Best Outworn Poems
A walk in solitude is sometimes best
to weigh my thoughts in nature's open-air
and put my heart and soul to needed rest
where only I, with quiet beauty, share.
For then, when inner troubles wake and stir,
the beauty of the sky can wrap around
with softness, like a blanket- swaddle, blur
my problems until good resolves are found.
The singing of the birds lifts up my heart;
their melodies soothe well my anxious mind,
as if they speak to me alone, impart
a peacefulness where tensions soon unwind.
The swaying, tall tree branches wave to me
with graceful arms that gently pull me in,
Their motion holds my mind in fantasy,
and like a child, I feel caressed within.
A walk in solitude is my sweet gift,
for side by side with nature, I'm reborn
with its fresh air and beauty- such a lift
to leave behind my cares, soon gone, outworn.
She can touch me,
reach in
with an inward and knowing finger,
stir my senses,
entice,
until I know for sure
that the dead and the living,
are timeless.
When her love steals my mind away
'2gether', becomes a special word,
a spellbinding word - magical -creative.
I have faith in illusion,
what is unreal for many,
remains ever a fantasy for them,
no wonder their idea of being alive
is a lie told to a liar.
What is real for we who are free,
cannot be explained by old ideas,
or any outworn, buckram logic.
We who know
how to make love to the unseen,
continue to dance -
with the only one.
I have ponder it waking long
Curled around my pillow like a fog
What was it the morning stars sang
Before a tree became a fire log?
I do not think I like this place
This limitless paradise of ease
Where serpents crawl and goodness waste
Our callous discontent to appease
The next time when children huddled
Expire in blood, mark my word, the snake
Will in some theory cuddled
Earn redemption from fire and the stake
They mourn for rights of arms despite
The constitution's outworn belief
The trust of law could still ignite
The land in despot's horror and grief
I shall mourn for mothers and me
Mourn for children murdered by our greed
For power, and the serpent I see
Is ego slinking through the shallow weed
This paradise is not good. Too
Much freedom gives sin an open door
Just laws will not still protect the few
While terror thirsts for mayhem and gore
The tree of liberty has fruits
I do not like, faults that threatens me
For some claim limitless pursuits
That change freedom to insanity.
I
I looked below and saw the dawn from here,
Disturbing may, below the light- a man.
II
“Oh, stranger most, shall I ask you with fear?”
III
“Dear one, you fear no one”, replied the man,
“Nor Him, you fear Him not for you are but
The holder of the strings of those you sight.”
IV
A second by, I asked him in abrupt,
“The guardians of the roof, had they loved me?”
V
He voiced: “Their love are drawn in stitching crossed,
Exquisite yet details are course, you see?
The veil from where it rests you should have tossed,
Each thread in havoc, one chaotic sea!”
VI
I spared a tear, his face did went outworn,
Afar the lake I headed. God, I’m torn!
-oOo-
Clean cut; people clean cut.! Well styled suits, groomed to impress we gel well
in success, success reads so well.. Glitz is the goal WOW the 'surface' the substance.'
Cut so clean.' free standing see you all & now; how i'll stand not bow..
Yet my whole truth? there's another side too, so today oyay.. Oyay.'
When I knew I'd been cut.! I felt the keen, clean cut after I saw blood
Felt its wet slick flow.' the air hit me cold then I felt the blades touch..!
I slipped into the gutter, feeling shock in the fog; a fog of de'je-vue
How was made that clean cut.! Cutting away my humanity; tearing up
the deal struck with me, going to a better source its just a buisness
of course.!
So back to the stage, to a new charge who'll be groomed.' To the clean
cut scene, and sin.. What then its purpose? & Is it always to subvert us?
I take note of its action, can I repel its attraction? it starts blunt as a weapon
that over time starts to sharpen, with indifference it hardens, reminds me
of bad times, of my ancestors whoredom; drudgery worldly serfdom' of
the chains I am wearing, the pain deeply tearing pushes me deep into drown
Become aware of the driver; satan the conniver who through this whole
gamut, is 'himself' just a marker a 'pawn' shades of darker, whom you will
use should it please you, if you want to show us who's who.' So when we
sop ourseleves deep in.. In the oceons of a worlds sin, we will be turned to
our insides? will we tire before we expire? fed up to our backteeth of sin & its
mis-chief.? become ready for redemption; Clean cut from the marle of the mire
Cut from the cords for the fire, when sin has outworn us before death 'is' to call us, of one thing be certain, Jesus rent that great curtain.. Faithful & True
He beat down deaths sting, so forget now your mis-givings to call on Jesus the mighty, call out now contritely.. From the the heart of the humble, from a soul that has stumbled, become 'in Him' to rightness one more spark in His brightness.'
A parody of Wordsworth's "The World Is Too Much with Us,” which appears under the parody
The mall is too much with us, spring and fall.
Getting and spending, we lay waste each pay check.
There's little in nature we won't someday wreck.
We've given our hearts away to cholesterol.
Beach beauties bare too much to one and all.
The howling dopeheads raise all kinds of heck.
Pollution worldwide makes me say, "Oh, yecch!"
Hey, wary youth, we'll leave this all to y'all!
I'm moved to yell, "Great God, we're out of tune!"
Had I the choice, I swear I'd rather be
A lone coyote howling at the moon
Or a jabbering monkey swinging from tree to tree
And sharing branch room with a shrieking loon.
Of earth's abominations these are free.
“The World Is Too Much with Us” Italian sonnet by William Wordsworth (1770- 1850) The sonnet is one of his responses to the Industrial Revolution.
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
June 21, 2021
Contemporary Sonnet Contest
Sponsor: Charlote Puddifoot
Time's flowing tributary; the future changes the past.
Our burial cortege concludes its course at the graveyard.
Falling leaves collapse, crafting new fates; feel the weight of dust.
Some are wagered in a pitcher with burnt bones and ash charred
We tread the twisting trails, yet in the end, all come this way.
The funeral site was bleak and hushed with death and decay.
Where death reigns and no one recalls who under earth lay.
I find peace in the abyss, grasp sky, and haze through the grave.
The woods are gray guiding the cars and assuaging the crave
Nothing appears in the night when it is too brief to save.
With outworn obelisk, only the moss knows the rent draft
You have rote recall for this wreath, yet no time in this yard.
Trusting that I would rest here, bereft of any rich ray.
Leaving behind all my hard-gained assets by a name waive.
1st Place contest winner
Written: February 22, 2023
Writing Challenge - G Words - Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Constance La France
This poem form is the Fragmented Rhyme invented and Conceived by Constance La France. It has 14 lines with indentation, and a rhyme scheme, as follows: ABABCCCDDDABCD
Awhile back,
in the Dred Scott decision,
SCOTUS denied rights of citizenship
to people of color
"as a subordinate
and inferior class of beings,
who had been subjugated
by the dominant race..."
So, we need not dig too deeply
to rediscover where straight white male supremacists
and systemic racist allies
might find our strongest
most toxic heritage
language
beliefs
lack of inclusive discernment,
absence of multicultural intelligence
united citizens experience,
values of all people
for all creatures here below.
Anyway,
with this precedent in place,
we might similarly nuance the Citizens United language,
giving corporations the rights of citizenship
without the responsibilities of healthy stewardship,
authority to buy media speech
and heavily invest in purchasing political competitions;
This right more transparently unveiled
as the authority of a superordinate
and superior class
of capital-acquiring beings,
masters of organic Earth's climate degeneration
who have subjugated the unstraight
unwhite
unmale
suffering from non-elite lack of multiculturally appreciated face,
too slow race,
These assumptions
of who is SWM better than whom,
rooted in outworn
and unhistorical
and supremacist
win/lose environmental theories,
blossom as further toxic prejudice
against Earth's primordial health rights
and humane responsibilities
to repair damages,
restore peace of natural/spiritual
left/right
west/east
north/south cultural hemispheres
advocating resonant geopolitical balance.
How would such corporate persons be baptized?
And confirmed
to be raised in ways and means of a loving Creator God
rather than a competitive and jealously greedy Mammon?
"you are more than I deserve. It's a love I never dreamed I'd find. Happinesd like this is worth dying for..."
- Yasunari Kawabata-
Looking down, while flying midway between sky and earth,
I saw a dog on the grey tongue of an abandoned road,
Licking its genitals under summer-noon's hot slogan.
And I understood how badly I had drifted from your hills.
The hearth, that eatthen hearth, we often mended with butter-clay scooped out of a shallow river called "wahumkhra",
every time it cracked, pitilessly, after meals we managed to cook, sparingly though, will always remain as the only string that holds the chandelier of my fragile existence.
O that sweet hunger, how I yearn for it now.
The pallet of pine-needles stiched with old sacks,
on which we gathered dreams with smell of pine forests,
was no lesser than the priest's preachings on sunday mornings about His heaven's promised infinite sleep.
The narrow streets on which I doddered looking for work,
with constantly slipping away toes from outworn sandals,
while you waited for me with the blossoming seed in your belly, a future, full of honeyed beehives, over which I staggered drunk with restlessness of a beggar, for which I repent till this day.
I never knew, honestly, that I will become an irrelevant thread in the embroidery of jasmines on the hem of mekhala chaddar worn by a naiad, for the first time, shyly, when she attained puberty, and on the day of her subsequent gandharva marriage to an alchemist.
For the time being, I exist as a windless flag with no colors, neither white nor of any color known to mankind.
My soul and heart stay bled, like the butchered wings of Jatayu, but sweetheart, you will hear me flutter, sometimes, in the chuckling of a wounded squirrel and wailing of a cicada in the pine-hills where winds tease clouds, where you dwell reminiscing shadows of our silhouetting nonsenses.
Notes :
1. Mekhala chaddar, a traditional of Assamese women.
2. Gandharva marriage is one of the eight classical types of hindu marriage. This ancient marriage tradition from the Indian subcontinent was based on mutual attraction between to people, with no rituals, witnesses or family participation.
3. Jatayu was a vulture, in the hindu epic ramayana, whose wings were severed by ravana's sword, while attempting to rescue sita when the latter kidnapped her.
I am so glad to be here,
With eyes so bright – they swirl of chocolate.
Content and breathing.
Thank you.
Thank you for these small feet and cute black painted toe-nails
That can fit into shoes and leave foot prints on
Rough gilded grains of sand.
Thank you for these legs, yes they may be skin and bone.
Faded and outworn, and not at the exact height I want them to be.
Still, they run around fields in PE class. They perfectly lean
And bend, when I drop a coin.
Thank you for this stomach.
This small round belly, with a beautiful belly button in the center.
Thank you, now I can eat all I want, and laugh so hard that this tummy aches.
This belly has held butterflies, and delights I have over indulged in.
Thank you for these arms, with white hands on their edges.
These arms they can embrace mama.
These hands they can make Zeina a cup of soup when she gets the flu.
These fingers they can hold Mont Blanc pens and wear engagement rings.
They can make pinky promises and wipe off salty tears.
Thank you for these lips that can smile to lonely strangers.
Sip on straws, and release teeth that munch on saggy pizzas.
Thank you, now I can kiss dad goodbye on the cheek, and teta hello on the forehead.
And with the power of vocal strings, and sound waves I can read,
Scream while watching Saw III,
and sometimes, speak my mind.
Thank you for these ears, pierced three times on the right side, and four times on the left
side.
Thank you, now I can hear the call for prayer when I wake up at sunrise.
Now I can listen to Chet Baker!
I can hear jokes,
And sometimes eavesdrop on others when it’s really
None of my business.
Thank you for these eyes,
That helped me see too little
Or sometimes, too much.
They have gushed joy and trapped tears.
Thank you for this conscience.
It bubbles with scruples.
That goad me to apologize and sympathize.
Thank you, now I can give that destitute man at the subway the coats I had
But never really wore.
Thank you for this heart that loves and hates,
Grudges and forgives.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I am so glad to be here,
With eyes so bright – they swirl of chocolate.
Content and breathing.
Death orifice my Libidinous command,
I contras life's ecumenical demand!
Now reach down in this thistle grim,
Desolate me with the edged limb.
Grant this voyeur that glimpse of dead,
A comatose where life and I unwed...
As minutes kiss my infidel fawn;
The church's bell will screech at dawn.
-Enthral me now!
Tell me Neith, was all my love in vain?
While blood is surfing in silhouette pain.
Succumb; I've punctured my unfruitful coat,
Birthing wonder if Love she'll emote?
Sable wings retracted like livery spades,
My celestial dream as life slowly fades...
This Dementia spoke to me in a tongue,
But before my babel, my barbed winds gone...
Finally taken from Life's 'Woetopia'
I journey now to Death's utopia!
While my heart still beats through thorn,
Only a few minutes till it's outworn,
Due to Hel I'll never be forlorn,
Alas! as Death I'll be reborn!
When Neith failed this loom of tapestry;
I flee through thick celestial forest atrophy.
The livid scar that put me to rest;
A tourniquet to the sepulcher orb in my chest!
"Due to Life's Ouroboros Limbo Inn,
I couldn't gift a priapic cusp within,
I couldn't caress your silhouette skin,
I couldn't love your sinister kin!"
The revel Dead speak of Summerland,
A masturbation by Death's own hand.
I'll gladly sparkle your path with pearls,
Take you away where meadow depression curls!
For you see- Death is the womb
of our throe forboden, aroused Moon.
On this night tears open the ebon vaults,
A corpse left to indulge all your faults.
The pal laid to my awe desires,
This catafalque God endures weeping choirs.
Psalms sung by Life's clique,
-Part of me might cry and shriek...
-In this storm; An erubescent shower,
released me from my beloved voodoo flower.
There my heart and knife wedded!
Benighted the ground splay blood dreaded.
Through astral Magicks, I decay my flesh,
Too the entangled Moon, that trees enmesh!
... The Summerland
Now I rule as master in this domain,
Finally my swathe depression deplane.
So it can no longer grief and betray,
But I face surplus love sway!
O Muses! What is genius? Is it born?
Or is it taught? Why do some possess it,
and some do not? These questions are outworn!
As riddle over which to obsess, it
matters only that genius brings forth art,
music, poetry, mathematics, dance,
religion, and science to endow heart
and reason to mindless souls which, by chance,
we know as “Fools.” Genius is not for wasting,
or for consuming it upon one's lust:
rather, it is meant for God Everlasting;
to bring Him praise before one turns to dust.
Whatever genius's mystery is, it's His
to give as He pleases—of that there's no quiz!
Poetry: A Mythic Bird,?
Flying over diverse landscapes,
?Catching clues, cryptic signs,?
Messages from mysterious places,
?Beings, our starry ancestors,?
Mirror-earthly poets here,?
Resonating in rainbow hues,
?Refining, surrendering, creating,?
Poetic cosmic web, symbolic net,
?Casting visions into an infinite ocean,?
Or into invisible etheric spaces,
Nature’s precious garden too,
Poets cultivating sweet melodies,
Elemental sprites in gleeful abandon,
Wind songs, sun dances,
Rays streaming, love enchanted,
Praying sparks may flare, ignite,?
Sparkle in twilight zones,?
Candles flickering in darkened caves,?
Poetry, gifted from angels,?
And other Celestial friends,?
Reminding, that we are passing by,?
Earthbound, but also Cosmic wanderers,?
Evolving into universal light-bringers,?
Shedding outworn garments of limited identity,?
Celebrating spiritual maturity long earned,
?Learning sublime, transformational language,
?Words that resound in open hearts,
Oh you wondrous mythic bird,
Poetry!
This wreath is in your eidetic memory, yet you should live.
Can you receive my lament, which is almost to happen?
There is no garland as I plummet, rattled by the sieve.
Died with you, can't revive, as you lie on plush and satin.
Earth collapses beneath its weight—why was it to be that way?
The words reflect that living beings are welcome today.
To read the stones, the lost will return home shortly to stay.
The shade of gloom fosters a dark and virtuous decease.
Stashed spaceship shrines to scold scintillating stars in peace.
Among the outworn headstones, the moss knows the lease.
There's a hushed quiescence here; no birds to chirp up or hive.
The wind moans, the agony is veiled, and the heart blackens.
Trusting that I would rest here, bereft of any rich ray.
Leaving behind all my acrid-gained assets through a name cease.
Written: February 25, 2023
This poem form is the Fragmented Rhyme invented and Conceived by Constance La France. It has 14 lines with indentation, and a rhyme scheme, as follows: ABABCCCDDDABCD
in the waterfall
of random thoughts
spherical occurrences
linear streams
tentative transitions
blurry-edged scenes
where is it
from whence did it come
I am superimposed
juxtaposed
in it
undone
frothing about
tossing it out
world in peril
running out of time
everywhere I look
there’s all the signs
daring dances
in lemon glow
autumn rhyme
in the starpoint
of your eyes
I am a spaceman
twixt galaxies
black holes for sight
light years
collapsed
into impenetrable night
where is the inside
when the outside is not,
what becomes of faith when
there is nothing but knots
plaster particle pieces
assembled words
of like kind
I find myself
young again
blasting Zeppelin
into my mind
hazy meanings
outworn designs
don’t add up
to anything
i could ever find
and I’m about to tip
to suddenly unmend
and there you are
before I upend
cradling my head
in the sheets
of your bed
saving me
with the sound
of the right word
you just said
Originally published in "Dance of Divine Lovers"
Poems of Sacred Sensuality © 2014 Joseph A Adler