Best Outran Poems
Like the sun lights up the sky,
A little girl when she was born,
She snuggled right into our hearts
With heaven's sparkle in
Her eyes stole her papa's heart.
He became her nanny and cradled
Her to sleep, there was no bed
Comfortable enough,
but only in his loving arms
Until it was time for him to leave.
He was "mama" until she was two.
He would try to correct her;
"No, Papa."
She'd say, Mama with a smile.
He nourished her little mind with
Nursery rhymes and songs.
He taught her Math, English, and Spelling.
Taught her to ride her first tricycle,
To hold a baseball bat
And keep her eyes on the ball.
To kick and pass a soccer ball back and forth,
He cheered the loudest when she outran the boys.
Love between both of them unconditional.
She's now thirteen, with a smile that beams like sunshine
And eyes like stardust glistening, our greatest joys;
A garden scent where mums and sunflowers flow.
Having outgrew grandpa, it was grandmas turn;
Grandpa encouraged.
Her extra sunshine, giggles, laughter, and happiness
That come from deep inside when we shop
For party dresses, make-up, and
Once in a while a bookstore.
A photo-shoot on a footbridge or garden,
Lunches at Olive Garden or Gringo's for Mexican food,
And ice cold-fruity slushy drinks before going home.
She would text and still does to say,
You and grandpa or the best grandparents ever.
This little girl that that lights up the sky rules our hearts.
11/11/2019
For This Is The Story, An Old Poet Sought Not To Miss
(Part One)
I've ate Eden's last apple, coveted Jason's* golden fleece
chained myself in caverns of darkness, begging no release
refused mighty crowns of power, fed myself painful feasts
crushed my beating heart, as if it were a ravenous beast.
I've tamed the lions of Serengeti, sailed around the Horn*
trekked unarmed, darkest jungles, where fiercest beasts are born
slain dragons with Sequoias, tossed Rock of Gibraltar*
walked in realms of Hades, spat upon its first altar.
I've outran Hermes*, sank my teeth deep into granite walls
sat beside Odin*, gave Thor's* first crown in Valhalla's* halls
wrestled mighty Minotaur*, its armored hide I ripped
stole the Nectar of the Gods*, laughed at them as I sipped.
I've shot Eurytus' bow*, killed Titans* with Heracles sword*
defeated dark Elf* armies, massacred Atilla's* first horde
swung Hammer of Hephaestus*, slept in Forest of Burzee*
trained Arminius army, taught them to show no mercy.
I've quenched Vesuvius fires, held lightning in my hand
flew bright skies over Asgard*, defended its precious homelands
swam with Undines*, feasted with beautiful Amphitrites*
fished with friend Ao Qin*, dragon king of the Southern Sea nights.
I've seen this world of fantasy, inked its splendor in words
sailed in its oceans of love and flown with magical birds
dreamed in its word-paradise and found true love's deepest kiss
for this is the story, an old poet sought not to miss.
Robert J. Lindley
Rhyme
original version written , March 9th, 1977
edited/updated today- August 9th , forty-one years later
I was born into darkness, a world full of lies,
Sold by the one meant to shelter my cries.
In the hands of strangers, my worth was defined
By the hunger for drugs, my body confined.
A child turned slave in my uncle’s cold home,
A Cinderella with no fairytale to own.
Cooking and cleaning, no dreams to explore,
Just a ghost in their house, always doing more.
But school was my freedom, my breath in the night,
Where I could escape, even just for a while, and feel light.
Then came the man who saw nothing but skin,
A baby maker, a punching bag for his sins.
I wore his bruises like chains on my soul,
And soon I was lost in a world with no goal.
Homeless, with babies I couldn’t protect,
Forced to give them up, my heart wrecked.
Living on the streets, the sky my roof,
Despair wrapped around me, relentless and aloof.
I chased every high, every fleeting escape,
Found solace in bottles, in wounds that would gape.
Promiscuity a mask for the pain I denied,
But each thrill was a dagger, cutting deeper inside.
State to state, man to man,
I thought I could run, but never outran
The weight of my past, the shadows in tow—
Each new place, a prison where I couldn't grow.
But now I stand in the mirror, alone yet free,
Learning who I am, who I’m meant to be.
Outside the chaos, the violence, the noise,
Beyond all the brokenness, I reclaim my voice.
I am not who they made me, nor what they designed,
I am love, I am light, with a heart that’s kind.
Through scars and hurt, I still rise above,
A soul that refuses to give up on love.
For I am a survivor, a phoenix in flight,
And I’ll shine in this world, no longer afraid of the night.
I am beauty, I am strength, I am more than they knew—
I am me, whole and true.
VERSE I
she brushed across my shoulders
the bedroom light broke
a breasted scimitar—dancing thoracic throat
what I once outran—now presses my lips
she carried no black-wing omen
yet every breath drew near
purple velvet summons
Murdering me with Cashmere.
PRE-CHORUS I
kiss drawn, the walls slant inward
and rouge, the dark-root took shape—
as if her inborne blackwork
could make the night a colourless drape.
CHORUS I
Murdering me with Cashmere
tugging at my countless heartbeats
stripping me down to bare nerve
Murdering me with Cashmere
touch that lifted a ceiling curve
a birthright that denied me standing
VERSE II
the air lost a beat near her
piano shuttered its strings
her keratin ruled its hidden kingdoms
where songs outlived clipped-wings
one quick brush of softness
could tilt the atmosphere—
an unquestionable sovereign reign
Murdering me with Cashmere.
PRE-CHORUS II
marrow-sapped, my bones bleached white
and oooh, my will to power grew thin
her presence pressed antique velour
against my browning-paper skin
a blue-litracution mocked my manly core
CHORUS II
Murdering me with Cashmere
negating my defenses
melting my deep fear
Murdering me—only Cashmere
mist that would not recede
a spell that outlasted me
BRIDGE
she stood there—the verdict given
queen without a crown
her secrets a crashing thunder
hinged to pin me down
and I—
climbed, she was higher
and her hemlock closed in—too near
I fell into her ghast-lit shadow
Murdered soft by Cashmere.
FINAL CHORUS
Murdering me with Cashmere
kindness with a strangler’s grip
a calm that finished the work
Murdering me in Cashmere
queen in vestment of highness—
Lady Caledonia Blue— cyanotic.
OUTRO
she brushed across my shoulders
the world skipped a breath to grieve
softness that occluded on my lungs and stayed
refused to let me leave
her after-mint lodged in my vertebral mind
thorn in every flowing tear—
the night she claimed my arrhythmic heartbeat
Murdering me with Cashmere.
I don't remember what I miss
Or if I left it where it is
I wasn't going anywhere
And I sure did get there fast
No matter where I run
I can't outrun the past
But I've walked away from running
With nowhere left to go
Price check on isle 6 please
Was there a mark down on my soul
Never noticed no one noticed
The mask covering my fears
Carving lines upon my face
As time outran my tears
Emotions frozen into place
The mask demands a ransom
Payable in years
What I Accomplished
Today I made my way to school
I sat in back and played it cool.
I think of all I might have missed
and then I put them in a list.
Timmy told on Tommy for telling big fat lies
just below the window sill I found three dead flies.
Someone tripped poor Mary but no one would confess
they could see it skinned her knee and tore her favorite dress.
Billy's in big trouble! He got caught being bad!
The teacher and the principle just called his mom and dad.
Larry brought a rubber snake inside of his sack lunch
he showed it to Linda Lou and it scared her a bunch.
Jeffry told a joke today that made the teacher smile
I got one I might tell, but not til after while.
Betty stayed home from school, someone said she's sick
Stuart brought a sucker and gave everyone a lick.
Running as fast as I can I outran my older brother!
Trying just to beat him home and show my list to my mother.
Tomorrow is a brand new day and I'll make a brand new list.
Called if I hadn't come to school, the things I might have missed.
Edwin C Hofert
I went to heaven before my time,
In dentist’s chair through sky did climb,
And in his goodness, verve and youth
The dentist took dull pain from tooth
And when the empty clot in gum,
Said write your name and date on bum,
He must have felt my life a poem, or
Orchestra with Barenboim?
Then seven times and seven more, I
Saw St Peter at heaven’s door, he
Handed me a fresh-rolled spliff,
Then in came Hendrix with a riff
The wind cried scary, not sublime,
And all along the watchtower’s shine
Came Ginger Baker’s rasping whine,
With riffs and drums, percussive beat
Took up the rhythm with his feet,
And Jaqueline Dupre with legs apart,
Jumped on the heavy metal cart, but
Weight of Jim and Ginger too and Dan
And me pushed axle through
Then crew looked hard for help from me,
He who only made the tea; I said now look…
I am not known, my name’s not Baker
Or Shamone, here in this place we’re
All the same, the dental gas…it’s plain
To blame, sugary sweets, not eat again
So listen here and worry not, about hot hell
Or heaven’s plot… neither’s there!… it’s in
Our heads, when in our youth we outran feds;
So open book and pull chilled beer, take
Hand of loved one…heaven’s here!
Peter Lewis Holmes 29/11/15
(Limerick)
Batman and Robin sped to their car
But the Joker outran them by far
Joker got in it
But he didn't fit
Then yelled" Guess have to throw my guitar!"
Dorian Petersen Potter
Aka ladydp2000
Copyright@2014
09.16.2014
moved around so fast
outran traces of my past
contacts I'd amassed
with little hesitation
lost sight of situation
not stabilizing
life without compromising
'til next uprising
left holding tight to what was
searching out the next just cause
tangled up in lies
slim prospects can agonize
tear through the disguise
certainly no going back
when all planning goes off-track
some beliefs abide
because of truths which they hide
past acts they've denied
everything and nothing count
souls each taxed by right amount
my own mother's faith
premise easy to forsake
seemed too profit based
afterlife but a cheap trick
fake carrot attached to stick
relativity
defines things differently
with more symmetry
increasing agility
throughout the totality
time a state of mind
often used to try to find
nature's true design
of a mass always the same
yet constantly rearranged
where do we reside
in universe vast and wide
peer out from inside
closer to edge than center
current knowledge can't render
dark skies filled with voids
the cosmologist enjoys
and black hole destroys
this universe more or less
is chock full of nothingness
science lights the way
to where we headed these days
bits, bytes, down runways
send voyages toward Oort cloud
seeing how heavens are plowed
ride the bleeding edge
with data mining we dredge
what Einstein alleged
learning even photons bend
in order to reach their end
Step 1: Admitted we were powerless and that our lives had become unmanageable.
But I admitted that long before your lips knew my name.
I shook hands with the darkness and deals had already been made.
Step 2: Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
By that point it was easy to see that I believed even a 12 watt light bulb burnt out still held more power than I did
Step 3: Prayed to any God that would listen and hoped they checked their voice-mail regularly.
Step 4: Pieced together the butterfly wings and dimes from dark alleyways. Pinned red string between the people we used to be and these more recent newspaper clippings.
Step 5: Admitted to the 12 watt light bulb, to ourselves, and to the only other person we could trust the depths of our confessional.
I watched her lips entranced as they moved in the mirror.
Step 6: Said enough. I dug out old running shoes and stole your shoe laces. The ones they wouldn't let you have beyond the locked white doors.
Step 7: I humbly asked the 12 watt light bulb to go off over my head for 's sake just once.
Step 8: They told me you made a list of all those you'd harmed. I wonder how many times you wrote my name, and at which point you finally wrote yours.
Step 9: I guess you didn't make it this far because my voice-mail still sits silent.
Step 10: I laced up those shoes and ran. Fast and Far. Kept taking Step after Step until my ribs screamed for air and I could finally laugh again.
Step 11: I changed out that 12 Watt for one that glows steady.
Step 12: I bask in the glow of the new light without the fear of the darkness I outran. The closet monsters can't touch me now. No darkness is more frightening than my own, and deals have already been made.
Metamorphosis
The future looms so much closer now
no dreams weave a halo around its outcome
aspirations have dwindled to respirations
insistence on continuing the game of life.
Most all of what I’ve gone through
have been referred to as stages,
phases of life, periods of adjustment,
trials and tribulations to be overcome,
moved through, lessons learned.
Not so anymore. Those easy “lay-ups”
early in the game, though as important
as the “Buzzer-beater”, never seemed
as “easy” to execute. Seems life has
become a series of “two minute drills”,
no “hurry up” offense, just a plodding
“three yards and a cloud of dust”
dedication to the demands of the game.
To “show up, suit up and stand up”.
Now I know why there are empty pages
at the back of the play book,
why spontaneity and experience
conspire to overcome - not overpower.
I review the plays each day
knowing it is not the game that must change
but my relationship to the game,
to adapt, to undergo the metamorphosis
of living, accept the gradual changes
of a future that I somehow “outran”,
the present it became, and the past
that fades beneath the clouds at the
base of the mountain.
1/14/2017
submitted to – Any Poem Written In January 2017
MOTHER AND SON RE-UNITE
I was phoned by an old friend Blessing,
Who told me that her one and only son,
Who was once reported missing,
Has been found after a decade lying in sweltering sun.
In his pre school years or somewhere there about,
She left him in care of elderly nurse in white,
In the trust she did not doubt,
On returning, the nurse and the boy were all out of sight!
The news that the hospital did not employ that nurse,
Send in my friend’s heart, a terrible fright!
When the nurse and the boy’s descriptions were finally broadcast,
Brought in the inside of the nurse, the worse!
As the law net finally closed, the nurse deserted him in broad day light,
Her heart beating very fast, she outran the police in the ever-whirling dust!
Jeb was a veteran of the War of all wars,
When brother fought brother and families closed doors.
Wounded in battle in the year of sixty-one;
Four years before Gettysburg, fore' it just begun.
Jeb got a Medal of Honor two years ago;
Six months later he buried Anna in the snow.
A mason by trade, local tombstones his forte;
A loner by night, a master craftsman by day.
He lived in an old, clapboard excuse for a home,
Making his living, chiseling hard bedrock stone.
Each stone custom crafted with names of the deceased;
From a quarry, in the town's dangerous northeast.
A rocky splinter of land carved out of coarse stone,
In a place called Diablo, better left alone.
It was here that he'd come, first thing every morn,
When the daylight was with him; the day's mist airborne.
Copious creations completed correctly,
Any work Jeb finished, it was done adeptly.
None to be shipped until the final okay, and
Then only after, he firmly packed them in sand.
Jeb had always hoped that Anna would bear him an heir;
Now alone, there was no one with whom he could share.
Fortune never shined on this kind-hearted old man;
Knowing in his heart that death, could not be outran.
It is said that one day the dark reaper came, and
In the early dawn in the slippery upland,
Jeb fell to his death on an iron wagon below;
The old stone mason landed head down in the snow.
His skull was split open with much gory detail -
Birthed the Stonemason's Legend - a most morbid tale.
Folklore surrounded this magnified tragedy;
As the specter each night, retraces its journey.
You don't want to venture to the quarry at night;
You may find yourself slip with no one to indict.
The townspeople close their windows, just before dark;
Fear the Stonemason - his journey, now to embark.
August 5, 2016
A kaleidoscope
Of disturbing and enigmatic images
Flash now before my mind’s eye.
A cerebral menagerie,
Painted from long forgotten memories
That were tucked secretly away
In the back corner of my mental studio,
Are now being displayed
in my mind's personal gallery.
Shocking reminders of youth;
Blood red canvases
Depicting moments of cruelty and neglect,
Abstract images of confusion and loneliness
Various black and white photos
Of heart ache and pain
Are now arranged
in a horrific collage of misery before me.
An unscheduled showing,
To remind me of what I fought so hard to forget
And put behind me.
But as I reflect
And now admire the perplexing and unsettling collection
Laid out before me
I realize how I have successfully outran my past
I have painted a new life
Full of beautiful lines and brilliant colors
And now I find comfort within myself
As I now let my life reflect
The art my heart now produces.
Modesty is for the one not seeking more,
I came crashing like a wave to rage
my battle over the undeserving one;
I declared my right and proclaimed it on stage..
Give a crown, not a trophy...
I struggled through years of obstinacies,
while others celebrated their life with garb:
nothing was given to me, I earned every degree;
when courage was scarce, I clinged to myself,
hoping that a better day would come!
Riches can make an individual's life free of needless pain,
and from that inheritance I never received a dime:
my careless dad squandered it on a wicked woman,
whose lust for pleasure was as lurid as her mind;
and my quest for a brighter tomorrow remained silent,
but this inner voice was there...to guide my step!
Give a crown, not a trophy...
I outran everyone tripping and falling,
and my stamina got me to the finishing line;
my sweat felt like warm rain
and its raindrops seemed the jewels on that crown
that I had dreamt of winning!
Give a crown, not a trophy;
and do I ask much for this formidable try?
Wealth keeps many from being famous,
it may be rooted in laziness, or a life-style of comfort:
I have neither felt it nor enjoyed it...or even come close;
it isn't given without a cost...it must be earned without haste,
and if it is a crown you are after,
put away all your stubbornness and dare!