Best Oases Poems
Forces of the universe produce a wonderous array of spectacles afar.
Monstrous planets rotating around just one lustrous inferno of a star.
Myriads of illuminated stars are part of the yet unexplored distant space.
Nature not to be outdone displays ecstasy in many an enchanted place.
Magnificent mountain ranges protrude their snow-covered peaks on high.
Burnt amber deserts, picturesque oases, palms growing lush defy the dry.
Mighty oak trees in emerald, green fields flourishing a rainbow of blooms,
Sweetest scent wafting over the lands brings a cascade of delicate perfumes.
Forlorn, I am presented with an abyss a mere stark white expanse, a page.
On which I am expected to create art to, enlighten captivate or enrage.
It is a daunting task to pit my prowess against such powerful competition.
I trust my muse is in perfection mode to tackle such a demanding rendition.
To compete with Nature and the Universe, I strive to create a masterpiece.
All the enlightened, poetic power flowing within me, my muse must release.
A plain blank canvas provides a challenge, of what to do, be it near or far,
The project at hand may be almost as difficult as lighting a candle from a star.
Categories:
oases, universe,
Form:
Couplet
Music, Oh mysterious sprite!
Lift me to the seamless realms of delight.
Your ubiquitous presence I feel;
In the hum of crickets, in the silence of the stars,
In the falling cataracts, in the running streams,
You are there in the roaring sea breakers,
And under the swift wings of the wind.
Come as subtle vibes to saturate my being,
Winding your way through every sinew.
Enfold me in your rapturous hold,
Raising my soul to the magic of rhapsody.
Paint intangible pictures in silence,
Creating a sensation beyond the reach of words.
Let my soul savor the taste of ecstasy,
Daubing myriad hues on all ugly stains.
Land me in the sequestered pools of oases,
As the blistering sands leave burns on my soul
Oh Music! Come and fill me.
Soak me from foot to crown,
Like a falling drizzle,
Like a caressing soft wind,
Like a marauding sensation.
Drown me in the subaqueous quietude of the sea,
Levitating me through ether,
And lifting me up onto the borders of heaven!
Categories:
oases, inspiration, joy, music, uplifting,
Form:
Ode
In the midst of fiery crises
I miss cool, shady oases
O, Fountain, spring forth your fresh water
revive my land to evergreen
O, Abdim's storks, will you perch my neem?
O, white-feather, flaunting egrets
harbingers of rain,
and night croaking toads,
I've missed your glad tidings again
In the midst of hot desert dunes
I miss monsoons
and rows of sorghum
demarcated by a sorrel hedge
I miss evening drizzles
and their running clouds
nightly torrents
and showers between sunshines
Categories:
oases, deep, desire, feelings, future,
Form:
Free verse
“Never spend your time in anticipation of a future, procrastinating and thinking that we have so much of time ahead and many more opportunities on our way. But nothing is certain, only the present time and chances. They are in our hold and are ours. Make the best use of them.” ~ By Poet
With the night quickly passing by,
My soul breaks into blossoms of joy.
When the sun begins his solemn race,
In my ears fall the birds’ hymns of praise.
As the wind passes tousling my hair,
With soft whisperings in my ear,
I catch the strains of a Heavenly band,
And feel the presence of a loving friend.
Glancing on the gorgeous buds of May,
Swaying in breeze that make me gay,
I lose myself in the glory of creation,
And fold my hands in deep veneration.
When I hear the cuckoo pouring in shower,
Her songs from far flung forest glade or bower,
A delightful rhythm fills my space,
And its fleeting cadence brightens up my face.
But suddenly I sense a creeping pain,
As I see a cripple staggering in strain,
At a distance, I see a weeping child,
Abandoned by its mother behind a thicket wild.
Around me I see the homeless and the frail,
Wandering aimless, tossed by life’s violent gale.
Thus I see life with grim challenges of trials and strife,
Where misfortune, distress and betrayal, so very rife.
At times I feel my heart missing a beat,
And fear the sweep of sand under my feet.
This Earth often turns a blistering desert,
But sure with shady oases, strewn apart.
This is the irrefutable truth, for sure,
That life can at once be sweet and sour.
So, enjoy life when it is within our scope and scheme.
Squeeze every happy moment. Carpe Diem!
Categories:
oases, life, time, wisdom,
Form:
Carpe Diem
In its thunderous voice, the sky spoke
"Let the rains fall upon you"
"Beware the hurricanes" ...the wind screamed
Electricity filled the atmosphere
Gods raised their rods
Forests trampled by mudslides
Snow blanketed the plains, and...
The deserts oases claimed to be real
Then,
Showing its face; the sun
Spoke in warmth...
"Life"
Let there be!
Categories:
oases, god,
Form:
Verse
Nature is magical, mystical and magnificent. Be inspired every day.
Perfectly formed
By Michelle Morris
23/08/2024
When last did you stop and notice
The perfection in the leaves?
The beauty of the flowers?
The scent of Nature's blessings in the breeze?
The perfectly formed tree stands tall
Surrounded by the adulation of wildflowers
The perfectly formed garden on a hill
Nature is magnificent and wields her powers
She creates sunflowers with sunny faces
She creates sand dunes that move and play
Fields and deserts, oases and forests
She is magical and creative
When last did you stop and notice
The mysterious allure of a wave?
Its life is over in an instant
And yet it still runs towards its Fate
Every perfectly formed wave
Is replaced by the next in line
We are in awe of the majesty
That is our ocean so sublime
Nature is a guardian
Nature is amazing
Nature is a magician
Nature is a soulful craving
Please stop and embrace the magic
Notice the butterflies and the bees
See dragonflies and ladybirds
Experience flora and fauna with ease
For we come from Nature
We are made to live within her space
We are perfectly formed by Source
And Nature is part of our DNA
© Michelle Morris, 2024
Categories:
oases, earth, earth day, encouraging,
Form:
Rhyme
A lifetime of waiting, stacks of National
Geographic half as tall as me, piled on
every step. A girl with nothing to do but dream.
The yellow-black jackets buzzed, I flowered
as I turned the pages. The relics of Tutankhamun
fascinated: gold, turquoise, lapis and the slaves
in mud-brick houses they live in still.
I longed to be the Pharaoh’s daughter;
I kohled my eyes.
Egypt called to me. Pyramids, deserts baking,
heat mirages, and oases of palms with still blue water.
The twenty-first century’s reality is far different.
Cairo teems with discontent, Mubarak’s campaign
posters hung from each lamppost.
Two weeks before the Arab Spring, I was there.
The only safety found behind the gun-guarded,
razor-wired gates of the upper class, and even then—
A country espousing religious freedom was killing
Coptic Christians in the streets, and bombing churches.
Cairo’s one poster child synagogue stood empty,
except for tourists—dark, decorative, haunting,
full of tales of Christ’s sojourn in Egypt?
The pyramids rose hen-pecked by pollution
through a surreal orange sky. Masked women
walk the male dominated streets. Women
live in fear in or out of the hijab.
The majesty of yesteryear, the pyramid of Giza
squats like a discard in the ashtray of desert.
Vendors and tourist litter the site.
Baksheesh is the only God in Egypt,
baksheesh and the horded water of the Nile.
First Published in here & there magazine
in the UK
Categories:
oases, anxiety, fear, travel,
Form:
Free verse
Their eyes oases,
How shock they bury in tons-
Rots in high places
Categories:
oases, africa, betrayal, corruption, death,
Form:
Haiku
The camels' backs have broken,
All across the thirsty lands;
Their their drivers rail, then bribe, then plead
With the beasts of burden
Too long taken for granted,
But they will not be moved now,
Though water lies far away;
They have it in their humps, in the animal patience
On their backs.
Not so the drivers,
Who fooled their days away at the oases.
So now they gasp
Since the desert ships have grounded themselves,
As the ships of state slip beneath the sands.
The camels rest without comment,
Yet still, they sometimes spit.
Categories:
oases, allegory, history, political,
Form:
Free verse
What is it like to live in a desert-
Bereft of those pleasures of life
That cannot be found in a desert?
You got me thinking of dear life
In the barren sands of the desert
You got me thinking of dear life
You got me thinking of sand dunes
The fighting claws of the desert
You got me thinking of sand dunes
You got me thinking of camels
The lonely ships of the desert
You got me thinking of camels
You got me thinking of the oases
The craggy fountains of the desert
You got me thinking of the oases
You got me thinking of dates
The sweet dates of the desert
You got me thinking of dates
But with the onset of the harmattan
The parching hot winds of the desert
I cannot but think of dear Manhattan.
Categories:
oases, longing, new york,
Form:
Free verse
Who owns my heart dungeon?
To prison all my lovers
To prison my heart inside my heart
But where is the key?
Certainly the key is my life
And I am the jailer
Who possesses my heart dungeon?
To prison all flowers of land
To prison all colors
To prison the spring and winter
To prison the air and rain
To prison sunset
To prison the morning
To prison the feelings and concerns
In my heart dungeon! ! !
Prisoners of love are meeting
Singing for love
Dancing among dreams
Drinking a toast to the meeting
Exchanging of cold kisses
flirting meadows of the hope
Writing on the wall of prison
Words, numbers and letters
Drawing the cross
Drawing the crescent
Sculpting the statues
To record all stories
Stories of mysterious prison
The sunken prison in heart
The prison that was created from the soil
The world behind bars
And I am the jailer
And the prison is besieged
With pulsing memories
Besieged with night's eyes
Besieged with candlelight
Besieged with moonlight
Besieged with my arteries
And I am the jailer
My prison is green oases
My prison is a white napkin
My prison is a cemetery of the longing
My prison it is my heart
And I am the jailer
And I am the jailer
Categories:
oases, love, heart, heart,
Form:
Free verse
THE LAWNS OF PARADISE
Dim road in Moscow’s winter taxi.
Maybe our Uzbek driver’s memory
Drifts to Bukhara,Samarkand and Tashkent:
The shifting sands and the caravan’s load,
Blue-gold minarets, mosaic tiled rooms,
Sunny desert oases along the Silk Road,
Bountiful grapes, scarlet pomegranate blooms.
30 December 2018
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
Note
After I wrote this poem, I researched and discovered
a beautiful similar verse (translated) from the 16th century:
Poet Zayn ad-DinVasi (1485–1556), dedicated these lines to Tashkent:
“Oh, what a kingdom! None of the lawns of paradise
Can be compared with ancient Shash.
And the one who settled here for good
Will forever forget about paradise groves.
Perhaps, to die in Tashkent is better
Than to live a dragging life in another place“.
..................................
Categories:
oases, city, memory, romantic,
Form:
Imagism
Freelance wanderer carefully navigating the vast expanse
Shadow warrior doth stealthily advance without
remonstrance
With bartered lance, pawned knife; abridged parlance
Shuffling in tantric harmony o'er unforgiving terrain;
nuanced eccentric
Camel cavalcade, entrancing spectacle across glistening
sands prancing
Shrouded by the frantic wind; each, cloaked itinerant a
tenured mantic
Trading the rationed provenance of open spaces for
gratuitous providence of flowering oases
Prudently forming each tribal alliance; deviously skirting
terms of compliance
Hearth covering from servile herd exacted; animistic
seams redacted
Burdened traveler in psychosomatic trance; by warming
flame, pyromantic
Each tenement provisioned by industrious wives; lofty
presentiment
Hospitality granted to imploring drifters; enmity shown
to extorting grifters
Categories:
oases, people
Form:
Enclosed Rhyme
Staking Claims: For Yucatec Maya & Native Peoples
The stones of the desert cry with me
They are brothers and sisters, but no bloody kin
New hearts see just cold rocks … no warmth or charity …
Might you see how we worship gods in them?
The gods themselves are dead, buried in hopeless holes
They died when we could not stop the excesses of each Columbus
Who brought a brutal hunger for gold and souls
Then bone and marrow fell within Columbus’ compass
The trees and tree stumps of the Yucatan
Hold deep scars and memories in their bosoms
The limestone cries quietly for the sons of Chillam Balam
Their tears yielding tomorrow’s blossoms
For even grasses, herbs, insects … know
That they too will be sucked, one after another
Away from the withering, wrinkled body of our Mother
Through a gaping hole in the atmosphere
All earth cries with the sun and stone worshippers
The blackened peasant clasps his callused hands
With those last calories from a breakfast of peppers
Unaware that his gods died hopelessly condemned
The desert explodes into those oases
Where infatuated faith still yields cool, delicious flesh
And forgiving flowers among the spikes in the cactus:
The desert and stones are gentler than Columbus
©Dr. A. S. Deo, 500 Years after Columbus, circa 1996.
BACKGROUND NOTE OF HORRORS:
(Written in the 1990s. Blood and tears are part of the story, not only for Native Peoples like the Maya of the Yucatan, but for my wife and daughters, too. A Sri Lankan professor allied with my Promoter/Chairman of my doctoral committee, objected to my politics outside of the classroom. They used the clout of the legal department at my campus, The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, to shut me up and deny my degree. They failed, thanks to my “cold stone gods” and Jesus. I defended my thesis, successfully, on 1 May 1995 and was back working in my native South Africa in June 1995! Soon I was hired by the Department of Foreign Affairs in Pretoria, when Nelson Mandela was President. He retired in 1998. Sadly, little changed in the then DFA at the Union Buildings, and poor of South Africa … and across the globe, continue to get false hope & promises from Liberals, Conservatives, Blacks & Whites. Jesus alone will speak truth to you, about EVERYTHING. Check a Bible near you, start with John's Book)
Categories:
oases, abuse, education,
Form:
Rhyme
Journeys, Translation of Etiemble’s tercets: Voyages by T. Wignesan
For André Gâteau
(End rhyme scheme: aab, ccd, aab, eed in the original, the first and third tercets beginning
with “Pour vous…” and constituting one complex sentence each. One would do well to bear
in mind in this poem that Etiemble was the foremost authority on Arthur Rimbaud’s poetry.)
For you all over I laid out
my oases, all their date palms
in the tiresome desert without wells,
where the salts of nitrous valleys,
for you* only and your hollow hips
squeaked with the leaps of camel calves.
For you only I stretched out
the fine lace of the poplars
over the blue shirt of the nights
and scoured out of this bone
the winding sheet of dead stars
a place to lie as long as mine.
* “tu”: second person “you”.
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2014
Categories:
oases, voyage,
Form:
Dramatic Monologue