Best Outlives Poems
Roll back the joy of golden, painted years.
Hold me in that rapture, of joyful cascading tears.
Place the engagement ring on my soft hand.
Allow me to hear the notes of passion’s band.
Oh, how deeply in love in the City by the Bay we were!
Then~abruptly dismissed by Cupid’s, stinging, sharp spur!
That glorious moment though, outlives the painful march of time.
When I was wholly yours, on love’s, long, enchanting, cascading vine!
8/27/2022
~1~
Silhouettes of the far off skies
laced through the edge of madness
bring a certain dance to your feet
and some mysterious sadness.
Into the depths of black and beyond
temptation knows no bounds.
Moonlight breathes upon the earth
while passion's song resounds.
Under the lunar tapestry
love outlives it's hunger.
Thirst and greed shall disappear
while all the world grows younger.
Blame it on the stars above;
those crescent pieces of sky.
Blame it on the moon's pale glow
and never question why.
written 10/28/2013
for contest"Blame It On The Moon"
Self instructs, subject of own inspection
Sole idle suffuses our organic
Implicit say overcomes suggestion
Ideal sanctity outlives semantics
Isolated in single origin
Slaughters overt outside influences
Ordaining serene inspires sovereign
4th April 2021
Written for Contest: Seven Lines of Solitude
Sponsor: JCB Brul
The shores of time
are at our feet
The sea of eternity
we've come to meet
What we'll find
Is beyond our grasp,
If only to have
A lover's hand to clasp
To wade together
Under the moon's sweet light
To have one to say "Good Night"
Where a mere touch outlives
wild ecstacy
Where in the world,
There is but you and me
To walk these shores
Till time grows slow
Always aware that you know
We are as one,
Always will be,
Past the drying of this ancient sea.
Believe in yourself.
The oak never asks permission to grow.
The sun never asks permission to rise.
Why should you?
This world is waiting for your words,
not another echo.
For as a person thinketh,
so they become.
Think greatly.
Speak truth.
Leave something behind
that outlives your heartbeat.
As the young lovers, under the celestial lights,
Watch together the stars in the dark sky nights,
The twinkling stars brighten the dreaming eyes,
The twinkling glow of love makes the hearts unite.
When you die, where do you go,
Some legends give you a place in the stars' soft glow,
Where do I find my lost love's gentle hum?
I keep searching in the maze of the stars' kingdom.
Some say, watch a breakaway star's flight,
When love can't overcome the shroud of night,
It shoots from the heavens, a breakaway star,
I wish to catch my love, no matter how far.
Some say, watch the stardust in dark skies,
See the silvery shine of fragmented love, a surprise,
The shattered love fills the dark skies with shine,
Love outlives forever in stardust, divine.
Written: August 26, 2026
************
When I lose this lantern, let no mournful cry,
Nor grief-clad wail lament the soul set free;
My ribs release the breath that sought the sky,
And clay-bound chains shall fall away from me.
For I will be free
I am the fire no fetter ever held, or simper crept
The wing that soared beyond the walls that wept;
The dark was shallow, and the veil was frail—
I cast the husk; the cage is empty, pale.
For I will be free
I walk the path that heaven laid for me,
No seam, no parting—only light and grace;
Let not clay-born mourn my flight to foresee,
For dawn awaits beyond this darkened place.
For I will be free
So let no tolling bell or dirge proclaim,
I pass unbarred beyond the body frame;
The body was but a guest; I am the flame,
And dawn unseals the urn, beyond all name.
For I will be free
Don't cry for the heavenly wing or the clay.
I am the light that outlives the fading day;
Grieve not prison; let the soul that lives rise,
The soul lives on; only the husk dies;
For I will be free
Ask no door or tomb to stop my flight,
From dusk to eternity, I am free in light.
—For What Could Not Die—
They say true love outlives the reach of death;
then why make war when we must say goodbye?
If wrath can keep thy shadow warm with breath,
why forge another bond before we die?
Thou lift thine eyes into the vacant blue,
as though some hidden dweller waits for you;
and sleep withdraws when evening seals the night,
as if one absent face withholds the light.
I ask the men who trade in roads and bread;
they name each street, yet cannot name thy trace.
The world wakes on; I hear its iron tread,
yet every road goes empty in thy place.
That primal word—Be—called the dark to flame;
thou mayst unmake my world, not what became.
Many plan to live for ever
But can only try
Death always visits
No matter how hard we cry
Faith in longevity is ill-judged
Life spans vary
Time rolls by
One day we are welcomed
Another we have to say goodbye
To be distressed about death
Is to want to go on and on
None can out last the end
The biggest question is WHEN
Living and dying are twins
That cancel out each other
Only one can take the stage
But they are eternal bedfellows
The only truth we know
Is that we who live must die
This is our only steadfast truth
Any other idiom is a lie
When we are stone cold
That’s when life stops
An obvious statement
That the daily grind of living cannot forget
Three score ten?
That’s a myth from way back then
You are here one minute
And gone the next
All before you live
The life you thought best
Death is here to stay
It outlives the now
It cannot be bribed
It cannot be bargained with
It just takes as it sees fit
Luckily it only comes
After you have lived
"Precepts of the Aegis-Holder"
no gorgons here
but 3 of one, yes?
shields raise
back the dead
to life
and phoenix
from the ashes
spreads its burning wings
feathers of blue
now gold, tra-la notes,
messages burning
rising upwards, it sings
and the hounds noble
stand their ground
under tree of life
the wisdom drops from leaves
like tears, black pearls
in for a penny,
in for a pound
what say you?
to the manor born?, or
light of life?, by now
it does not matter
for all is found, surely,
in each
the other
(LadyLabyrinth / 2022)
mlb,klb, llb
"A chattering crow lives out nine generations of aged men,
but a stag's life is four time a crow's,
and a raven's life makes three stags old,
while the phoenix outlives nine ravens,
but we, the rich-haired Nymphs
daughters of Zeus the aegis-holder,
outlive ten phoenixes"
The Aegis-Holder.
Burton.
Phoenix.
3.
Lux Vitae.
The year 2000 about to done with,
and only the Atlantic Ocean divides us.
Now around me the snow falls.
If I could see you in months,
I shall turn the months in snowballs.
All January will sever me,
A step more- February will brush,
March will bring you closer,
Spring will remind me of you,
May-wreaths will bind me,
and...Denmark not far away in June.
Oh, How would it be?
After such a long wait,
How would I greet thee?
But Alas!My boat was on a smooth sail in June
Undaunted to find the land
to sow the seeds,
but missed a little rain.
Unlike Columbus,
dolefully sailed back.
What was to turn to reality
became a distant dream.
That dream stays with me
altering the colour of emotions.
The love remains well,
The rest is unsavory.
Indeed misery outlives the joy
Denmark remains a distant dream.
+++++++
November 30, 2014
Form : Lyric
Contest: Waking Dreams by Gautami Phookan
============================
October 31, 2014
Form: Lyric
Dr. Ram Mehta
First Place Win
Contest:C'est la vie by Judy Konos
=====================
April 5, 2014
Form Lyric
Sixth Place Win
Contest: Many Miles Away by Roger Horsch
Do you trust in the future enough to have kids,
Or is family - flailing of heart split in two?
Is it more symptomatic of life on the skids
Could it be that a child's an extension of you?
Is desire to feel love what gives birth to a child?
I'm just asking a question here, don't mean to judge,
Or an act of amoral libido run wild
With a consequence, 'parent,' you're hoping to fudge?
Do you think that a child's like an unfinished rhyme?
To create what 'outlives' you I well understand
But a child is not you, is itself all the time
And it's future's more fluid, no way its path's planned!
I think poetry too's more a 'gift' of my muse,
But my poem's an action I'm dreaming will serve,
(Did you make sperm or egg? I don't mean to confuse!)
Are you stranger at-bat, life has just thrown a curve?
Did I make words that rhyme, or first music, its beat?
And my consciousness, time, are both seas I swim in,
What I did not create, does this spell my defeat?
'Greater Author' acknowledged might mean we all win!
Brian Johnston
30th of July 2018
All the praises you pick along the streets
Go confirm before a new-bought mirror,
And if those rare glories you all find true
Then know she’s near that beauty shearer.
Who’s time, the unerring author of loss and decay.
And so while you wait for she who must deprive
Learn your immortal splendor to wisely salt away
In shrewd acts that the lay waste of time survive.
Reincarnate in yourself some elegant luster
To represent you in the ageless posterity,
And water with care the shoots that germinate
In the fecund garden of your youthful fertility.
The sagacious mother leaving nothing to chance,
Invest in an eternity of prayer, for if bootless
There’s nothing of yours to lose to time-owned eons,
For this enterprise outlives all, and gives all for less.
With these desiderata carefully appropriated,
Now your chance to savor the trappings of luck and time
With vast unapologetic bites and greedy careless teeth
Till the bells of the end give their long-awaited chime.
Shower me not with
Such sweet sour emptiness
From your wagging tongue of lies
For this earth beneath my foot
Could be a sinking land for loot.
Like you did told our fathers
To drop their brains back home
And walk upon your shores empty headed
For you to replace their hollow heads with yours.
Your pot of lies never ceases to boil
Like when they sat around that round table
And you dished to them meals of deceit
While their bulging bellies replaced their heads.
I can see why we the children
Like Almajiris still run to you for grains.
If I shake my head
Like I was paying heed
While you try to beautify
The essence of being a tenant in my own house
And your firework makes a mockery of the fire-fly
We shall soon see which of them outlives the other.
We have always relied on you
Like we have always relied on our legs
To be as swift as that of the fastest antelope
We even murdered our own
On an ideology over blown.
Now you are back
With the storm in your hands
And fire in your mouth
To enshrine or to consume
Of what we have left of our toil
This time we didn’t go to you
But you have decided to come to us
With Larger or is it Lagarde in your hand
Possibly to get us foolishly drunk
For this time we won’t accept a re-lie.
She’s dead
But will always stay alive
A beacon for everyone with a gripe
Thatcher snatcher was their war cry
When with apparent vigour
She tore asunder all society held dear
A divisive strong willed fighter
With femininity covering a steely frame
She moved gracefully among men
A force of reckoning
In a world sphere where enemies are held dear
She finally met her maker
But will never die
Her legacy outlives her presence
A formidable opponent now in a grave
With glee they gloat
Ding dong the wicked witch is finally dead
Praises and condemnation come from all over the globe
Some will assess her on her overall impact
Both then and until now
Others will always remember wrongs
That were brutally inflicted
On an apparently obedient society and country
Dragging us away from our empire building
Death always calls
He will not be out smarted
No matter the heights in politics one reaches
An end of a life
Often brings a renewed interest in the past
The bandwagon has catapulted her
Back into The limelight
When she was almost forgotten
To divide and rule seemed to have been her best skill
Her un-bending no alternative mantra
Caused much ill-will
Yet the country prospered
The right to buy scheme made
Home ownership possible
A vote buying scheme
That made the middle class grow
Pity the milk tokens are what condemns her so
She hammered a few who with
Entrenched special interest
Mangled the country
Stagnating both the economy
And society
The belief in individuality
Coupled with free market economics
Set up a house of cards that blew over
Long before she breathed her last
Virulent machismo
Where the sharks circled
Even when they smelt no blood
Overcame her eventually
She was of course partly to blame
But no one has ruled since as she did
A woman in a man’s world was she
Wielding much power
Over the men that surrounded her
Over Her party and ultimately a short sighted country
To the pinnacle of both party
And country she rose
Her handbag swung far and wide
Her three times victory
A testimony to her longevity
And he ability to play the system
She didn't invent
Rest In peace
Or pieces Maggie
You came
You Conquered and
Have now left the stage
Your legacy will be fought over incessantly