Best Planet Poems
if my love for you was any greater
the trees would line up in poetic forms
...awe you in sonnets written...
...part...to allow winds to cool your face...
to trace it with nature’s hand.
all the oxygen that covers all the waters rise,
supercharge the breadth of my emotion.
mountains would melt, shed their peaks like tears of joy.
even the arid deserts serve up fruits,
their prickly pears peeled on a platter.
sunset would pause and sunrise hurry...
...exist in a paradox to herald your presence.
petals would climb their stems
regroup to bloom again.
butterflies re-cocoon
emerge as glorious fairies
for all children to adore.
the skies would willingly
shape, etch, paint,
frame my exuberance.
the planet would swell,
the galaxies expand.
in the endless depth
of my singular love
i hold you dear,
safely contain you
in my admiring smile,
for now,
forevermore.
16~10~2014
Armand Hamouth
Untroubled is the quiet night
How peaceful is a world that glimmers white
Frost and moonlight have whipped a silver glaze
And silhouettes of trees are black as ink
The only sign of life are whiffs of breath
I stand transfixed beneath the sky,
to rest my mind with reverent eyes
upon the silky wonderland of snow
Among these masqueraded hills,
the night's aurora soothes my soul
Winter has dressed our world in alabaster white
Familiar landmarks wear a new disguise
And yet, we'll see the sky remains the same
where a thousand thorny sparks have kept their flames
burning low to light the dark
They welcome us like longtime friends.
These polished stars against the sky,
are brilliant new, with points honed thistle sharp
How peaceful is a planet that shimmers bright,
that to stand in voiceless wonder and gaze,
If we were to speak, the crystal world could shatter,
too fragile to bear the weight of words
I have never seen a flower blush when I took it's hue
and held it there a prisoner captive to my view.
I have always heard the song that's in the autumn breeze
playing taps in harmony with the forest leaves.
I love the smell of rain that brings the springtime into bud
and swells my love of nature into a teeming flood.
I celebrate the cycle of the daytime into night
and find an equal blessing in the shadow and the light.
I've always felt affinity for all created things
and surrender to the pleasure that their beauty brings.
And though I could spent a lifetime sailing drops of dew
I've never seen a universe as beautiful as you.
I've often sat myself by gentle mountain streams
and overflowed the dams that were holding back my dreams.
I've breathed the scented forest on the mountainside
and washed away my sorrows in an evening ocean tide.
I've laid down in a meadow and debated with the moon
and spent some quiet moments on the surface of Neptune.
I got married to a zodiac with one of Saturn's rings
then spied a super nova and went on a cosmic fling.
I've run away to nebulae in galaxy brochures
and bathed in scenes of wonders on distant planet shores.
Every cosmos in creation could parade before my view
but I've never seen a universe as beautiful as you.
I've never seen a tree once withdraw it's shade
and deny a creature the comfort of its aid.
I've never seen any anger in the sun at noon
when it burns relentlessly on the desert dune.
At sunrise I take an oath to live with all my might
and reinforce my gratitude each and every night.
I could spend some hours riding on a crystal flake
drifting wildly in a gale mindless of my fate.
Many times I've been through trials of wind and rain and snow
then sentenced to the splendors that the seasons show.
And though I've searched throughout creation, I must say this is true
I've never seen a universe as beautiful as you.
So much to know, so little time to learn
To think of all the unsolved mysteries
Still trying to understand all that we know
How sad, most go through life just passing time
Our life is but a tick on time's big clock
We, less than a speck of cosmic dust
Significant only by the fact we are alive
Yet insignificant in the grandest scheme
So arrogant in our ignorant intelligence
Thinking ice is the shape of water
Consumed by greed, vanity and vice
Destroying the only place we know life exists
The laws of math are universal
Like humans, stars live and die
One day our sun will burn out
Until then, we are our own worst enemy
by Daniel Turner
It had been a day full of miraculous detail.
Freezing rain played the ground like a kettle drum.
Trees snapped and flowers curtsied
before engaging in a pas de deux
with blades of grass on the stage
of this summer eve.
Our erupting blazing star...
Sported a set of yellow barn doors sorely in need of a paint job;
Closed shut with a heavy metal rusty lock seeping a golden shade;
Upstaging the blue sky and creating its own distinct wash
to signal the break of day.
A curvy curved river flowed naturally through
the mountains into a water colored sunset.
The moon waited patiently offstage with bedroom eyes
anxious to make her entrance.
And I,
Well - I just stood motionless,
Hoping to absorb it all;
Hoping to never take this planet for granted;
A non opiate
I like to call
Organic Ecstasy.
And not a sign of men’s hands anywhere in sight.
14~12~2014
Maurice Yvonne
E Pluribus Unum ~ Out Of Many, One
[Author's note: E Pluribus Unum is a traditional motto of the United
States, but the scope of this poem is intended to be of a more global scale.]
We are farmhands, postal workers, we are rich industrialists
We are pilots, sailors, warriors, mathematicians, scientists
We are doctors, nurses, dentists; taking care of those in need
We are teachers, flight attendants, moms and dads with mouths to feed
We post blogs, develop websites, we are software engineers
We are athletes, video gamers, we're retired volunteers
We are dancers, painters, sculptors, we are actors on the stage
We are clerks, construction workers, pay for night school with our wage
We are high school educated, college maybe, or hard knocks
We are barbers and beauticians, drive a truck or work on docks
We are clergy, civic leaders, wardens at the county jail
Roll in wheelchairs, use sign language, wear prosthetics, read by Braille
We are bankers, tax accountants, proud grandparents, husbands, wives,
We are activists who strive to give our children better lives
We are widows, orphans, childless; we feel sorrow to the core
We are social workers, advocates of justice for the poor
We make music or just listen, sing out loud or softly hum
We are common, we are special, we are those who overcome
We are poets and songwriters, we write letters to our kin
Sharing stories of our life, of where we're going, where we've been
We are those with beating hearts, with flexing muscles, red blood cells
Kidney donors, missionaries, we help dig fresh water wells
We praise God in mosque or church, in synagogue or kingdom hall,
In a temple, or in nature, maybe have no God at all
We are from around the planet, we have skin of every tone
We have short hair, long hair, no hair, kinky hair; we're not alone
We esteem diversity; you value me, I value you
Always with respect for those who hold a different point of view
This, my dream: to be united when it all is said and done
Though we may not be there yet, we share this journey -
We are one.
Written 1 Feb 2022
Here are butterflies that skip
Dull steps of metamorphosis
No isolation in coocoons
No gorging grubs like fat balloons
Pure genesis on snow kissed flowers
Comes with no imperiled hours
Their slow, eternal life begun
Beneath a pink pearlescent sun
Reflecting tints from rainbows born
With pastel lights of endless dawn
Transcend through fabled time and myth
To form the rings of Saturn's mist.
A Kaleidoscope of Butterflies
Contest Judged: 5/18/2016 5:58:00 AM
Sponsored by: Julia Ward
N/A’d
concerned about being upstaged
the glorious blue tinted rock
negotiated
sent in the puffy white wisps
to cover the vibrant coloured evergreens
the brown field in the foreground
felt offended
wondering out loud
"what about me?"
then added "beauty you know is..."
but never bothered to finish the cliché.
for my part
i was more interested
in what the mountain had traded the clouds
what could it possibly have offered?
September 23 2016
Hi! I'm Alan
the astrologer
I used to be
a mythologer
Here's the forecast
for tonight
I'm sure you'll see
I've got it right
The stars are green
The moon is pink
The North Star is
on the blink
Venus is
out to dinner
On her diet
Mars looks thinner
Jupiter's
a god of Rome
Saturn's rings
are made of foam
The Milky Way's
a candy bar
The sun's too big
to be a star
Pluto is
a goofy mutt
Uranus has
a charming butt
These true facts
I tell my clients
All MY predictions ~
based on science
The Color of Space
His spaceship alit on a foreign world
deep in the midst of the outer space
two moons gazing down devoid of all air
he kept his mask on and walked down the plank
opened the door to retreat from the hull
He was there for a purpose
for diplomacy’s sake
to seek a new race and find a new place
in hopes that they trade
since the earth needed more
an avatar sought
for the future of lore
The leader approached
his habiliment WHITE
and his face a pale GREEN
he exacted his speech
with authority and grace
I promise the cargo that you request
in the time that is due it will be our best
for our BLUE men work as we command
to produce what you need or they will be replaced
and another blue man will fill in the space
to satisfy your monthly needs
He gazed at the workers bedraggled with sweat
their uniforms worn not a word from their lips
he considered his quest and returned to his ship
He removed his mask and stared out of the hull
he pondered the planet that he will leave
A million miles from Earth and the stigma remains
he grabbed a BLACK towel and wiped his BROWN face
will MANS inhumanity to MAN ever change
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL
My childhood spent without peers
alone and prey to my fears.
Nights spent face buried in my pillow
my emotions like a weeping willow.
The school kid disliked and attacked
like a player continuously sacked.
Bruises and scars physical,
cuts deep and salted, emotional.
Not a friend not even one
or an adult there to help - none.
You look to the skies for relief
but lessons taught come with grief.
Our life books come prewritten
set in stone, can't be rewritten.
Loneliness moves in, year after year
without choice you hide behind a veneer.
You give up on living
focus on just existing.
Sorry, I have to stop here. This story now transcends
rhyming, calls for a voice free just to speak.
Loneliness has many faces.
I imagine one of the most intense state of loneliness
is losing a loved one.
A planet of three billion would feel empty.
I have witnessed my mothers chagrin after
losing my father.
Happy partners a lifetime long and suddenly
she is one of two.
You do the math.
They were two who became one.
Now she is alone cut down the middle
add her pain and she is barely half.
There is no crowd that could fill her void.
There is no amount of family love
that could fill the hole in her heart.
My pain was different. I just had a wish to belong,
to have one friend, one love, or just to have a hand to hold.
When you're abandoned, ridiculed, and disliked
by everyone even by people who don't even
know you, you have no choice but to hide.
My loneliness turned me into a critter
that could curl up into a small ball.
Still I had hope.
I wished someone could love me.
Love me for my gentle ways,
my giving nature and my open arms.
18~11~2014
Sponsor: frank herrera
Contest Name: FACES OF LONELINESS
WRITE ABOUT LONLINESS FROM YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE....MUST BE AUTO BIOGRAPHICAL.
If there was no crime
No hurry for time
No genocide
No homicide
If there was no mothers burying their sons
If mankind didn't invent guns
If schools still had prayer
If everybody recognize Jesus Christ as our savior
If there was love and respect
No hate between white and black
No homeless
No loneliness
No wars
No rich or poor
No accidents or disasters
If man only served one master (God)
Imagining is good for all it's worth
Heaven is definitely not planet earth
I really have outdone myself this time!
My ‘God Machine’ is finally in place!
I’ll never have to fret about a rhyme,
Or stop for a red light that changed from green
As if it sought to put me in my place
A random hiccup clearly quite obscene.
I really am quite clever I must say
My ‘subtle knife’ (1) allowing me to splice
My ‘God Machine’ into time’s tawdry day
The true God left completely unaware
That He is now controlled by my device
And just another victim of malware.
It seems there’s quite a lot that ‘God’ screwed up
That I intend to change now I’m in charge
I think that its bad form to cover-up!
So what’s the deal with dying anyway?
Let no one die will be my countercharge
And life is just a breeze on my freeway!
All pain mere nuisance, manna heaven sent
And sin gives you enormous facial zits
While love and kindness clear up all your rent.
Though talents differ, jealousies dissolve
As differences bring none real benefits
And non-destructive social moves evolve.
All birth defects, parental wealth passé
Genetic weakness gone with dodo bird
No accident of birth gives worth per se
Sins of the parent cannot taint the child
That God might favor one is just absurd
The color of one’s skin no more reviled.
But now I find my plans have gone awry
My God Machine decided I’m a flaw
It seems that I’m outdated samurai
Humanity endangering MY plan
Just plankton in the future’s yawning maw
Machine judged only advocate for man! (2)
Brian Johnston
November 5, 2014
Poet's Notes:
(1) subtle knife - A reference to a magical knife that can open windows in time in one of the 3 books in the Phillip Pullman trilogy 'His Dark Materials' including The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass.
(2) My poetic version of the lesson of the book and movie 2001 (written by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke) where HAL, a computer so smart that it becomes sentient, decides that that only way to really protect a manned mission of a spaceship to the planet Jupiter is to kill all the humans on board the spaceship. The crew's humanity HAL decides is just too big a risk to the mission that HAL is charged (by its human programmers) to protect.
I watched a sunset
on the beach at the ocean
The sun touched the horizon
one quarter, one half
Bright, blazing red-orange clouds
Almost down; the sky now pink
Then it dawned on me
I was really observing
our mighty planet spinning
My mind blew gently
in the eternal present
the day I saw the earth move
*The rotation speed of the earth is 1038 mph at the equator
Lord, you turned the wheels of the galaxies,
You know what makes the planets spin.
You set the universe in motion,
And yet, you care for mortal man.
By your hands, you set the atoms dancing,
And keep the great currents circling in the sea.
You call all the stars by their names, O Lord,
And yet you care for me.
Lord, you have measured the waters,
In the hollow of your hand.
You make the clouds your chariot,
And yet, you care for mortal man.
You sit upon the circle of the Earth,
And stretch the heavens as a curtain we can see.
You walk on the wings of the wind, O Lord,
And yet, you care for me.