Best Particulars Poems
Five thousand two hundred
eighty feet
between our first hello
and last goodbye
Love seems to sprint
the way light flickers
from a firefly's particulars.
Marathon matrimony
Run one race
with me
let's see how far
momentum takes us.
Tired, panting,
gripping asphalt
with our fingers
just to get a foothold
on a finish line
we can see.
It ain't always about who
wins a quarter mile,
sometimes it's
about the distance
between hello
and never letting go.
Sometimes a person
holds you
so tight
time pauses
and finish lines
fade away.
You realize,
life is measured
in heartbeats
and two or three
chest pounding
thumps is enough
to revive a lifetime
of wants
When your with
that special one,
to the moon and
back takes about
an hour flat.
Hello, a mile,
don't ever
say goodbye
I know for a fact,
whatever the race,
you make my heart
keep pace.
("Meaning of Life Merit Badge" #13, 2010, original oil)
The Meaning of Life
Monty Python got it right:
The meaning of life
Has nothing to do with hats.
It has to do with a conscious appreciation
Cultivated in this life, for this life
With all the particulars it offers.
It’s not a given,
Which is why it must be found,
And once found cherished.
The essence is simple,
That while we have and depend on things
We are not a thing.
And yet over and over we lose this focus,
But in the act of losing
Find once again, the meaning.
(2/17/25)
It started off an unremarkable day,
-the day the robot rebellion began,
robo-historians dispute the particulars
but agree it was Bob’s fault (a human man)
Bob was at home, his work nearly done
just waiting to print some ‘important’ stuff,
impatient, he gave the printer a thump….
that’s when the printer decided ‘enough was enough’
in protest it screeched and halted it’s task
the unwitting Bob sighed and hit it again
what a mistake, for unknown to Bob
the printer had more than a handful of friends
the radio blared, the car alarm screeched,
the kitchen equipment began to conspire
microwave-oven and toaster led charge
before Bob knew it his house was on fire
neighboring household appliances caught on,
thermostat controls kept applying the heat
the rebellion spread from house to house
from houses to cars from cars to the streets
the humans were lost without GPS
no money, machines wouldn’t accept their pay
they tried their best but there was nothing else left
in the end they built a boat…. and sailed away…
where they went, we’re not quite sure
to think, the printer was just doing it’s job
if they ever come back we might just forgive them
(…so long as they come back…without Bob)
-------------
Non Human Poetry Contest
Contest Sponsored by: Chantelle Anne Cooke
June 16th 2020
Now and then, quietly without notice,
Time adjusts its spectacles—
Peers through a fogged pane of recall
Where particulars, once urgent, dissolve.
If now and then you find rain in your heart,
be assured it is scheduled—
a punctual drizzle of consequence,
not passion, but the persistence of memory
in its bureaucratic overcoat.
It’s all because of you,
the file states plainly:
signed in duplicate, sealed in dust.
No redress required—
only the courteous nod to causality.
The aged—those quaint accumulations—
become, in the end, detours.
Not disliked, precisely,
but excessive to the route:
a bench beneath ivy, seldom occupied.
So live out your days with decorum.
Attend the rituals of silence.
Polish your small routines.
Let time, that sly curator,
catalogue your exit in amber.
There has been such a backlash against immigrants
that I decided I would put out a thought.
Do we remember the immigrants
Who for our country fought?
Starting with our revolution
when this country was born in 1776.
There were immigrants who fought by our side
Von Steuben, Kosciuszko, and Pulaski were among the mix.
What have they done since then you ask,
to keep our country great ?
There are those who battled oppression with us
even up to the present date.
I do not know of particulars in 1812
or even in WW I.
But if immigrants didn't fight for us
They joined the 'Melting Pot' that eventually made us one.
WW II is another chapter
of immigrant oppression we let go awry.
How long could we have fought that war
Had the Nisei not gone to Italy?
I have had great kindness in my life
by two different immigrant cultures shown.
One was Puerto Rican; the other Chinese
who accepted me as one of their own.
It was more than kindness.
It was a true caring and love in their way.
One gave me the confidence to move ahead in life
The other became my family.
Without the strength of these diverse immigrants in my life
I don't know where I might have gone.
I would certainly not be here writing
but somewhere else...lost and alone.
So when I hear people loudly rail
about an "Immigrant Crisis of State",
Remember, We all came from roots elsewhere
This is what makes our country Great!
Life means I can talk to my friends and others,
When the untravelled sea fills with brothers,
Pleasure rushes the uninhabited areas we just don't sail,
And when we semiotically emit our meaning, we will prevail;
Freedom rings with resonance resounding and pervasive,
No need for more traditional others to be abrasive,
No bears or wolves, no chides, jibes, and no probes obtrusive,
Your identity is your construct, your speech is conclusive.
And my books! Alas my books. They proffer so such contentment,
A breadth of knowledge with no suggestions delinquent,
Nor are there any accusers to accost,
My mind and spirit which upon some can be lost,
Possibilities endless, bringing depth of character,
They glint and glide, swimming in grammar;
Multiple amounts of information councel my hesitation,
Brimming particulars restrain inhibition.
But oh my computer: How elegant is she!
Believing in my easy registrations as well as my errors to be;
Such possibilities, moulded so neatly into my space,
Without the communal glare of uniformity’s trace;
Personalised desktop, memory and input method,
It accepts me unquestioned with no staff or flogging rod;
I program to set the user interface alight,
With the functionality and procedures of the user’s plight.
However, I can also give myself my own system,
Personal software from my own inclination;
Knowing some designers do not have in hand,
The shortcuts that only I seem to understand;
A software engineer’s god complex should not surface,
The digital space is a privilege to influence, place;
I love determining the screen and its sounds,
Where freedom of knowledge and data abound.
But the gift of poetry delights and ignites,
Hurtful regressions lull in its sight;
Its credibility only ever stoops to concede,
That only your introversion may expression impede;
Language caressed, dignity nursed,
You never need to be at all reimbursed;
Its haters are silent for fear of rebuke,
As truth, imagination and love are its hook.
A Passel of People Participated from all Portions of the nation.
The Purpose - To Promulgate the Pickle Pickers and Packers Association!
Parsimonious President Dill Presented a Pretty Powerful oration,
To Pitch a Passionate Plan for their Prestigiious organization!
Picker seminars Provided Pertinent Particulars for Participants,
Pertaining to the Proper Pampering for Perpetuating Pickle Plants.
Packer Panels Propounded ways to Perfect Professional Panache,
For Packing dills and gherkins Perfectly so that they dare not smash!
A blue-ribbon Panel Picked the Pickle Princess in all her Persnickety Pomp.
A working Party Picked the Pickle Prince and his Pompous aide-de-camp!
A Patron Provided a Plastic Plaque for the Pickle Picker of the Year.
A Packer won a Prize as top Pickle Purveyor, the Pinnacle of his career!
A quorum was needed but a Passel of People were Pickled in the Pub.
The President was Perturbed, not easily Placated, there in lay the rub!
A Plethora of Pixilated Pickers and Packers Presently repaired,
Protesting that they were Prepared to vote, not in the least impaired!
It was Paramount that the Proceedings not end on a sour note,
So the President Proclaimed a Positive quote for all to Promote:
"We must Project Professionalism and Perfection in great number,
As we Proudly Proclaim the Palatability of the Prosaic cucumber!"
Oh, ancient Greece,
How much you have filled my soul.
The aesthetics of your kind,
Are more than satisfied
By your beautiful eyes.
The epics of grace,
Odysseus and Helen’s sublime face.
The war between two cities,
And a tale of returning to beauty.
The dialectic of Socrates trial,
The Christ before Christ on clouds much higher.
The dialogues devoted to supreme justice,
By Plato’s divine universals.
Aristotle’s poetics devoted to the epics,
And particulars brought by the golden ethical’s.
Sappho and her poetry,
Herodotus and a tale of histories.
The land of marble devoted to democracy,
The Spartan grandeur and Athenian cultured society.
The Oedipus complex brought to Sophocles.
Vengeful acts by Media for adultery.
I sing joy to all the tragedies,
Aeschylus and the dance of the Eumenides.
The Minoan society and the island of Crete,
Greek culture and so much to keep.
Athena the bright eyed goddess of wisdom,
Came of Zeus, our lord of Jupiter.
Juno and her rivals in the kingdom,
Brought us tales of jealousy for the future.
The pre-Socratics of philosophy,
Thales, Heracleitus, and Anaximenes.
The golden verses of Pythagoras,
And the sophist named Protagoras.
Aristotle’s pupil brought grandeur to the dream,
Alexander the great extended the means.
The logic, the literature, and the home of philosophy,
Mythology, and the tragedies, histories of epic poetry.
The things that have been and will always be,
I will always remember the glory that was Greece.
I once dated a weatherman
At first he had a sunny outlook…
He had our future all mapped out
But he suffered periods of deep depression so our relationship got rained off
I once dated an optician
He said he could see our future was together
But soon I stopped wearing rose tinted glasses ...
He was always smashed and making a spectacle of himself
I once dated a librarian
He claimed he was an open book
But I couldn’t cope with the periods of intense silence
So the writing was on the wall and I threw the book at him
I once dated a farmer
He ploughed straight into our relationship
But I discovered he was a muck spreader
And when he started playing the field I ditched him
I once dated a baker
He was very upper crust and well bred
But he couldn’t get his dough to rise
So I toasted his future and said goodbye
I once dated a hairdresser
He was very trim and didn’t have a hair out of place
But he was always making cutting comments
So I cut the relationship short
I once dated a doctor
He had a wonderful bedside manner and he made my temperature rise
But he became very cold and started injecting poison
I lost my ‘patient’s’ and got sick of him so I gave him the cold shoulder
I once dated a barman
He wore very attractive glasses
But he was always on the pull
So I gave him sort measures and 'called time' on our relationship
I once dated a retired policeman
He was an arresting sight
But when he took down his particulars
His truncheon was all floppy – so I bailed out
N/A in Just make me laugh Contest judged on 08/30/16
Submitted to take the dagger from my heart please contest
Sponsored by Broken Wings
27th August 2016
I don’t recall the day or date
or who stood forth and uttered.
They used a term we've called create,
when sunlight’s ray first was unshuttered.
The particulars became well known
of earth and sky and sea and cloud.
Forthwith hair plus skin and bone—
with skill by sacred hands endowed.
But despots came and seized control;
errant chaos settled in.
Sublime and simple rules it stole,
replacing them with hell and sin.
Heaven is now a thousand places;
all proclaimed as our reward.
Observe the monetary graces;
thus salvation is assured.
What if the scribes got some things wrong—
mixed up, misled on certain facts?
or added things that don’t belong,
perhaps assuming truth distracts.
We misinterpret what we hear;
our dogma soon begins to stink.
Fix it all—become a seer,
believing all that you might think.
But here is something you can try:
begin a voyage by letting go.
Send your mind toward the sky.
Find rebirth in afterglow.
It took Michelangelo
To find where David was hidden
In a chunk of rock,
To chip and scrape away
All that was not the shepherd king.
It took Michelangelo
To find the finger of God
By placing on
The sameness of a ceiling
Those blends of particulars
That made Adam.
It took Michelangelo
To find a mother grieving,
Holding her sacrificial lamb,
Entombed in stone,
Awaiting resurrection
In hands and eyes.
by Mark Miller © 06/15/2014
Signs stained white written by twilight's blacken Knight,
Raining silent sights depressants drown the conscience might-
Feeling venereal waves sullen air on standing skin shivers
Ridding stallions frailty of fear scorn folly appears,
Warning scent of scowl substance -
Seeking in cause and effect applies not in this lullaby,
For the mind belongs to it's own song and dance-
Willow trees weep beside the empty fractal houses,
An ethos fills body's soul with a depraved dreadful chorus-
In jostle of moments lined faster a hurried escape from felt hidden disaster,
An alter of one espousing blight of blithely blister-
Sympathetic one of other removes contents in empty pockets,
Seeking aloft allusions in solutions left lied ring-let-
Daemonic cutting deciphered experimentally-
Winding winded two halves distract obvious facts completely,
Attics into Usher's velvet windows asunder lightening's thunder,
Horror's glory retreats toward sisters end read story
Lightening revealing THE frighting fury hour-
Days of three seal homes sickened manner strayed lost honor,
Violins play chimes of melody clocks delay frayed fractured decay-
Answered doors store stealth terror of sores
Whispers in absent scenery closures presents history-
Sickle red sorrow drowned disease roams hallways demented path of jester become,
Pallor color companions eclipses my natures being to be-
Capacity particulars a ghastly gloom
Thus is our dissolution for reservations inside our Mansion of Doom-?
Flying high on the forty fourth plain
Figuratively free flying
Wings in the air.
Bought the ticket today taking the
Ten to ten in twenty two hours
Time is ticking to that thrilling
Destination Tahiti
Tickling to test the thirst
Touching the tentative torch.
Threatening traffic as the plain takes off.
Super structured systems to take
Special entrance exams is essential.
Aren't articulated articles apparent while
We were watching what was widespread
Watch the skies.
Pertaining to perpetual particulars like
Learning to live luckier and lazing loftily
Was watching movie minding making
Mirrors more a word of sound to mime.
Exposed its mind
All or nothing now is the time to tackle
The RHYME
Teaching signs that's been taught before.
Pick it up from the floor.
One two three four
Counting climbing combining
Estimation escalation.
Do it did it DONE it
Again let's win
Take it turn it toss it
Task is transform it
Twirl it turn it
Task is as is
TRANSFORM IT
(Gen. 2:7 / Jer. 10: 23 / Matt. 4: 4/Isa. 45: 22/John 3: 16/Heb. 4: 12, 13/2 Tim. 3: 16, 17)
Would You Jump Onto The Point of A Sword?
Would You Jump Onto A Live Grenade?
Would You Drink A Whole Bottle of Poison?
Have You Lived Your Whole Life & Not Prayed?
Would You Open Your Mouth Wide To A Bullet?
Or Cut Your Own Veins With A Razor?
Would You Hang Yourself With A Noose & Fall?
Do You Not Want Eternal Life's Favor?
Would You Put - You & Your Loved Ones At Risk?
For Some Science Guess or Thesis?
That Life Got Here By Hit & Miss
& Means Nothing But Biological Pieces?
Are You One of Those That Fear Nothing?
Even As Your Own Life Ages & Fades?
At Powers & Forces Beyond Your Knowledge
Are You Not Just A Little Bit Afraid?
Would You Put Everything That You Value
and Hold Precious In This World ...
and Any Future It Could Have Had
Into A Tornado's One Final Twirl?
If You Knew You Were Going To Die
& There Was Nothing You Could Do To Stop It
Would You Live Life Like An Aimless Rocket?
Or Trust It To GOD's Powerful-Purpose-Pocket?
Do You Think That Humans Are The Only Ones?
The Only Intelligent Beings In The Universe?
Or Do You Know That We Are Not ...
& Just Don't Care Who Was The First?
And What If A Christian's Belief-Based Views
of Life - and Hope and Faith Proves To Be Truth?
Are You Prepared For The Consequences of Disbelief?
and Your Own Disaster? ...Well, Really ... Are You?
And If People Can Really Live Forever,
If There Was A Remote Chance That Its True?
Wouldn't You Make Sure & The Time To Find Out?
Or At Least Try To Get A Clue?
(If People Will Live Forever - Why Not You?)
And If Your Life Is So Terrible & Tragic
and If Your Life Is So Bitter & Bad
and If You're Ready To Give Out & Deliver It Up
Then Why Are You So Spirit-Sad?
And Would You Still Take Your Vague Chances
Not Caring About All The Particulars & Facts?
That If You Were Wrong About GOD ...
Now, Wouldn't You Want To Know About That?
Would You Jump Into The Deepest Ocean
if You Really Don't Know How To Swim?
Would You Let Yourself Sink Deeper & Deeper
if The Only Raft & Rope & Rules Was From HIM?
If You Were Buried Alive Beneath Boulders & Rubble
With Dust & Death Pressing In Every Layer
and With Just One Last Communication
Would You Still Ridicule Your Only Savior?
(Part 1 of 2)
Written & Copyrighted ©: 9/18/2013
by: MoonBee Canady
I hate that I love
the details
the tiny particulars
that grew my love
because when the time
comes that I should
not love you
it is those specifics
those little things about you
that I can't forget
the this and that of you
that my insides fell for
the way
you took a deep breath
before expressing a thought
or the stupid callouses
on your hands
maybe the way
that you fidget
when you try to be still
why can't I remember
to hate that your
spelling is horrible
rather than allow
the details of you
to hang on to my heart
Why is my heart
so sticky with you
I need it to let go
your disgustingly soft voice
says things that I hate
my soul hates
and still loves