Best Mortared Poems
Who is this man laying beside me?
You’re not my lover and I’m not your enemy
Searching and hoping for a familiar touch
Wanting and needing it just a little too much
Where is the man I married prior to this war?
I want him back entirely as I had him once before
They tell me he’s changed and it will never be
But loving him so much; I tend to disagree
Heroically fighting for our freedom abound
Risking his life for a cause to be unfound
Solitude and silence is one of his demands
And as for our family; we’re not under your command
Shelled and mortared each and every night
Not able to sleep for the fear of needing to fight
Hot, sweaty and exhausted; feeling all alone
Feeling as though you’re invincible; wanting to come home
Exploring and probing for the man you used to be
Trying to find similarities; trying to remember me
I’ve been with you this entire time; all the while you were gone
I never left your side my husband, even though you have withdrawn
What is it going to take for this stranger to up and leave?
How long must you isolate yourself, how long must we grieve?
Our children need you desperately as so do I
Don’t let them destroy you; don’t you dare die
Come home again my best-friend and thrust this stranger out
He’s been residing here too long and he’s reign is over no doubt
You’ve served this country honorably without any remorse
Now serve your family faithfully and let our marriage run its course
I will not give up and abandon you nor will I give in
You will fight for this family adamantly as you did so back then
I’m tired of sleeping alone with this stranger in our bed
I want that loving, caring man; I want my husband back instead
Categories:
mortared, husband, life, family, family,
Form:
Rhyme
She stood forlorn behind the chain link fence
Her mortared bricks still clinging to the earth
A battle lost with every gasping breath
Against the war of time and death
A monument behind a chain link moat
Reveals a glimpse of what had been supreme
With boarded eyes, the windows that watched us learn
Where teachers stood and wrote our names upon the board
And gave us wealth, while we absorbed
Like sponges, soaked, we kept in places stored
But each piece of what I've taken from this place
Became in part of what I would become
So little did we know while we were young
How swiftly flies the time from when we're thrown
Into the world of vast unknowns
So far away from all our childhood comfort zones...
My dreams still play with friendships now long gone
Yet holding hands our shadows linger on
Laughter rings, as feet run through the halls
How sad it is to see it now
For soon the wrecking ball will force this giant to it's knees
I see the ghost of children at their games
Racing beyond their childhood in the shade
Red wagons pull my childhood back in time
Farewell to time, she was a grand old school of mine
Categories:
mortared, childhood, nostalgia, time,
Form:
Free verse
Within the woods, stood a wall of stone
molded by hands from a distant time.
Though roughly hewn, it had endured.
What narratives could it tell of its past,
this ancient bulwark, built to last?
My fingers traced each pitted wound.
I wondered as to the tragic fate
of one missing mortared rock.
I dared to peer inside the hollow;
the scent of age overpowered me.
A sudden dizziness rattled my senses
with a brief glimpse of a long ago battle
when weapons pricked the rampart's bulk.
This bastion had served as a battlement,
a barricade between differences of opinions.
Was the victory worth the lives forsaken?
Because of it, were families torn apart?
With need to offer words of compensation.
I paid homage to the unyielding wall,
whispering, "Stand strong, brave soldier."
October 6, 2020 ~ A Wall in the Woods
Craig Cornish ~ Sponsor
Categories:
mortared, feelings,
Form:
Free verse
Winter finally moves his lumpen sluggish weight,
Spring is like a shy dryad shivering in his arms
Wind's whippets droop to trifling whine
Sullen rain hisses to a grizzle.
tiny fruit buds swell enough to moisten lips.
First daffodil maidens preen, bright faces so fair!
Chattering swallows check granite grey mortared mansion.
Duck naps snug, beak a chest --- gull floats overhead.
Longer days mean I must leave my snuggly, sleepy daze,
slightly more light; work energies reappear
poetry is laid aside in favour of trimming trees
seething solar heating sound, signals dimly smiling sun.
seed packets eagerly spread out – What to plant this season?
Suddenly, more bees aflight – our crops will be alright!
Another cycle begins!
1) Anthropomorphism 2) Simile 3) Metaphor 4) onomatopoeia
5)Synaesthesia 6) Personification 7) Sensory Imagery
8) Ellipsis 9) Homophone 10) Caesura 11) Pun
12) Alliteration 13) Rhetorical Question 14)Internal Rhyme
15) Truism
Written 20th August for Line Gautier Contest - A Litany of Poetic Devices
Categories:
mortared, spring,
Form:
Free verse
I hesitate for a moment outside the rod iron gates;
sensing behind those castle doors, a long past life awaits,
within those many mortared walls, rising high above the lake,
as my breath begins to quicken and my knees began to shake.
Step into the parlour, the old curator now implores;
where upon I see the winding staircase, I at once abhor.
Below the ground on cobbled stones, stepping up to marbled floors,
a scullery maid with calloused feet, summoned by her Lord.
As I climb those winding stairs again, my back begins to ache,
as visions of cups and saucers, tumble down the stairs and break.
The Mistress of the castle, coiled, and hissing like a snake,
strikes me down to lie among the shattered glass, and birthday cake.
Upon a marble checkerboard, in squares of black and white, I die;
barely fourteen years of age, a lonely child, frail and shy;
buried in a shallow grave, no marker telling where I lie,
just the roses in the garden, underneath a blue, blue sky.
Written: June 25, 2014
For Past Life Contest
Author's note:
Dundurn Castles is a real castle in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
On a visit there, I had an overwhelming feeling of familiarity,
which inspired this poem about a past life.
Categories:
mortared, memory,
Form:
Quatrain
"Cross Roads, Notes and Bridges"
Silence
arrives
in the spaces
between
a conversation
missing in the
archives of love
music
drowns
the unnecessary
what point
words then,
swords planted
in the spaces
sharp, clean
and gleaming
the mortared
existing in the
spaces in between
bleed
unheard words
piercing hearts
muddy
unclear
unseen
the unsaid
unsung
dissolve
will-o'-the-wisps
wishing wells
full of tears
torn
walls fall
eventually
like a
disrobed
wedding gown
cross roads
notes and
bridges
(LadyLabyrinth / 2022)
Gregorian - Enjoy The Silence - Depeche Mode
https://youtu.be/55XIdavZxCQ
"Tell all the truth but tell it slant
Success in circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm
Delight The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children
eased With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind."
(Emily Dickinson)
“Broken Eggs will poursuive bitten Apples
for where theirs is Will, there's his Wall”
(James Joyce, Finnegans Wake)
Deus absconditus;
Will-o'-the-wisp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will-o%27-the-wisp
LYRICS
"Enjoy the Silence", Depeche Mode
https://genius.com/Depeche-mode-enjoy-the-silence-lyrics
Categories:
mortared, muse, symbolism,
Form:
Free verse
The little brick school house
where Mama used to go,
sets quietly atop the hill
thru' summer heat and snow.
The bell on top is silent now,
the window shutters tight,
the door is weather-beaten,
and floors an awful sight.
The old stove is still standing
in the center of the room,
Lilac bushes, long forgot,
beside brick walls still bloom.
Blackboards stretch across one end
stained with dust and chalk,
memories those walls would tell
if only they could talk.
Honored places are now faded
where president pictures hung,
Pledge of Allegiance always said
when morning bell was rung.
There's a hitchin' post for horses
the children rode to school,
no bus for transportation then
to learn the Golden Rule.
Discipline was taught there,
honor and respect,
to take responsibility,
not leave one's youth unchecked.
The old place holds the secrets
of bygone days that passed,
of children growing tall and straight
with rules of life to last .
That dear old country school
where younsters sought their goal
within those walls of mortared brick
now stands empty of its soul.
Categories:
mortared, childhood, education, history, old,
Form:
Rhyme
The Providentiality of Farming in Giantvillism (Continued)
Jake: Make sure the crop is irrigated Giant.
Giant: That means make sure we provide water to each acre?
Jake: Yes.
Maddy: Would you stay for another two days to help us develop a plan?
Jake: Yes, my plan was to stay at least 8 days to ensure you know all the ends and outs of farming.
Giant: Well, let’s get something to eat and we can begin our discussion, once our dinner is consumed.
*******
Dinner was ingested and discussion therein took place.
An irrigation system would be placed in the southwest of the Village by way of small canals.
The first canal would be built in three days if all goes well.
All the Village would be involved in constructing these dams of blocks mortared and also loosely piled rocks.
Haphazard flooding would happen, but controlled water was more often.
There would be fifty-seven (57) small canals or storage dams completed.
Jake would stay to make sure that the Village people was well-schooled by knowing the blueprint and design.
He would begin his journey home on day nine (9).
_____________________________________________________________|
Written October 14, 2016!
Categories:
mortared, adventure, appreciation, art, best
Form:
Narrative
Species sundry sentential
Line the lost lowered loft
Whose weary wayward-ceiled
Roof raises itself over the lot:
The diverse specimen bottles of pharmaceutic potations,
Mortared and mixed as by the Hawthornean sawbones
And apothecary, yclept, poetically rendered: "The Quack Haunted."
(Aye,) Haunted and hunted he was, by that vile old crone,
Whose life he did not decrease one iota nor span,
With the ingested application of one of his odious elixirs,
By the harridan so quaffed.
Yet, the obstreperous host of the soldierly soldiery of dozens of nations,
Yclept herein by the appellation, "Plagiarism," they fairly encroach upon
The tableau naught but ominously.
And thus ominous be also the tone of this,
Which 'tis my most perfervid and prayerful hope that
'Tis utterly unclassifiable, unidentified and unidentifiable.
I do not care for the onerousness of being pinned down,
For living up to the hoary and draconian standards of the vast
Collect of poetry-of poetries.
This I will not brook.
(But before I end this ebullient and elliptical encomium,
I must turn once again to that species of alliterativeness that
Provided the nutriment for it and me: the "grist for my mill,"
As the archaic idiom has it: )
Therefore, these things
Have henceforth
Come casually
To their
End.
Categories:
mortared, absence, age, america, angst,
Form:
Reserving the right to break away unto a clear blue day; viewing
Certain labels upon the bottles and cans; time reeling in chains....
And they say that patience is a virtue as I drop them from my hands
Exiting lifes alleyways; fingers brushing atop the gray mortared bricks
Whileas peering at the clearing just ahead; resolve unto resolutions
Tossing this worn book into a bin; combing my pockets for a pen
A crumpled piece of paper to take another note; a cobweb or two
Lingering amid the trees in columns aligned aside yesterdays mist....
Reaching for the door to escape another winters morn; familiar the
Crowd greeting myself as I enter in; a warm cup of coffee awaiting
With a kiss upon the cheek and a towel to dry my hair; songs of cheer
Tossing this bag of cans and bottles into the corner; afore the fire....
Reeling in chains reserved for the warmth upon a clear blue day; breaking
Glasses joyfully within the place; such light piercing through this window
In the shape of a star swaying atop my palm; searching deep my pockets
Scribbled somewhere are these notes; reflections etched aneath a bridge
Laughing now as reading aloud; 'tis good to see you again my child'....
**************************************************************
...."Coming Home for The Holidays" *
Categories:
mortared, hope, life, love, blue,
Form:
Mother buried hacked-up carp beneath
pink rose mallow. She knew the filthy cats
would come. A balled-up dirty rag
and coffee tin of smelly kerosene
were garrisoned behind a red berry twistwood.
Mother would hide in a column of shadow
near the porch. Ambush the cats as they dug
for carp. Their noses spiced with fish-oiled peat.
Tails flagged above puckered targets.
Mother was quick with her kerosene rag — spot on!
A hush-hush tripwire stretched taut round
the perimeter of mother’s mortared desperation.
The sacrosanct, lint-free, perfect world, where
she demanded God wipe His feet at her door.
Dear Mother, our Elizabeth Taylor dead ringer,
who could waltz with kings, or gut them with a glare.
Ghetto mother, who would murder to keep
her suburbs white, the cat crap gone, and
her prize mallow big as Frisbees. I couldn’t
let it storm on mother. She would get crazy
if her galvanized tin-roof mind was rattled.
Her daughter always had to shine. I kept
the attic window shutters well oiled. Mother
never heard my bare feet crisscrossing
the roof, as I ran to catch the rain.
Categories:
mortared, childhood, daughter, life, mother,
Form:
Free verse
waiting in line.. in step...
in monotones.. at mid afternoon.
waiting for a cup of coffee
from a thin barista.
while outside it is raining..
outside the clouds float by in
gray shades of indifference
outside a few pigeons cheat the
sidewalks mortared lines.
yet inside the lines of my skin is
more than water.
waiting in line.. in step...
in monotones for
my caffiene osmosis.
mixing a little of octobers cloudy
reason with some powdered vanilla in
my cup of coffee.
the radio overhead is tuned to
natinal public radio.
it is a man and a woman talking about
dandilions and the dwindling mountian
goat population.
i think they are wearing sweaters
but i will never really know
Categories:
mortared, allegory,
Form:
Even the ghosts have faded now,
splashes of gray like shadows
in a child's diorama.
They slip in and out of mortared cracks
in my mind,
seeking a validation
I cannot besrow.
But they must remain in
their graves,
Wrapped in their gangrenous
shrouds, pursuing
redemption without me.
Categories:
mortared, death, dream, grave, grief,
Form:
Prose Poetry
Wheels of fire burn at the potters hands and feet.
Sweet passion of mortared clay;
fashioned on a potters wheel to be carried away.
Lamps holden in wheels created as before you see.
Sweet passion of mortared clay;
fashioned on a potters wheel to be carried away.
Between the two a lamp moved promising today.
Sweet passion of mortared clay;
fashioned on a potters wheel to be carried away.
The potters eyes who hold mine created me for you.
Sweet passion of mortared clay;
fashioned on a potters wheel to be carried away.
Categories:
mortared, analogy,
Form:
Verse
There’s nothing so suitable as a pen—for expressing pain—
No other instrument has a stint extended as deeply within the vein.
There’s nothing so fit as a laugh to release the pent up fears—
Nothing that can break the mortared cask enough to dry the tears.
There’s nothing so perfect as a song—for escaping misery:
With each rung on the staff, a soul climbs closer to free.
Categories:
mortared, music, on writing and
Form:
Couplet