Best Pioneered Poems
It is a dazzling display of brilliance, this conglomeration of constellations from different skies above as many different seas. I look at them, and feel the spark within my being. So, like a wounded soldier from the battlefield of life, I take little tentative steps, slowly but surely getting back the hang of walking with my poetic words after having been paralyzed for years. Gentle souls warmly welcome and offer as crutch a kind note or two, and not a few offer a glass of their own wise concoction when my throat and thoughts seem dry.
a little star blinks
with millions in milky way ~
words flow from a quill
I start having fun and develop new friendships, and as my own unsure steps strengthen with each passing day I continue to soak and absorb the light from the sun and glow from the moon and stars thousands of miles away. I realize that in this artworld no less than the creator has pioneered and trailblazed by the masters of years past, there is a place for all who dares to put down thoughts, fantasies and dreams in words and puts them out there to share with everyone.
fledgling butterfly
hitched a wagon to the stars ~
words form into poems
A lesson this experience brings me is that with all the glitter emanating from each brilliant star there lies within a heart battle scarred, just like me… some maybe more than others. Those golden stardusts are but byproducts of myriad encounters common to this life’s journey. If one finds herself in the trail of a hurtling comet, one should not be dismayed, but get out of the way for it is nothing personal. Odd but true, that sometimes it is the comet’s panacea for the pain nature has ordained. However, so long as I do not set out to cause undue disruption in someone’s sky travel, I should not allow the comet, or any star for that matter, to dictate my direction. I have my own path to tread.
stars come out at night
brighter after a wild storm ~
poems take new brilliance
13 November 2015
Creative Haibun Contest
Sponsor: Charlotte Puddifoot
they say:
we are slackers and meek
but we worked over 40 hours a week
they say:
we dont embrace or know how to use technology
but this digital age was formed by our knowledge
they say:
we contributed nothing to todays society
but it was laid by our sweat and creativity
now that:
social media is todays must do lifestyle thing
the gen x founders are its leaders and kings
now that:
ebay and amazon is beyond being a dream
it was gen x'er who made it into daily reality
now that:
into every home a computer now sits
because gen x'ers embraced and used their wits
now that:
everyone uses the world wide web
not embraced by gen x it may lay in cobwebs
do they realise:
gen x has been front and canter of the EV revolution
a need to cut carbon footprint and the air pollution
do they realise:
that the steaming of media content
gen x pioneered this common advent
do they realise:
because of the gen x fraternity
texting is a thing in todays society
do they realise:
they pioneered sharing from uber to airbnb
because gen x had the foresight to see
we now live in this wonderful digital age
because gen x took us out of analogues cage
so many of todays modern trends
you can thank the x'er gens
Unkosi Rholihlahla Mandela,
born into the Madiba clan in the village of Qunu
grow up in Mvezo in Umtata,Transkei
Dalibhunga, the prince of the Tembu tribe
son of umama Nonqaphi Nosekeni
son of Nkosi Hendry Mphakanyiswa Gadla Mandela
father of South African freedom
ward of Chief Jongintaba Dalindyebo
at the Great Place in Mqhekezweni
acting regent of the Thembu nation
boy from the Thembu royal homestead
icon of peace and justice.
sun that rises in the grim atmosphere
commander-in-chief of Umkhonto we Sizwe
dedicated himself to the struggle of the African people
South Africa’s greatest son
the greatest leader of our time
the giant of the South African history
the Son of Africa’s children
uBawomkhulu,
the man who pioneered the new patriotism in this unique country
the principal of his destiny
the commander of his soul
he represented hope and freedom
through his dignity, through his triumph, he inspired millions
the father of our nation
He who will live on in the hearts & minds of people throughout the world
the one who cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society
he who taught us reconciliation
he who embraced his enemies
one of the brightest lights of our world has gone out
a great tree has fallen
the son of a Tembu tribal chieftain is gone
Siyakuhlonipha
Tata Sizokukhumbula
Hamba kahle Tata!
Can you believe that I am not afraid
when sentiments are none but what is feared.
For Christmas presents wrapped have still appeared,
and all the debt life needed has been paid.
If only my deep thoughts could be conveyed...
I may have been the one who interfered
with passionate remains that pioneered;
but I have seen the green the world has made.
My walls are lined with all the laughter worn,
the film I used became what joy could be.
I live a life in empty fields of thirst,
black rooms with withered photos lost and torn
and seeing all the waste of life’s debris;
believing in a world where peace comes first.
1.8.20
Open Me First Poetry Contest
Craig Cornish
(continued from PART ONE)
Why I’ve seen him countless times, regurgitate old dog faeces onto fresh bread
And listened to his quiet voice exhorting me to do the same.
This fly was a born teacher.
There can be no greater accolade for a teacher than to be followed by his students.
He used basic good common sense, but spiced-up with a dash of excitement.
The well-known excrement-with-fried-egg, the easy-to-recognize urine-flavoured
Chips in the gutter, and the now commonplace saliva-over-spoon trick,
Are today almost standard delicacies for us all. Yet it was Hector who pioneered them.
He ignored the scorn and catcalls from younger flies, as he disdained a baby’s diaper
In some trash can, and went winging his way up to the second floor of the hospital
To select the juiciest old blood he could find.
No - Hector was independent, he was truly his own fly.
He stuck with pioneering ideas like the then-untested skid techniques
For escaping fly-swatters wielded in kitchens. It was Hector’s brave soul
Which brought standardized fly-patrols into being to catch a greater proportion of
Unsuspecting open-mouthed sleepers at night.
Uncle Hector went where no fly had gone before, and he did it with style.
He often said,“If you can make it on this heap of cat-dung, you can make it anywhere”
And there’s the lesson for us all today, ladies and gentlemen.
Let us not grieve for the loss of such a fine fly, but rather
Celebrate his life of discovery and progress. Let us go forth from this cat-crap
To a brighter future illuminated by the searching curiosity of Uncle Hector’s mind.
Younger generation, you must go forth boldly and find your own rotten cucumbers,
Your own half-eaten porkchops, your own dandruff-laden combs,
And be not afraid to mix them with relish as you choose from the delicacies
Of the knacker’s yard or the remains of a crow hit by a ten-ton truck on the road.
We stand - or hover - now in silence for one minute, as a token of respect -
And as we enjoy the gentle aroma of this cat-crap heap,
Allow the memory of Hector to inspire us.
God bless you all.
Raindrops
outside my
closed fists,
an emptiness
within.
© kash poet
========000========
Placement:1st; (November 2012)
Contest:Gogyoka
Sponsor: Joann Grisetti
##Gogyoka, is a form of Japanese poetry pioneered by Enta Kusakabe in 1957 in his quest to find freedom from the constraints of tanka poetry. Unlike tanka, gogyoka does not have any syllable requirement for the length of its lines. The only hardfast rule of gogyoka is that the poem should be five lines long, with line breaks occurring as a result of natural breath-pattern, which is individual to a particular speaker and their language.
====================================================================
Soundscape Strata
Did Bach know to what end
his harvest of melodies-in-parallel would become?
Scholars agonize
Was creation of counterpoint
musical destiny
a hybrid fruit of beauty
knowing no boundary
bewildering those of first look
given musical staffs
voicings and manuscripts
always conformed to traditional confinement?
What spurred his palette of sound
to become one with the elusive rainbow
providing independence through marriage of numbers
allowing prolonged courtship
sanctioning destinies to verge
converge
separate
return to coalesce?
And so
From guitar
to clavichord
string quartets
to symphonies
counterpart airs were discovered
became melodious architecture
challenging new musical frontiers
voiding tundra's boundary rules
reducing history's brass survey monuments
to mere reflections of past memory
Popularization of Bach's invention
soared beyond the artistic elite
for in '55 "Picnic" graced movie screens
initiating the unsuspecting
elevating emotion with layered melodies
Moonglow playing under the love theme
Bach's kaleidascope of synchronous colors
reached the century's romantics
keyed into a music major
minored ala Brubeck
scat-a-tized via Ella and Mel
and
made unity of opposites a given
Thus
From Bach's synthesis of two dimensions
musical ironies evolved
influencing writers' language
line upon line
stanza to stanza
chapter to chapter
making magical
the double entendre
metaphor
subtext
contrapuntal imaginings
all translated into
infinite language-in-progress
With applause knowing nowhere to go
except to acknowledge the roots of prodigy
a high five to the man
who pioneered so much of our soundscape
taught us all the numbers of romance
ironically created attraction to opposites
arpeggios with many colors
intimacy amidst chaos
Encore Mr. Bach
Encore
A deep ocean under the blue,
And one in my heart.
The tides upsurging furious,and waters so high.
Just like vivacious thoughts In my mind.
With the only unconformity........
That plethora would go calm sometimes,
Unlike my spirit that would introspect at all times.
Because the ripples had pioneered the seashore,
But my soul bewildered far from its destination.
Written May 16th, 2013
Featured poem of the week- on Oct 11th, 2015
S~erene and calm in spirit,
I~nterested in others, giving a helping hand always.
M~odest in ways, conservative yet loving and kind.
O~nly God knows, why mind and spirit reacted to the
controlling limitations of others, since childhood.
N~ow even like the East Wind's gales still talked about,
comparing those angry gales to the mindset of Victims,
chosen and sought out by them.
E~arning a "well done" by and by, for good things pioneered,
adding to Jehovah's Kingdom the strayed and lost sheep!
The Maid of New Orleans
A teenage cow girl who couldn’t write
Was told by God to front the fight
the hundred Year War against the French
And cut her hair in trendy wedge
Six centuries later it became the rage
She donned male clothes to further enrage
Raising a flag along with the others
To battle by a regiment of brothers
Without a weapon, she could not kill
But controlled her men with fiery will
She took an arrow to her shoulder
Her actions by now becoming bolder
To liberate the French from English reign
And continue with her tough campaign
In Orleans with some success
But Paris was a failed attempt
When a crossbow bolt hit her thigh
She maintained her strength and did not die
The English caught her in old Rouen
And gleefully put her in their prison
With seventy charges, then down to twelve
For hearing voices, wearing masculine clothes
To face a life long incarceration
She assumed male garb in desperation
To avoid rape and intimidation
The Godly voices, she confessed
Tied to a stake, she acquiesced
With celestial eyes but consumed by flames
Thus canonized to saintly fame
T
2 600 years ago
3 Schizophrenic? Voices in the head, seizures.
4 Led French army to some victories in the Hundred Years War (Charles V11) against the English
5 Seen as a mascot in battle she brandished a flag instead of a weapon
6 Took an arrow in her shoulder during the New Orleans campaign and a crossbow bolt in the thigh
during a failed attempt to liberate Paris
7 Volatile temper. She kept the troops in check. Ridiculed by her male counterparts and taunted about
her French dialect, she always quipped back in humiliating tone
8 Fell into English hands in 1430 in Rouen (English Stronghold) and tried by an ecclesiastical court.
70 charges were made against her. Whittled down to 12. Wearing of male clothes and hearing God’s
voice when she was threatened by possible rape and intimidation while in prison
9 Burned at the stake in 1431
10 Emulated by imposters even after death
11 Pioneered the popularity of the bob hairstyle. She was told by voices to cut her hair in manly style.
Self-aggrandizing words spew from my page of endless,
rather obscure metaphors and similes,
each one more labyrinthine than the last,
reeking of pretention and thesaurus over-usage,
as if by some ponderous stretch of the imagination I will be considered a vocubulary genius,
capable of putting my vast knowledge of the human soul into word form.
I am an intellectually superior bohemeth,
well versed at the intricate art of story telling through a convoluted series of opaque thoughts and ideas,
therefore rendering me exclusively original,
even,
dare I say,
profound.
I balk at the very connotation that my cogitations are anything but perfectly imperfect; my pain,
my joy,
my failures,
my victories,
my aspirations,
my tortured mind,
my vulnerable soul splashed onto a paper canvass for all the world to behold. . .
if not today,
then perhaps when I am long gone.
And all of this I keep closely guarded under the guise that my work is extremely private
and personal,
a mere tool for expressing myself in a way that I find immensely therapeutic
to my fragile sensibilites.
It is not penned in the hope that anyone would see it and interpret it in such a way as to understand their inner self more thoroughly,
but merely as a means to introspectively understand my own being.
I am a direct descendant of those who have pioneered the way for people like me,
of those who have forged the road of immortality through the written interpretation of the human spirit.
I now consider myself among the exclusive ranks of this age old fraternity,
Eternally exempt from the despair of having lived a life wraught with the very real possibility of being erased from the annals of history forever.
At long last,
I am a poet.
8/11/16
Looking into a mirror
With smudges and smears
New things each and every year
Across the hemispheres
I'll tell you what, I no longer care to hear
About any theory of if you think the end is near
I'm being sincere
Across the entire frontier
Got to take it to the next gear
As opportunites appear
Thinking wise, it's all so clear
No need to fear
Seriously try to be successful with your career
Otherwise the results just may be severe
And you'd be lucky to be left with a souvenir
Believe me, you've got to persevere
And steer
Regardless of if you ever want to contribute and volunteer
As meteor showers and falling stars premiere far away and close to here
Pay attention, listen and use your ears
Among forests with deers and by the piers
Anytime and place, below and above the atmosphere
Where humans any anything else has and hasn's pioneered
By: Dalton Ogletree
O Women, the mothers and sisters,
That the world can treat you like this!
You were heroes from the start
When you left your father's house
Aiming to build your own nest.
This you'd do in a foreign land,
The home of the man!
Mother, caterer, dairy,teacher,
Social worker, cook, laundress,
Sometimes even lecturer, judge,
Lawyer, politician, whatever!
But there are some who see you
Merely as low hanging fruit
For ridicule and abuse!
You pioneered in the struggle for freedom
But when it came you were pushed aside.
You're now faced with another struggle:
The fight for gender equality!
Men want to keep you in your place.
Wish you strength and luck!
Your battle is an uphill one
Because your man is compromised!
His work is to support you
But here , he is unemployed.
It's an anomalous situation!
In truth half the world is sick!
And it comes to you!
My humble suggestion would be:
Carry on fighting for your house.
Honour your man come rain or shine
Whether he has or he hasn't!
Continue making your house a home.
You'll be truly accomplished!
And have God in your life!
Science's
True
Enthusiast
Pioneered
Hope
Eternal
Notwithstanding
Withered
Human
Admonitions!
Who
Knows
If
Noosphere*
Goes On?
_______
*Noosphere - the sphere of human thought, from Teilhard de Chardin
(In Honor of Dr. Stephen W. Hawking, 1942 - 2018)
2/25/2019
Pioneered for extinction.
Engineered to be the cause.
I need not.
One prediction.
I feed my addictions.
That is my cause.
I need not.
Any pause.
I forward just to play.
Bleeding.
Eyes.
Blistered.
Lips.
So comes my fears.
With many tears.
Through every single.
Of my broken years.
I cry.
Where angels die.