me finds ego expanding square
lee out beyond outer limits
of the twilight zone, where
entire cerebral cranium
shatters temple mount scare
ring eureka temporarily
finding me unaware,
viz blinding, deafening, and
obliterating brainstorm spate bare
lee delivering tummy any appreciable,
pronounceable, noticeable... impact
relishing this devil may care
state of being if only...threadbare
tenuous consciousness endured
sustaining oblivious blissfulness
absentmindedness forever delivering cheer
full countenance of mine finding me
unafraid of Virginia Woolf, a bugbear,
and/or he who dons most powerful paw
he can render complex edifice
of democracy to disappear
thus...after shaking wordy playwear
an early plug to vote November 2020
due to here
about nine months and one year.
Categories:
middling, america, creation, dedication, judgement,
Form:
Prose Poetry
I’m either really high up
Or really low down
Never just simply breathing
I’m either ecstatic
Or simply just tragic
Never quite really middling
It’s either blazing light
Or inky dark night
Never a morning or evening
I’m either fully alive
Or I’m living dead
Never just simply existing
I’ve a mountain top life
Or one mired in the trench
Never level ground trekking
Burning with passion
Or freezing in hurt
Never just lukewarm caring
I’m either in love
Or sizzling with hate
I’m never really just flirting
I’m Aphrodite one day
Then Medusa the next
Never just simply acting
You are either my friend
Or sworn enemy
Never just simply mingling
I’m either in heaven
Or tormented in hell
Never just purgatoring
I wish that my life
Were more even keeled
Cause this is just schizophrening
I’m either oddly insane
Or I’m sweetly inane
For a normal life I'm longing
Categories:
middling, life, satire,
Form:
Rhyme
In an old briefcase
capsuled for years in a corner
of the shed, I found a rolled up wad
of poems, stalled, still looking
for something to say, frozen
in a futile gasp for air.
I should have thrown
them away.
There was also an old plane ticket,
a beer coaster from an Antwerp cafe,
and a few photographs taken
from a bridge across a canal
in Bruges with three nuns wearing
starched white cornettes
stretched out like enormous
butterfly wings perched atop
of their heads.
And tucked in a side pocket,
were letters from my mother
written more than thirty years ago.
Long dead, I could almost hear
her voice read each word.
In one, she told me how
she scored an A for English
in the HSC exam she sat
when well into her sixties.
She could recite Frost's "Birches"
off the top of her head. Stevens,
for her, made no sense. Mum liked
plain language pared down
to bone.
I am not sure why I am writing
these words about such
middling matters, much less trying
to shape them into poetry.
No matter.
Sometimes just ordinary things,
like those found in an old briefcase,
seem to find a moment
to have something to say,
at least for me.
Categories:
middling, poetry, words, write,
Form:
Free verse
I went to school with a famous girl
Many years ago
She wasn't nothing special then
Bit snooty as it goes
She played well for the hockey team
Goalkeeper at her station
But clever as she was at that
It wasn't her vocation
She was middling at maths
Her spelling was bad
Geography rotten
Her art work quite sad
She hated cooking
Couldn't sew
She was very good looking
But didn't she know!
Just another
Classmate at school
Nothing much special
About her at all
Until one Christmas
New teacher appears
Says were doing a play
He wants volunteers
And up shot her hand
No hesitation
And wasn't she grand
A standing ovation
Next term came
Another play
Another triumph
Stupendous they say
And on this went
Term after term
For training shes sent
And never returned
Next time I see her
She's on the TV
The girl who sat by me
In Maths and RE
Now many years later
And by any measure
The girl in my class
Is a national treasure
Shes Oscars and BAFTAS
Shes even a dame
Im glad that I knew her
Shes my claim to fame
Categories:
middling, nostalgia,
Form:
Rhyme
© Ben Burton 8/16/2015
As my time on this earth dwindles
Toward those final sips of coffee
After appetizer, entree
And dessert have been devoured
I grieve all those wasted moments
When I only saw forever
Endless time to make it happen
Led me to procrastination
Watching days turn into leap years
Without leaping on the streetcar
Where desires aren't mere illusions
Many kindred spirits gather
To encourage other dreamers
But those streetcars start to vanish
For the reckless and the agèd
Never reckless, merely clueless
Now I'm leaning 'gainst the latter
Pining that which will not happen
For the only recognition
Is a Facebook 'like' or comment
And best wishes to the pauper
Just another starving artist
Less than middling art to offer
DVD's that few are buying
But no trying, pleading, begging
From a heart that's barely beating
Will stave off the wolves demanding
What's no longer in the coffers
Take a sip of cold, black coffee
From the large cup, almost empty
In a house that's pre-foreclosure
I await the hooded reaper
To relieve me of the mis'ry
With regrets, I go too gently
Wrapped in coils of indecision
Never lacking in discretion
But my diffidence contained me
Made no mark upon the middle
Now it's late, I'm cloaked in darkness
That good night has seized the moment
Shed no tears, but heed the lesson
Let no barricade dissuade you
Don't glimpse back and see a wasteland
Strewn with unaccomplished longings
Not that every step was wasted
I gave more than I accepted
But with nothing left to offer
And no streetcars heading my way
To a happier conclusion
With a wistful resignation
I reach for my cup of coffee
And I take the final sip
Categories:
middling, lost, nostalgia, sad,
Form:
Free verse
At six o’clock in the morning
Upon the sixth of June
Came Michael-Paul O’Higgins
Into this bustling world.
At school he was but middling,
He never cut much ice
In English, Maths, Geography,
In Scripture, Sport or Art.
In early adolescence
On the back seat of a bus
He found a tract on how we must
Seek out Salvation’s path.
Soon at the local gospel hall
He preached with fire and zeal.
“Put all your trust in Jesus,
In no prelate, prince or priest.”
He learned a thousand texts by heart,
Knew the number of the Beast,
And having read the Bible through,
Turned back to Genesis.
His school performance soon shot up,
He banished ease and sloth.
No dirty jokes would pass his lips,
Like they might from other folks.
N this world, too, is virtue blessed.
His hard work soon bore fruit.
He gained a place at Oxford.
His ambition was the Church.
But lofty halls of learning
May stifle simple faith,
And Michael-Paul had fits of doubt
That caused his lapse from grace.
He switched to Economics
And flirted with Karl Marx.
To a secular millennium
He strove to find the path.
Soon active carrying banners,
Their colour deep-dyed red,
He got caught up in fisticuffs
And was bundled off to clink.
They noted his particulars,
Affiliations, too.
The magistrate just said “tut tut”
And he was free to go.
However minor was this brush,
He aimed to live it down.
He learned to mind his P’s and Q’s
And be just plain bourgeois.
Forgetting youth’s illusions,
For a salary safe and sure
Than ran into six figures
He sold Babylon his soul.
Up higher, ever higher,
He climbed each echelon
Until the plum job of his dreams
Was juggling on his nose.
But in some data memory bank
Was that record from his past,
The which, recalled in a routine check,
Gummed up his future plans.
He lost his job, his house, his wife,
He lost his heart and soul,
And now he’s palely loitering
In the long queue for the dole.
O wise man, give an answer,
O say what devil’s art
Has turned his world reformer,
This promising performer,
Into a mere statistic
On an economic chart?
Categories:
middling, faith, psychological, success,
Form:
Verse
My world spins round
too fast most times
from Greek deep roots
on Black Sea ports
crossing Jordan's River
on Catherine's Great
trains meet sailboats
greeting sea planes
flying off to sports unknown
throughout Lake Odessa Highway.
Where Ottomans
blend Spanish matadors,
heroes for Earth's day
and night bleeds forth
a calvary of SunGod force
to please titillating whims
of Lake Odessa's middling class czarinas.
I can't go home again
to straight places never born.
My mind can wavey roam
and try to swim
and fly to where and what
and whom and why
we might have been
if we had built
a fine fair fortress
for peace that loves to rock
and sing sad songs
of what brilliant sights have been
in resilient Lake Odessa.
Instead of gangs
and clicky clacks
we learn monopolistic quacks
to flap and honk
like disturbed Canadian geese
Transubstand she ate
where great America
begins to end
through Lake Odessa's mean clean streets
Not too busy
self-righteous
sleep deprived
and deprogrammed lose to lose
to win our way
back home again
where Lake Odessa healthy meets
and wealthy greets
Love's polyamorous EarthMother role
as played by odysseys of We
writing comic operas
only eros kids can consensually see
was what Me loved
most secretly
in long lost Lake Odessa.
We need a better god for now
bringing peach tree jams
singing immortality
of love as healthy wise
Reframes lost unwealthy loves
to live in jesting jarring jokes
of honeyed sweet corn
thorn tested streets
tasting ancient salad Greeks
on shores of Lake Odessa.
We reunion back
to save each other
from what might have been
without sly rudders
Tipping posts from wu wei mothers
restoring crystal castle love
of unformed flows
that buzz with lifetime mystery
and retiring tours
that sag with straightline history
Spinning sprays
bewitching licking waves
lapping soft and sandy
on long gone sacred skies
of sanguine Lake Odessa.
Categories:
middling, america, history, home, journey,
Form:
Free verse
(Wimpole Street, in the West End of London,
has been the scene of many interesting events,
from the elopement of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
to The Beatles composing "Help!")
The Long, Unlovely Street
It’s such a straight and long, unlovely street,
not quite the retail zone, not quite the mouth
of Regent’s Park. It plumbs a line north-south,
where Mayfair and more middling London meet.
Come walk with me on Wimpole, feast your eye
on blue ceramic plaques, as thick as leaves
that strew the brooks so loved by Freddie Treves,
where tall town houses shoulder out the sky!
Elopements, easements, songs of yesterday,
bereavements, human elephants and more:
we’ll see enchantment pour from every door,
and find a little help along the way.
Where legal precedent meets Mersey Beat,
come tramp the straight and long, unlovely street.
Categories:
middling, london,
Form:
Sonnet
walking home, moods surly as the sky
why, I don’t remember
then we were caught in a sudden shower
not cats and dogs
but more than a drizzle
a middling rain
places where we could have taken shelter
but we kept walking
angry at the day, at each other
then it came down harder
we broke into a trot
cursing the sick weather
most expletives censored by the raindrops’ clatter
plowing ahead, but not moving as fast as we could have
through the blur of perpendicular water
by the time we ducked
into our apartment building, we were
a fluid mess of sodden clothes and plastered hair
raining on the lobby floor
and laughing like stupid teenagers
who had just pulled off a high school prank
and the wet
had seeped into my memory
Categories:
middling, anger, feelings, happiness, memory,
Form:
Free verse
my forte and my downfall
elegant thoughts, parsed perfection
effortlessly strung, priceless pearls
tailored, fitted, mitered, alliterated
craftmanship evident to Medieval guilds
perhaps too literal, haloed, overly sincere
but you, with your scantily clad jargon
middling maudlin untold descriptions
how can posies exist
needing both water and wine
to complete the sacrement
sun and rain, imperfection of perfection
ability that adds what's missng
ruminated thoughts sought, prayed
wished, the Holy Grail as yet unfounded
oh, my secret brothers, the map reads so easily
you who know the ingredients
in Merlin's bubbling kettle
a bouillabaisse for the chef's nose
while I eat cold potatoes
Categories:
middling, loss, on writing and
Form:
Light Verse