Best Plumbed Poems
MY FATHER'S GENTLE HANDS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I remember my father’s hands as a plumber’s hands—fiercely strong, calloused, rough, knuckle-battered, and dirty after a long-day’s work. Those hands shoveled; unclogged drains and toilets; repaired leaks; and installed pipes, commodes, and bathtubs. Those hands provided.
I remember my father’s hands as a fisherman’s hands—perfectly patient, tenacious, self-confident, and unwavering as he held his fishing line and lure stabile, waiting for a fish to take the bait. “Keep your hands steady. Stay focused,” he prompted me when I asked him to teach me how to fish from his flat-bottom boat. Those hands fished longer than they ‘plumbed,’ rarely missing an opportunity to commune with nature, seldom losing a fish. Those hands fed.
I remember my father’s hands as a treasure hunter’s hands—firm, certain, and capable, listening intently to his metal detector’s tones learning to discriminate the sound a good coin makes compared to the choppy, broken sound a junk target makes. Those hands searched, discriminated, and found soulful answers to life’s complex questions and dilemmas.
I remember my father’s hands as gentle healing hands—kind and comforting as he wiped away the tears that sometimes streamed down my face. Without saying a word, those hands loved, consoled, and encouraged—always righting my world.
I remember my father’s hands—full of strength and hope as he took my trembling hands in his. Those hands gave me courage—the courage to reach up in search of everything impossible, leaving me with the unbridled sense that to do anything less was the greatest impossibility of all. Even now whenever I need courage, I can feel his hand around mine helping me to feel invincible once again.
In my mind’s eye, I often see my father’s hands—every line and every wrinkle. They told a story about the kind of man he was. I’ll remember my father’s hands for the remainder of my life. I’m grateful for him, for his enduring spirit and presence, which continues to grace my life despite his passing some years ago.
Dad's hands tell a tale
they did countless loving things
they touched and guided
they shaped and molded
they encouraged me to reach
they held the stars in place
they held rising sun
they sought deep understanding
they chased lonely moon
Categories:
plumbed, 12th grade, dad, father,
Form:
Haibun
She’d kissed a lot of boys, and some kissed great,
but few of those guys understood romance.
She thought she knew what kissing style was best,
but she had not yet met the boy from France!
Into her life one day he sauntered in.
His smile was soft, his eyes as dark as coal.
She thrilled to feel his fingers on her skin
as with his gaze he deeply plumbed her soul.
When their lips touched, she melted into him.
It was a kiss like none she’d known before.
With happiness she filled up to the brim.
The young man was so easy to adore!
Like things most precious, that smooth, tender kiss
was part of Anna’s youth – a fleeting bliss.
Aug. 26, 2021
For the Anna And The French Kiss Poetry Contest of Mystic Rose Rose
Categories:
plumbed, kiss,
Form:
Sonnet
Is Friendship Just a Delusional Fiction?
Is friendship a lifeboat that floats on convenience?
Can we all divorce who we like with a gesture
that’s less than a wave on a looking glass seascape,
ignore too, the wreckage of dreams that waves scuttle,
consigned to obscurity absent a tombstone,
now fodder for lies (Christ’s saints still love their brothers)?
Man’s ‘truth’ proves flawed compass and ‘sin’ haunts earth’s wheelhouse,
as Science fills mainsails, God’s Ark laps Truth’s oceans!
Some fools think strict planning’s the pearl of all notions,
the wisest of husbands intimidates frail spouse,
views women and children just chattel that bothers,
like friends (a close second) whose wild seeds they’ve not sown.
Control is the issue; dictators aren’t subtle
(a friend who’s not under your thumb can’t be shipshape)!
Yes, freedom and friendship’s an unhealthy mixture
for all the enslaved must kowtow to your brilliance.
Lord, let me own friends who own freedom to doubt me,
who own I’ve the freedom to doubt them in concert,
(our music still blends as soul’s melody’s fragrance,
impinges on Hearing, a flavored denouement),
find women and men friends who love I write poems
that skip on mind’s pond like a pebble, or stone-like,
touch depths that no rhyme’s plumbed, just God’s Love could meter,
source undersea landslide of epic proportion.
May God bless my humor though few think I’m funny;
send rain to help cool me though I’m a weak convert!
Invisible, God does not dote on appearance,
His Grace for the sinner’s a sign of rapprochement
though few may see me to have worth His Grace welcomes.
Should Love a God offers be harsh as the Third Reich?
Provisioned for life, what world could be sweeter?
Not friending who friends you, Love’s close to abortion.
Brian Johnston
26th of January in 2021
Categories:
plumbed, friendship love, life,
Form:
Rhyme
"Love is the strongest force in the universe."
Can this statement be proven true?
If I were to begin a search
And write down a hypothesis
What parameters should I observe?
Can love be seen under a microscope?
Can its depths be plumbed by a rope?
Can its mass be balanced on a scale,
Or its weight detected by a spring?
If only I can find these numbers,
Will I finally understand…?
Why so many courtship end in disaster
Why friendship can fall apart
If love is so powerful
Then why does it seem so frail?
So much of the cosmos is cold and empty space
Like the void within our souls
That love can’t seem to fill
Still, my heart remains restless
Unwilling to make the conclusion
That love is but vain platitudes
That the universe is all there is…
So much of the cosmos is but cold and empty space
But gossamer threads hold the planets in their place
The radiant orbs move in harmony
To weave cosmic melodies
And though the song of the celestial spheres
Are oft too far to hear
A kindred anthem streams
Oft too close to see
So I listen to the quantum hymn
To study this elementary romance
The force so strong it could subdue
The natural repulsions within the heart of matter
And the bonds forged by the orbital motions
Which construct our terrestrial frames
I know now that even in my utmost lonesome
Atomic serenades reverberate deep within
Forever reaching out for a kin
Vast, cosmic energies is unleashed
When elements finally unite
And when I contemplate these forces sublime
They almost seem divine
"Love is the strongest force in the universe."
I think I am beginning to see
How that statement could be true
Love is the seam that binds all kinds of matter
And that love is three in one
Categories:
plumbed, analogy, humanity, nature, philosophy,
Form:
Free verse
Tender
emerald realm ...
lungs of the earth
to span a continent, wide -
jade labyrinth of wonder and mystery.
Like a serpent, its watery namesake winds and slithers,
the strength of its back, untested,
colors and creatures of limitless kind and contingency,
peoples yet untouched by civilization,
and drowned in an ocean of foliage ...
its bounding abyss barely plumbed,
extraordinary species, as uncounted as counted,
and a tangle so snarled ...
that it hisses only at the grand Atlantic,
its mighty meandering coaxed to current and tide.
Beast of brute and beauty,
begotten of the Andes and the heavens, high -
a world begs your precious breath
and bold, boundless breadth ...
dangerous and delicate,
wondrous and wild,
untamed ...
tender.
~ 1st Place ~ in the "Wild Country" Poetry Contest, Julia Ward, Judge & Sponsor.
~ Honorable Mention ~ in the "Strand Pick A, Any Theme, Any Form" Poetry Contest, Brian Strand, Judge & Sponsor.
Categories:
plumbed, animal, appreciation, metaphor, nature,
Form:
Free verse
For my sins and everything I ever did or sought to be,
Contempt and dying to be clever in unfathomed pools of sadness,
I plumbed each depth and splashed the ether, oscillated shakily,
Strapped to dark beliefs and definitions, all I gleaned of me was badness.
In my heart I hoarded secrets, guarded, gloated jealously,
Something touched quiescent feelings, split the stone upon the grave;
Resurrected dead ambitions with a Lazarus decree
And in doing so, in side-effect, unearthed a soul to save.
You did nothing of importance, so you reckoned pensively,
But if not for you, at close of play, I would have stayed the same;
Doing penance, going nowhere, shooting blanks haphazardly
In a thermos of reflection with nowhere to lay the blame.
In the dusky tones of evensong a plaintive melody
Croons through mazes in my image and exalts together days;
So perhaps, by your sweet process, you brought out the best in me,
And therein must lie the truth, that what we had has worked both ways.
Categories:
plumbed, introspection, life, loss, lost
Form:
Verse
...with gratitude to an incomparable artist
Your vision is a beacon
gracing us with golden sheen,
though your heart was dark and heavy
with redemption rarely seen.
You plumbed the probabilities
of faithlessness and fear,
you challenged life's inequities
and often with a tear
of sadness in your dream-dimm'd eyes
and shades of anguish too,
this world was never meant
for one as beautiful as you.
Categories:
plumbed, dedication
Form:
Quatrain
It is always there,
never quite within range
where the mind can snare
some shadowy form, or shape
an outline and hold it long enough
to name.
It waits for the sun to go down
and the evening to draw in
like a taken breath when it comes
closer and nestles into what warmth
lingers there under the folds
of a gathered dark.
Sometimes when I am off
elsewhere and far away in thought,
I am sure it slips inside my head
and enters where memories are,
trying on a face, posing
in some familiar scene,
rummaging through what a child
left there long ago as if
it was searching for itself.
And there are mornings
when waking I sense its presence
in the dissolving residue of a dream,
a small footprint left on that
shore between awareness and sleep,
an indent, a scooped out hole
where something broken
took refuge and sought comfort
in being near.
There are dark times
when it almost becomes
a plumbed in part of me,
each bunkered in our own
adjoining rooms, held apart
by a wall neither of us
want to breach. We have spent
a good part of our lives here,
holding onto what should be set free,
fearing that if we did, one of us
would cease to be.
Categories:
plumbed, eve, self,
Form:
Free verse
words form in a flurry
bleeding saccharine too too much
all the crushed kaleidoscope colours
signature pastels and sparkling vibrants,
a tenderfoot cherry, with little of life yet to go by,
still art, that one is full to the brim with stitched up wisdom,
bleeds like watercolours across canvas melting messy hearts like chocolate,
la Ingénue’s cup overfloweth with abortions of sugary poésies
plumbed ripe and read, dripping black currents
legs wrapped around broomsticks of diamonds
Candide Diderot. ‘24
Categories:
plumbed, allusion, color, muse,
Form:
Free verse
Nothing but the truth darling Noor,
My heart is not in the look up anymore,
My Heart will never suffer no more,
My heart was like a desert floor,
So empty, so boring, no trees or ore.
*****
But after finding you,
Heartily words keep pouring out of my soul,
Miles of smiles, loads of kisses
And a real purpose of life and goal,
Completeness, awesomeness I FEEL NOW,
*****
You taught me without you knowing,
That Love never die.
You taught me, love is an ocean,
Whose depths cannot be plumbed.
Categories:
plumbed, family, fantasy, love,
Form:
ABC
the milky Way
As the moon waxed gibbous
over imitating ponds and lakes,
the night sky’s pearly necklace,
of milk which no thirst will slake -
draws a line of human history -
intrigue leading to discovery,
a depth to be plumbed,
as the human mind pondered
and thought – deduced!
and as science brought the stars so near -
to be seen and studied and mapped,
the human mind lost focus here
on a vague randomness, adapt
how sad, the mind of humankind;
a mind with so much potential!
how sad that the clearer it sees
the more it loses perspective!
Categories:
plumbed, irony, science, perspective,
Form:
Dramatic Verse
NOSECANDY SNOW
crack white
mojoblow
night flight
nosecandy
snow
photographic
eye chambers
capture it all
seizure lights
rainbow walls
nerves and veins
plumbed too raw
doubledecho voices
stealing authenticity
shredding shades of sanity
Ferris wheels and Carousals
motion sick candy stick
black bile rises thick
ground navigates a
tidal slosh of
rise and fall
quartz stars hang no more
formation sunk in
twin and triplet
curtain calls
shut-eyed nightmare curses
all spinning out of sync
roll the ground under feet
red reels running rampant
blood vivid dances curtsey
their orchestrated fury
veinbulging
lineblurring
overused tracks
skulls deafening
cracks dazzle then……
pass to shaded faint
starshards take aim
shooting placid petals
in the face of
saving grace
the hate, the sweat, the shakes
take place
insects fall into corners neatly
voices fade away completely
© Kim van Breda—23 September 2015
Categories:
plumbed, addiction,
Form:
Free verse
A Pity-Pillow So Comfy
Placed & Plumped Consolingly
It Is Plush & Puffed With Feeling Sad
and Sulking Sorrowfully
Upon Hues of Blue & Charcoal-Lead
I Heavily Lowered My Bowed Head
As My Pity-Pillow's Pushy-Perfume
Overwhelmed My Canopy Bed
Silken-Sorrow, It Softly Embraced
Trimmed In Night's Deep Shadow-Lace
My Pity-Pillow Took Teardrops' Taste
& Swallowed & Soaked - Every Toss-Turn-Trace
Oh, Pity-Pillow, Pathos-Filled
With Pain's Feathery Thoughts
You Have Plundered Every Pose & Peace! ...
Will Plumbed Depths of Sleep Not Be Caught?
Oh, Pity-Pillow ... Placate This Ill
You Make My Rest - A Bitter Pill !
I Close My Eyes, Only To See
My Sandcastle Dreams ... Spill ...
Still, It Gives Me Morbid Moments
To Indulge In My Misery
To Wail & Wallow & To Welcome
"Lord, Why Me?" and "Woe Is Me!"
Pity-Pillow of Memory Foam
Grasping "Got Cha'!" At Every Groan
Stacked To Decorate My Bed At Home
Since A Crushed-Velvet Spread Was Sewn
And Pity-Pillow's Pretty Case
My Face, Smoothly Covered
Muffled My Cries & My Sad Sighs
and My Life's Laughter, Smothered
and Blocks & Chokes Hope's Last Share
As Stranglehold's Strong! & Getting Somewhere
But Pity-Pillow's Pressure-Scare
Cannot Suffocate My Prayer's Air ...
Outside A Stormy, Half-Closed Window
Rain, Washed The Waves of Weeping Willows
As My Breath Pulsates In Sorrow-Billows
Over and On Past A Pity's Pillow ...
Yet, This Plumped & Prone To Pity, Pillow
Panders To and Pockets Me
Plush & Puffed With A Feeling Sad Story
and It Feels Good - Feeling Pretty Sorry
and If You Have Ever Felt Lain-Low
Upon The Pile of A Pity-Pillow
I Don't Even Have To Explain, You'll Know
How Hard It Is To Let Go
Oh, Pity-Pillow - Now Feel Dejected
For Tonight - You Will Be Rejected
and Stop Feeling Sorry For Yourself!
As Back You Go - To The Linen Shelf
- Watch Out! That's a pity-party, pillow-fight!
Re-Written & Copyrighted ©: 9/21/2013
by: MoonBee Canady
Categories:
plumbed, cry, depression, emotions, feelings,
Form:
Free verse
a schmaltzy little homily to our successful marriage of 32 & a bit years:
In Our time
We have fathomed
the intricacies
of Measurement
and Angle,
conquered the
Everest of
Plastering
& painted whole worlds
Many colours, many times over.
We have
Mastered the
Logic of tiling,
Plumbed the ancient
Mysteries of water,
Sanded, chiselled, nailed
& screwed to make things fit AND stay there!
Only to discover, at the end
Of all this sweat & toil
That the essence of home-building is…
the Level. @
Categories:
plumbed, marriage,
Form:
Prose Poetry
There was once a thin plumber named Stipe
Whose large wife always nagged with a gripe
She was constantly bummed
For each time that he plumbed
He came up inches short with his pipe
Well, he asked and he asked her to hush
Still, the scolding continued to gush
So he fit his wee shlong
With a pipe, extra-long
And the nagging was gone with a flush!
~ 1st Place ~ in the "Limericks" Poetry Contest, Joseph May, Judge & Sponsor.
(Syllables counted at HowManySyllables.com)
Categories:
plumbed, funny, humorous, marriage,
Form:
Limerick