Best Negotiated Poems
concerned about being upstaged
the glorious blue tinted rock
negotiated
sent in the puffy white wisps
to cover the vibrant coloured evergreens
the brown field in the foreground
felt offended
wondering out loud
"what about me?"
then added "beauty you know is..."
but never bothered to finish the cliché.
for my part
i was more interested
in what the mountain had traded the clouds
what could it possibly have offered?
September 23 2016
Categories:
negotiated, beauty, earth, nature, planet,
Form:
Light Verse
A country yearns industry
from assiduous minds revolutionary,
cities conceived with mind set and skill
yet lay insipid in the body of Britannia
those in need of life’s blood,
akin to human organs
served only; by arterial veins.
The first sod to lift an unfolding nation
the first cut the inauguration the call,
have a thought pleasure seeker
enduring men with pick, shovel, some did fall,
his sweat given freely or not as the case may be
to mingle with earth removed
or deep within copse ghyll may well be for a tree.
The Dales emptied, of its men
famine ravaged Ireland too,
drawn towards the rush of new born adrenaline
a creation of foresight
when the need for this an artery to flow
through lock, tunnel aqueduct,
transforming her virgin land
albeit out of trades of old,
an era steeped in tradition
tools an extension: of one’s own hand.
Adverse weather geography
this realm having found fame,
complexity from above, below,
the elements the environment
nothing to stand in obsessions way,
from soil to solid rock, energy sapping
clods of clay negotiated all
amidst many tongues, yet same laborious conclusion
wheeled away by the barrowman;
horse and cart.
This precious land host to many heroes
those upon columns stand tall,
our sons live on in remembrance
a memorial for them all,
so to this symbolic structure
craved through hostile terrain,
a burly navvies sculptured cleft
within the very earth
his body one day to lay.
Oh the city Leeds, city Liverpool and those in between
the bargees upon the cut there now do dwell
living within the ideals of another time sown
but of ease it is with just a memory
conservation the historic debt on loan!
© Harry J Horsman 2013
Categories:
negotiated, inspirational, memorial,
Form:
Free verse
For thousands of years, ice giants were sleeping.
But now, these dense “blue ice” glaciers are weeping.
Warnings that in many ways bear repeating.
Global climate change speeds glaciers’ retreating.
In Alaska and Glacier National Park,
The melting of ancient glacial ice is stark.
Half the world’s glaciers – in Land of Midnight Sun*,
But in Glacier NP**, soon there will be none.
Years hence, will Alaska have any at all?
Loss of these ice bodies a clear wake-up call.
Value majestic Alaska, like Seward***?
Care for glaciers; each of us a good steward?
Alaska’s Exit Glacier – leaving for good?
Will black stone stand where Blackstone Glacier once stood?
In Montana, Blackfoot Glacier shrinks each day.
The other twenty-four headed the same way.
Glaciers’ demise may get more than them crying.
Their loss may mean earth’s human life is dying.
Glacial and polar ice death no mystery;
If we do nothing, glaciers are history.
Signed, Saddened for the Sobbing, Shrinking Glaciers
6/1/2017
* Alaska is known as the Land of the Midnight Sun.
** National Park is often abbreviated “NP”.
*** Then U.S. Secretary of State, William H. Seward, negotiated the United States’ purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867.
Categories:
negotiated, emotions, environment, green, imagery,
Form:
Personification
Given in appreciation
but taken away on request
translated to foreign land
but asked to surrender everything
employed to serve unknown guests
but asked to behave brainlessly
taken for a tour as personal effect
but chained for whims of tourism
Today young girls of the world
are chattels of people’s wishes
They are dustbin of weird whims
hijacked, negotiated, looted, lied to
are groundnut paste of pleasure
nothing in this world they are
but chattels, empty scraps!
Categories:
negotiated, irony, woman,
Form:
Free verse
I am dipped in burnt sage
smudged with black skin
Choctaw infused in my DNA
Creole seasoning the roux
in my bloodline
I slow simmer
for I am daughter of
strong warrior
Too powerful to
give up
cause surrender is
an unfamiliar name
to my lineage
My hair kinks just right
Bones and muscles designed
to balance the
world on my back
I can birth a generation
and feed it plentiful
from the milk and honey
that flows from my breast
I smile warm sunshine
my ancestors bathed in
Old ***** spirituals
vibrated from their vocal cords
as blood from fingertips
stained massa's cotton
I walk upright
with square shoulders
head held high to God
I've time traveled through
lifetimes before me
My black is not for
barter and trade
My woman is not to
be negotiated
You can't experience
my being without
being in my experience
You take the sweet meat
and leave the rotten
Not knowing I turn rotten
into witches brew
that strengthens
my inheritance
the parts of me you
wish pain for
I'm not worried about
you robbing me of
my ethnicity
You can desire to
be like this woman
but you could never be
woman enough as me
My black be God given
The elements of my woman
be everlasting
You thief in night real well
but what you know about
me and my kind
You can never represent
the meaning of Full lips
and wide hips
made for bearing
breathing life when all
your lips and hips are good for
Is delivering white lies
3/8/2020
Categories:
negotiated, africa, appreciation, beautiful, deep,
Form:
Free verse
He speaks for the uprooted.
A man of sorts, a twiggy Buddha.
He who interprets
the conferences of frogs,
the unpublished works
of kestrels and voles.
He’s an advocate for the underbelly
of a microbial heaven, for every kind
of uncouth animalcule.
He speaks for the bulldozed,
the displaced. The native and
the nomadic.
He tracks the sins
of yellow, metal Caterpillar’s.
He glides over bogs with the frogs.
He moves under tree shadows,
if there are no tree shadows
he takes a bus.
He talks to the bears - they tell him
how things are going in the suburbs.
Swimming pools and trash cans,
have still to be negotiated. There must be a treaty.
He is leafy, kits and coyote love him,
Whistle-Pigs chirp like sparrows; blow their noses
to trumpet his approach.
When ducks quack his many sermons
shotguns misfire.
He is a preacher, a teacher to tics and turtles.
He is the Green Man,
he is not a straw man,
or a hollow man –
he is green
at least for now.
Categories:
negotiated, poetry,
Form:
Blank verse
Call girl of Thulhu?
I smiled at the voice at the end of the phone.
Not been in action for many years, but had a keenness for a kill.
Sure is, I said in my youngest voice.
Happy it did not crack or give my age.
You can do some delectable things for five hundred? A question.
I said “six” to see if he would bite.
A slight hesitation
We negotiated to five fifty.
Agreed to meet at the Slingback, a seedy motel.
You could torture someone here.
No one would call the cops.
They would not show up in this divvy place
Too scary.
More than one cop had probably
already been murdered at the Slingback.
Run by Mama M,
Nickname: Mama Mortician.
Got out my knives and lovingly polished them.
They had not seen daylight since ’85 when I took out several men
No idea my trick was polishing his knives too
Categories:
negotiated, woman, women,
Form:
Prose Poetry
He speaks for the uprooted.
A man of sorts, a twiggy Buddha.
He who interprets
the conferences of frogs,
the unpublished works
of kestrels and voles.
He’s an advocate for the underbelly
of a microbial heaven, for every kind
of uncouth animalcule.
Ancient is he, yet as fresh as tomorrow,
in green ponds he fishes for sunlight.
He plumps grassy pillows,
quilts nests for the slumbering and slippery,
gardens all dewy meadows.
He speaks for the bulldozed,
the displaced. The native and
the nomadic.
He tracks the sins
of the truculent muckrakers,
the yellow iron caterpillars.
He glides over bogs with the frogs.
Slips between the stringy and tall,
if there are no forested ways
he ambles where the wind ruffles.
He talks to the bears - they tell him
how things are going in the suburbs.
Swimming pools and trash cans,
have still to be negotiated. There must be a treaty.
He is leafy, kits and coyote love him,
Whistle-Pigs chirp like sparrows; blow their noses
to trumpet his approach.
When ducks quack his many sermons
shotguns misfire.
He is a preacher, a teacher to tics and turtles.
He is the bosky bedfellow, not a straw man,
or a hollow man – he is variegated and verdant,
a green man for me and thee
at least for now.
Categories:
negotiated, poetry,
Form:
Free verse
Nibbles McCheesy was ever so speedy
And scampering all round the house
Trojan the tabby was getting quite crabby
For failing to capture that mouse
That cowardy custard could not cut the mustard
The mouse was too slippery for he
In truth it was mainly and really quite plainly
For fear that mouse might have a flea
So Nibbles McCheesy would run around freely
With Trojan in feigned hot pursuit
But one day a dollar had bought a flea collar
Which, being pink, looked rather cute
This new situation meant self preservation
Was not gonna hold Trojan back
So Nibbles McCheesy found freedom less easy…
…The front door was open a crack
So Nibbles debated then negotiated
The crack… to the world of ‘outside’
The front door shut tight; he was out for the night
But then a free picnic he spied
McCheesy’s a reader, he’s seen a bird feeder
And knows they’re a banquet on tap
He climbed the bird table fast as he was able
The goldfinches got in a flap
Twas only a minute and Nibbles was in it
Snuck in through a hole in the side
He ate all the seeds beyond all of his needs…
“Help me, I’m stuck fast,” he cried
Then Trojan stepped out, and he gazed all about
He thought he should let Nibbles in
But stuck in his tube, Nibbles asked for some lube
And gave him his best cheesy grin
Categories:
negotiated, animal, cat,
Form:
Rhyme
The events of last evening were such
that I awoke this morning to find
I was beside myself—
not metaphorically,
but in the most literal sense:
two versions,
one body short.
The mirror caught us first—
a flash of double movement
where there should have been one.
I blinked.
He didn’t.
Or maybe I didn’t.
It’s hard to say
when glass begins to lie.
We shared a glance,
the kind exchanged between commuters
who suspect they’ve boarded the wrong train
but are too polite to ask.
It seemed prudent
to seize the opportunity
for a discussion between ourselves—
a kind of internal summit
to determine the rhyme and reason
for our dilemma,
and sketch a path
toward reunification,
assuming it was worth the effort.
The other me—
slightly more rumpled,
possibly wiser—
suggested that last night’s self-reflection
had been too honest,
and that dreams,
when left unsupervised,
tend to rearrange the furniture.
We debated causation,
as one does:
Was it the unresolved metaphor
in that unfinished poem?
The hat and the boots,
still waiting for closure?
Or the quiet betrayal
of pretending to be whole
for the sake of social ease?
Outside, the morning
was already making demands.
Inside, we negotiated
terms of reentry—
no apologies,
no revelations,
just a mutual agreement
to pretend we were whole
until further notice.
I stood to leave,
feeling the weight shift
as the double lingered behind,
stuck in the mirror,
arms crossed,
expression unreadable.
The other me was unimpressed.
Categories:
negotiated, introspection, irony, mirror, philosophy,
Form:
Free verse
Unconfounded by a doltish lack
of general public adoration,
our poetry we'll offer here --
and bend each other's hungry ears
in supportive, negotiated pacts
of (mostly) mutual appreciation.
Categories:
negotiated, inspiration, poems, poetry, poets,
Form:
Epigram
When you were born
the Sun named you Wondra
and Luna fed you star fire from her naked night,
they knew you would dance with feet of love war
that your heart would become poetry, body an angel's repository
and that your soul would cry diamonds, a mind of misfit symphony,
As you've grown, so pretty and strong
like a song of valor from an incorruptible heartbeat
a new passion of virtue has glown from your triumphant love touch,
serpents have negotiated for your beauty only to be awed by your command
and the indigenous creatures of Earth have come to your maternal hand for guidance,
the crosses in your eyes have shown the brave sanctuary and the wicked outstretched humility -
J.A.B.
Categories:
negotiated, i love you,
Form:
Free verse
It was an old sailors birthday,
he went back to the docks.
He met a professional lady
they preceded then to talk.
He had been alone a long while
thought that his tide was nigh,
time to have some fun
before prices get to high!
They negotiated terms
on what he"d have to pay.
Then headed back to hers
where she would make his day.
They both got in her bed,
he set about his task.
After a couple of minutes
he felt he had to ask?
"Well, how do you think i"m doing,
am I giving you the hots?
Please tell me what you think,
give me your passing thoughts?
She replied.
"You are doing at least 3 knots,
"Knot really hard,
knot quite in,
and knot getting
your money back!
Categories:
negotiated, life, me,
Form:
Rhyme
Those little bridges
Perfect eyebrows
Half-moons
trampled by feet
that don't care
callously tarry.
The questions in
extinguished glances
a play staged for
dwindling feet
for faces are shameful
from corners of eyes
under fading half moon
a price charged
negotiated in the red glare
of evening wet cobblestones.
The heavy sweet scent
nickers around corners
eyebrows raised
over glassy eyes
sitting between evening
hordes of cut-off legs
senseless lemmings
that walk, walk
to nowhere.
***
August 21, 2017
Copyright © Darren White
Categories:
negotiated, city, metaphor,
Form:
Free verse
HAH!
This place
Allows me to mail
No social media
I negotiated this morning
Told them how unhappy I am
if I can't write
That I need to be able
to reach my blog for it
and PoetrySoup
HAH!
So they negotiated with me:
1) I speak in group sessions (oh yuck, I stutter)
2) They can see what poems I write (oh, yeah, why not!)
3) I do not sneakily start Facebook or Messenger (I won't, I promise)
4) I'll not leave my wheelchair unguarded, so the kiddies downstairs race with it (I promise I chain it)
HAH!
Psych time was fun time
And it was too cold for the beach this morning
Instead my psychiatrist wheeled me to a cafeteria and we did our negotiations on paper there today, with Espresso and apple pie to seal the deal.
DONE
Meaning, I will be here for a while longer, but I can write poetry again and hang around here on Soup. Ain't that just wonderful?
Categories:
negotiated, absence, anxiety, cool, depression,
Form:
Narrative