Best Overgrowth Poems
A cocooned cacophony of crickets serenades overgrown fields,
drowning out the creaking of rusted cars long since abandoned.
Maroon and sable tents blot the dilapidated ground—
bloated and weathered,
strips of fabric flapping in the harsh elements.
Legends of wraiths wander,
replicating whispers of infected insanity.
Laughter lingers in suspect echoes,
Rippling from pasts reborn in presents: futures to be later replaced by the past.
The smell of burnt sugar crackles with the purr of buttered kerneled corn: invading the nostrils with senses whose stimuli feign belief.
A faint humming of Entry of the Gladiators creeps in loudening crescendos, adding to the cacophony deigning dormancy in the field
Fragmented timelines intersecting by the call of the Barker
Stained cotton candy melts, reconstitutes, melts once more
Saturating replicating stands with insidiously sticky omens
Ghastly sickeningly sweet mori mementos
Resurrecting the dead from preternatural slumber.
Within fractured milliseconds, the cycle of the tormented deceased rise
From the ashes of unburnt airwaves,
Rippling through screaming minutes yet frozen in the midst.
A varicosed bearded woman floats aloft grassy overgrowth
Reanimated tigers lurk and phantasmal elephants howl,
Rings round the air in gaseous hush, like cigars puffed by moustachioed men of game,
Insufflating smoke with striped suits in candied reds and white.
The air rises to the resurrected show,
Cries confused for laughter tickle cochlea of the living.
Categories:
overgrowth, dark, death, gothic, imagery,
Form:
Free verse
Beyond an overgrowth of weeds, I see
a house with faded paint. It beckons me.
Victorian, its windows are like eyes
that hypnotize, and soon I find myself
there at its door. I tentatively knock.
Though knowing nobody will come to it,
to my surprise, I turn the door knob and
just walk into this strange but lovely house.
I look around at antique furniture
grown dingy. Cobwebs decorate the walls.
A sudden slam! I run back to the door.
It won’t come open. Panic floods my soul.
I go to every window. They won’t budge.
It’s like they’ve been sealed shut from standing still
through many years of never being used.
I shiver; from the corner of my eye,
I see a figure. Shadowy, it flits
across the dining room. I follow it
while swallowing my terror, and I go
into a small room, where the shadow crept.
Surrounding me are paintings on the wall.
I can’t take them all in, for there is one
that seems to call to me! How can that be?
It’s quiet there, and yet my mind is filled
with someone’s voice. It pleads to be released.
The voice is in the painting! I am led
so weirdly to its spot upon the wall.
I get right up to it and feel a chill.
An evil presence has me in its clutch.
I know this when I see the painting’s scene. . .
Fresh horror like I’ve never known before
now grips my throat and I can’t even scream.
Inside the painting is a woman who
looks eerily like me! She stands inside
a room with many paintings, and behind
her is a hooded being. Is she me?
I dare not look behind me. . . yet I do.
The hooded figure stands behind me too!
A scream at last escapes my lips, and I’m
inside the painting now and looking out!
I’m looking out onto the tiny room
with all its paintings. I am caught inside
the confines of a frame; I’m miniature!
I know the hooded beast has captured me.
I see his shadow leave the room and know
the door to this big house he has unlocked!
Another fool will enter as did I.
They’ll get locked in and then led to this room
to that one picture where I will await
to cry out plaintively to be released. . .
(Sorry this is so long; I had to do it this way to tell the story how it formed in my mind.)
Aug. 22, 2018
Sponsor- Dear Heart
Contest- The Haunted House
In Blank verse, which is unrhymed Iambic pentameter
Categories:
overgrowth, scary,
Form:
Blank verse
In the moldering courtyard I linger awhile
Among ancient arches, in the old Spanish style
Revealed are sad stories...these etched stones hide
Ring out wild bells to the wild sky!
The marble fountain would murmur here
Above the doorway, vines withered and bare
Aloft from the tower, are the four watchful eyes
Ring out wild bells to the wild sky!
Three vestige bells hang overhead
Their voices silent, songs are long dead
Only the pigeons, with cooing cries
Ring out wild bells to the wild sky!
From the ruined walls so simply laid
Shadows of saints...moss covered jade
The weeping old willow, leaves crackled and dry
Ring out wild bells to the wild sky
Far from today, I will pass on through
This gate, this place brings peace anew
I drink with my ears and my glistened eyes
Ring out wild bells to the wild sky
The flowers still bloom and the overgrowth tells
The ancient tolling, of the song of the bells
When the rest of the world is passing by
Ring out wild bells to the wild sky!
The longing to know, is within my heart
Yet a peace I will find, when I finally depart
Tho' silent they have been, over graves that lie
Ring out wild bells to the wild sky!
Categories:
overgrowth, placesold, longing, peace, old,
Form:
Kyrielle
It twas dark, a hen's night
stillness abandoned the fright
knocks echoed freely
and here her presence was felt
Chimera fragments an innate realm
unbeknownst reasons dare overwhelm
A shoulder-companion gone lain
unearthed my being hath slain
seams seared and baked
rivers red hot, unadultered she knelt
twilight's heightened bell
barriers bedlam befell
curvaceous moons slipped
Chamber's dust filled out the old
breaths breathing in air gone cold
pumps pursed off dire angelic lips
breading beats inner anguish shuned
Light lingers in parchement craved
digging deep past stones well paved
Pebbled path's overgrowth graves utter grief
sight lines demanded fall with Autumn's leaf
promise skips 'cross a barren pond
a flight trapped pain comes undone
marched beats humble
vagabond makings tumble
hearts welcomed home
Released the wilderness calls
blessed respite guides the walls
yellow splays the morning
balance tips the scales
Categories:
overgrowth, image, love,
Form:
Free verse
From bright colors even the brightest blond turns grey.
Grown men now stand.
Were once young children did play.
The once new cover.
Is now tattered and torn.
time has all but erased the oaths once proud men had sworn.
The field now overgrown still haunts memories of the blue and grey.
Old worn headstones markers of were they'll forever lay.
No bell to ring no voice shall call.
The ghosts of the past erased by spring summer and fall.
The old porch stands hidden by a overgrowth of vines.
Now blank are the boards that once were painted signs.
The blood followed swiftly from the wound of the past.
To forge a path to a time that could never last.
Gone is the tree that once stood so very tall.
Forgotten by time
So is the legend of spring summer and fall.
Categories:
overgrowth, death, history, life, loss,
Form:
A cocooned cacophony of crickets serenades overgrown fields,
drowning out the creaking of rusted cars long since abandoned.
Maroon and sable tents blot the dilapidated ground—
bloated and weathered,
strips of fabric flapping in the harsh elements.
Legends of wraiths wander,
replicating whispers of infected insanity.
Laughter lingers in suspect echoes,
Rippling from pasts reborn in presents: futures to be later replaced by the past.
The smell of burnt sugar crackles with the purr of buttered kerneled corn: invading the nostrils with senses whose stimuli feign belief.
A faint humming of Entry of the Gladiators creeps in loudening crescendos, adding to the cacophony deigning dormancy in the field.
Fragmented timelines, intersecting by the call of the Barker.
Stained cotton candy melts, reconstitutes, melts once more.
Saturating, replicating, stands with insidiously sticky omens.
Ghastly sickeningly sweet mori mementos.
Resurrecting the dead from preternatural slumber.
Within fractured milliseconds, the cycle of the tormented deceased rise.
From the ashes of unburnt airwaves,
Rippling through screaming minutes yet frozen in the midst.
A varicosed bearded woman floats aloft grassy overgrowth.
Reanimated tigers lurk and phantasmal elephants howl.
Rings round the air in gaseous hush, like cigars puffed by mustachioed men of game.
Insufflating smoke with striped suits in candied reds and white.
The air rises to the resurrected show,
Cries confused for laughter tickle cochlea of the living.
Categories:
overgrowth, analogy, dark, death, horror,
Form:
Rhyme
With women the heart argues, not the mind.
MATTHEW ARNOLD, Merope
1. The stand of old growth Melalucas, graces the lowlands of our farm.
For over fifty years, accumulations of leaves have formed small soft islands.
“With selective clearing,” my husband says, "larger areas of grassland will grow.
More grazing for the cows and less hay we’d need to buy in Winter."
Inwardly, I lament, not wanting to lose the beauty of these trees
with branches that rise like huge broccoli bunches against bright blue skies.
My husband, much harder, by necessity, over-rules my sentiments.
2. Conveniently, earth-moving machines appear early on the first day
of the New Year. They cut a long swathe
but on the dam are left a large row, marked by me,
for sanctuary.
They cast reflections on the still water.
3. The felled trees are piled into rough heaps. Prophetically, the car
of the Inspector for Primary Industries appears.
“You must know, these are protected trees.”
He asks for permits (not granted) and orders a ‘cease and desist.’
His scowling looks are an indictment.
4. For months the operation was on hold
and, then the rains came and the floods—almost our undoing.
Flocks of water-birds occupied the flats, nesting on the islands
formed by the grassy hummocks. When these waters receded,
an overgrowth of young melalucas sprouted, where the old trees
had once stood. A network of roots underground had signaled
a catastrophe. New nodes erupted along all the root-ways.
Dumbly they announced their guardianship of the swampy land.
“Give us back to time,” they said , but the un-relenting slasher
leveled them again, so grass could grow.
5. I go back into my house now, secretly pleased the trees are speaking.
The topaz flames from the fireplace, warm my bones.
The hoary frosts have come. The envelope containing the D P I’s
decision waits on the mantel shelf, propped by a row of grazing, ceramic cows.
From the window I see our cows enter between the Melalucas.
They graze on the new growth pasture.
I warm my hands, as the flames lick firewood.
The scent from Melaluca smoke haunts me.
Suzanne Delaney
365 words
Categories:
overgrowth, angst, confusion, environment, nature,
Form:
Free verse
That one lost their tongue
somewhere along the way
long ago, the sound,
doesn’t come out the same
anymore, so they roll it up
like a carpet containing
a nakedly dead body
of blunt words
like unplucked violins
untuned to how it all
really works
begging to be heard,
and the flowery prose,
purple and bruised
like over-ripe fruit
teeth rottingly sugary sweet,
is now seen
day-in-and-night-out,
struggling with ease
way too much
like madness overgrown,
the dense overgrowth
of language unspoke
hides glittering gems
blushing shamefully
more exquisite than
the now daily averies
all penned in babel
that flow in glass jarring
anticipated patterns
of suffocating
paisley prose,
the simple beauty
in the plainly spoke,
never again
to be seen nor heard,
the mercurial metaphors
birdfeed scattered
to the begging migrations
of petulant bluebirds
naughty nightingales
honey trapping
wet-beaked hummingbirds
all beating hearts
with their wild wind flapping,
tossing sticks and stones
to those tongue thirsty
kiss lapping, lap dancing
love parched, gargling
swallows
Candide Diderot. ‘24
Categories:
overgrowth, muse,
Form:
Free verse
We forage for humanity,
hidden fruits quench our thirst.
Our hunting grounds, old overgrowth forest
just off the rail-line, down the hill to the
river, was a hobo camp long ago. Broken
pottery, tin plates and old bottles half
buried, speak of life's struggle. An attempt
at a foundation, now crumbling, imagines
hope for permanence, dissolved roots taken
by time.
The search, akin to walking through remnants
of a forgotten culture, feels like trespassing.
We sit and contemplate our passage as Wild
Turkeys scavenge nearby.
Peace is our prize.
Categories:
overgrowth, metaphor,
Form:
Free verse
Watching live go by through a telescope
A mere voyeur on the other side
I see a world I no longer feel apart of
From down in the gutter
Where I reside.
Life going by so fast
Trapped and haunted by my past
Mt feet stuck in concrete
I can no longer move forward or back
Just a lost soul in limbo
Who's fallen between life's cracks.
As colour fades from my world
And I'm shrouded in deathly black
I await for the reaper to come
I feel like a frighted kitten ready to be disposed of
In a river in a sack.
My vision often gets blurry
As all hope is lost in my heart
So many dreams and aspirations
Just dust in the wind
My heart torn apart.
The words I write are my legacy my footprint
They come from my heart to you
They say that I existed
And my love for everyone apart from myself was true.
But soon my mere words maybe forgotten
Just an other name on an old grave
Hidden under the overgrowth
No one remembers or cares
Remember me if you can
As I once did you
In your hearts and your prayers.
Peter Dome. Copyright.29015. May.
Categories:
overgrowth, emotions, feelings, grief, loneliness,
Form:
Free verse
I chanced upon a spinny overgrowth, in which a sole rose had born,
her supple blossom shone like balefire, even against her thorns.
“Come to me” she beckoned, yet the bracken warned with wicked teeth.
The lone hint of ruby in a palette of sepia, ashened against her thorns,
before I suckeled at my finger, and tasted the droplet of red iron
she had painted on me with guilty bite, pricked against her thorns.
At this task I would not falter, straining to grasp, again and again,
flesh and sinew rendered pulp, stripped away against her thorns,
leaving me naked until nothing remained but hope, a simple dream
that one day I may finally lay down to rest against her thorns
Categories:
overgrowth, desire, flower, girl, longing,
Form:
Ghazal
Overflow of the waters of Lake Itaska
You carry your wealth to the waiting world,
Mighty Mississippi, half savior, half sewer,
Plant and animal wastes, dissolved minerals,
Venting prairie deluge, dividing a Nation,
Exposed aquifer of Great Plains, home of Buffalo ghosts,
And their equally threatened ancestor, the prairie dog.
Standing at your mouth I can wade your depths,
Even jump your width in places,
Though it is more difficult than the boy imagined,
And the winter's overgrowth problematic.
Your lightning like flash across the land (1)
Has haunted my dreams the whole of my life
And pulled at my soul like the moan of distant trains.
Now I am here at last, my dream becoming liquid,
Wooden oars, tent, canoe and provisions waiting,
Dr. Peppers stored in a sturdy ice chest.
I am more than ready to see the world through your eyes,
And to meet the sea as well in your company (if fate allows.)
My wife a novice and myself not much more,
We launch ourselves, glissando (2) toward New Orlean.
Brian Johnston
Sept. 19, 2014
Poet's Notes:
Everything in this poem is true as I can best remember. I was 28 at the time and my wife Kathy was 24 so it has been a few years ago that we did this. The eight chapters so far are not the end of this poem. I have at least 3 more chapters planned, one on portaging around dams, one on going through locks (beginning in Minneapolis-St. Paul) , one on leaving the river after traveling over 1,000 miles in 7.5 weeks, and then a final clean up including lessons learned and post trip consequences.
(1) 'lightning like flash' - I was imagining here how much the path taken by the Mississippi across the land actually resembles a lightning bolt's flash across the sky to earth.
(2) glissando - A musical word meaning a gradual sliding (transition) in tone from one note to the next note on the musical scale.
Categories:
overgrowth, boat, dream, journey, nature,
Form:
Blank verse
This morass of a quagmire beleagured unfaithful
bestowment of gifts so easily annulled,
confined spaces of opinionated biased
blown out of proportion like bubbles of miasma...
Wedge issues continue to split like firewood
high temperature attitudes inducing the mood,
court jesters and sophisticated jugglers
cutting deep for the main artery jugular...
Inflamming the masses like tall wild grasses
only to burn'em as out of control asses,
most oblivious to this energized force
unwary of a different divorce...
Frolicking in the brain they splash
symbols of past and present clash,
like goods sold by a haberdash
a faux pas in configurating mismatched...
Claylike plasticity atop the stem
formed and reformed into spatial folds
symbolic reason sewn like a tailors hem
either a vaulted treasure or slavish hold...
The plastic nature of social polytics
the elastic nature of mobs in conflict
heat formed bubbles eventually burst
forcefully accepting the better or the worst...
But...just like any,wildfire out of control,
there is one thing,that can be beautifully extolled,
the purpose of the fire,is to burn the overgrowth
so new life may spring,continuing Nature's oath...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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what is dimension ?
dime ; 10th...diapenta or two 5s...5 down / 5 up
-n ; unspecified quantity
sion ; combining form
dimension...unspecified quantity of a combining form to the 10th power...magnitude
what is time.....but the regulation of space.....order
what is space...but structure and form,or the lack thereof...chaos
Mechanical sciences imitate forces of nature
as the genuis of art intimates it's stature,
attributes of diverse quantity of subject,
converging mutifaceted quality of object...
Time and space is only relative to change
dimension proportionately regulated
compounded are energies exchanged
until the true beauty can become actuated...
Categories:
overgrowth, people, politicalnature, nature,
Form:
Free verse
A little brown river,
Naked children splashing in its muddy waters,
Their mirth and laughter of raucous delight,
Untroubled by foresight.
A tiny hut made of mud,
Parching in the dazzles of the ruthless sun,
The bent figure of a farmer as he nurtures
The field of paddy that his simple heart treasures.
A bustling bazaar,
With its overwhelming array of sights and smells,
A man with a cart full of ripe plump litchis, a rickshaw puller,
Whiling away the time, adding to the cacophony as they bicker.
As the sun sets over the distant ragged hills and lush overgrowth,
I ponder on what I have retained
From the journey across the plains of my mother land,
Bangladesh, where happiness and poverty, go hand in hand.
Categories:
overgrowth, people
Form:
Free verse
Dreams Forever Awake
by Odin Roark
A father dreams of getting it right finally
succumbs to sweat drenched nightmares
Somewhere
he stumbles about
to clear the room
guitar
video games
posters
Broad stairs to the garage
once of stable hardwood
now rickety rotted support
creaking of memories crushed
once plush carpet soft with warmth
now but cold cinders beneath his feet
Sensory deprivation smiles
releases starving glimpses of love
once bathed by generous moonlight
spilling from window
to banister
to door
to now barren concrete
Here
children's eyes once visualized
what freedom's wheels would be like
The father wanders outside
stares blankly on the gray-white night
reflecting off algae encrusted pool
now with but deflated basketball
adrift
Through surrounding weeds and shrubs
GI Joe action figures shimmer their loneliness as well
staring like him at the pool's granite carved beachhead
imagination's vast ocean of backyard fantasy
now quiet
make-believe war
since reduced to the calm of real battles lost
jungle rot's toxic fumes
saturating all
No prisoners taken
History
The scuffling of his slippers
rake the humid night's heaviness
like sandpaper dragging across
memory's fine threaded tapestry
Lying down among the overgrowth
he peers through broken limbs
crumbling leaves
moon
water
house
Eyes squeezed shut deliver regret's creative gallery
a lifetime installation
perhaps never meant to be walked through
Yet...
Such are musings
sometimes destined
to be but nightmares
while dreams remain forever
awake in the heart
Categories:
overgrowth, dream,
Form:
Free verse