Best Misnamed Poems
Inspired by and dedicated to Jan Allison and the amazing moorland bird, the Ptarmigan.
nights... no clouds... moonlit
shadows race over moorland
double silhouettes
~~
deemed monsters... shadows
the ancients misnamed... fauna...
double silhouettes
Categories:
misnamed, moon,
Form:
Haiku
S is for Sugar, once a sweet medicine (it still is, in places)
U do know it was medicine in India in the tenth century -
G God knows why it is so addictive these days (money?)
(As is tobacco, another medicine from the Other Indians Columbus misnamed)
R Refined, white as snow, and like it AVALANCHES of sugar keep on killing
CANDY Crunch is a game that exposes itself and Murderous Sugar
A anyone who wins. game by game, sees the pancreatic explosions
N named SUGAR CRUNCH and SUGAR STARS (awesome; super, delightful)
D Do you recall seeing stars at breakfast when the pre-diabetes hit you?
Y can't we see "refinement" was a put-on job, fake as WHITE sugar, and half pregnant?
Categories:
misnamed, 11th grade, addiction, america,
Form:
Acrostic
The heart expects promise
Disappointment awaits the frail
The mind forgets
Born to learn love, quick to forget that others feel the same
Internal battles, unseen desires wishing to be unveiled
The heart expects promise
Childlike envisioning of a possible flame
In another world that prevails
The mind forgets
Unnoticed help, unfixed blame
Friends, friends, friendship run off the rails
The heart expects promise
Unanswered, awaited, sought after, misnamed
No one listens to the dreams of the young
The mind forgets
Who remembers my name
You, her, over there, pale
The heart expects promise
The mind forgets
Categories:
misnamed, feelings,
Form:
Villanelle
chariot of outreach,
i do a moderate dance
in the form of a stomp
on your existence
as i gallop into the wide
unknown of your most
feeble pleasure, i recall
a windy dawn in which
you howled my name
when i chose not to respond,
you took it upon yourself to
throw a blizzard party in the sauna
i the decided to dispose the ****
seepage of your misnamed moniker
of a love unconditional
the windchimes catching the aggressive
blows of the deluge defy the reasonable
rudiments of rhythm
as a result, i become silly putty in my own
hands, and i blow out the candles knowing
now what it will take to etch the purity of love
in the eternal emission of time....
Categories:
misnamed, poetry,
Form:
Free verse
Standing here in the mind of mine
passing through and over the time
pulling out thoughts sublime:
sorrow, hate, pain, joy, love, sanity--
all the mold character of my humanity;
On the outside, my African character is evident
despite the imprinted middle passage incident,
and on the inside, I'm American born and bred...
child of the black bent backs of the ancestral dead...
still here in the land of the other misnamed: called red;
Memories are like a flowing meadow's storied river--
meandering, undulating, and splashing out to sea--
seeking to reunite with and become one with the Giver
who molded us all...making you and creating me;
N*****, slave, colored, *****, African-American,
is what they chose then and now to call mine and me
but like the river flowing to the sea, I'll decide who to be--
here in the land of the Brave, I'll be an Ameri-African man;
not your beast of burden slave--sweat and blood for the land.
Africa is...America is...and I am of no need
of an explanation;
standing in the life-long memories of the nature
of my exploitation,
and realizing I no longer need to be a footnote*
in his-story
but a complete sentence in the boldface truth
of our-story!
*(If I was them and they were us)
(and I did to them what they did to we,)
(would that not be reciprocity)
(from the true tribe of the exodus?
Categories:
misnamed, africa, allegory, america, analogy,
Form:
Prose Poetry
This sea's end on a misnamed shore
Is not the terminus of your sin
Nor my beginning in the dusky yore
But we can in false time begin
To ridirect the world from the whim
And caprice of self-lost to love
The best in us again. Trust is slim
Now, but surrender can prove
More worth than paper documents
And words that never stand so
To mean exactly all desire's intents
Leaving you in thin chiaroscuro
So let us not praise Columbus still
Nor Sea dogs' conquistadores
Mentality, I like Wilberforce's bill
But we new Crispus and Torrez
Were not impotent dole getters, since
We fired sugarcane and barracks
And by death and waste also convinced
The Great House to retire its racks
Since we salt of the earth accept it
That our coming was no accident
But from the convenant to pave and grit
A redemption for gentiles and truant.
Categories:
misnamed, history
Form:
Verse
Fire rainbow, misnamed.
Circumhorizontal arc
Is an optical
Phenomenon, an
Ice halo formed by plate shaped
Ice crystals in high
Level cirrus clouds.
Circumhorizon arc is
It's other cool name
http://www.thehighlanderspoems.com/nature-5.php
Categories:
misnamed, nature
Form:
Haiku
The medicine man looked into Little Eagle’s eyes.
You were misnamed, he told him.
You have the spirit of a cougar.
You should have been Little Cougar.
Little Eagle instantly understood.
For cougar was his totem, he related to her.
She came to him in his dreams.
She will teach you ferocity, the medicine man told him.
She also helps me navigate psychic realms, Little Eagle said.
Medicine Man was astounded at the child’s insight.
You may possibly have more than one spirit animal, he told him.
Future medicine men often do.
Categories:
misnamed, 10th grade, 11th grade,
Form:
Prose Poetry
I study eyes, eye's only mind sees.
Inside those orbs a little
protogenic me crawls away.
The tiny creature is going back to God,
he remains cohesive in a residual way.
A solar system is watching;
its dying sun is a question mark.
Jupiter and Planet X
are returning to cosmic whale sperm.
Earth has got too big;
that old brass and leather engine
that once made frames for mirrors
is now smoke.
Not at the beginning or the end,
I am doing 'mind' somewhere else.
I am limping along toward a Gas Giant
some have perhaps misnamed.
Categories:
misnamed, poetry,
Form:
Blank verse
Matters little when life like a lifeless leaf in the wind trembles
Surging forth, seeking serenity, summoning common sense
In quarters cut off from conversation and creative communication mumbles
As couples lost in the mendacity miasma boast and coast in notoriety nonsense.
Matters less when fickle fantasy like a nightmare numbs
Reason imprisoned in a zone unzipped from progress
In circumstances and instances that indifference hums
As couples cooped and hooked on catastrophe create chaos and retrogress.
Matters more when sense and its essence like transformers matrimony transfigure
Sanity, supporting insanity and inanity as egos soar to the fore
In debates fed on acrimony and the prospect of an alimony figure
Lures and miscues clues that hurt the matrimony core on its floor.
Matters little when fuss like spittle fumbles and grumbles
Assuming pantagruelian proportions and portions in misnamed missions
Built on the back of vanity whose futility fumbles and crumbles
When prospects of separation and alienation fuel and fly freak, frenzy frictions.
Categories:
misnamed, poems,
Form:
Free verse
Standing here in the mind of mine
passing through and over time
pulling out thoughts sublime:
sorrow, hate, pain, joy, love, sanity--
all the mould character of my humanity;
On the outside, my African character is evident
despite the imprinted middle passage incident,
and on the inside, I'm American born and bred...
child of the black bent backs of the ancestral dead...
still here in the land of the other misnamed: called red;
Memories are like a flowing meadow's storied river;
meandering, undulating, and splashing out to sea,
seeking to reunite with and become one with the Giver
who moulded us all...making you and creating me.
N*****, slave, coloured, *****, African-American,
is what they chose then and now to call mine and me
but like the river flowing to the sea, I'll decide who to be
here in the land of the Brave, I'll be an Ameri-African man;
not your beast of burden slave—sweat and blood for the land.
Africa is...America is...and I am of no need
of an explanation;
standing in the life-long memories of the nature
of my exploitation,
and realizing I no longer need to be a footnote*
in his story
but a complete sentence in the boldface truth
of our story!
*Imagine this for me: if I was them and they were us and I did to them what they did to us, would that not be reciprocity from the tinted true tribe of the exodus?
Categories:
misnamed, africa, allegory, america, analogy,
Form:
Prose Poetry
Alone within emotional wilderness
(mine) biding leisure time
January 19th, 2020
without reason nor rhyme,
yet woke with sublime
pained acute awareness,
how once prime
merrily rightful autochthonous occupants
their land stole equivalent value
not much more'n dime.
Simple man dwells admiring
mother nature's architrave
home of the free land of the brave
usurped with exacting vengeance
aboriginal happy hunting grounds,
yours truly cloistered within man cave
small medium at large eremite doth crave
indigenous tribes Europeans
did wantonly annihilate
and/or make deprave
viciously slaughtering Native Americans
nsync brutality wrecking
their idyllic enclave
foreigners forcibly corralling
subsequently did enslave
ruthlessly employing sacrilegious travesty
scattered smite stricken survivors
formidable invaders (countless
demoniacal explorers) rendered desolate
pristine unbroken woodland
deceit, guile, iniquitous
jawboning flavor flav,
whether or not ancestors (mine)
even tangentially linkedin
egregious mockery, travesty
yours truly never forgave
horrendous genocide early settlers
wrought onto indigenous peoples
hoodwinked, notoriously
thrashed "noble savage"
feigning burying hatchet until
last proud redman buried in his grave.
Similar saga countless instances played across
four corners of globe,
white man self anointed himself boss
subsequently slaying innocent lives
all in name of Christ crucified on cross
denying original rightful inhabitants
their preexisting misnamed
new found lands
invaders justified execrable massacres
on par with clearing away dross
trumpeting art of the deal (albeit) gross
and unfair, whereat decimated loss
lovely bones long since
covered over with moss.
Categories:
misnamed, 10th grade, 11th grade,
Form:
Political Verse
O BRAIN
R
G
A
N
I
C
Reality how you cover
because you can my lover!
Taking truth and color
your paintings of others!
And sleepers we are all
enjoying false glee
and moumental parties
within the emptiness
of things misnamed!
Between thoughts from
'there' and sights
and sounds of 'here'
the infernal blocker
called organic brain!
And at times i find
it appropriate
to respond to reality
with complete and total
insanity!
Who can blame!?!
:: 07-21-2018 ::
Categories:
misnamed, fear, metaphor, nature, poetry,
Form:
Free verse
Nights of flying dream world,
who might chase a raucous laugh,
or seek indeed mirthful excitement,
the sort that has embroidered twists,
as is generally perceived by intention,
but epic hurdles formed in still frame,
city snores past midnight bell clang,
dare one ever risk a robust venture,
should I have said pursuit instead,
sleep is diversion in that steel crib,
that modern crib pillow we fostered,
an idiom that has it’s silken source,
on foot of rainbow studded home run,
as denizens of driven blissful sprint,
with that palette city life concocts,
waiting to arise from brainwave surge,
but toilers so content at last wonder,
can still find that extra zestful yen,
nocturnal misnamed down tool free time,
energizing hour filler may arouse,
around the ink drape walkways,
quite surrogate and surreptitious,
character one may mold from time,
spent as a regal rhombic chaser,
boundary scuppered plot by strolling fleet,
as creatively imagining might edge,
vast supply has penchant without dent,
zeitgeist flower of a fluorescent flag,
warning mask so deft but visible,
canopy laid beauteous black fringe,
alliance in shade infused etch front,
squeaky noising trickle eardrum muffin,
hear full dose of ripple muttering,
clued on obscurantist thin,
taut code evasive decipher ask,
float of urban mirror pool by pattern,
reflection, mirage, cocoon,
after midnight curtain draws,
to protracted claps evinced from,
squinting imp coterie on foot,
ricochet off Moroccan spice tint,
outside vivid haunt so frequented,
perchance, perforce, pertaining patois,
little seen scatter mice squeak,
analogy horizontal spurt funk,
if only these dart and dash clan,
midgets metaphorical so jubilant,
in sonic meddle near edge encounter,
it would be strictly beyond a dazzling cast,
from other daylight theater staunch queue,
when aiming for parallel experience,
performance nocturne wise deep art,
even rich fantasy has upper boundaries,
some grating gulley flake debris awash
Categories:
misnamed, art, city, deep, emotions,
Form:
Free verse
They began to quarrel,
After he heard ‘Squirrel!’
Instead of Stan Scammel
And he called him ‘Rommel’:
“The Not-Strong Enamel”
Who could Hitler blackmail
While it was ‘Same Barrel!’
Then, they stopped The Quarrel,
When he heard ‘Becquerel’
A Laureate with a Laurel …
Quarrels from Nicknaming:
A Purposed Misnaming!
Who would such start claiming:
A hateful Misnomer;
KGB’s Informer
For OGB Omar …
Categories:
misnamed, abuse, conflict, image, words,
Form:
Rhyme