Best Poignancy Poems
When imbalance of life churns hapless poignancy
And the zephyr of inequities breezes melancholy
Dissonance reverberates echoing pathos of grief
Seeking exaltation within metaphysical profundity
As hushed posture conjures up humbling catharsis,
Leaning in quietude, questing paranormal vitality,
Liberating from bounds of mundane, the ordinary,
Energizing calming bliss of unfamiliar, extrasensory.
Mortal soul steadily crosses limits of understanding
Reaching deep into unknown, unexplored territory,
Daring to search for knowledge in mystical obscurity
Pursuing enlightenment from supernatural intrigue,
Discovering newfound acuity blossoming internally
Adulating freedom of shedding narrow boundaries
Gaining divine wisdom, postulating own doctrines,
Comprehending missives in blissfulness of sagacity.
As laments mellow in teachings of superior intellect
And bawl of distraught soothes in heavenly solace
Finding ambrosial tranquility in endearing calmness,
Physiological longings amiably, peacefully dissipate
And gradually soul enlightens, unafraid of mortality,
Yearning for permanence of purposeful inviolability,
Meaningful beyond self, detaching from materiality,
Synchronizing harmoniously in idyllic, placid sanctity.
January 21, 2022
Placed 1st: This or That, Vol 9 Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Edward Ibeh
Title chosen: Transcendence
Categories:
poignancy, inspirational, introspection, peace,
Form:
Verse
Tears of the past invoke frozen footprints
When fears rekindle flares of dire misery
Feeling the ache, straining blood streams
As wrinkles pop up swelling deep worries,
Holding dialogue with sustained poverty
Attempting to traverse shuttered streets--
Bent, but not broken, in grip of tragedies
Trapped in the pathos of agonizing grief
Building escape still, flexing meager means.
When in my solitude, these images I’ve seen
Awaken me hauntingly in frightening dreams,
Grudgingly I go there, where I used to be
And see a child deep in hapless poignancy
Bleeding profusely from veins melancholy
Revisiting relentlessly orphaned memories.
Time unconsciously releases those feelings
When ode to new morn happy robin sings
As sun rises gleefully from deep blue seas
And life illuminates in golden hued beams
Oscillating winds, gleaming through trees,
And I walk with pride on the bridges I built
And thank my bright stars that lit my path
Twinkling diligently to show me the light
When obscure was the face of my dark night.
Silhouettes of yesteryear are purging now
Cleansing dread with vibrancy of spring
And jitters of nightmares in aspiring dreams
Seeing new growth in parched winter land
Like flowers rise through remains of ashes
Confronting what was, with what could be.
I have staged my play to my own melodies
And the rhythms I set to my own music
No longer evoke the prompt life gave me
As I write new chapters, create new scenes
I’m planning the ending as I wish to see it:
The story that was past, my future won’t be.
December 7, 2020
Placed 1st: Catharsis poetry contest by Silent One
Categories:
poignancy, deep, emotions, endurance, feelings,
Form:
Verse
A fitting anthem for
an introvert like me-
Simon & Garfunkel's
scrumptious harmony
of “I Am A Rock”
spoke oodles to me
in its painful poignancy
bouncing buoyantly
on declarations
of independency
needing no one
utterly free
encased in fortress castle
with books and poetry
I was a rock, an island
a party of three
just I, Myself, and Me
Until he came along
and proved me somewhat wrong
as icy waters receded
I found that he was needed
an “island” no more-
I became a sort-of peninsula
with somewhat rocky shores
Yet, sometimes I still hum it
or belt it right out loud
“I Am A Rock”
ever my anthem
away from the peopled crowds!
Categories:
poignancy, feelings, how i feel,
Form:
Free verse
O ever changing sky, blue-gray and maudlin
your mood and unsettled ways, meld with mine.
Clouds seem but blemishes upon horizons
as weary as the soot smudged cheeks of urchins.
Bruised in hues at once fresh with pain and longing,
not yet healed by the riper rise of next day’s bloom.
O ever changing sky, the nascent forest’s buds.
Its lashes linger in the purple poignancy of dusk
and whip thy brow with thrashing maple limbs.
Eyeless vault of heaven cry for me, release my plight
erase with thy wonders this tattered visage so forlorn.
The sky of night holds many jewels of delight.
O ever changing sky, clear to crisper shades of sapphire,
ping with shooting stars and glowing diadems of light.
Let lavender blue soften my sorrows for I like Merope*
need Orion’s might to lift my heartache, to point the way.
May thy constant rebirth give hope which melds with mine
and brings a beauty brighter than your Venus** to the day.
*Merope was Orion’s star crossed lover.
**Venus is the Goddess of Love and the Morning Star
Categories:
poignancy, inspirational, life, nature,
Form:
Pastoral
The Face of Hope
The face of hope never masquerades in forlorn visages
Towering above spiraling pits in the dark midnight of essence
Breaks disingenuous chains of nightmare’s clutches
In bleak mansions of the dark moon to warm their hearths
Refusing to prostitute possibility
With poignancy that probes lost footsteps trying to hold onto
Perfect moments of saline life support
Steps in to shine with opportunities’ bright smile
Refuses to accept the suicide of love
On rocks of the torn heart’s tragedy
Or see unscalable opaque obstacles
Or wear the mask of homeless helplessness
Discarding pity’s piercing banshee sneer
Fate’s cynical demand to fulfill obtuse fate
The face of hope refuses to wear desolate –
Or a God forsaken destiny -
Bereft of moonlight squeezing between
Abandoned footprints of dreams
Smothered by smog
A single shaft of illumination – a cloak protecting fragile insight
Never bewitched by night’s dead space,
Wearing victory’s luminosity of enduring promise,
Vanquishing a taunting laughter of ridicule
To break down anxiety’s imagined walls
Surrounding the paradise of foolishness
With dawning reveries of one bright star.
Abiding in eternal covenant
The face of hope never masquerades in forlorn visages.
5-6-21
Contest: This or That
Sponsor: Edward Ibeh
Categories:
poignancy, hope,
Form:
Free verse
In the dampness of those unslept sheets I find my solace
between the linear moments when you held my breath
and the last time we said goodbye:
Awakened by the thunder every calm fiber
goes dormant as I toss and turn
searching for the memory of your warm body
The rain slips easily from glass to ledge
and so do my tears;
Life with all its poignancy, cannot reach me here
beneath thick blankets of denial.
As I pretend the night away death does not exist,
nor does it live here, anymore
In the dampness of those unslept sheets I find my solace
through poetry in flight,
although I leave it to the angels,
to whisper you, goodnight !
Categories:
poignancy, i miss you,
Form:
Free verse
City streets spew fire on sunburnt July day.
Dabbing sweat from brow, I meld into paved sea.
Mick cries out "Angie" from quaint corner café;
slowing steps, I search his stripped-bare poignancy.
Strangers strut in sync with street’s allegro beat.
Pigeons peck concrete, hungry coos offbeat.
Sullen faces fall, diverting weary eyes.
Souls emit loneliness lost in sad goodbyes.
Exhaust squeezes my chest with each poisoned breath;
choking on my tears, I smell acrid deceit.
Amid spinning wheels, a stranger till my death.
On wide city streets, crowds rush by in defeat.
A restless, hazy sun sinks to moonless night.
Senses become keen with city’s fading light.
Midnight hour comes to call, taunting my dark heart.
Angel wings span streets as nameless child departs.
Categories:
poignancy, city, lonely,
Form:
Rispetto
O' Salty tear, a mere clear drop that you are
You've emerged for a million different reasons
many of which only the shedder knows
for you've emerged in all seasons.
The season of sadness or reason of joy
the tears of grief and the tears of joy
You and your unalloyed saline taste
thou art' but an emotional waste.
O'Salty tear each time you drop into oblivion
why not vanish away with your shedder's grief?
I tell you O' tear if you're to take my opinion
oughtn't you grant your shedder full relief?
Ah but thou art' a ceaseless ocean in reserve and store
No one can be sure, he'll cry no more
When you trickle down those sad upturned lips
we know destiny perhaps made those painful slips!
You are the raindrops of a grief-clouded heart
You do emerge when two lovers have to part
Help your shedder turn over a new leaf
so you're associated less with grief.
I've watched many a jilted lover
weep all alone by the sea-side most sorrowfully
and watched tears glide down noses or pince-nez
as their salty tears merged into the salty sea.
O' Salty tear but it's time you learnt to wash away
all and any poignancy from your shedder's heart
and be such a buddy who never wishes to meet again
the tearful shedder from whom you depart!
Would an ocean form created by ditched lovers
if someone collected their fallen tears?
Categories:
poignancy, sorrow,
Form:
Quatorzain
Oh the humanity
the humanity
Oh spare me the grief
thy fake tears
woe is me, mentality
syrupy behaviour
Munchausen propensity
it sticks between my teeth
Oh spare me the pathos
ham acting baloney
Phoney and pathetic
pennyroyal tea fatigue
Histrionic vagaries
self righteous piety
Oh spare me the maudlin
attention seeking thievery
Drowning in poignancy
sentimental molasses
Throw yourself to the floor
overdosing in twee
Oh spare me forever
stomach churning violins
emotional instability
Wallowing in saccharine
exaggerated sob stories
But most of all
the absence of apology
Sentimentality Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Julia Ward
25/05/22
Categories:
poignancy, anti bullying, mental illness,
Form:
Free verse
Rainbow - hues of love's presence
Drizzles of warmth and joy
Contentment of heart
Calming the ragged edge
Leavening excitement
Of all but the real
Circle's half - is subtly whole
Seen in a flash- lighting the soul
Remnants of delight's flight lingering
Poignancy wraps tightly
Our ode to love's stanza
Ribbons of the misty arc- adorn the day
Categories:
poignancy, love
Form:
Old Death is a scar,
an empty eye socket, a lost limb.
It has been grieved and we leave it alone
most of the time except on long drives
or sleepless nights.
New Death is a police siren behind you,
a baby crying for you in the night
in a house on fire.
New Death is bright red.
Old Death is brown.
We can pick it up and put it down.
New Death picks us up and
puts us down when it wants to.
New Death is a mugger in an alley
on your way home.
Leather jacket, whiskey breath,
fear smell, switch blade at your throat.
That's New Death.
It mugs you and steals your life
for years or forever.
Old Death is a tight uniform you wore,
you try it on once in a while.
You were drafted in the Regiment of Pain.
It doesn't fit, you don't wear it
but you will never be the same again.
You have your memories at that private war with Death.
You are a veteran now.
But the Private Pain mellows into General Acceptance
and the poignancy turns to peace
and all New Death will lose it's sting
with time and God's help forever.
Categories:
poignancy, death, faith, loss, nostalgia,
Form:
Free verse
5/7/2025
Twilight shimmers, in the purple poignancy at the birthing of our auspicious joyful Spring.
Let us love with abandon, dearest one, fragranced by the lilacs’ perfumed sweet timing!
Categories:
poignancy, imagery, love, moon,
Form:
Couplet
Jasmine Tea and Poignancy
San Francisco and your soul's appeal.
Sitting in that Japanese Tea Garden.
You, whispering the readings of Lao Tzu.
Surrounded by the afternoon fog embracing
us,so!
Swans swirled, serenely.
Enchanting, endless, eucalyptus leaves,oh!
We drank heavenly,hot jasmine tea.
And quietly wept over the child we lost.
To the prism of eternity.
Fog and tears mixed silently.
December 22, 2019
Categories:
poignancy, feelings, imagery, loss, soulmate,
Form:
Blank verse
Sound that brings
Back memories
Sounds that make
One cry
…From an ol’ music box…
Sound that tears
Tears from one’s eyes
And wrenches forth
Deep sighs
…Nothing quite like an ol’ music box…
No, nothing says poignancy
More so…
than does the silken notes
That softly flow
…From a music box…
That plays ‘Lullaby
And Good Night’
And tinkles down
E’er so slowly
Til wound again
…Up tight…
Categories:
poignancy, childhood, emotions, feelings, music,
Form:
Ode
Boisterous wind full the earth
The moon rises like a giant pearl
Against a wall of black satin
How harsh this callous world can be
Noises of small creatures making this
Ancient world seem not so cruel
Green eyes full of emotion and fear
Hunting and being hunted
Beasts with a song like a dirge
Filled with pain and enigma of life
The weeping soul of odious poignancy
Untamed life of the meek wolf
Let them live in peace for tonight
The sun bringing them an aurora
Of colors into the lonely sky
The ending of an old night and
The beginning of a new day
Here they walk the walk of life
Nalanti Goosen©2012
All rights reserved
Categories:
poignancy, animals, nature, world,
Form:
Free verse