Best Moldering Poems
Draped in silent fog, is a reservoir of dreams
weathering each season, with a mystifying scheme …
On a wind-swept shelf, she is silently sleeping
Where secrets are guarded and are hers for the keeping
Looking out at the tide, where the seagulls are sweeping
In her moldering courtyard, where quadrivial paths meld,
Among ancient arches of an old Spanish style
Names locked in history, many stories revealed
Etched in the headstones, where angels have dwelled
The cracked marble fountain with polished ligures,
Above the church doorway, vines are withering, bare
Aloft from the steeple, are the four watchful eyes
Looking out to the sea, and the deep crimson tide
Three vestige bells dangle from loft, overhead
Their voices are quiet, with pericopes spoken
Soft hymns of doves, fill the rafters, instead
From crumbling ruins, bricks humbly laid
There are shadows of saints...and moss covered jade
A weeping old willow, with leaves crackling dry
I drink with my ears, and listen with an eye
Of all those who prayed, for those who passed by
Unbelievable echoes, the tolling of the bells
Making sense of the senseless, I can hear what it tells
Giving voice to my feelings, and new hope to my eyes
A peace in my heart, where the holy grail lies
Are heard in the voice, in the church of blue tides
____________________________________________________________________
For The Contest Sponsored By Shadow Hamilton "Any Subject"
Using Words: unbelievable, mystical, ligure, pericope, reservoir, quadrivial,
7/22/13
Categories:
moldering, history, mystery, places,
Form:
Free verse
On a walk after the worst of the Sandy storm
I slogged down the still dampening
Green grass valley rutted between
The moldering fences of the shadowed alley.
Under the low, ominously rushing, soggy gray clouds
I saw so many black birds silently
Clinging against the stiff breezes
To the broken branches of the skeletal oak on the corner
As if they relished the fate of the cruelly stripped leaves.
I saw a hundred crows there.
How many make a murder?
Black pointy wraiths;
Scattered commas lined up like
Iron shavings stuck
To magnetic branches.
Dull steel skies slid in vast arcs around them.
Sprinkling windy foreboding,
Their clouds reached down
To Collect their talons.
So many eyes I know they see
Spiny black needles poking out of me.
Bloodless murder, muffling gray gauze No need to caw…,
A hundred crows see it all.
Categories:
moldering, green, weather,
Form:
Narrative
Open Letter to Thomas Jefferson
You sir, destination unknown, I dare
To address. A son of worthy causes
For land vast in majesty and vast as
Vast can be in matters of liberty;
With ideals so prim and suffused with
Philosophical forethought derived from
Your bumper harvest of keen knowledge from
Poetry to paleontology;
You the offspring of music and science,
Master of the whims of public forum,
Framer of destiny of the nation,
Bearer of the conscience of masses and
Winning hurdler of political kinks.
Now, the moldering public discourse is
Unbearable. One can no more cover
One’s nose. Nowhere is a silent shelter
From megaphone of ubiquitous din.
Where is a refuge? Simply, know not I.
I beseech you, sir, for learned counsel.
As thundering wildebeest migration
Clouds the slopes of national horizon:
Tulip of your acclaimed Law of Nature
Lies in the path of a roaring rampage.
I beg to ask, why uncanny tactile
Projections of your mind failed to measure
And forecast proneness to such afflictions.
Sir, you did not proscribe such maladies,
Or provide cautionary bells, at least.
Where have all the magistrates gone, I ask?
As I flip pages of your Summary View:
Prefaced by a motto of Cicero:
“It is the indispensable duty
Of supreme magistrate to consider
Himself as acting for community,
And obliged to support its dignity,
And assign to the people, with justice,
Their various rights, as he would remain
Faithful to the great trust reposed on him.”
Your pristine flora of the applied skills
In statesmanship and proper decorum
Is being supplanted by scurrilous
Scions of egocentric rhetoric.
Pails of justice are perceived as empty
By the parched sectors of land of plenty–
Await quenching rain of tenderness, but
Clouds of compassion remain unseeded.
Please forgive the outburst of my verses.
To rein my pen is to muzzle my soul.
Categories:
moldering, america, character, patriotic, peace,
Form:
Blank verse
In the moldering courtyard I linger awhile
Among ancient arches, in the old Spanish style
Revealed are sad stories...these etched stones hide
Ring out wild bells to the wild sky!
The marble fountain would murmur here
Above the doorway, vines withered and bare
Aloft from the tower, are the four watchful eyes
Ring out wild bells to the wild sky!
Three vestige bells hang overhead
Their voices silent, songs are long dead
Only the pigeons, with cooing cries
Ring out wild bells to the wild sky!
From the ruined walls so simply laid
Shadows of saints...moss covered jade
The weeping old willow, leaves crackled and dry
Ring out wild bells to the wild sky
Far from today, I will pass on through
This gate, this place brings peace anew
I drink with my ears and my glistened eyes
Ring out wild bells to the wild sky
The flowers still bloom and the overgrowth tells
The ancient tolling, of the song of the bells
When the rest of the world is passing by
Ring out wild bells to the wild sky!
The longing to know, is within my heart
Yet a peace I will find, when I finally depart
Tho' silent they have been, over graves that lie
Ring out wild bells to the wild sky!
Categories:
moldering, placesold, longing, peace, old,
Form:
Kyrielle
Oh, My Dear Walter, how your words have slayed
Humbled me, broken me, molded, remade
To taste of your world, see above or below it
Wit of a wordsmith, wry pith of a poet
To so construe love without using the phrase
Scrawl the sinew of war, yet delight in the days
To yawp of the grass - journeywork of the stars
Help heal a nation, attend to its scars
Find grace among horrors, sift beauty from death
The soul-pull of tides - briny kiss of their breath
To habit us all ... to the dazzle of light
Celebrate ourselves, bequeath us the night
Ask recurring questions of romance and life
Of presidents, boot soles, and moldering strife
Demons and mockingbirds, Paumanok's dunes
The pale, horrid witness of unstinted moons
'Twas sad-blown, a bugle, convulsed, was a drum
Yet exquisite, the dirge for a soldier and son
The sorrow of clouds in a ravening sky
The weep of a child should the Pleiades die
Knit airy-fresh words, with uncommon phrases
Draw Apollo and Neptune in all of their phases
Be there adoration as hapless as mine
Yet no soul more ardently leveled, supine
No writer has reached deeper into my heart
Idioms and phrases ... such allurement, impart
Ah, yes, what I'd give to have just one chat
With the rare human being who afforded all that
And maybe I'm biased, if perhaps to a fault
But the name of MY Captain, O Captain ...
Is WALT.
Categories:
moldering, appreciation, history, poetry, poets,
Form:
Couplet
MAZE
Record 2025/02/20 10:49:07.webm
My maze, a startling delusion,
confounding explanation.
Somewhere a goal, a dream,
a meaning
motivates me through,
a dynamic labyrinth of my own making.
Every choice opens another passage,
creates a new array of choices.
A long and convoluted passage,
distracted by lies and torturous
anger.
Pride leads me away,
a rat to his cheese.
Easier ways pave comfortable,
even pleasurable excursions.
Rarely, leaving an opening to meaning,
but often winding away
in ever-expanding walls and halls
of hollow treasures and moldering fame.
Desperation pulls me
To rise above the choices.
To meditate within the dreams.
To rest and trust in reality
Walls and halls become highways.
Blue skies illuminate the lies.
Like street lights to the truth.
Categories:
moldering, journey, truth,
Form:
Free verse
(African populations are being killed off by war,
famine, disease, and neglect...when will we try to help them?)
Time,
stretching out, encompasses curtains,
on distant savannas, of shimmering heat.
And animals vanish:
ibex and antelope; elephant; grouse.
Here once, now going or gone.
Time vanishes now.
Moldering greenery, mute,
moves mainly in wind --
pliant life, submitting to breezes,
passive in sun. Rooted in spots
not chosen or won.
Plants may not vanish;
they prosper.
We do not prosper.
We vanish, as animal;
some go hardly noticed.
A dirge, as animals vanish:
we vanish unnoticed.
Categories:
moldering, angst, life, loss, natural
Form:
Free verse
Cecil the Magician knew a heap of tricks,
But, alas, couldn't get himself out of this fix!
Carl was laid to rest for his eternal snooze,
Brought about by guzzling too much booze!
Pete was a rock-hard liberal Democrat.
Lord, be merciful and forgive him for that!
'Twas well-known that Cletus was such a crooked politician,
That he had to be screwed in the ground by the mortician!
Buster was shot while fencing his plunder.
Now he lies a-moldering six feet under!
Clarice was an avid tea party conservative Republican.
Democrats need her vote - Lord, convert her if you can!
Fred met his doom when his plane malfunctioned.
To make matters worse his parachute disfunctioned!
Here reposes the mortal shell of Marty McCall,
Who met his doom in a barroom brawl!
Bob sank without a trace and things looked grim.
He tried to tell them that he couldn't swim!
At last he found peace when he suddenly died,
But now his shrewish wife dwells by his side!
The doc warned him about all that cholesterol.
Too much meat and taters brought about his fall!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
(c) 2015 All Rights Reserved
Categories:
moldering, humorous,
Form:
Couplet
* There is one person I would bring back in a heartbeat, and that's my favorite human being of all-time, Walt Whitman - he literally changed my life with his poetry, and brought true beauty and joy to my life. Never underestimate the power of words. *
__________________________________________________
Oh, My Dear Walter, how your words have slayed,
Humbled me, broken me, molded and remade.
To taste of your world, see above or below it,
Wit of a wordsmith, wry pith of a poet ...
To so construe love without using the phrase,
Scrawl the sinew of war, yet delight in the days.
To yawp of the grass - journeywork of the stars,
Help revivify a nation, attend to its scars.
Find grace among horrors, sift beauty from death,
The soul-pull of tides - briny buss of their breath.
To habit us all ... to the dazzle of light,
Celebrate ourselves, bequeath us the night.
Ask recurring questions of romance and life,
Of presidents, bootsoles, and a moldering strife.
Demons and mockingbirds, Paumanok's dunes ...
The pale, horrid witness of unstinted moons.
'Twas sad-blown, a bugle, convulsed, was a drum,
Yet exquisite, the dirge for a soldier and son.
The sorrow of clouds in a ravening sky,
The weep of a child should the Pleiades die.
Knit airy-fresh words, with uncommon phrases,
Draw Apollo and Neptune in all of their phases.
Be there adoration as hapless as mine?
Yet no soul more ardently leveled, supine ...
No writer has reached deeper into my heart,
Idioms and phrases ... such allurement, impart.
Ah, yes, what I'd give to have just one chat,
With the rare human being who afforded all that.
And maybe I'm biased, if perhaps to a fault,
But the name of MY Captain, O Captain ...
Is WALT.
Categories:
moldering, art, history, poetry, wisdom,
Form:
Rhyme
I’ve come back to the place where I had grown,
a place no more as it once was known.
Not a roof, not a room, not one wall left,
just an old, weathered chimney standing alone.
An ill-tempered wind swept from the hillside tops
that spun relentlessly through the leafless copse
and across fallow fields long now disused
that once had yielded sustaining crops.
The skies oblique with murmurations
of small black birds that, without hesitation,
alit, then rose in tornadic swirls
of airborne dances without cessation.
A tractor sat solemnly by a clattering gate
now a rusted reminder that time won't wait.
And the path that wound to the moldering shed
overrun with thistles that sealed its fate.
And where once stood the old front door
now just a cracked and crumbled floor.
Then, as I turned and faced the chimney tall,
familiar voices resonated once more.
Though perceived, still filled with laughter
and childlike questions of timeless matter
from a once-close family about the hearth
brought a blissful end to life’s daily chapter.
I stood silently, my senses sublimely allured,
while present time was much obscured;
my melancholic thoughts embraced
those voices from the hearth I heard.
Then, all illusions gone, the chimney tall
seemed out of place without a wall,
without a family ‘round it girthed,
a silent sentinel that should never fall.
I turned and walked, my thoughts unspoken,
and knew well now the chains were broken;
but though the chimney, which stood unscathed,
meant nothing more than memory’s token.
John Henry Gardner
© 2017 – All rights reserved
Categories:
moldering, allusion, family, house, image,
Form:
Narrative
They paint the ground beneath the trees they served so well
Hues of red, orange, yellow and brown
All blended into an autumn camouflage
Laid down now in their final form of service
They lay moldering beneath their parent trees
In one final act of service of nurturing
They give their last bit of support
As the final molecules of their energy leach into the soil
So like the leaves of autumn are our veterans
Our country called upon our youth for service in times of need
Our youth willingly answered those calls time and time again
And as they answered they bought the freedoms we hold so dear
And like the fallen leaves, our fallen heroes nurture our country
Their valor and spirit seep deeply into the soil around them
They are the very earth and bedrock of all that we are
And it is our duty to honor them and hold them dear
The mid-November breeze blows crisp and cold across the cemetery
Small flags atop glistening white tombstones flutter
On one stone rests a majestic bald eagle
As if he too is paying homage and gratitude to the fallen
I walked the rolling lawns of Arlington in humble silence
I felt the breeze caress my cheeks and brow
And the last of the leaves of autumn rest now
In final tribute at the bases of the tombstones
© 2011 B. E. Parks senti poem
All Rights Reserved
Categories:
moldering, veterans day,
Form:
Blank verse
III.
Scott bought the farm and some dairy cows,
and set about building himself up.
He soon made a name for quality milk,
local wholesalers could not get enough!
One summer day he took to the plow,
preparing and old field to grow hay.
The plow hit something, twisting it hard,
just badly enough to ruin his day.
He grumbled loud, went back to look,
and saw there, to his great surprise,
a hole in the ground, empty and long.
A new cavern there before his eyes!
Now caves were quite common where he lived,
several were open to tourists for show.
The thought of building up just such a place
made the dollar signs in his head grow.
The next day he returned with lanterns and lines,
carefully descending into the dim.
When he touched bottom and lighted it up,
what he saw laying close by shocked him.
Two skeletons lay just five feet away,
it was a miracle he hadn’t crushed one.
Both looked human and one of the dead
lay with the moldering remains of a gun.
The other was huge, at least eight feet,
and the bones too thick, impossibly large.
The skull was giant, the teeth oversized,
Scott found the sight of it quite bizarre.
In the middle of the great ribs did lay
two balls, the kind from old muskets.
And near the spine was the rusty head
of an aged and battered hatchet.
Turning to the other, Scott Bairns saw
they were the bones of a normal man.
The ribs were broken, every one,
so were both of the man’s hands.
And on the stock of the old gun,
Scott found an old, tin name plate.
He bent down low to read it clearly,
‘Amos Bairns’ in the metal was scraped!
Scott flinched back, remembering tales
told in childhood long, long ago,
Campfire stories of bigfoots run wild,
to his mind they all started to flow.
And now when he stared at either of them,
both the large and the small skeletons,
he realized the truth behind all the myths,
he was staring down onto his kin!
Scott hurried out, and filled in the hole,
then gave the field over to brambles and berries.
He never plowed there, or spoke of it at all,
for some truths are better left buried...
Categories:
moldering, dark, family, history, mystery,
Form:
Narrative
Naked against the winter sky
their autumn finery lies moldering
beneath the season's first snow.
Where now the innocence of youth
and the boldness of summer?
How fleeting do your days appear,
too soon they are consumed.
Regretfully I marked your passage
while looking forward toward tomorrow.
Categories:
moldering, nature,
Form:
Free verse
In the mist, like a dream, she has weathered the seasons…
On the wind swept shelf, as if silently sleeping
Where souls in her graveyard, are hers for the keeping
Staring out at the tide, where the seagulls sweep low
In the moldering courtyard, one can linger awhile
Among ancient arches of the old Mission style
Names locked in history, and stories revealed
are etched in the headstones, now ancient and frail
The cracked marble fountain once shimmered so fair
Above the church doorway, vines have withered and died
Aloft from the steeple, are the four watchful eyes
Looking out over waters, of the deep crimson tide
Three bronzed vestige bells dangle high overhead
Their voices are silenced, by the time keeper's death
The rafters are filled with the toll of the dove
To offer their souls for the bells that lost breath
And the echo's of sainthood, and moss covered jade
From the crumbling ruins, stones humbly laid
Dark shadows of saints stain the moss covered jade
A weeping old willow, with leaves brittle and dry
One drinks with the ears, and listens with eyes
The bronze clangs of vespers, and prayer chanting tides
One might hear the ancient echo, yet, for whom do old bells call?
Making sense of the senseless, are there untold stories tolled?
Giving voice to age-old questions, and feelings unexplained
The bells ring out, without a sound, across the human tide
Categories:
moldering, drink, fantasy, old, places,
Form:
Free verse
the martyrs' dream remains unfulfilled,
we race toward immortality,
not having learned to live,
searching for succinct sentiments,
find only engineered impediments,
more to being than just becoming,
implement steps for resistance,
movement a means, its own cause,
strive toward a journey of sentience,
penitents arrive equal,
with patience they start again,
the moldering pursuit of novelty,
refine search to a science,
formulas for efficient finding,
standardization breeds stagnation,
a wealth of words polish the surface,
how to fill the void?
exchange substance for volume,
strain for purity of being,
leave consistency an afterthought,
stacking graven stones,
to attain heavenly heights,
smoke, mirrors, shades of the shadow,
confined and constructed within walls,
a finite dream, limited in reach,
simile surrounds and symbols speak,
when tongues have grown dumb,
the assumptive arrow,
has missed its mislead,
mark these words,
we hang ourselves in time,
with the rope we have,
sold the ties that bind,
let us all hold hands,
form this enclosure most familiar,
least familial toe the line,
unaware, then cross over,
find peace,
with out,
[agape] is the school from,
whence all thoughts are taught,
awakening to a class,
already in session,
we know not what came,
before nor what will follow,
this brief period of consciousness,
only that we must stir,
to action those fellow students,
who slumber still
Categories:
moldering, motivation, peace, philosophy, religious,
Form:
Free verse