Best Perceptible Poems
A scarlet sun bleeds onto a pink sky,
behind branches of a majestic oak.
And shadows ink its leaves in silhouette,
as lonely crickets chirp; and bullfrogs croak.
I hear the treetops swaying in the breeze;
and a brook, babbling, with a southern drawl.
But they're lost to the quiet of the night;
as time slows to a perceptible crawl.
When adventurous moths take to the air,
acrobatic bats hunt them down mid-flight.
And as darkness descends like a curtain,
twilight acquiesces to the night's might.
A quicksilver moon pools amidst the clouds;
dripping drops of sunlight onto the lake.
And all the cosmos begins to glitter;
as billions of sleeping stars slowly wake.
A lone owl's haunting hoot empowers dusk,
to extinguish the last lingering light.
And diurnal animals go to sleep,
as Nature silently whispers goodnight.
I was here once
But now I'm one of the forgotten ones
I faded away slowly
Imperceptibly
Like the once vibrant blue of blue jeans
The edges frayed
as I walked along the road of fleeting popularity
I felt my fabric thinning
until I became comfortable
It made me kinda cool in a way
for I was worn almost every day
it felt better than okay
Paired with shirts and sweaters
until a time later other clothes seemed better
My holes became too noticeable
instead of somewhat perceptible
The day came
when I was sorta just a bit out of style
So you washed and folded me
carefully put on me on a shelf
After all I was a favourite
no one wants to throw a favourite away
Right there in the closet I stayed
Next to all the pretty new things
waiting
until the day
You might wear me again
But somehow
like sometimes
things just are what they are
faded old blue jeans
inexplicably disappear
If you ever do find them
You smile and remember
how they made you feel
But sadly
when you try them on
they don't fit anymore...
thoughts lick at my consciousness
distracting me from the warm embrace
of the colour pallet unfolding
I stare with myopic eyes at the kaleidoscope
endeavouring to discern the demarcation
of the edge of each shade
naming them as though they are listed on a colour chart
displayed at the local hardware store
but as soon as I have one splash of tint pinned down
it fades to be replaced by a more pleasing explosion of colour
a child’s toy impatiently twirled
a rainbow snipped into a multitude of shapes
in never to be repeated patterns
like an uxorious husband
it enfolds the evening sky in its loving embrace
its fleece soft fingers exploring
lulled into a unison of consent
with a barely perceptible rush of contentment
a slight sibilant sigh issues
memorialising daylight
clinging to the fringes of observation
the scene depicts its titular character
of moral decay
the riparian area jealously guards its supremacy
as hydrophilic plants are robbed of their splendour
in a final display of defiance
alluvial fans buffet against the offing
recombobulating
the natural order of Chaos:
The Great Deep of ancient mythology
FADED
I was visible once
but now one of the forgotten ones.
I faded away slowly
imperceptibly,
like the once vibrant colour of blue jeans.
My edges frayed
as I walked along the road of fleeting popularity.
I felt my fabric thinning
until I became comfortable.
It made me kinda cool in a way.
I was paired with shirts and sweaters
until a time later other clothes seemed better.
My holes became too noticeable,
instead of somewhat perceptible.
The day came
when I was just a bit out of style.
So you washed and folded me
carefully put me on a shelf.
After all, I was a favourite.
No one wants to throw a favourite away.
Right there in the closet I stayed,
next to all the pretty new things.
I waited
craving the day
you might wear me again.
But somehow,
things just are what they are.
Faded old blue jeans
inexplicably disappear.
If you ever do find them
you smile and remember
how they made you feel.
Sadly though,
when you try them on,
they just don't fit anymore.
We decided to take a walk.
If the moon and stars still existed,
they were hidden behind clouds.
Then a fog hit us like a wave, a cloud
that had run out of gas and crashed on us,
to further shrink the perceptible world.
Ordinary, walking people became vague
phantoms that could loom, in film noir
black and white out of the fog,
suddenly sharpen and colorize,
only to disappear again in moments.
Sounds, out of sync, or garbled, came sharply
from odd angles, turning that fifth sense unreliable.
Noises, at first muted, were abruptly amplified as
if the hand of that ghostly vapor ran a soundboard.
A man, moving in stalker-like silence, clops,
like a clydesdale on cobblestone as he passes close.
I half expected a distant fog horn to announce
the passing of a ghost ship where all be welcome.
In the warmest of seasons,
when the cheerless moon of a remote town
rises from beyond the fir and maple-covered hills,
in great suspense and silence,
a brief song is played by this guitar
with a few chords and numerous notes:
making up the merriest melody
sustained by a perfect and simple harmony...
I am the author and the composer,
expressing my feelings in an unusual norm,
regardless how the critics will judge it,
for words and music should have an effective form:
free of impurity, lively and up-beat,
something likable by every singer,
to make such a unique composition notable,
and be remembered by every mortal...
I play it to my oldest friend, a royal friend who listens
and seldom gets bored by the lively strokes of the strings;
melancholic moon, I like to see you smile for a change:
to be sad is evoking death itself when no bird sings,
and darkness shows its cadaverous, unmerciful face!
When fear is very real and perceptible in each sense,
life departs from us and evil spirits frantically dance;
melancholic moon, gaze down and lighten up your rage...
I am no genius or pretend to be,
and my humanness and wisdom are always
reflected by a justified action and a truthful word:
to draw the attention of the stubborn;
and playing a brief song with this guitar, elates me
and dissolves my grim look of loneliness,
to confidently get me through this lovely and eternal night,
but hesitant and murky moon, turn on that luminous light!
Copyright 2008 by Andrew Crisci
An Obscenity Trial
by Michael R. Burch
The defendant was a poet held in many iron restraints
against whom several critics cited numerous complaints.
They accused him of trying to reach the "common crowd,"
and they said his poems incited recitals far too loud.
The prosecutor alleged himself most stylish and best-dressed;
it seems he’d never lost a case, nor really once been pressed.
He was known far and wide for intensely hating clarity;
twelve dilettantes at once declared the defendant another fatality.
The judge was an intellectual well-known for his great mind,
though not for being merciful, honest, sane or kind.
Clerics called him the "Hanging Judge" and the critics were his kin.
Bystanders said, "They'll crucify him!" The public was not let in.
The prosecutor began his case
by spitting in the poet's face,
knowing the trial would be a farce.
"It is obscene,"
he screamed,
"to expose the naked heart!"
The recorder (bewildered Society)
greeted this statement with applause.
"This man is no poet.
Just look: his Hallmark shows it.
Why, see, he utilizes rhyme, symmetry and grammar!
He speaks without a stammer!
His sense of rhythm is too fine!
He does not use recondite words
or conjure ancient Latin verbs.
This man is an imposter!
I ask that his sentence be
the almost perceptible indignity
of removal from the Post-Modernistic roster."
The jury left in tears of joy, literally sequestered.
The defendant sighed in mild despair,
"Please, let me answer to my peers."
But how His Honor giggled then,
seeing no poets were let in.
Later, the clashing symbols of their pronouncements drove him mad
and he admitted both rhyme and reason were bad.
***
A well-known poet criticized this poem for being "journalistic." But then the poem is written from the point of view of a journalist who's covering the trial of a poet. The poem was completed by the end of my sophomore year in college.
ANTICIPATIONS
with
apprehensive
contrasts
in
sombre
glimpses
totally
themselves
&
so
necessary
to survive
disquiet
made
manifest
in
venerable
tradition
an
intensity
emulated
with
hypnotic
fixity
a
considered
significance
evident
&
perceptible
with
an
indicative
corrective
descending
an
embarked
inclination
Too safe, in alabaster skin.
(Quiet, reserved and breathing.)
So safe, the girl I am within.
(In corners, impossible waiting.)
Too loud, the rhythm in my ears.
(Conundrum, perceptible weaving.)
So loud, the soluble sting of fears.
(In labors, I find myself breathing.)
Please, my love... Break me.
Dance of neurons is perceptible not on paper with ink only
All gazed at the sprinting poetry with its look at new sunrise
In Rio Olympics in hundred meters in just 9.81 seconds
When Usain Bolt muscled out the poem of sprinting with elan
Securing gold and the epithet of the fastest man on sweet earth
Adding a new crest to the ever heightening Olympic mania In Rio
Aesthetics of gleaming muscles height and stride flying on track
So did the Indian girl who lost the medal but won millions of hearts
As she performed Produnova vault with a mind blowing bird’s rhythm
Mesmerizing the spectators with her limbic poetry of gymnastics
Limbs of Deepa Karmakar resembling wings of birds in splendid flight
As she incredibly and charmingly came down from the dream vacuum
Through the ‘vault of death’, with a front handspring, off the vault table
Then daringly done two and a half somersaults in the air risking even death
Birds of maniac ecstasy flying high in the Olympian colours
My garden, darling, brims in beauty of your lyrical laughter
_____________________________________________________________
19 August, 2016: For Olympic Mania – Poetry Contest: Sponsored by Janis Thompson
Of Beauty, Justice and Truth
Concern ye not with,
What is right or wrong
Lie with what is beautiful.
Worry ye not about,
Who is not feeding the hungry,
Dance with what is just.
Fear ye not of
Breaking the rules made by
Frightened, frozen little men,
Embrace your own perceptible truth.
Love beauty.
Be just.
Pursue truth.
© Copyright. All rights reserved Nsamu Moonga 2015
I’m put upon to ponder the problem of poetry
& thus, I proudly or, perhaps, perfunctorily,
Ponderously pronounce with a preponderance,
Even a plethora, of p’s:
Poetry is pithy, prankish and perky,
Pertinent and impertinent, too
It’s prophetic, pathetic, pragmatic and proud
Poetry pretends, preaches, points out,
Points to, and down, and under
Poetry’s petals promise purity and peace
Poetry’s pristine, picky and pale
Poetry is practical, prudent, is pregnant,
Gives pause
Poetry’s precise, prayerful, powerful
Poetry’s presence is portentious and playful
Poetry’s a mosaic portrayal, a
Painted portraiture, perfect, profane
Prosaic, it is not,
Preposterous, it is
It is ponderous, political, porous, pontifical
Peripatetic and perennial,
Prescient, pedantic, possessive and puerile
Perfidious, perceptible, perplexing, perfectible
Poetry perseverates, preserves, perseveres
Sometimes perplexing, never perishable,
It pulses it prowls, it probes and it pries
Poetry is a perverse, precocious, pubescent prankster
It prances, and preens periwinkle plumage
In place of deep purple prose
A persuasive, peculiarly pleasant peacock,
Poetry promulgates poems!
Poetry, dear poet, exists
Poetry, dear poet, persists
Poetry, dear poet, persists and preoccupies
Poetry can never desist
Poetry perpetually propagates poems
And that
is the problem
with poetry…
Phew!!!
A movement of air
In the night
Barely perceptible
To the sight
A whisper of air
The days' final breath
For the clock is ticking
The days' coming death
Last minutes fade
Till the day is history
Its death soon to come
Nevermore shall this day be
What's in writing?
What makes one to author something from the absolute scratch?
What is the science of this art?
Is it just the perceptible version of the human thought or something-deep lies within this solemn form of art?
The little magic of letters, the funny games between the lines…..
The kinship of paragraphs and hence the literal tribute to the risk that architects the inner thoughts that gloriously shapes the unyielding passion for a literary style and way of life.
Behind the veil of shadow charmed words, dwells the writer-man.
Who, armed with pen, tirelessly searches beneath the debris of feelings and desires,
And simply treasures the moments that designs this lissome piece of art.
Composing words
With skilled engineering of ideas that run down through the alleyways of mind…..
The writer-man illustrates the canvas where emotions are drawn,
Reflections are sketched,
And tales are told with human color and ardent strokes.
All those whispers of the little voice inside…
Wondering around the spaces between fiction and reality…
And all the conversation between the mind, heart and all the musings of the soul,
Where do they all go?
Locked up in the bubble of time?
Chained up by the codes of life?
Surely, beings in us desperately struggle to breathe in this secular sphere of ever expanding confusion.
In the quest for freedom, the spirit in us excavates our very soul,
And vibrantly surfs on the waves of emotions and loans ear to the assembly of million thoughts that continually circle around our misconstrued mind.
And often by the shape of words
These inner thoughts find their way out,
As they gently sail through our consciousness and make their way into the light.
The alchemy of alphabets allows us to have a glimpse of ourselves by streaming down soul's rearview mirror.
And the key to enter upon the realm of words lies on the urge of willingness to declare the innersole and the ultimate self.
Penning down the casual percepts and the untamed imagination could always open up the magical door to an unpredictable certainty.
Dodging the reality it creates a sense of belonging in a world,
That is designed to fit the shape of one’s true conscience,
Whether simple or mystical,
It surely travels right at the heart route.
(C) Obaidur Rahman. Published in the poet’s debut book of English poetry titled “The Mystic Inferno” in 2012.
Identical to a water droplets in a leaf caused by rain,
tears inside an eye also drops as sorrowness gain.
As thing get added,
clear precious blood flooded.
Heaviness of unshed tears becomes unwieldy,
gradually drops as reflex tear hefty.
As things seems difficult to be blown,
the tears slip progressively on its own.
where the eyes seems to be in grief,
as water carried by its leaf.
Inaudible eyes of unspoken words,
yet perceptible through a glance.
The process of heaviness,
will the output of weightlessness.