Best Movement Poems
The ground is damp
it bleeds through my thin cotton skirt.
Crest born, I sit and wait the dawn.
My fingers weave into the high rye grass.
The house below is quiet still.
The children sleep.
The dog’s with me.
We sit high upon the hill.
Peaceful heart, Venus I spy
the morning star, the moon, and dawn,
God could see them in my eyes a tilt.
Barefoot bliss, Champ for a pillow
down I lie and sigh.
The children sleep.
My man’s returned.
Now, we sit high upon the hill.
He lies with me. Grass stains my skirt.
He weaves dewed daisies in my hair.
Crest born we writhe beneath the sky
above our farm on prairie grass.
The house below is quiet still.
The children sleep.
The dog runs home.
We sit high upon the hill.
Contest: Into Night's Dwelling
Poet: Debbie Guzzi
Date: 1/8/14
Quiet, pensive, waiting, from out of nothing, a flash, dancing!
Back and fourth, faster, bolder, more beautiful, more radiant…
The sound envelops, and the beauty firmly wraps its hands around my ears…
Relevance and resounding, growing, pulsing, whipped into a fever!
And then easing back just a bit, like a rest to enjoy some perfect nectar of echoes.
Then back again to churn, not with blades, but with brushstrokes.
The pulsing art grabs my soul and I sway to the rhythm, the life, the light…
All around me, so necessary is this, something so pure and powerful.
Flex and twirl in the rays of sunshine, on coming the clouds and thunder!
Pounding out the feeling, the pace is relentless, but in my arms, pushing, harder!
Squeezing ever ounce of love from the air, the earth, the fire and then easing again.
Dripping with sweat, a deep breath, another, still moving but slower now.
More deliberate, but still full and open, slowly, gently, slightly and then quiet.
The leaf of my love fell
in quiet autumn silence
Slowly descending
from the swaying limb
of unanticipated romantic tremors
Caught off balance was
my sense of equlibrium
Shaken by the sight
of a canvas beauty come to life,
I was shook loose from my branch
of librarian solitude
And the twirling leaf of my love
fell so softly into the lap of her open book ...
as she turned the page silently
Thinking,
contemplating ...
She wrote a beautiful passage
in her diary
about me entering her life
with quiet grace
Describing me as a brightly
burnished leaf with the markings
of a tiger lily butterfly,
she said I floated by her
nearly unnoticed —
Until she had to turn the page
of her life
And a slight, silent gust from the
wind of change
caused me to quietly fall into her view
Gorgeous colors come together, in a fantastic, impromptu dance,
Mingling with manifold others, in cascades of pure happenstance,
Encompassing a world of hues, like luxuriant gardens at a glance,
Or the magic of rainbow and of sunset, in zesty games of chance!
Oh, how cold you are, heavenly lights! But there are the earthly lights that promise weary travelers a rest. Interrupting for a moment the eternal movement from dark to light, we stretch out cold fingers to a fire and look up. The Universe gets cold, galaxies flee, supernovae explode and turn into interstellar ghosts, stars fall and their long-long tails as the portents of our coming wanderings, measure the distances of empty spaces. Oh, how hot a sip of coffee is! How sweet is a random kiss in the dark!
get some rest and go
to where cold heavenly lights
eternally shine
14.08.2019
Shooting Stars Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Nayda Ivette Negron
steady tides
going
with the flow
posted on September 11, 2019
Where does time go
transient
a fleeting gust of air
non retrievable
a whirlwind in a mirror
fragmented shattered
unforgettable memories
unforgivable regrets
a circular menagerie
slow motion
rewind
replay
a vortex of emotions
Published in my 24-page photo/anthology ~RANDOM MUSINGS VOL.3~ 2020
Submitted on December 22, 2018 for STANDARD CONTEST NO.150 sponsored by BRIAN STRAND - RANKED 1ST
Originally posted on December 18, 2018
"Move!" sounds command.
I stir, arise, lift a laggard hand.
Can movement mark with magic
All latent space?
Shall thoughtless motion,
Mere mindless flurry,
Confer importance
On the empty hour?
"Speak!" rings out.
Sing I, then, quavery syllables
Against the quiet as though
Sound could skirt the still
Or melody make right
The evils of the night.
Think: none judge me harshly
Save sour I, my mirthless self.
Song stops. So solitude
Into stony silence slips.
HARMONY 69
The night of twelfth December `69
knotted together an icy storm wind
that whipped False bay`s waves
to white -frilled blankets.
Thunderclaps against primal rocks
resonated through a ghettoe of glowing tents
on a dark, rough ,bushy patch .
Rising plaintively above the din
of drums and flapping canvas,
creole strains solicited the capricious gods
for a clement Cape .
Love songs , sweet like wine
would even tittilated mermaid`s melons,
stranding them breathless, with tails scaled.
In my sixteenth tempestuous year,
I was sickened and sullied, spoiling for a fight
with that ever- prying, ever-lying police-state
denying us
dividing us
deriding us
ripping us
whipping us
in an all-pervasive racist propaganda storm
Harmony,was forced ethnic relocation right there
in a stamp-size sea-resort next to a stinking dump.
Our yearly anticipated salty baptism,
fouled for a full ten years,
dunked in fascist soil
of a false bay with a real bite….
rubbing coarse salt in our opened wounds
Rubbing it in the flayed
William, my sire, of the black turf belly
Rubbing it in the lashed
Maxie , my ma , of white-on-black graft
Rubbing it in the spurred
Dot Adams, my oracle , of the pearled-truth tongue
imprisoned to a silent ninety-day solitary confinement. .
Yes, a full two hundred scar-studded waxes
avidly saluting the wretched who rose in revolution
drowning exploiters in the oppressed`s precious blood
Algeria whilst raped,unveiling herself,
firing fear into bared French fascism
exploding the myth of a benevolent colonialism.
“Lumumba will guide the Kongo to freedom”
grandpa agitated hopefully as revolutionary Patrice,
our dark prince of peace
died on the bloodied butts
of neo-colonial carbines.
My seven-year heart burst
in anger and pain.
A companiable heart`s balance
tilted with unease at justice , unhinged.
the periodic uprisings of people in far-flung regions
against the arrogance of anglo-saxon imperialism
salted my youth with the tears of broken children,
their blood ever spattering my angry brow.
If you have never seen it,
How could you hear the song here;
If you have recited the poem "To Commiserate Farmers,
There will be more understandings shining in the night sky;
The movement composed with sweats rippled along the rice ear waves
The hot July or August suns were grilling the ground
As flames flipping their notes all around.
Farming folk songs were sung loudly from the straw hats,
Combined with the rumbles of the threshers,
Meanwhile golden grains piled mountainous heights.
Look! The moon and stars came along with
The sun hanging on.
From dawn to dusk, they were embracing the tanned back.
When didn’t they play the live keys
For the sound hopes in the waters and soils?
Listen! Can it be regarded as resonant songs?
With thy eyes taking a photograph of
The golden farm of rice,
And patting at our stomach,
A movement for the rice fields, shouldn’t we compose?
Note: The poem "To Commiserate Farmers" is a well-known poem written by Li Shen, a famous Chinese poet in Tang Dynasty, which shows the poet’s sympathy on the poor farmers’ working and living.
Lotus life birth Breath
Pond shakes earthquake storm movement
Locus destruction death exhale
the veiled movement of leaves ,water and trees
Poetry Contest
The Re-movement of Body Waste
Feed a palate is consumption of food
Into stomach’s upper and lower masses
Digestive walls will arise to its challenge
All that has been eaten in order to live
We waste not for want of not!
Leave your plate all too empty
A good full bowel will provide
Your toilet’s flushed plumber pipes
To work its system of waste expulsion
Into vast city sewers well hidden
Under our rain washed streets!
Mama says
I’m beautiful
I’m smart
I’m loved
If this is true
Then why don’t you like me, mama?
How can you hurt me?
How can you face it with empty apologies?
“You aren’t skinny like those girls on TV”
“That shirt makes you look fat.”
“Why can’t you be normal?!”
But why should it matter, mama?
Why should I care?
Nothing hurts me more
Than when you look at me
And tell me that I’ve gained weight
That if I dress like that
no guy is going to like me
That you don’t like me
Because of who I am
I’m either your joyous religious daughter
Or a confused minuscule apostate
But when I try to plead
You consume my speech with irrationality
Your body responds with
“Have you been taking your medication?”
Almost like I can’t have my own ideas
Without my mental illness speaking for me
Mama, you never speak with your mind
I either am
Too much or not enough
Too skinny or too fat
Too happy or too sad
Rational or crazy
mama, can you hear me?
I have a woman’s body
I love who I love
I believe what I believe
And I will not apologize for that
It’s who I became
Because of you
So how can you make me feel this overwhelming guilt?
This love, this style, our differences
You’re the one who blessed me with these immaculate properties
So how can you feel so terribly about the person I am?
These questions aren’t out of confusion, ignorance, disrespect, or misunderstanding.
I just wish you’d think with your mind rather your body
To think about these things
These terrible things you say to me
I’ve lived with this for years
the guilt you forced upon me
But why can’t I feel this hurt without it being about your trauma?
But this is how they trick us, mama
How they keep us silent
But I refuse to be quiet anymore
I want to love without feeling guilty
Without you seeing me as just another confused *****
I want to be a sexual being
Without you thinking of me as another easy harlot
I want you to see me as more than my sexuality
That you still see me as your daughter
My sexuality does not define who I am, mama
And it’s nobody’s business but mine
I don’t owe you an explanation, mama
But mama says
I’m beautiful
I’m smart
I’m loved
But if this is true, mama
I need you to believe me
I need you to have my back
But mama,
Can you hear me?
ears wiggle
fingers waggle
girls giggle
customers haggle
curlicues squiggle
snail-pack straggles
belly-fat wriggles ~
survivors bedraggled