Best Narrowed Poems
'Twas a dark and stormy night on that dark and stormy night!
HMS Blunderbuss plied the billowing seas just off the Isle of Wight!
Able Seaman Steer manned the helm when dead ahead he saw the light!
He woke the snoozing Officer of the Deck to apprise him of their plight!
Captain Ironbottom (who happened to be in the 'head') was duly alerted!
He dashed to the bridge in his drawers to ensure that disaster was averted!
"By jove!" he cried, "Her Majesty's ships turn aside for no one, I say!"
He grabbed the radio, "Ahoy there! Turn east 15 degrees! Out of my way!"
From out of the ozone a voice retorted, "Suggest you turn west 15 degrees!
I'll not change course for anyone, so heed my warning if you please!"
"This is Captain Ironbottom of the HMS Blunderbuss!" he thundered back!
"I know the rules of the road! Turn now or I'll see you hung from the rack!"
Able Seaman Steers' eyes grew as large as saucers knowing not what to do!
Communication between the captain and the mysterious light was turning blue!
As the distance narrowed between them, neither would give a nautical mile!
The white-knuckled Officer of the Deck was turning pale with a sickly smile!
"This is Captain Ironbottom again! Are you challenging Her Majesty's might?"
"Yes sir" was the reply, "You see, this is the light house on the Isle of Wight!"
Today the mighty HMS Blunderbuss rusts upon the Isle of Wight's rocky shoal.
Captain Ironbottom faded into oblivion due to the folly of his last patrol!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
© All Rights Reserved
Categories:
narrowed, dark, funny, light,
Form:
Rhyme
Through the silence of the years
Time tiptoes in each small story
Another morning wakes with gentle glory
Too quickly, pass the years, ...it is clear
Around me and everywhere I look
Time slips and slides, so close upon the slopes
With mists upon the distant hills....our hopes
Are dwindled down to one small book
Ticking loudly, as down the ridge I climb
Echoes of the time, casting shadows grey
Narrowed down to waning days
A world of clocks, unwinding time
Uncaring clocks, to hear the sound, can be quite hard
Each minute, one by one, ticks-ticks-ticks my life away
The face of time, indifferent, without care, never strikes a last ballet
But, simply carries on, and will tick on, with no regard
Categories:
narrowed,
Form:
Free verse
Never let go
Though the path is crooked,
It is narrowed,
But mind not the thorns oh
Brave and Noble seeker.
Though you're a stranger,
But you shall explore
Well enough to restore
Hope to the dying ones.
Once with a courageous veil
You'll end the wail.
Categories:
narrowed, emotions, encouraging, hope, muse,
Form:
Tail-rhyme
The Last Hug
The day you left, my soul took your side,
My heart felt a real ache, and cried a flood,
All I wanted and wished to grasp was you,
As you moved forward, I felt blind,
And lost you in the mist of crowd.
There were people to support me,
But all felt hollow,
There were thought around me,
But all seemed narrowed,
There were lips around me curved up ,
But all felt curved down.
I still have it painted in my head when I last saw you,
Like the monument which stays forever,
That night I was drenched in rain,
Dripping water from head to toe,
My coat felt heavy with the water,
My outer picture had imitated the inner.
I remember the last hug,
How our eyes had the cracks of red ,
like the cracks of a broken mirror,
How your body squeezed hard against mine,
How my hands wrapped around you were indivisible,
How I wanted the time to standstill,
And the few counted breath I took in your arm, before letting you go.
Categories:
narrowed, lost, lost love, love,
Form:
Free verse
Love.
There are so many conotations behind it,
Yet what does it mean?
I think too much,
But can’t come to terms with any thoughts.
This brain fog is yet to go,
But how will I know
When it is gone?
Love.
What I feel is not romantic, no.
It is not some crush,
It is not feeble,
I am not in love.
I swallow the dry taste of confusion
Drifting through me.
I cannot think,
But the thoughts are always there.
What is love?
Why must it be divided into parts
Like romantic and platonic?
I don’t know where to start.
This feeling is not romantic,
Yet it is not platonic, either.
What I feel goes deeper, but not too deep.
I continue to wonder;
What might be if these words ever released from my lips.
I love in a way that cannot be described.
Comfort. Warmth. Safety.
Those are the words
Quawing like birds
In my mind.
Love.
I am constantly thinking.
Not with my head,
But with my heart.
But I wonder:
Is my heart burdened by my brain?
All of this pain
Yet to go away.
What is love?
Is it some socially constructed label?
One of few definitions, none worthy of explaining
What is going on up there?
Who’s to say?
My mind won’t sway,
It’s just another day
Of tormented silence.
What does it mean to be held?
Why would I ever want that in a non-carnal way?
Because I am not to be narrowed down to some physical prowess.
My anxiety keeps me from feeling,
But makes me feel constantly.
Love.
Why must you be so complicated?
Drifting away,
I do not pray
To a god,
But to anyone listening to free me from sorrow.
This love is not sorrow, no.
But the state of unknowing is treacherous.
Why must I conform to societies beliefs of what I am supposed to feel?
Love.
I don’t know what this love is,
I just know what it isn’t.
What is this love?
Categories:
narrowed, anxiety, love,
Form:
Free verse
Desire
His wide shoulders
Flowed to narrowed waist
Her eyes locked on his vast manhood
Muscled sculpture captured smooth perfection
Her tongue caressed his lower lip
Spreading thighs he entered
Fulfilling her
Desire
© Kim van Breda – 22 October 2014
Categories:
narrowed, body, desire, imagery, passion,
Form:
Rictameter
My heart
Swung between two clouds
My face
Fell above a bunch of thorns
My ears
Ran behind the neighing of love
My steps
Fell down on the brink of death
My arms
Opened to the light of heaven
My eyelids
Closed on the sadness
And my chest
Narrowed on the pulse of my heart
Oh God for now
Take me to a lover knows how to love!
Categories:
narrowed, love,
Form:
Free verse
Each moment arrives
already threaded—
camels crossing through narrowed eyes,
yesterday's needles.
I see the burden in your face when I get here,
but it’s not your face;
rather a ripple of something older,
residue caught in the glass
nothing but an echo of now. Do you see that?
A life lived sideways,
pressed into the sand.
My bus driver is Atlas today,
holding a world hostage
until I meet his raised eyebrows
with an acknowledgment,
in addition to the usual fare.
The woman on the corner is Circe,
turning glances to granite,
spinning myths into tricks—
even the barista, bean-stained hands,
shifts like Persephone, balancing
her sweet against the darkness.
What is our world if not echoes
refracted, meals consumed after death?
What is real except an insurrection
of stories, clawing at the edges of us,
our susceptible flesh, infected with personality?
These vaunted archetypes,
they hide the hollows in our marrow,
make us no match
for the maps we mistake
for ourselves. You tilt your head,
you ask me what I see. I see, I say,
I have seen, the echoes came first—
shadows carved on walls long
before the names, long before the bodies.
Go ahead, laugh—step into the light.
But remember it moves faster than you
think, burns brighter than you see, and always
drags its shadow behind.
Categories:
narrowed, body, community, courage, inspiration,
Form:
Free verse
Stressless and cheerful is the childhood ,
We had nothing to do but only to play ,
Screams and laughs tastes of livelihood ,
For like glistening stars we lay .
Life so colourful ,
No eyebrows furrowed ,
But now so stressful ,
With smiles so narrowed .
Serious and caught up are we ,
No time to spare ,
Endless nights awake we be ,
The twinkling eyes so rare .
Its summer now the spring has passed ,
Lots of memories ,
Terribly missed ,
This is the reality away from the world of fantasies .
Categories:
narrowed, abuse, addiction, dark, death,
Form:
Rhyme
Reading alone gets wit and wisdom,
Wide reading increases knowledge,
We can learn a lot by that process,
That only paves the way for growth.
We must make a note of all the books
That World calls as a treasure to hold
And we must acquire them shrewdly
And widen our knowledge brilliantly
As one grows, reading gets narrowed
For innumerable reasons to quote
Main is poor eyesight that blocks
One's reading power immensely
One easiest way to grasp the essence
Is by reading the quotes of great men,
Their distilled wisdom when is learned,
Our wit reaches its pinnacle admirably
Quotes are made with greatest thought
To tell the longest story in few words,
The time taken to read them is less,
We can read at any time, anywhere!
Reading a large number of super quotes
Rinses brain in the ocean of philosophy,
We become great masters of thinking,
Our words contain the best ideas easily
When one grows aged, strain is more,
Especially the eyes lose their power,
Endurance is also seriously affected,
Under such a condition, quotes help
Brief quotes easily remove one's grief,
They stun the World by their simplicity,
By mastering them, we reign supreme,
Our mind is filled with enormous wit
So, reading big books is no doubt fine,
If we have the power and proper mindset,
But, reading quotes will bring huge rewards,
Just twenty of them will elevate our thoughts
Reading habit must be ever continued,
We must constantly develop our brain,
We must equip it for doing useful acts,
Reading is the basis for any great feat!
Categories:
narrowed, books, education,
Form:
Blank verse
In the warmth of your gaze is where I want to be.
On a journey, endless, under the seamless sky…
Lost and adrift in your emerald iris sea.
From the cold bastille of solitude, set me free,
And tear me from the eyes that only want to pry.
In the warmth of your gaze is where I want to be.
Dreams dream of dreamers who exhale a vying plea
That billows the sails, on the current of the sigh,
Lost and adrift in your emerald iris sea.
Thrust from darkness into light, you struggle to see
With narrowed, questioning eyes, that need to know why.
In the warmth of your gaze is where I want to be.
Buried deep inside, I exhume the hidden key
That unfurls new hopes, soaring high and high and high,
Lost and adrift in your emerald iris sea.
Swaddled in safe embrace, with the strength of a tree,
Gentle are my kisses that keep rosy cheeks dry.
In the warmth of your gaze is where I want to be,
Lost and adrift in your emerald iris sea.
Categories:
narrowed, allusion, beauty, love, relationship,
Form:
Villanelle
Through the silence of the years
Time tiptoes in each small story
Another morning wakes with gentle glory
Too quickly, pass the years, ...it is clear
Around me and everywhere I look
Time slips and slides, so close upon the slopes
With mists upon the distant hills....our hopes
Are dwindled down to one small book
Ticking loudly, as down the ridge I climb
Echoes of the time, casting shadows grey
Narrowed down to waning days
A world of clocks, unwinding time
Uncaring clocks, to hear the sound, can be quite hard
Each minute, one by one, ticks-ticks-ticks my life away
The face of time, indifferent, without care, never strikes a last ballet
But, simply carries on, and will tick on, with no regard
Categories:
narrowed, introspection
Form:
Enclosed Rhyme
The Imp sat atop the dresser, unmoving,
in the corner of the room, I waited, pen in hand.
No sound did he make, nor his locus improving,
as his bloodshot eyes, my attention, they demand.
In days slipped past, he spoke in lulled timbre,
for years he abated the fears that I had,
his mind so subtle, his thoughts so limber,
but through each day my questions he forbad.
I wrote each word, every syllable, every notion,
spoken dark or tender, whether thou or thine.
He laid before me his songs of emotion
and I stole each one and made them all mine.
In his voice, I claimed, all of his treasures,
without a thought he'd discover, in time.
Yet, now he speaks with words always measured,
and burning glares that scream of my crime.
Does he know I've used him to privilege my psyche?
Does he know how his rhymes have impassioned my soul?
Would he care if I offered to proffer my ego,
or pay, with my heart, this immeasurable toll.
“Living In The Dark ,“ so easy he spoke this,
while together we lived each verse, he and I.
Darkness foreboding, for he, was in bliss,
but for me pure terror as his words I decry.
He laughed at my fear and smiled with derision
as my name I placed at the end with the date.
His eye slowly narrowed as if changing his decision
but I watched as the dark made these feelings abate.
I gather before me his sonnet's solemn lines,
He allows me to name it,"Fire," seems right,
as his bitterness taunts me with each phrase he entwines
leaving visions of me in the sallow dim light.
I live in his blindness through eyes of midnight.
The coals of his vision, burning embers of fright,
but the words he has spoken I endeavor to requite
for they linger and fill me with horrendous delight.
Each syllable I have written, each turn of a phrase,
I owe to this Imp as he glares from the dresser
but silence, now, while he sits in the shadows,
how I wish again to become his confessor.
10/07/2020
Categories:
narrowed, dark, depression, gothic, muse,
Form:
Quatrain
Many many moons ago
leaving the porch
of a south-facing canyon,
I hiked to a place
where the foothills
narrowed,
Where the asphalt road
ran astride the reservoir lake
into which kingfishers
dived at will,
and Great Horned owls
hooted at passerby,
And crickets chirped
in the castor bean
in the broom grass,
in the sumac and sorrel
and the scrub oak
and the sage,
I walked with gathering dusk
upslope to the ridge
where one lone bat
in diving approach,
plunged to air
as kingfisher to lake,
As owl to moon
or as moon to owl
or as owl to owl,
two owls upon the perch
fated couple
to a lifelong mate.
At this very place
I saw my mission unfold
in ceremony of solemn joining
in deepest respect
this wedded pair
framed aside starlight,
Framed within angles
of better aspect
placing male to left
female to right,
then married them there
till death do they part,
He in a cassock of feathers
all attention to duty
she with a blink
of a solitary eye,
I with a wave
of the official hand,
"I decree thee man and wife"
I the chaparral poet of authority
captain on this ship
I do wed thee,
witnessed by bat and kingfisher
cricket and castor bean.
And so my sudden voice
startled both to flight
he with wings to eclipse
the moon, the sky
she in silence
winged forever to his side.
Categories:
narrowed, marriage,
Form:
Free verse
To the powers that be.
I've allowed you to view
my weakness like an
opportunity. Give school
children fatherless
babies, and preach their
nudity to the
congregation. Pagan
prostitute purchasing
pastor preaches to a
godless nation. Commit
adultery upon the body
of Christ and a ct
sinless. Thou shalt not
eat of the fruit of good
knowledge, lest thou be
skinless. Take a wrong
turn like Brenda and get
hit by a bullet train. Of
alcohol abuse, drug
addiction, and mental
strain. We don't live
under the same sun.
When you were
wealthy, my poverty
had already begun. You
got to university, I died
from hunger in Somalia.
Because of my skin, I've
become victim to
sickness, AIDS and
malaria. My protests
end in bloodshed
because of gunshots. If
we hungered not to
perish, we'd do nothing
to fill those empty pots.
String my wings with
the chords of your
swollen affection. Allow
your Jacobs to rule the
nation, they're the
masters of perfection.
Your nation of rapist
gay men has narrowed
the country's vision. You
sodomize my sisters in
your office,under cop
supervision. You molest
my brothers and torture
a nation. Kill my spirit
entirely, and resurrect
an evil nation.
Categories:
narrowed, conflict
Form:
Alliteration