Best Mutters Poems
My souls mutters in the muteness;
"Is my melancholy more melancholic than yours?"
I gaze across a bridge,
wondering which stream flows to you,
as nobody understands how
in the definition of lament,
I am a piano without a pianist
and you a harp without strings.
My heart is a weeping willow
within a godforsaken garden.
As the last blossom decays,
the image of you is fading,
resembling fallen leaves on soggy ground.
I don't belong in this numbness,
nor know how to explain why
my voice is lost in the vastness
of valleys without endless echoes.
I've forgotten what I wanted to say,
attempting to escape this maze of sorrow -
yet your words reverberate without resistance.
Pondering if your spirit will guide
me from this uncertain terrain,
I'm distracted by the silent hum of grief.
It hurts like an eerie lullaby,
unable to soothe the stillness of your ghost.
As silhouettes disappear in the dimming light,
I protect a fragile flame in your remembrance,
before withered leaves fade into ash.
Categories:
mutters, death, grief,
Form:
Free verse
wind mutters softly
last leaf forlornly flutters. . . .
my lawn waits frozen
Categories:
mutters, nature
Form:
Haiku
September tries to convince herself,
Making pretend that she is really, truly,
A Summer month, albeit one of dying fire,
Holding at bay the chill of Autumn winds.
October plays temptress with her Duality;
Sun to warm the back of your flannel shirt,
With punkin' frosting nights, crisp and cold.
Air so clear it sears the throat like a glass of cider.
November comes dark, wet and gloomy.
An ancient harridan forced to bridal bed.
Chanting "fools, there's time before winter comes,
Still time enough for love."
December mutters in her sleep........
Categories:
mutters, introspectionautumn, time,
Form:
Narrative
Kittens In The Barn
He stops and removes his boots before opening the door. He enters the kitchen and smells the familiar aroma of morning coffee.
"Breakfast's ready, have a seat. How're the kittens" his wife asks.
"Damn cat" he says. "Should have run her off when she showed up last year". "Don't know why she stays where she ain't wanted". "Nothing but a nuisance is all she is". "Now got all those little ones running around". "I hate cats".
She gives him his plate and pours him a cup of coffee. He hungrily digs in, sopping up
his eggs with a warm biscuit. He tips his cup and pours some coffee in his saucer,
blowing on it to cool it off. "Damn cat" he mumbles.
When finished, he carries his dishes to the sink, rinsing them and setting them aside.
When her back is turned he quickly grabs the saucer and stuffs it in the pocket of his
bibs. "I'm going to milk the cows he says". "Take care" she calls, pretending not to
notice. In another moment he is gone.
He grabs his stool and bucket and sets to milking, the warm liquid quickly consuming the
container. He rises and walks into a distant stall. Bending down, he pulls out the
purloined saucer and fills it from the bucket in his hand. He places it beside the
squirming litter and watches as they stagger to its brim.
"Damn cat" he mutters. "Don't know why she stays where she ain't wanted".
Categories:
mutters, animals, people
Form:
Narrative
One must imagine Sisyphus’s
boulder, marble-sized these days
And Ozymandias’ plaque,
spinning despair into praise
Look on, ye hypocrites,
and sneer at my undoing
Your universe is a giant sandpit,
entropy accruing
Their legacies long crumbled,
eroded by rust
Gods built the wrong way,
on scaffolds of dust
Virtue or vice register
equally the same
Except between stars,
there’s space for one more grain
Down here, we clock in daily,
stack hours like prayer
Worship strong Wi-Fi,
evangelize on thin air
Imagine heavenly echoes,
because the silence isn’t fair
Some develop connection,
others a thousand-yard stare
Our Earth splits naturally,
along seismic lines
Greenwich claims centre stage,
only for the meantime
Sisyphus, still aching,
gets an epidural at last
But only in hindsight,
for his hump blocks the past
Redrawn are our own lines,
watchtowers in the sand
Sketching new borders,
carving up the promised land
Exhume ancient treasure,
and black, viscous stuff
Addicted to all things buried,
as if our dead weren’t enough
Still we write blindly,
tracing glyphs already faded
Helps lift the mood
when depressed and jaded
Gods stand on shaky ground,
myth holds them together
In schisms that bind billions,
then sever forever
Oh, look on—ye poet
Sisyphus now rolls his eyes
He’s seen the apps, wars,
hoodies, and cable ties
His hamster wheel’s a meme
for gods who merely try
Small wonder he mutters,
at least Ozymandias gets to die
And sometimes I pray to gods,
or maybe their ghosts
About versions of me
I’ve been missing the most
They don’t directly answer,
but do leave this guess
In the end, to keep on rolling
may be my passing success
By David Kavanagh
Categories:
mutters, how i feel, life,
Form:
Rhyme
peach sun has come back
long hours of rain and thunder
hummingbird plunder
hued blooms gather with
the stunning jeweled wonder
stained rite of summer
noon pause for orange
and backwards flight aflutter
butterfly colors
rapid wing whispers
velvet time is life's usher
gold midday mutters
Categories:
mutters, beautiful, bird, color, flower,
Form:
Haiku
24 PROMISES
Waking up in the arms of fire.
Ashes all around, burning picture frame.
I see nothing, the night is dark as can be.
I look up and see my father crying over me.
At this moment, I'm confused.
"AM I DREAMING!"
"AM I!"
I feel and see the tears falling from his eyes.
Without hearing him talk,
I PANIC ~
~At this moment. I feel my whole world collide~
Trying to talk, he whispers words,
Saying, "It's your mother!"
He mutters, them words I don't want to hear.
"NO DAD DON'T TELL ME!"
"NO DAD DON'T TELL ME!"
My heart drops onto the floor.
One long drop, I can feel everything in me wake up.
My blood is rushing, my bones can't stand still.
These tears, falling from my dad are real.
*I'm not dreaming* ANYMORE!
Without caring to put my shoes on,
I rush into my car and make it to mother's house.
The hours began to drag.
I got to see her lifeless body on the floor,
The paramedics setting her onto a gurney.
I jump on the ambulance,
Yelling at my mother to wake up.
"WAKE UP!"
"WAKE UP!"
She can't hear me,, cause I'm crying.
At this moment, every minute felt like an hour.
**I actually felt eternity, just by holding her hand.**
Arriving at the hospital.
I try to pull myself together.
Now her body is attached to life support.
I'm thinking she will pull through.
She always pulls through.
I closed my eyes, and told God,
I know I don't believe in miracles, nor will I ask for one,
Don't take her today or in that way.
Let her go on her own.
My eyes were close so tight,
God allowed a vision in my mind.
"My mother waiting for me on the other side"
I refused to let them remove her off LIFE SUPPORT.
Leaning over her lifeless body.
I whispered one thing into her ear,
I told her, my son's birthday near.
I told her you never were there for me,
Stay for his birthday, then set yourself free.
Hours, and hours past, she made it the first day.
Another 24 hours past, she stuck around another day.
Another 24 hours past, now it's my son's birthday.
Not another hour past, she decided to go her way.
She left without saying Goodbye...
I cried,
Ever since that day, something inside died.
by;p.d.
Categories:
mutters, body, dad, death, life,
Form:
Dramatic Monologue
When?
Master Buffoon
To wed Mistress May Lune
Raced to the church in July
On the day set for June.
Who?
Mr Snide's
Contempt and pride
Prompts him to pinch
Then run to hide.
What?
Missy Strutter's
Angry mutters
Could fill and flood
The empty gutters.
Why?
Mr Ponders
Sits and wonders
Why the grass
Is greener yonder?
Categories:
mutters, funny, imagination,
Form:
Verse
Rain slipped in
sliding on the din
just passed dark
came midnight sparks
before the light of morning sun,
spits and spats, tips and taps,
lulls and dulls,
sputtered mutters culls,
on the shutters closed,
clammy, dank, and damp,
click-clack, stamped,
pitter-patter tones,
on the walk path stones;
soft and harsh,
wind blowing scowls along the tarps
glistening glows
misting the grassy rows,
October doom looms,
harvests wells consumed
rain falls
as autumn calls.
Categories:
mutters, allusion,
Form:
Alliteration
From sagging huts up in the hills,
We watched the tourists flash their bills.
They piled our harvest on their plates,
While soup and scraps were all we ate.
The flames lick up from garbage cans,
Burnt brown like every working man,
Who shouts or sings or mutters low
Of the calluses that come and go.
They toss in straw, more flames shoot up
To light the faces, hewn and rough,
that need a creed, some faith to hold;
to make their insides proud and bold.
Right then and there, I stand to speak.
I will not play the lamb so meek.
The time has come to take back ours
from the wealthy dogs with fat cigars.
First cans, then cars, we overturn.
Now the boulevard begins to burn..
The fools shoot back, forget the cost,
The naked rage must not be lost.
We win ourselves some new recruits,
Some young; some old; some simply brutes;
I do not care where they heard the call.
The revolution now will need them all.
Our cause will die if all stays calm,
So I send out Juan with sweaty palms.
He won't come back, farewell, my friend.
Your blood will flow for greater ends.
Worn out, weary, our morale grows thin.
The feeling grows that we can not win.
We need more guns than we can steal,
But we do have one crop we can deal.
The rifles have arrived now. Good!
Excited now, they crack the wood.
My loathing of red, white and blue,
is spreading like the jungle flu.
Their army scatters, their leaders flee.
We've brought the country to it's knees.
With the capitol dead in our sights,
We'll soon assert the people's rights.
The grainy film does not portray
That it was a picture perfect day.
My second stands there, smart and trim.
It might pay to keep an eye on him.
We march them out in single file.
No need to bother with a trial.
Their baggy shirts and peasant lies
Betray them all as filthy spies.
Yes, the people had decreed this so,
I speak for them so I should know.
Your crimes have brought you here to die.
The people speak through me. Goodbye!
Their bodies jump in crimson leaps,
then tumble down in tangled heaps.
Scarlet skulls and splintered chests,
They'll surely air this in the West.
Bulldoze the bones and spread the lime,
For we all are on the side of time.
And tonight, we gather in the square.
Their blood has paid my ruling fare.
Categories:
mutters, history, people, social, people,
Form:
Rhyme
Who are you, my Lord?
And what am I standing here as a weather-beaten tombstone,
O Lord, reveal yourself to me on the tombstone standing here alone.
Long, long ago
Cain averted his face from the light,
the condemned river, surrounded by a dead
Cain laid atop of his own brother, flows into the valley
carrying the curse.
And the condemned river flows to the dark side of the sun
since the time Abel’s blood cried out.
My eyes grew so accustomed to the darkness
and, thus, though I am no longer able to stand in light,
I face you, the Lord of the origin of light,
standing here as a tombstone.
O Lord, are you the very person whose voice I hear?
are you the man who is rolling and tossing on the ground
under the out-pouring lashes who moans:
“forgive them,” each time I call for aid of my destiny?
O Lord, are you the one who crawl on the path
that leads to the Place of the Skull
in the mixed air of cries as the fools shout,
mockeries of the evil ones affront,
and the useless tears the women shed?
Are you the one who mutters: “forgive them,”
while falling under a rootless tree
for the weight of the tree is too great to bear?
For the good nature of humankind is numbed
by the weight of sins too deep to break loose.
The emotion of human kind becomes cold and cruel
and, therefore, O my Lord,
do you groan with pain unbearable:
“forgive them,” when those stone-hearted drive spikes
pierce your hands with no compunctions?
Are you the one who stands as a decaying wooden pillar
on atop of Golgotha with a darkening sun on your back
to close the shamefully-mistreated hard life,
the miserably-humiliated painful life?
Are you the benevolent kind-hearted one who looks up at heaven,
and at mobs who accused you, appealing with tearful eyes:
“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
When the wooden pillar collapses from its own weight
and darkness falls onto earth to cover the unsightly world,
I, the tombstone with no name or epitaph,
see a sad image standing atop of the Place of the Skull
tightly holding the world’s anguish.
Categories:
mutters, cry, dark, emotions, faith,
Form:
Free verse
A Reliquary Musing
A child’s doll melded into a stone in a former Nazi Death Camp
as its chilling image haunts the collective mind of those who live
in the so-called civilized world of today and who profess a hollow
concern for a child who’s long dead and who’s been completely
forgotten to the rest of the modern world.
A sad image like this one should haunt the very soul of mankind that
oft professes a political correctness as it sweeps such unpleasant images
under a bone-ridden rug that reflects a sad happenstance and mutters only
a sigh at the horrific nature of such a truly evil occurrence.
And, only Almighty God knows this sad truth.
And, now you do too.
Amen.
Gary Bateman, Copyright © All Rights Reserved
June 14, 2022 (Narrative)
Categories:
mutters, allegory, death, emotions, evil,
Form:
Narrative
Hi dear friends, I’m back after a bad shingles attack and straight after that bronchitis verging on pneumonia.
Little Robin red breast bobbing up and down,
Would take away with glee, anybody’s frown
And friendly buzzing Mr Bumble bee delights,
Us one and all, he does not sting, it’s not his thing.
He visits flowers , red, yellow purple , pink and blue,
Which attract him, loves their pollen and alluring hue.
One day bumble bee and little robin decided to be human,
So prepared for tea and pancakes, without the gluten,
They saw Katy the caterpillar crawling on the lawn,
And invited her to join them, the following morn at dawn,
They all met for this fun occasion by the nearby river,
But an uninvited visitor arrived with shiny wings, such a diva.
A Hadeda elegant and loud of call thought she was an opera
Singer, had one thing on her mind, which was Katy Caterpillar,
She slowly walked on her stalk like legs towards this prickly
Little insect, wanting to swallow Katy who was so wiggly,
Down her gullet, but Robin red breast said no no, no,
And Bumble bee agreed and said, I think you ‘d better go
So with his wide spread wings the Hadeda flew away,
Leaving Bumble bee and little Robin to enjoy their day,
How wonderful was their idea for pancakes and tea.
Another visitor arrives, so famous, known to you and me,
Can you guess who.
He wears a top hat, mutters crazy sayings,
And carry’s a full tea pot , ‘do you want a cup of tea,
Oh dear, oh dear, my or me, he or she or maybe you.
He takes his watch out of his waist coat pocket and says,
‘I’m late, I’m late for a a very important date, no time to
Say hello goodbye I’m late I’m late I’m late’
‘It’s time for me to go,
Au revoir from your dizzy beau.’
It was the Mad Hatter, of course,
An Alice in Wonderland source.
What happened to Katy caterpillar, well fearing
For her life, Katy crawled under a nearby bush,
Did not intend to be a snack, or mealtime mush.
NB – THE WORDS UTTERED BY THE MAD HATTER – are both from the book Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll and some of my own.
HADEDA IBIS - referred to in South Africa as only Hadeda.
Categories:
mutters, life,
Form:
Rhyme
Poetry comes from the heart, the dreams, the spirit, and wishes, Too oft' I hear of pain and woe and what life often dishes. So come with me and learn and see that poetry is more than this, It's more than rhymes and more than times and more than just a kiss.
I hear the thunder rolling as I feel the breeze a blowing, So my mind begins a showing a dream that I been going, Going far from where I am and going far from where I'll be. My heart it flutters and then it mutters as I drift out to sea.
See the birds glide through the air as if they were at home. See the fish float in the water and look right up at me. Toss a hand full of the future high into the sky, Pitch a thought of where I was and then see where I'll be…
The flowers grow both wild and tame not seeking any nurture, And yet, we pause and sniff and think and end their lives, no thought… The ants they move both to and fro just doing what they do, We watch and gaze so questionably and poison what they've sought…
We cry and wale at the loss, that we see so wrongly dealt, Curse the sky, and wonder why, and swear unto revenge. Never we think about the way the sun rises, or how the moon it glows, The cat's meow, the cow it's moo, the frog it hops, or how a fire will singe.
A shadow never walks away, from all and does endure,
I'm a shadow, and I see all the things you don't. I feel the texture of the ground, each of its nooks and crannies, I follow the contour of the earth and enjoy the things you won't…
I touch the sky and feel the water; I am all that I write, I am the sound that you don't hear; I am the sights that you don't see, I am the feeling you can't express; I am the dream you can't caress,
I am the love that once passed by; I am the loss that made you cry, I am the fantasy not touched; I am the one, who listens much,
I am the star that looks at you; I see all you wish to do, I am the moon that shines at night; I am the thought that takes a flight, but more than these and all I write I am a poet late in the night…
Categories:
mutters, adventure, analogy, art, beauty,
Form:
Written: December 11, 2024, for contest Sponsored by: Robert James Liguori
________________________________
When dusk strikes, the magic swirls,
In the grasp of dawn, a wispy heart twirls.
The shades waltz as a painter brush whirls,
In a vacuum night, dream faintly furls.
We whimsey we'd catch the rainbow past,
Ride the wind whispers in a peaceful blast.
Sail aboard ships of wonder over skies so vast,
Still, life's intricate yarn holds shadows cast.
With each glitter and moonbeam embrace,
Warm mutters soothe, eradicating the trace.
A crystalline elixir, hope unending grace,
In a chaotic world, I'll waltz amid the space.
So hear the moon croon, as the world feels right,
Through lilac and lavender, our hopes bear flight.
In the bittersweet dance of our love’s pure light,
We embrace the shades, and in time, we unite.
From periwinkle skies, where stars softly bite,
To obsidian hoops, in the gloom of the night.
The elixir of life offers sweet, gentle height,
And while sunrise glows, we dream in spite.
The crimson and green, in dawn’s golden light,
As hope drips from vials, crystalline and bright.
With each ebbing moment, pain feels contrite,
Yet dreams linger on, with a soft, tender bite.
So bless me, as the dawn’s light breaks,
With glimmers of hope that the dawn makes.
In every hue, from crimson to blue ice flakes,
A kaleidoscope of dreams, pure and slake.
From blue skies to lavender pillows,
I shall find my path home by shadows.
In this upholstery of wonderful bliss,
So bless me, bless me, with dawn kiss.
Categories:
mutters, analogy, appreciation, rainbow,
Form:
Monorhyme