Best Parapets Poems
"Until an hour before the Devil fell, God thought him beautiful in heaven."
A thousand, million years had fled
then thousand million more,
yet it was still the morning.
And there stood one, Transcendent,
whom we call God and the Divine,
whose reasoned might
stretched to clutch infinity—
and embraced eternity’s nether bounds
to fashion perfect round—
beginning's instant fused
with very end of things
that time endured no more.
Thus evening interlaced with morning,
from whose conjugative spawn emerged
a cosmic realm, its structure fine,
yet restive, taut and yearning.
Here coherence mingled self with
destiny, and thus arose intelligence.
Among its legion offspring,
daughters of the light
and one the son of morning,
a paragon of intellect—
in depth and reason boundless,
beautiful and firm, named Lucifer.
Beloved of Transcendence and
from whom the mighty angels
fled, nobility confounded.
Across mighty heaven’s parapets
he reasoned and opined.
And many thought him noble.
Yet temerity cannot assail wisdom
nor petulance conjure faith.
He, his mighty acolytes then stood
and cried aloud, trumpeting insistence,
and became among the first
whose grasp did not exceed their reach.
And war ensued—
A war of vaunted intellect,
but also narcissistic,
and rooted in deceit.
For he would exercise free will to battle,
then in victory rob all of its gift.
Therefore a quandary stood
that would not reconcile with reason.
Defeated, Satan stood no more in heaven.
Godly was their sorrow when he fell.
Now in our eyes and hearts and minds
do not echoes of the war resound?
First Place: Julia Ward's Contest: Expand Arthur Miller's Thought from The Crucible (quote above).
Categories:
parapets, sorrow,
Form:
Free verse
I thought the landscape burst in sudden flame
with embers wild cavorting in the glare
of dawning sun, but boundless sparks became
a throng of monarchs flitting through the air
above a field as though on charcoal ash
that gusts of wind then carry as they gyre.
From wings illumined spread the brilliant flash
of pixie dragons breathing threads of fire
as fine as frog hair glinting in the slow
emission of the morning's creeping light
that struck the gloom with every lambent blow
until each wizard shadow was in flight.
The tartan tiger eye that draped the glade
was blazoned on the pinions as they flew
like flower petals of the clans arrayed
in Lilliputian combat on the dew.
A cadence of disheveled leaves they fell,
these butterflies upon the turrets mean,
escarpments and fay parapets to quell
the mist ascendant from the April green,
then rose again like prodigies from smoke
that came to cloak them from the murky foe,
kaleidoscopes of flutterings that broke
the cling of darkness with emerging glow.
By noon the burnished battle scene had cleared
as dandelions waved their vanquished whites,
the gleaming copper standards disappeared
and I relinquished images of sprites.
Categories:
parapets, butterfly, fantasy, nature,
Form:
Quatrain
Pink and grey walls rise like castle parapets
Reflecting the sunrise in golden hues
I ride along the canyon to the sound of leather
Creaking softly in the tranquil mountain air
Sweat and horse, with layers of dust
Well worn jeans against a speckled hide
Gently swaying in a unified rhythm
Languidly haze swirling about our feet
Around the bend we startle snow geese
Flocks floating, rising, settling serenely
Angling, landings against the lapping waters
Black tipped wings against wintry white
Sandhill cranes foraging for cutthroat trout
Reflecting blue beside the meandering creek
Majestically standing, patiently waiting
Blue dragon flies dancing within their reach
Off the beaten path we wander
Past yucca swaying in the breeze
O’er grama blue as sky beneath us
Cushioned carpet of pine and peat
Rock squirrels scurry across a Douglas fir
Scolding woodpeckers on a burnt oak tree
The chorus is merged by the hoot of an owl
And the clip clop against rocks as we proceed
Canopies of piñon line the trail
Mixtures of conifer shade the landscape
Grey blue greens with clusters of sienna
Cathedral spiritual within an ageless solitude
Categories:
parapets, natureblue, blue,
Form:
Idyll (Idyl)
Sick lungs whispering secrets untold
Bones reveal tempo with aches and moans
The clock precariously loses time
Pipe in teeth, pen writes the rhymes
Sounds of shadows haunt the halls
Strolling parapets on the walls
Impatiently waiting and growing tall
In darkening anger as night does fall
Tormenting noise of echoing drafts
Spirited shouts of children's laughs
This empty house my creepy craft
Teases the mind with visions of past
Cowering supine in pallet covered
Spare pillow cold smells of another
In loneliness sleep in distance hovers
Concealing dreams of a silhouette lover
A comforting cup drowns a pill
The shadows sleep as cuckoo stills
As mares of night gallop black hills
My aging body restlessly yields
An original poem by Daniel Turner
Categories:
parapets, anxiety, imagery, loneliness, sleep,
Form:
Rhyme
Go ahead, try to separate the races.
You politicians have egg, on your malicious faces.
Not realizing in your frozen hearts.
You toss imperfect, very hopeless darts.
Neither money nor educatiion
Can separate friends of the American nation.
Equity for Blacks only, you shout from your parapets.
ThatWill never separate us, not one bit.
So you fund hate groups to form derision,
Amongst hearts who have made, no such decision.
You paint whites as Nazis, blacks as slaves?
You think we are animals or morons, you hopeless knaves!
We have friends of all colors and religions.
But you go on fake news, as dense as pigeons.
You do all in your power to make this beautiful world dour.
You shout, “The world is ending by the hour?”
Filling us with fear, like climate change,
The ozone layer went up one percent, but not to Al Gore and his gang.
Whites mucking about, pretending they are Black?
It sickens me, Caucasians,it’s a racial attack.
Equity, as if, this were even ever possible.
We of all colors, think you are miserable.
So twenty years ago, I found a Black sister online.
Living in the hood, with loving heart that really shines!
She’s problems with sleep, as bullets fly about all night.
Seven hundred and thirty five, died in that city alone last year, what a fright!
DC bigwigs avoid the Hood like the Plague.
Yet demand Democrats vote for Blacks alone, don’t dare turn the page.
They tell them freedom is food stamps and a free phone?
It is such a lie, it makes me gasp and groan.,
Keeping the Blacks forever, on othe Plantation Nation!
You, while they are killed in the Hood, fly to Davos on vacation.
Dedicated to my Sistah of another mother!
Like you, Blessed Rita , there is no other!
With love,
Sistah Pangie
1/23/2023
Categories:
parapets, love, race, sister,
Form:
Couplet
legions …
of shadowed purpose
they rattle the parapets of my flesh
morning paints the
stark reality that lays like shards of
tea-stained saucers before me …
an iniquitous army of intent
poised to scale the ramparts of
all I’ve bargained and built
those sordid soldiers hold no
deference for me
there is no honor in the garlands they
drape upon this aged castle,
only thorns of a sinister, vile vine
that wrap and wring me like
the fingers of a god without its heaven …
or its hell …
pray -
how should I lend charity to this day?
what compromise awaits?
I pluck pixies of pure shimmer from the
swaying, salted sea-tops
then cast them to my dungeons
like feed flung to fowl …
perhaps they’ll burgeon there
and I’ll use their bright to
decorate the walls -
garish graffiti to greet the ghosts -
an epitaph for the best of
my epic epigrams …
I pine still for the latent lass that met my
passions amidst these dunes
that seared my soul with her eyes
late-day sun melting within -
my hands reading her body like Braille
oh the poetry written there …
she was the moat, you see -
the beautied barrier around my dreams
we built this citadel together
raised its bulwarks here
dune grass, the only witness to the
bittersweet love made
but for one Burberry plaid blanket
laid out on the sand
that eager haste, our sole foundation
and the crumbled promises and vows I now
see scattered about me
the lonely, aching ruins
of a fortress …
fallen.
Categories:
parapets, analogy, lost love, memory,
Form:
Free verse
Deflected, crushed by the social retardation,
Not loved, ‘cos he’s altogether unaccepting,
Active learning the robot’s mouth action,
So he can't contextualise, there’s no blessing.
Neither me nor him meet and we sweep by,
There’s no connection from his ANDs and ORs,
Only citadels to weather the reactive cry,
When my nouns are pocketed by many cursors.
Where’s the memory bank and why the chat?
The bus is long gone and I'm open, vulnerable,
There’s no room for social construction’s mat,
To yield identity’s dynamic, recursive turntable.
Yes, microchips and logic gates shouldn't enable,
Machine learning at the cost of root foundations;
Your group, community, your niche and fable,
Ignite the necessary conversation of care situations.
Ok, so can we build a robot? A care robot?
Indeed care assistance is definitely reducible,
To only a small number of abstractions, clot,
‘Cos love does not evade the comprehensible.
Doors class as access, also pavements, steps,
Only three types of garments, two of people,
Friend or foe, but a cloud for certain parapets,
And who’s boss is said before, it's programmable.
Categories:
parapets, caregiving, computer, future, identity,
Form:
Quatrain
Your castle has a moat
to mark for the unawares
the point of danger,
the change of rule.
My fort has a juice box
Your castle has a drawbridge
to allow in only those
who pass the "Hark! Who goes"
test and cause the chains
to move.
My fort has peak roof
for peeking out
and, on occasion
for peeking in.
But only for the Lucky Few
and only in the Lucky Few
moments when all is well,
for a spell.
Your castle has
both balustrade and colonnade,
meurtrière 'n its parapets
for staving off the storms
and againststanding and
withstanding arméd swarms.
My fort has a
pair a pets:
this fluffster at my calf,
snoring and this stuffster
in crook of arm;
well-worn, with eye
missing but stuffed
animals see with squishy bits
inside, not these button eyes.
Your castle has barbican and portcullis.
My fort has a wittle wiccan. Jealous?
Your castle has both crenellation and machicolation.
My fort has an introvert's narration and ceaseless cogitation.
Your castle has walls of
stone, long-charred by dragon
breath. With dents by dint
of Minotaur and Harpy.
My fort is cotton batting,
linen for winnin'
battles with monsters
greater than your gods.
Categories:
parapets, fear,
Form:
Free verse
I built my shrine ...
My brittle heart, sheltered to hide
Choked so often by trust's entangled vine
Strong stones, placed side-by-side ...
I raised each wall sound and tall for my castle keep
The parapets high, the foundations sure and deep
Yet ... it all crumbled to a heap ...
With but a single soft press of your lips ... to mine.
~ 3rd Place ~ in the "Writing Challenge 1, June 2019, Crumbling Rhyme" Poetry Contest, Dear Heart, Judge & Sponsor.
* This is a form called Crumbling Rhyme, created by the sponsor *
(Syllables = 4, 8, 10, 6, 12, 12, 8, 12, counted at HowManySyllables.com)
Categories:
parapets, analogy, kiss, love, metaphor,
Form:
Rhyme
Some orange, purple and magenta...
Some crimson, yellow, red...
Cascade walls in soft rainbow shades.
Fountain of colors flow rooftop to balcony,
parapets and gates in gorgeous radiance.
An awestruck seduced bumblebee,
in abundance of pink champagne, cried
"My god, you are so beautiful"....
The bougainvillea vine, a triplet cluster,
unassuming small petals, dull, pale, white.
"With no fragrance in my poor heart within,
only a cosmetic trick of colorful bracts.
Leaves in disguise show off bright camouflage,
beacon butterflies, they come close to me.
Paper glamour withers, brittle, soft, thin,
My beauty is deep, only up to skin !"
Dated 15th April, 2019
Craig Cornish 's Bougainvillea Contest
Categories:
parapets, beauty, love,
Form:
Free verse
Many times through many lives I fought for freedom of the mind
As burdens made by living’s curse ensured restraint of freewill’s kind.
Then something found in search beyond the rampart walls of prison’s kind
Revoked the parapets unscaled to free the curse of limit’s mind.
Then arose from dungeon’s depth that once was bound by living’s curse
Free spirit with its wings unfurled where thoughts could soar in freedom’s verse.
Though many lifetimes I had walked denied the ways of freedom’s verse
Now unconfined by mind’s restraints I’m now released from living’s curse.
Walking now new paths illumed, as with new sight I am consumed.
Ivor G Davies
Categories:
parapets, life,
Form:
Rhyme
must a man lose everything
to divine those truths inside -
must he bare his marrow else
deny what flesh should hide -
and will he open up his veins
thus through his blood, abide
there is a thrumming stronger
than what beats in his breast?
must a kingdom wage a war
to stand and prove its might -
pave its streets in solid gold
and show its doctrine’s right -
oh must it build its parapets
in stone, to grandest heights
to know without one question
there’s a paradise that waits?
must a god be sacrosanct
through all that he applies
faultless in his form or law
while innocence thus cries
must he let his redress act
midst truth as passion dies
or is that err of humankind
how love so finds its breath?
for love is yet the only force
that triumphs over … death.
Categories:
parapets, analogy, introspection, life, wisdom,
Form:
Rhyme
The Ruba’iyat of Créteil Lake – Part Twenty-Two
The day broke on this fateful date like gravestones pushed asunder
Transcontinental wagons hooted their humming blared thunder
The Faithful six million alerted to the confrontation
Made their way in unison to the muezzin’s call yonder
The lake’s squadrons of Bernache geese trumpeted in response
Took to swooping in formation along national routes dense
The Faithful abandoned their vehicles and bikes at will
Once they converged on the citadel at siege with incense
Even pole stars at noon hiding behind clouds claimed no rights
Congregations of men and women choked the portals’ lights
More than plain portables buzzed during sacred ablutions
Plane loads from Maghreb to Middle East had Orly in their sights
Even as the last words of chour sermon filled Faithful ears
Jellaba white under black overcoat chador black in tears
Strode out to form thick walls of human flesh like parapets
Sandwiched between Robo-Cops and theirs furies of chanting Dears
They came by plane by cars by buses till arteries choked
Till crammed railroads and metros screeched under loads unlocked
Clutching Hadith books they sang or murmured psalms and sayings
Pilgrims treading on well-worn Compostela routes unhooked
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2014
Categories:
parapets, allegory,
Form:
Dramatic Monologue
Fate’s Footfalls
Fatima climbed up the spiral Minaret’s stairwell a
case of mathematical precision a fountain of courage
One step at a time with geometric accuracy she
counted the odds and the even the skewed surface of life
Prime location primordial instinct as she stopped
a prime number of paces arresting her timid ascent
All her life she had wanted to be a muezzin an equal
opportunity seeker of the one God that had not forsaken her
From top of her lungs at the spike of towering doubt she called
resolved to throw down her veil and the gauntlet into the fold
A haunted expression portrayed a colonized mind but the
shackles fell Galilei ready to ensure flight or redemption
An ultimate breath away from salvation she slipped on a marvel
rolled the sole and her beautiful soul on a bright mindful marble
One foot dangling in the sky but the other fell through the floor
encased her survival draped in the name of fate’s liberation
Tense in suspension balanced however she aligned her palms
upside down and the horizon of destiny reassembled her faith
Fatima’s story lives on as the legend narrates the meaning of trust
beyond questions now that she honestly knows the parapets’ calling
06th March 2018 written for contest Fate’s Footfall
Categories:
parapets, faith,
Form:
Free verse
The ocean waves are active,
The breeze is nice and brisk,
The children play in the sand,
Towers and parapets with moat.
I am surprised that no one has noticed
My footprints in the sand.
Leaving the moving acres of tan and foaming water
I stand at a stop with two other folks,
Paying me no mind, they stand quietly.
The autobus approaches and the eager attendees tense.
They enter and I follow,
The conductor demands no toll from me.
To Baker and 72nd we approach,
A man pulls the stop line,
The carrier pulls to a stop and the man erects
I follow him off as it is my stop as well.
I stand ready to cross the street, and as I cross
The behemoth lurches forward and strikes me.
I bounce off of its front, landing painfully on the curb.
Bleeding from several wounds acquired from the crash,
I stand.
The city streets are buzzing,
The air is rank with fumes and smoke,
The denizens are busy scurrying about,
In bowlers, and two-piece suits with coat.
I am surprised that not one of them has noticed
The blood trailing my steps.
I call out, to no response,
To no aid, and no hope.
I continue forward and call again,
A man huddled in the corner of a building,
Freezing, like the heart of a cruel mistress.
He tensed when I cried out for help.
He heard me.
I approach the shivering man,
I inquire to his state, he quivers and remains silent.
I know you can hear me, I need help!
I grab his shoulder and pull him over to face me.
My arms fall limp to my side, in awe
The man staring up at me is a reflection.
I turn to flee, mixed feelings of doubt and terror
How could it possibly be? How can he be me?
As I amble forward the air becomes sharp and cold.
Bleeding and shivering, I fall to the ground amidst the crowd.
Fading, the day becomes night at 1:42pm.
The streets suddenly become deathly quiet.
Just another day in the city.
Categories:
parapets, adventure, allegory, death, depression,
Form:
Free verse