Best Piteous Poems
It was my first Thanksgiving dinner as his wife
so I wanted the meal to be perfect in every way
But...trembling in fear, I cut my finger with a knife
It was the beginning of a day in piteous disarray
I didn't know a turkey would take so long to thaw
and I couldn't defrost the fat bird in the microwave
Agitated, I was afraid I'd have to serve it half raw
so, I parboiled it a while. My predicament was grave
The cranberries were cooking and started to pop
Then I noticed my sore finger was bleeding once more
Blood fell into the sauce pan; more than just a drop
Gotta serve it anyway. No time to go back to the store
My mother-in-law, Mary Ann, had a smirk on her face
She looks like a wild rabbit, both have wrinkled noses
I bedecked the table in my cloth of embroidered lace
finger bleeding again from thorns, darn those roses!
It's a Murphy's Law day for me cuz I've developed a tic
Face is twitching, but the turkey's roasting in the oven
People bustling in my kitchen. It's a comedy of slapstick
Cousin Benny wants a taste of my cornbread stuffin'
STUFFIN'? NO NO! I hadn't given the dish a thought
Could I make it from potatoes? I've got piles of those
I needed a drink; my frazzled nerves were distraught
Then sozzled Uncle Frank started taking off his clothes
We filled our plates as hubby, Jake, carved the bird
I gasped when I saw a bag of something on the platter
Mary Ann shrieked in laughter and shouted, "My word!!"
I had no clue it was in there. I became the Mad Hatter.
To the kitchen I retreated to ready the apple crumble
A laxative added to Mary Ann's to give her the poops
After dinner she dashed and crashed in a nasty tumble
I smiled with satisfaction and simply exclaimed, "OOPS."
Flip flops and straw hat adorn him, beach wear suits him nicely
Kind is he to her as he scoops into a bucket measuring precisely
Casted are his piteous passions in sunstruck warm sands
Gently shaping and capturing her likeness, she is in skilled hands
Stooping over chin to knee he bares bronze shoulders glimmering
Her features delicate, her hair etched in his mind flowing, shimmering
An energy is sensed as sand and water caress through his fingers
Behold if only Aphrodite answers his prayer, he pauses and lingers
Recollection clears a birth, breath of life be given this inanimate object
A saintly face faintly appears, he’s fallen in love with his imminent project
Sculpting feminine curves slowly surfacing, an hourglass figure shaped
An alluring amazon controls his very soul, an apotheosis angel draped
Belief in a statue which comes to life, vehemently pangs the phenomenon
Alas the last touches fini, fervently he unveils his seaside Pygmalion
And without further ado, emerging from the ivory sand, he prizes
An obsession his idée fixe at the edge of the pier, a sand goddess arises
Like an archaic humanoid dinosaur
you plunder through life taking no prisoners,
with your philosophical knuckles dragging on the ground.
You are a dying breed born of privilege and tenacious greed,
tendering little in life other than your selfish need.
What is it you seek in life other than your very personal comfort?
You never give a sideways glance to anyone with no chance of adding to your
circumstance; narrow minded cruelty subsidies the shutdown of any
tenderness, allowing emotional banalities to supersede integrity.
Your karmic debt is too cancerous to be free -
a lover of women among inept men,
but piteous fodder for contempt among strong women.
Neanderthal, you tossed love off the tongue like spit flung and stung my cheek with
runny dung....in disgust I turn away at your insipid attempt at manhood.
So many conquests, so little time.
The pittance you gave is but a trail of unwitting shame,
littered like Gretel's bread crumbs into a wilderness of pain...
How sad you thought such a pittance could buy my soul.
I am no longer a member of your colonial servitude,
and you are an inept fossil long past its prime.
From this moment, Narcissistic Neanderthal,
I am free.
July 29, 1890
Colored daubs and swatches
crave artist’s practiced hand.
Justice, nearly blind, yet watches—
unwrought art upon a stand.
Regard the brushes in a row—
the palettes and the sponges.
Genius maimed by status quo,
vain a hope that fate expunges.
Guttered myriad lifelong dreams—
in desperate ruination.
Fading now the piteous screams
of self-inflicted termination.
Time Passes
Abruptly then adoring praise—
contrived their sudden expertise.
Rude cabal who would appraise—
byzantine their guileful sleaze.
Each masterpiece a servant
of craven yearn and greed.
Bang the gavel, swift and fervent;
sate purveyors’ inveterate need.
Justice now is truly blind;
vanished those She would impute.
His final piece is left unsigned;
and undisclosed, for now She’s mute.
4th Place: I Love Rock and Roll
Inspired by Don McLean's song, Starry Starry Night
The bloodstained leaves of autumn fall like snow
upon the threshold of the dying glow
of summer whose conception shining rose
from breath of tangerines, but now must go
the way of brilliant life in last repose.
See not as dismal early closing day
when falling shadows kneel as if to pray
before the altar of a fading sun
when summer's fragrant whisper turns to gray
and blooming of the roses soon is done.
See not as piteous alders weeping
when October's taunting gusts are leaping
and one by one pluck memories away
of magenta dawns that would come creeping
and sweep us into reveries of May.
Indeed, for lilac dreams there is a cost.
Now we must bear the looming winter frost.
Though raven wings will hover upon drifts
of powder, rest assured not all is lost
for soon enough grow April's chartreuse gifts.
INTERCEPTION
Shadows waning distorted fading
Teasing tempting, a psychotic hack
Scheming concealing cerebral deceiving
Sun retreating behind shades of black
Memoirs succumbing, alpha notes strumming
Hope dwindling midst each laboured breath
Dusky-eyed wretchedness, reflective reminiscence
Sporadic spirits predicting sinister death
Powerless to quell the oppressor within
Oh, desolation! The thief with the sinister grin
The day bleeds, no conveyed clarifications
Nightfall brings its own demonic demons
Moodswings of crazy with judgements so hazy
Interceptive apathy through feelings of lethargy
Music evokes emotions with resilient duress
Though once familiar titles slide back in regress.
Living within her own fluid transparency
The piteous empathy, does she even discern?
Is she to become a fading frequency?
Or… ungenial ashes in a decorative urn?
As the soft rose shades of twilight transcends
In the quietude of peace – a hushed calm descends
One last recall remains in her artistic archive
Where the Star of the Show still dazzles and thrives.
Maria Williams © 2023
I know this will be a sensitive topic, especially at Christmas with people caring for or visiting their loved ones afflicted with Dementia or Alzheimer's—such a sad condition. Apparently, the worst thing to possibly do is try to jog the patient's memory, as it causes more stress.
Instead, why not give them your time and play their favourite music?
Music memories often remain as others disappear.
This is because brain regions involved in musical memory and processing (e.g., the cerebellum) are not as affected by Alzheimer's or dementia until much later in the disease course.
Please watch the video; it is so beautiful and touching. Marta Gonzalez was a professional ballet dancer who developed Alzheimer's. One thing she never forgot was her Swan Lake routine She passed in 2019.
AMIDST POUNDS OF FORCE and FURY
Conscious cold clouds sweeping, killing softly the suns bright,
romancing evocatively with the winds, aghast it blows! Blows!
Gray to black are the skies shadows. Shafts of light longer,
they tantalize in between blows joined clear by a decibel bang!
Frightened golden grains for harvest, helpless! They bend down
and so are the piteous bushes, unashamed, waving their arms
as if crying out for immediate rescue but no one is there...
Drops to dagger liquid sequins fall heavily unto them nonstop.
Amidst pounds of force and fury from the natural forces,
I, glad to be cocooned by the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest.
Wrapped tight to his arms, my heart is soaking with contentment,
his drizzling caresses flood my nerves, I am all giddy inside...
________________________________________________________________
***Picture #2
6:00 pm, November 19, 2015
Sweep then across the flowing sea of time
to stand unseen amid a stinking horde
and there behold the rich who turn away
or groveling poor that vaguely beckon—
surveying misery's grimy bounds of each.
Wretched feeble ones of withered limb
and clouded eye—ladies in their rags—
ignored by ones who might have paused and bent
but never did, to burden beggars' bowls,
nudging them from darkness into light.
Dismal tale of men and women in the dirty rail compartment
No conception of the charm being knitted by the movement
Of the necklace of gentle light in the pants shirts and blouses
All is too occupied in their struggle to notice the kind crescent
As they are returning home from their respective workplaces
Piteous story of apathy and woe all of them are absorbed in
An old lady chewing parched rice taking it from a rusted tin
In a dark corner is seated a youth with shirt all bloodstained
Suffering from tuberculosis and looking very fragile and thin
A worthless life of empty existence still wretchedly retained
Though no threshold he will come across leading him to a
Plate of rice and curry as at least one square meal a day
A hawker of playthings approaches them in a smiling face
A second vendor selling some human figures made of clay
A gloomy motion picture of life running in an unfair race
10/07/2017
Rhyme Time with 5 Poetry Contest sponsored by Laura Loo
Using the five words viz Piteous Bloodstained Threshold
Conception and Dismal
Such piteous night, as when last I came
and felt the sorrow of this lonely game.
You entered my life not so long ago.
I let you in, so, I’m the one to blame,
and now your heart is all that I know.
Though hideous, the threshold of life’s pain
emerges as I meander in vain,
steeped in hollow thoughts of what we’ve been through.
If not for you I would have gone insane,
now, you’ve left me unsure of what to do.
The cold bloodstained moon peeks slow and timid
through to light my way, each wane step viscid,
resisting my movements as if the dark
left my weary mind mangled and stupid
compelling our fate to be deathly stark.
Now you are but a living memory,
A conception of what our life could be,
but instead you have made the choice to stray
from the path that could set our poor hearts free,
and with your indifference, thrown it away.
I want you to know that there could be more
If you but allow me to knock at your door,
yet, it seems as though your decision’s made,
and the time has come, my dismal amour,
it’s locked away in my heart’s barricade.
10/10/2017
Friend, you may view me as piteous
for my form is quite hideous
Bloodstained hands I cannot clean
even though I'm fastidious
I accidently killed the queen
This deed beyond my conception
I promised my queen protection
My sword I swung it in the dark
towards a ghostly reflection
It struck my Queen leaving its mark
There she lay upon the threshold
Although young I then felt so old
Dismal in spirit for I loved her true
I beg you to be swift and bold
Take my life with a blade of blue
Tearing my soul asunder, a silent scream
A piteous one as in some dreadful dream,
In a deep sleep but still very much aware,
Was it but another recurring nightmare?
And how so sad, painful and most unfair
No one in this world really seems to care.
With my battered spirit and heart on fire
like a wayfarer in a state dismally dire,
My lust kindled with an unchaste desire
like smitten moths for the flame aspire;
Only upon my deathbed it must expire
where no one would bother to inquire.
~12/24/18
~For a Brian Strand contest
Elder jays roam the tainted winds in herds,
Alighting upstream like most holy birds
Into the threshold of an inky night,
And journey forth with brave rafters, onwards
For lofty a view, their sweet rest’s delight.
Although clouds withdraw from a hued backdrop
This avian route, dismal, nary a flop
Under bloodstained gust surviving a dodge;
Before piteous age taints life , non-stop
With hopes to reach their own destiny’s lodge.
Yet, the valiant flock abandons a cry
Invoking hymns droning a lullaby
Through morn hours, the conception of new birth
Sends angel wings on gates of heaven’s sky…
Enshrining old jays’ flight with endless mirth!
................................
Rhyme Time With 5 Contest: For Laura Loo
10/6/2017
Checked via howmanysyllables.com, rhymezone.com
I am an evening of scented season,
wondering if you've given me
this stairway with the gold curls.
Who changed her name to Stacy?
Later in my throbbing red heart,
you were forest green and lush apples.
I have learned to pick my apples,
the reddest ones no matter what season.
Then you wormed your way into my heart,
gnawing away the discretion in me.
I wish I had a pretty name like Stacy,
and sunlight in my spiral curls.
A snake who maneuvers in curls,
you savor the tartness of granny apples,
dreaming of girls with names like Stacy,
who are cherries of the spring season,
while courting an old dame like me,
careless about breaking my heart.
I've wondered about the color of your heart.
It has wound its way around me in curls,
so tightly you almost suffocate me.
Now I am just the core of an apple,
tossed to the dirt in a cold season.
Maybe I will reincarnate as Stacy!
My childhood nemesis is named Stacy.
Oh, how she left an ache in my heart,
with blushed cheeks of a peach in season,
and glossy lips in a perpetual curl.
In everyone’s eyes I was the apple,
until that Snow White replaced me.
The whole world has replaced me,
full of young versions of Stacy.
My wrinkled skin is like fermented apples.
Now I tell people, hey, I have a kind heart.
I need no curler to make my lashes curl.
I change with the colors of a new season.
You've handed an apple to the piteous me.
It is love's season, nothing to do with Stacy.
The warm cushion of your heart is where I'll curl.
Red Queen Dethroned
Piteous, the limpid bloodstained rose
stunned by Winter’s violent pose
color draining onto hoar frost blade
Red Queen, dethroned, to decompose
beneath the howl of ice-bound serenade.
Conception’s threshold - trembling roots
nurturing the hope of fetal shoots
huddled from the dismal bite of frost
holding against the crush of heartless brutes
Knowing spring is not a “Paradise Lost”*
©9/25/2017
*vague reference to - *Paradise Lost by John Milton
submitted to – Rhyme Time with 5 – poetry contest
sponsor – Laura Loo