Best Nudges Poems
The lady sleeps
Her cat is sleeping
Both in deep slumber
In the early morn
She feels a nudge
Eyes open- her cat
stares at her
Then chirps softly
The lady speaks to her cat
" It's too early to eat"
Time passes then again
The cat nudges her
To wake up from sleep
She looks at the clock
It is two in the morn
She rolls over dreams
Only to awake
At six in the morn
Now she feels tired
From lack of sleep
The old man sits in his chair by the door
His dog lies beside him curled up on the floor
Ever since that day when the man lost his wife
that dog had, to him, been the whole of his life
With his constant companion through all those long days
he'd sit in the sun enjoying its rays
It seemed like for hours the old man had dozed
A faint smile on his face and his eyes tightly closed
The dog licks his hand and emits a faint whine
and looks up at his face as if for a sign
but the man doesn't move, just continues to smile
so the dog lays back down on the floor for a while
The dog gets its ball, lays it down at his feet
but the man takes no notice, just stays still in his seat
He nudges the ball as if he were saying
"What's wrong with you, why aren't you playing"
Then, as if in acceptance, the dog quietly sighs
and looks up one last time with adoring eyes
The dog keeps his vigil through the night 'til next day
ever since, that sad morning, when the man passed away
He saunters in with a slow steady gait
gathering all of nature in his warm embrace.
The whimsical artist splashes colors to sky;
miniature airplanes and exotic shaped kites.
Vocal chords of moon beams strummed by crickets and toads;
a serenade through open windows of our humble abodes.
So light on his feet; ocean's glass dance floor;
leading sailboats to sea and lovers to shore.
His breath on your neck puts you under his spell;
caught up in his love, as romances swell.
His pulse beats hot through sun ray veins,
then he showers us with gifts of cool, fresh rain.
We lounge with him in fields and meadows,
and miss him as Fall nudges him deep in the shadows.
The whisper of my heart
Leap at the sound of yours
Today it's a soundless murmur
Somehow it yearns to hear your heart beat
Then I get those placid nudges
Of your presence
In the memories
That plays out in my mind
And I realize
That sometimes you don’t have to be
Next to me
For your heart to whisper
Sweet nothings to mine
©140511032015
Memories of once the sun shined,
oiled and tanned we denied
the only living book and subtle nudges.
Nothing but truth in the grave
when too in love with everything
reached the top and found nothing
but the pain of a flame’s dedication
and an absolute conviction,
replays the familiar
screams and whispers them.
Strain a touch through the glare,
but they ain’t there.
No one left to save us
as we find common grace
included tears.
-----------------------------------------------------
12.05.20
Inspired by the song ‘The Rapture’ by Puscifer
The Voice Within.
Somewhere in the depths of me, in a place I cannot find.
There lies the seed of longing, for that to which I’m blind.
I feel it dwells within me and every now and then,
Nudges my sensitivities and bids me, seek again.
It comes not from the body not a feeling or desire,
Nor a mood or temperament, but it consumes like fire.
It’s power, soft and subtle engulfs me as a mist,
Demanding my attention as would a maidens kiss.
After a while the attack is gone, though still I’m not at peace,
For somewhere in the depths of me that longing still exists.
For many years it has been so I’ve always had the choice,
To disregard material desires and seek that gentle voice.
Is it the voice of wisdom, am I not to understand.
Or the dreams from eons ago of prehistoric man?
Or does the yearning come to mock me, staying out of reach.
Should I surrender all and allow solitude to teach?
It bids me. “Change your ways, find a quiet and peaceful place.
Cast aside the wasteful doubt that keeps you in the race.
For time is long and life is short when they are side by side,
To live a lie will come to nought at the turning of the tide”.
But deep within I do perceive that the answer lay,
Not within the books I read or dreamings in the day.
It’s here within the eternal soul that joins us all as one,
Without whose love that boundless void would not be overcome.
Still the fire is there, the feeling of something missed.
'Tis a flame that can’t be smothered, while ever I exist.
It dwells and glows inside of me, though just a gentle flame.
And waits until my searching brings on an attack again.
And I cannot help but search for there is barely an interlude,
Between the whispers of that voice, “You’ll find me in solitude.”
My ignorance sustains me the battle won through lack of courage,
I stay here in my comfort zone and search the books for knowledge.
Days to weeks and weeks to months the months turn into years,
and still I read and procrastinate, and wrap myself in fears.
The day will come my life will end, and the other side,
The answer I’ll find and then I’ll know we should trust our guide.
______________________________
The endgame
And the cemetery was
nowhere to be found
yet was so present
in the shallow depth
the graveyard of the mind
No tombstone unturned
fragmented torn and twisted
sorrow flowing down
encrypted alleyways
and Thanatos’ call
Searching to imprint
coffin’s nails on seams
of muddy icy prison
hammered chiselled avenues
creeping through and in
Dead alive and collocated
hell firing place and time
scorching cementing
looming crossing overs
to where and when to how
No monument just
monumental nothing
void oppression
endless loop’s demise
thoughts emotions dragging
Torrential thunders
roping in electrocuted lightning
nooses from the tree of
living emptied darkness
flowing rapids standing still
The cemetery awaiting
ashes urns and vultures
presiding over Ganges Styx
Caron caring like a
lifeless Buddha saddened
Giving taking suffering
unthreading tapestry graffiti
splashing on the canvass
sombre art in progress
oscillating back and forth
The reaper harvests harshly
the mindless soul and body
crumbling bones infested
carbons desiccation apathy
hedonistic pleasures dull extinct
Gravitation nudges wild
and gently roaring
culling sculls foreclosing scooping
offerings burthens memories
premature un-furbished epitaphs
Silent roaring rampant syncopal
admonished synergetic resolution
teasing fool and morbid jester
luring loosening resolve
apprehending lithographic scribes
And the cemetery blinding
obvious and for the taking
present not yet for embrace
remains a silhouette on the horizon
and life for now is stronger
May 18th 2016
Contest entered:
And the cemetery was... Broken Wings
He enters into a deep trance
The soft music nudges him on
A lucid dreamer he is now
He gains transcendence
A soul travellor he is now
The secrets time and space
His to master his to explore
He has a taste of the divine
He is jolted back to our ream
His skin tingling with static
The Gift Of Winter
When Winter brings old seasons to their ends
and plans a rest for Spring and Summer trends,
we're eased by lovely scenes that Autumn sends,
while Winter puts to sleep those retirees
of brittle vines and leafless, naked trees,
exhausted roots and bulbs, with expertise.
The drab gray scenes will brighten in degrees
when layered white with spread of pristine snow
that purifies and moistens ground below,
where life, like 'sleeping beauty', waits to grow.
When Winter has achieved her last plateau,
she nudges Spring to wake and take the stage.
But while the sleeping ground does not engage
in life-filled days, our Winter does upstage
with beauty of her wonderland onstage;
snow-covered limbs and hills of velvet white
that leaves us breathless at their very sight,
as sunbeams glisten and reflect the light.
This gift she offers as her own delight,
when Winter brings old seasons to their ends.
Sandra M. Haight
~9th Place~
Premiere Contest: Impress Me With A New Poem
Sponsor: SKAT A
Judged: 01/17/2018
~1st Place~
Contest: Rhyme Time III
Sponsor: Laura Loo
Judged: 12/25/2017
Rules of Previous Contest: FIVE stanzas using this rhyme scheme:
STANZA 1: A-A-A-B STANZA 2: B-B-B-C STANZA 3: C-C-C-D
STANZA 4: D-D-D-E STANZA 5: E-E-E-A
5th Stanza: Last line must be the exact same sentence as first line in 1st Stanza
His hand is strafing the castellation on his trumpet, the valves moving up down up down like deranged pistons under the random machine gun fire of his fingers. Each note is a projectile that concusses the air, chases the one before it, nudges it from behind, bleeds into it, and is itself tailgated by the next one, all the way down the line in unrelenting succession, until all the distinct notes fuse, compacted into a single, furious, careening soundscape that leaves the ear always half a beat behind, struggling to catch up, out of breath, high on an overdose of heard adrenalin.
sounds supersonic
air graffitied with contrails of soaring notes
solo flight
Still they come, the notes, jostling and pouring from the bell of the trumpet glinting in the small cone of spotlight, the man’s puffed cheeks like a magician’s hat from which all kinds of disparate, crazy things - playing cards, rabbits, ribbons, doves - appear and instantly cohere into a hyperventilating sonic dream. You’re caught off guard by every note: you never heard it coming, then you hear it, and you’re snatched by it and all its brethren, and carried into the kinetic night.
ears beguiled
vibrations collide, collude, segue
harmony
"this poem is not about what is written,
but what is not written. . . "
Firmly rooted, I stand in this desert of nothingness
Facing your wrath and warmth with equal willingness
Life around me moves ahead, passes me by
Scorpions, birds and occasionally a butterfly
You gave me all the power to bear fruit, nurture and shade
Yet my entire life passes standing stoically in one place
The wind nudges me, taunts me as it blows
I still stand there unmoved, head shamefully bowed
The leaves that greened with me too flew away
Eloped with the breeze in autumn, left me betrayed
The fruits that I had worked hard to bear
The flowers that graced my wavy hair
With time, these too were snatched away from me,
No reason why I still stand barren and empty.
My bark reverberates with the melancholy of my soul
Waiting for lightning to wield its shining sword.
Afroze Ali
Contest name: 'The unwritten'
5th July 2011
...inspiration from 'Preludes' by T.S. Eliot
Loose leaves rustle.
The grey light of evening dips and sways.
Evening birds bleat
their lonely tattoo.
Gone are the jays and the wagtails,
the burnt-out end of smoky days.
No fancy gadgets,
just a jar of pencils newly cut.
The clatter
of a typewriter
haunts the silence, like a 'pecker
jonesin' for nutrition, finding squat.
Curtains flutter.
She's shabbily dressed and thin.
A lonely candle sputters
and she struggles.
Notes and erasers jostle for space,
still no inspiration will brighten her face.
Coffee and cigarettes,
vodka and tears, and none will curb her fears
of ever grasping
white from black,
light from limbo, the curse of the damned,
the neverland that has her clammed.
One word, one spark
of enlightenment nudges her back.
Exhilaration wracks her,
electricity whacks her
like a sharp evening breeze,
and her fingers are dancing all over the keys!
Wind can be a bit pushy
at times
Though I would be first
to admit
of needing nudges in different
directions
inclined to linger too long
under shady canopy
or at the seashore
gazing off into dreamy
horizon
my mind inclined toward
repainting sunsets
rearranging stars into
unique constellations
or writing poetry
strictly for sojourners
each poem a gateway
to ports further unknown
Quite by chance
I saw a single, small, white wildflower
amid a crush of grass and weeds
along the roadside, its presence crowded out
by seed heads and space hungry leaves
of species honed for survival.
This wildflower occupied an area
no larger than my little finger
and even then was bumped and bullied
by weedy neighbors. It fed
on the leftover light filtered down
through the tall grass.
I would like to think that in this sometimes
bleak universe there is a caring
and benevolent force that tries to preserve
such fragile beauty from the rampant
excesses of survival and greed, nudges
the odds to favor such a humble flower,
nurtures its seed.
When we embrace success for the first time
When a child encounters her father after a long time
When a poor hungry boy nudges a food
When friends reminisce our old memories-good
When a dialysis patient gets the donor
When we become a house owner
When we take off our first journey
That too in our first salary
When butterfly from chrysalis finally flies
when we discern happy ending stories
When our friends behave sweeter than honey
When we realize it is not always money
There comes some esoteric sense of happiness
That is sometimess exposed through the happy tears
Every human deserves these happy tears
Atleast once in their lives,
For, it is the best solution for all their strives
And the sweetest tear that never hurts