Best Nineteen Poems
They are poor…they’re removed, they struggle through life,
Every day is a burden on the edge of a knife,
They’re stuck in the circle, that’s all that they know,
And there’s not work around, and nowhere to go.
But a man full of promise says he does understand,
‘My names Uncle Sam, please take hold of my hand,
I’ll break the circle, and then I’ll bring you back,
After a year from somewhere in Iraq.’
She stands at the cemetery gates.
A small bunch of roses and holding back tears.
Just three hundred steps to a name etched in stone
That’s all she has now… for nineteen years.
On the mantelpiece over the burning wood fire,
A son’s photos, citations from her country’s desire
as she sits and she weeps on the madness of war,
And his last words she heard, “What am I fighting for?”
She stands at the cemetery gates.
A small bunch of roses and holding back tears.
Just three hundred steps to a name etched in stone
That’s all she has now… for nineteen years.
2nd January 2010 ©Lindsay Laurie
I was newly thirteen when the seventies took me underwing,
then married and grown when they creased inside time’s fold.
I was not attracted to those scholastic or athletic,
but to those lacking labels and considered rebels.
Moving yearly filled my army-brat life with sad good-byes
that swerved my teenage years thru countless, deep cries.
When the decade first began, I had paper and pen in hand
to secretly write the poetry holding my heart slams.
At thirteen, poems first bubbled in me to be pen-freed.
I still have most as lost-girl written within my teen season.
In the seventies I fell in love with love, astrology, spirituality,
Kahlil Gibran, Thoreau, individuality as resonated in me
from Ann Rand’s, “The Fountainhead”, and lyrics on which I fed.
The Who wrote song lines I fantasized were mine, all mine,
Elton John, Crosby, Stills and Nash sang words for my thrills,
as did Neil Young, Carole King, CCR, The Eagles, and Beatles.
Rock n Roll beats and crying guitars inebriated my limits,
such music moved me in defiance of compliance to physics.
Thru rock’s depths and denim, I was a seventies thoroughbred
who has poetically wept since first the decade's innocence bled.
no longer virgin
Rocky Horror Picture Show
saw it at midnight
Way too easy, when you look at
me
like you can see
words wade in slow
draw in breath, like a magic
key
two eyes
and all the wonders they show
For me it doesn't come so easy
the specter of nineteen
dealin' in failure wins
and winds my tongue
Never knew where it grew
between the creased parlor
lights made to start
What I do know
when my fingers touched yours
bright and beautiful
the spark
that ripped right through
my heart
Forever is a long time
far too long never to say
I love, it's love, you're loved..
so if you never want to hear it,
don't look at me that way.
Harriet Tubman was free; finally. Free to do what she wanted.
Free to stay out of the south, and free to not ever be a slave again.
But was she satisfied with her own freedom? No. She was not.
She gave up her own peace of mind and safety to help others.
She went back to the south not once or twice, but nineteen times.
Risking her freedom nineteen times.
NINETEEN TIMES!
I cannot imagine risking my freedom one time.
She brought three hundred slaves to the north, and successfully.
I can see why President Obama honored her by putting her on our money.
She stands for everything we say is great about this country.
Integrity. Peace. Selflessness, duty, and courage.
Nineteen times.
There is no way to imagine it.
I cannot.
Can you?
“You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens.”
Rumi
It was the summer of 1967 and the sun was almost bran new
me and Tony L. skipped to the corner to raid the candy store
sometimes we bought a paper bag full of small penny candies
other times it was a fancy box, full of Cracker Jack popcorn ...
We grew up like sleuths on 2nd Avenue by the rubble of Miron
sludging through dried clay and playing with colorful marbles
As we played with washed up marbles, we grew up in time
laughtering our days until the sober rays of adulthood arrived
No one will ever forget that place on St. Michel dear bro,
it was where the pine tree grew, when life was spanking new
all the prizes that we won, are still laying on the concrete floor
Written by : Mystic Rose
[Wrote this during Covid in a ‘Ring a ring a roses’ frame
of mind. Wasn’t sure what archaic rules were in place around
the world, so sat on it. Basically… in England, ‘other people’
were ‘death on legs’. This may or may not sound amusing
but it’s pretty much how it was… laugh ye not!]
———*———
Keep your grandma distant for theres ‘nineteen’ around
If she dies don’t watch somebody put her in the ground
If it's short, feel lucky for you may get up and walk
If it's long the reaper’s raven may decide to squark
Air holes aren't at liberty when it goes here and there
Mister, it ain't normal to go breathing everywhere
Should you see me coming take a breath and amble on
And don’t you dare release it till I’m quite a long way gone
Cough cough - too much wheezing
Sniff sniff - most displeasing
Croak croak - time for bed, Sir
Till you’re dead or better
Grandma’s in the shadow of the steeple, yeah
Grandma’s with the other people resting, there
I wonder if they put her in clean underwear
I wonder if she wonders if we just don’t care
Grandma’s in the shadow of the steeple, yeah
I wonder if they took the time to do her hair
Maybe I could ask the ones who took her there
But they’re not taking visitor’s from anywhere
Cough cough - too much wheezing
Sniff sniff - most displeasing
Croak croak - time for bed, Sir
Till you’re dead or better
Grandma’s in the shadow of the steeple, yeah
Nearby, carers sporting masks and safety wear
Cannot stand too close; the law says, ‘Don’t you dare!’
She stands alone to watch them bury grandpa there.
Cough cough - too much wheezing
Sniff sniff - most displeasing
Croak croak - time for bed, Sir
Till you’re dead or better
September moon,
celestial skinny-dippers,
sangria soirée, so soused,
starlight swimming,
summertide celebratory,
singing soon sepia snapshots,
streaming in soulful sisterhood
psyches of sorrowful separating friends,
sadly, still scattered,
sweetly soliloquizing of
September of ‘76. ~
Anyone who has lived through them as I have,
Knows the Forties were the most memorial of all
Of the decades of the Twentieth Century
And surely the most vivid in recall.
Personally, they were the greatest of my life.
I was married in the year of Forty-One.
Then in March of Nineteen-Forty Three,
We were blessed with the birth of a new son.
Two daughters followed him in their own time,
One born in Forty-Five, and one in Forty-Six.
But intruding on the joys of my own life,
Was the world which was in a terrible fix.
Millions of Jews and others were slaughtered,
Although at the time we were mostly unaware.
In December we entered World War II
To fight Hitler and Hirohito, an evil pair.
Our young men went to war, the rest of us
Pared down our lives to help to win the war.
The barest necessities were all we had,
And we were proud to be giving more and more.
The Forties saw the first atom bomb dropped
On Japan by our own beloved country.
I would have begged Harry not to drop it had I known
But of course no one saw reason to ask me.
Despite the war there were many new inventions,
And we slowly climbed out of the depression.
We constructed bomb shelters in our back yards.
The horrors of war had left a bad impression.
There were block buster movies in those years
And television was just in its beginnings.
Rebecca, How Green Was My Valley, Mrs. Miniver
And All The King's Men, had coveted Oscar winnings.
Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole were famous.
Peggy Lee and Dinah Shore were heard.
These singers were featured and unlike today,
When they sang you could hear every word.
This is a small taste of the Forties,
I hope that I have made you understand
That everything was bigger during this decade,
War, rugged times, and big bang and big band.
Written 3/2/15
It’s a Nineteen-Twenties tune—forgive me, I was born too soon,
Going to fake it anyway, and bring back yesterday.
Inka-dinka-do, that old soft shoe—and I danced with Georgia Brown.
Muskrat rag—“can you spare me a ***?”—
And the stock market came dow-w-w-w-w-w-n!
It’s A Nineteen-Twenties song, the decade didn’t last too long,
Nineteen-Thirties knocked it flat, like a Babe Ruth baseball bat.
Black-face minstrel on a white man’s stage,
Girl smoking cigarettes, it’s all the rage—
And New York made that music move.
Bath-tub gin in your coffee cup—
Home-town girl acting so grown up—
Those East Coast boys, her Mama won’t approve!
Scott Fitzgerald and his wayward wife,
She danced on the tables while he drank up his life—
And only Billy Sunday told the truth:
They corrupted the nation’s youth!
It’s a Nineteen-Twenties dance—
If you missed it once, here’s another chance.
Charleston, if you can—
Honey, swing that man.
It’s a Nineteen-Twenties beat,
Hotel ball-room, move your feet.
Flapper with the short, short hair—
Young folks, I declare!
Sweet, sweet Sue making eyes at you—
And a gangster named Capone.
Razz-a-ma-tazz, and that Dixie jazz—
And that famous slide trombone…
It’s a Nineteen-Twenties dream---
Make that sweet nostalgia gleam,
Press your ear to the radio—
Will Rogers says “Hello!”
The Summer of Nineteen Sixty
Lying on a blanket by the loch side on a summer’s day
I close my eyes and listen to the quiet.
I hear the slap, slap of the small wavelets lapping on the pebbles and
The plop of some brave fish as he twists and turns his way through the cool green water.
Above my head I hear the distinct call of the peewit and can imagine him hovering high in the
sky.
Into this calm comes the soft rustle of the rowan tree, then, the more stringent sound of a wicker
basket being opened.
I smile for I know what comes next.
The chink of crystal glasses, followed by the pop of a champagne bottle being uncorked.
I open my eyes to see my lover smiling at me.
Glug, glug, the sparkling liquid pours from the neck of the bottle.
I reach out and take the glass of fizzing bubbles, unable to keep my eyes from straying to the
new diamond sparkling on my finger.
And in my mind I hear again the words of love he whispered a few minutes ago.
These, to me, will ever be the sounds of the summer nineteen hundred and sixty.
The Ruba’iyat of Créteil Lake – Part Nineteen
“Not that I had not spied your tulip-lipped doting jasmine airs
Nor the way your wraith-like form take me back to sumptuous fairs
Of Samarkand yore whence I dallied with dulcet-toned damsels
Just that my incognito pursuit here had little need for flares.”
“The sombre air you cloak yourself in to much deceit succumbs,
I pain to endorse the waste your ivory casing entombs.
Come! Let’s conjure the day ere the lurid night-half lengthens,
I would you were mine to confide ere summer solstice enthrones!”
“Now I’ll this reconnaissance to Our Lady Lake entrust
Know thou well my light-foot Maiden being of like-nature must.
Time is but a secret door like-minds might easily unlock:
Be it days or years or eons two hearts in one bind robust !”
Alas! Alas! The Ol’ Bard’s message bobbed up and about
Lady Lake’s unctuous raiments buffeted by squalls in bout;
The tulip-lipped Lass unawares thought no more of her act
Till the Mairie’s men-at-work fished the bobbing bottle out !
The Men of Paperasse studied the Bard’s note in all duty haste
And drew the conclusion: ‘Secret messages across time’s waste
Confirm the guilt of one and the other from distant powers!’
The arraignment was drawn up, signed and sealed with wax paste.
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2014
May nine nineteen eighty was great,
Being the day of his calling;
Brother Eduardo Manalo
Had received the noblest blessing.
The day of his ordination
Signaled his rise in his duty;
His exceptional performance
Was seen inside the ministry.
He became an assistant dean
For Evangelical Studies;
Doing all his divine functions,
And his responsibilities.
On twenty-seventh of July,
In the year nineteen eighty-four;
He became Metro Manila's
Another coordinator.
Then came the Church's eightieth year,
He took his oath as Deputy;
To help the Administrator
In leading the flock's entirety.
He‘s prepared for fifteen years by
Then Executive Minister;
The torch was passed to him by God,
After the death of his father.
He firmly strengthened the brethren
Who, just like him, were in sorrow
With the demise of Ka Erdy,
As his deep love did overflow.
He showed courage and consistence,
In the midst of persecution;
Sacrificing his interest,
He valiantly made decision.
Through the modern technology,
He officiates worship service;
The brethren all over the world
Are truly edified in bliss.
The true message of salvation
Has reached all but one continent;
He preaches the genuine gospel
With power and noble intent.
He has successfully finished
The great Philippine Arena;
The project has been constructed
At the Ciudad De Victoria.
Excellent events of the Church
Have caught the Guinness' attention;
The world records have been broken,
Bringing honor to God's nation.
Thousands of houses of worship
Have been built amid poverty;
The work of the Lord's mighty hand
Is witnessed in every country.
When the calamities happen,
He immediately provides aid;
Relief, rescue, and assistance
Have been well organized and made.
Preachers of other religions
Have come to know the righteous way;
Pastors and priests have joined the Church,
Without a doubt, without delay.
The covid-nineteen pandemic
Has not deterred God's people;
Every household worship service
Feeds each servant's mind, heart, and soul.
Forty years have quickly passed by,
Since he's blessed by the Almighty;
We will never forget the date,
Early May nine nineteen eighty.
Topic: 40th Anniversary of Bro. EVM's Ordination (May 09,2020)
Nineteen Eighty, tell me,
Where are you?
What are you trying to be?
This week, you're 1963
And there's even
Talk of a rebirth of '67
But that's next week.
Nineteen Eighty, tell me,
When will you be mine?
A little bit '59,
I'll not share you with a Beatnik,
Take a rest after the exertions,
Punk revolutions,
Before our old friend,
Sweet nostalgia,
Goes round the bend.
("Nineteen Eighty Tell Me" has been reproduced more or less as it was originally scrawled in a red Silvine memo book in the very summer of 1980.)
The nineteen 80's
Early eighties was my sweet teens,
as I could see every thing in greens,
College canteen and vegetable patties,
Oh my youthful eighties !
Remember those days of bunking classes,
late night parties and clinking of glasses,
Old movies and handsome heroes,
Exam days and highly probable zeroes,
Writing letters was then an art,
No mobiles, postages also not that smart,
Interactions and lot of clinical acumen,
Computer machines were beyond imagine,
Lots of time for pondering and retrospection,
Busy now the life is, not even introspection ??
Written March 7th, 2015
For contest "Decades" by Kelly Deschler