Best Plaint Poems
Blue diaphane, tobacco smoke
Serpentine on wet film and wood glaze,
Mutes chrome, wreathes velvet drapes,
Dims the cave of mirrors.
Ghost fingers
Comb seaweed hair, stroke acquamarine veins
Of marooned mariners, captives
Of Circe's sultry notes.
The barman
Dispenses igneous potions ?
Somnabulist, the band plays on.
Cocktail mixer, silvery fish
Dances for limpet clients.
Applause is steeped in lassitude,
Tangled in webs of lovers' whispers
And artful eyelash of the androgynous.
The hovering notes caress the night
Mellowed deep indigo ?still they play.
Departures linger.
Absences do not
Deplete the tavern.
They hang over the haze
As exhalations from receded shores.
Soon
, Night repossesses the silence, but till dawn
The notes hold sway, smoky
Epiphanies, possessive of the hours.
This music's plaint forgives, redeems
The deafness of the world.
Night turns
Homewards, sheathed in notes of solace, pleats
The broken silence of the heart.
- Wole Soyinka -
Africa, can rise.
But that is only if we are ready to fight.
And to end our plight,
Our weakness should come to light.
But Africans think is normal?
That our children under five should be dying of malaria.
But I ask, are we proud to be tagged with poverty?
And as a continent with no dignity?
Yes! We have to be in haste,
Because there is no more time to waste.
A people united in faith,
Is stronger than the bombs the enemy will make.
So to our divided Africa, let us mingle,
So that we can become single.
And together,
We can push Africa further.
But I it is only the mulish,
That always want to remain foolish.
So if only we want to be illustrious,
Then Africans should not keep quiet about our nefarious.
And let us not always be clamorous
But rather, be adventurous.
And to our leaders I advise,
You are able to afford iPad,
Meanwhile, our girls at puberty lacks sanitary pad.
So can’t you see your own followers bewailed?
After you promised them ecstasy.
But what happened after they hailed.
Only to realize they were living in fantasy.
We have made them enjoy mansions and cars that are very deluxe.
So I ask, why they won’t relax.
And act, only when they see the body and property of their people, rot and rust,
To form dust.
But Africa must rise.
Mother weeps because her children are so soft and plaint to be fooled
Because we have being used as weapons for coups.
So instead of standing for democracy,
We Africans opt for nothing but autocracy.
But is time we say no to fixity,
To help change our destiny.
And we should also be ready to fulminate the ways of the devil,
And depart from deeds that are evil.
But if we refuse and fold our hands and think of trepidation,
Then we should blame ourselves for the destruction of our nations.
To think what we have done to this plaint
And now it is fast starting to lose it's worth
But we have been warned by mother earth
Just look at the mess we have made of it
At one time we questioned global warming
Now something that's constantly talked about
Fossil fuels burned , at an extreme amount
The fact that we have had so much warning
Now there's a massive hole in the ozone layer
Yeah I know this has all been said allot before
But still destroying everything right to the core
Like all of the wild life and all of the agriculture
Rain forests now fast becoming waste lands
Polluting the atmosphere with our toxic waste
Before long there won't be any human race
And to think all of this done at our own hands
Change's in the weather, changes in altitudes
Which only contributes to famine and disease
Perhaps were blind to it all no one then see's
If we're so clever why not change our attitudes
Or the situation is only then going to perpetuate
We have now been warned by mother nature
If we don't do anything sooner rather than later
We will one day pay for the damage we create
AGAIN A BIT MORE OF A POLITICAL AND UNIVERSAL ISSUE A BIT LIKE THAT
OF WORLDS STATE, A JILTED BENERATION , AND ELEMENTS OF LIFE
this I did mention brefliy in the original version of worlds state but something
wanted to write about seperlety similer to worlds state in the fact a never of many
issues that needs adressing though I do think the goverment has the power to do a lot
if they wanted to instead of dictaing these so called public school boys
why was this issue not adressd years ago in the fiftys sixes so on
the war cant be helping to the atmosphere
So slick and sexy. Purred past Temple Bar.
That throaty engine advertising punch.
All legal London, strolling out for lunch,
with turning heads declared, “Now that’s a car!”
So many barristers are – if not losers,
low earners and slow learners. I was one.
I, plodding back from Penge, felt put upon:
a plea, a pittance. Now for Holborn’s boozers.
That mean machine was not for saps like me.
I turned my face towards the threatening rain,
and started wearily up Chancery Lane.
A cup of tea and, hopefully, a fee
awaited me in Chambers. Alloy wheels
slid sleekly, silently – stopped at my side.
That car again! I watched the window glide
wide open. And I almost had to kneel
to see the driver. Handsome. Tall and thin.
The shirt was pastel pink, the tie was silk.
The suit was Savile Row, or of that ilk.
His words astonished me. “Well, clamber in!”
And then the penny dropped. It’s Alex R!
Agility has never been my thing,
so Reaney waited, engine idling,
as I shoe-horned myself into his car.
We’d known each other at the School of Law,
but then our paths had radically diverged.
Me, in pleas and poverty submerged,
and he, the wide blue skies of Libel to explore.
“I’ll run you back to Chambers – beat the rain.”
He asked me what had occupied my morning.
For him, the King’s Bench judges were adjourning.
I’d copped a plea in Penge – how to explain?
The major stars had Alex at the helm
when they unleashed their lawsuits on the press.
Defending thefts of bicycles – and less –
was my domain. He ruled a regal realm.
His clients of the moment, man and wife,
were household names. They’d sold their wedding day
to paparazzi, who refused to pay.
The plaint was something weird, like “Stolen Life”.
The man, from Delaware, big hair, and Jewish.
They crank out movies like there’s no tomorrow
(Chicago, Basic Instinct, Traffic, Zorro):
the girl, from Aberdare – think Cher, and shrewish.
To talk of money is a vulgar thing,
but I was desperate to know his fee.
The forty quid I’d earned, I wouldn’t see
for months to come. His wrists were dripping bling.
We’d be at Chambers in another minute.
“So, Alex,” (best to blurt the damn thing out),
“a case like that. You’re looking at … about …?”
He grinned at me and said, “you’re sitting in it.”
Nature, Friend and Foe
Speak out the words to the soft petaled plants,
that grow wearily in the distant corners
It is there that the scrub jay alights,
squawking and gorging on berries.
This habitat has brought the wildlife to the garden,
in an endless search for food stuffs,
always glancing over their shoulders heads turned 180 degrees, ears taut,
translucent eyes peering, fright, flight,
an evolved history, chiseled in practical instinct.
I am speaking to you dear nature,
from me you will learn exactly nothing,
it is from that which you are that I will learn.
Listen to my plaint though it fall on deaf ears.
Though you hop or walk, fly or scurry, crawl, swim or slither,
movement is your the essence, your vitality, your survival,
which appears to invite you to take the life that animates and live it to any and all ends.
Is there no loss for you, do you not care or bother for condition?
If we as a race of evolved mammalian beings were once like you,
how is it we've fallen so far from the tree and yet continue to survive?
Did you dear nature reject us, are we a sullen body of flesh
unaccustomed to following the laws that govern your being?
Are we but a rejected group?
Fires that burn forests and wastelands,
ignited by the thunderbolts from Jupiter's hand
both cleanse and rejuvenate an overgrown and tired terrain;
lava spewn out from out of the mouth of a volcano
drives itself over the land building and combing the landscape with layers of liquid rock,
cooled by atmospheric difference.
Flooding waters, ferocious winds, the whirling and swirling of earth
and its organisms of flesh and bone
thrown up and into a vortex of howling change
is greeted with impassivity.
You, my nature, friend and foe, your indifference, your beauty
and the brutality of your wrath are both vexing and compelling,
how are we to understand and continue to care?
Suey Creek
October, 2012
Dried sand eclipsed over the Season’s fall,
sullen rhyme sings singer-birds over scale,
the storm-dance sprays dust against broken wall,
To the hat-worn folks, sorrowed, narrates tale;
Done seasonal harvest with plaint-dried tears,
With diseased cattle shrunken skin to ribs,
With cracked ground, hungry sad visage of fears,
With wasted limbs and pot-bellied in cribs.
keenly begs graceful charity for age,
Promising bags, from next seasons harvest,
To plough the ground below the lowered wage,
And to lock starving kids to empty breast.
Thus rewording he sows the seeds and play,
Hoping golden grain’s harvest from his clay.
©Anees Rahman
Hear across my native soil,
The calling,
Echoes ancient voices,
Raised in prayers ritual.
A forgotten people, leaving,
Their mark upon histories
Legacy.
Mysteries great questioning,
Lain outward for generations,
To wonder why?
Beneath the heavens vastness,
Behold gray monoliths reaching,
Upward.
In the circle of life and death,
As a continuing sphere ever,
Winding within it's self.
A seasonal calendar timed by,
Natures rhythm.
An inner heartbeat, pulsating,
From the earths core.
Springs awakening warming
Breath,
Or winters chilling hand of death.
To plaint and harvest, or lay at rest,
The tools of trade.
The beasts of burden are released
From heavy yokes harness.
Pagan Gods demand tributes sacrifice,
Lain upon the sacred altars fire.
Druid priests carrying wisdom's staff,
Praying for enlightenment’s spiritual guidance.
Sung in Gallic tongue, they chant.
Asking for natures bounty,
A good years passing and
Healings curing power.
An ancient religion seeking,
Answers to humanities quest to know.
Lost to times relentless pass,
Our ancestral heritage is remembered,
I'm myths and legends,
Mystical circle of stone,
Known as Stone Hedge.
BY: CHERYL ANNA DUNN
The little girl on maintain peak
She can not speak
And left heart broken
Word unspoken
Turn her into crazy
Everything became so lazy
Sitting at a stone
On lonely maintain alone
Her life crumble
How she be humble
When no one is there to show her care
She need someone to plaint her hair
She cook by herself
She eat all by herself
Live all alone by herself
And do everything by herself
Every day and night
She longing for someone to hold her tight
Everyone need someone
No one can be alone
She need someone to love
And play like a pair of dove
We met by chance
at the local dance.
One innocent glance
to start romance.
It was just one look
that’s all it took.
But we were not free
My God what can calm me?
You know that I love you.
You know that I want you.
Why can’t we be
together? As lovers should be.
I want to walk with you
hand in hand as lovers do
Why can’t we be
together? As lovers should be
I want to be with you
and lie as lovers do
Why can’t we be
together? As lovers should be
UNSUPPORTED CODE
`Shuttered windows
The absence of any corporeal presence
Is counterbalanced by the ethereal essence
Of the Human Spirits still in residence
In forlorn foyers and empty rooms
Vacant eyes peer in unspoken plaint
through dust hazed windows...
seeking the solace of eternal memories
Of long passed children…and weeping widows
Clock long stopped pon dusty mantel
Hands posed o’er numerals Roman
No longer giving...and long past caring
Of the duty of time and chiming of man
Dust motes that caper in fairy dance fashion
Forming in miniature...galaxies and universes
Inquisitive rays of sunshine that leak through
And peek through the regimented rows
Of the slats in tidily ordered lines
In sombre repose behind
…`Shuttered windows...
Your voice was born from twilight's
Breast.
Your name stole the mystery
Of the night.
Ambrosial hand of gold
Bowled along the white
Surf
To glorify the lost souls
Of a time
Winding off with each chord,
the locked secrets of the world.
Orpheus!
You are the Sun's chosen
And the Sirens are trying
To steal a song
To bewitch the seamen.
Time is trembling among
Melodies and laments.
A lost lover behind the
Turning light.
Your silence is calling
The Muses
To carry you beneath
The sky's festival.
Maybe now you are near her
again.
Father of melody
Your untouched Lyra awaits
To form sounds of time,
To bring up an era lost.
Taming the darkness
You offered a soul to the cold.
Fingers divine,
Heart of gold!
As near was the end
You stood in front.
A bending moment was your Fate's circle
Following you
As condemnation for the centuries to come.
Journeys across the Sun's arms
As a prayer for the dreams you loved,
As a plaint for those you lost.
Still, your voice travels along the sea
To justify the unexpected turns
Of Time.
You, Orpheus, are the star,
The lighten flame,
Across the fields of gold,
Calling your love to come
With unreachable promises you hallowed.
This poem is for Orpheus, the Greek Heroic Legendary
figure who charmed even the God of Darkness
with his music. The story of Orpheus is unique,
showing love dimentions, his Hymns have made
an impact to world's music over the time.
Valeria Iliadou, Greece
Small Wonders
I count the things…that still work right
While on my morning stroll
My eyes still see the morning light…
(Tho as seen from a deep dark hole)
My knees this morn are trying hard to please
Flexing without a plaint
Bearing my weight with ill-feigned ease
And creaks kept dim and faint
My hips move as if newly greased
Each stride a pure delight
The pain is gone...not merely eased
They got better…overnight
My fingers flex like fingers should
I can pick up things…and write
They’re not like gnarly sticks of wood
This morn they work just right
My eyes enjoyed this morn’s sunrise
Savored it with sensual delight
Op’ed wide in delighted surprise
After a night of full moonlight
My ears clearly hear the Sweet song of birds
Their early morning chatter
I can almost discern individual words
In their chirpy, peeping patter
And last, but not least
My often aching feet…
This morn the aches have ceased it seems
(so far)
It seems my brain has given my ol’ bod
A reprieve for just a bit
With perhaps a little help from God
I intend to fully enjoy it!
IT'S WORTH IT ALL
He carves and sands where I am rough
And smooths those corners down
And “ouch” it often hurts, I say
As His tools go all around
And yet I know that when He's through
No more a 'plaint I'll make
E'n though it may hurt at times
I know it's for my sake
Sometimes if I had tried to live
In a much more careful way
This process would be easier
On the life I live today
Sometimes we learn so very slow
God's righteous ways are best
His love will not give up on us
If we in His arms will rest
So let the process continue on
Until that glorious day
He's made a perfect gem of me
And in His arms I'll stay
Copyright, Kathryn Search
EVERYONE HAS A HISTORY
by
JOHN M. ARRIBAS
This Perilous Pilgrimage, Produces Nary a Saint
Time Conceals the Blemished Deeds, Now Faint
Nary a Soul Is Spared from the Indelible Taint
Marooned in Our Conscience, Harboring the Plaint
For loves attestation had brought them to grief
in all but their filament of hope
lay in the witness ruined
until burden be undone
and from their promises, released
Retire silent and plaint of regret
no longer decry, no longer defend
no more to seek in the chalice of hominian
divinities flicker illusive
must cleave the heart of Seraphim
Allegiance to the singular
no consequence of choice will contemplate
and to final hour render
and for such honourable cause
lay aside all they did anticipate
Drear task now to await on failure
and of illustrious dream capitulate
and of weeping eye make no remorse
for all of love was but a hope
mayhap be granted its renaissance
in another life