Best Portend Poems
The.isolated moon in far arc of her epogee,
As she searches Earth's surface in cold winter's hemisphere,
She bites her tongue of protest of what she will never be,
And throws sharp knives of jealousy into the atmosphere.
In the cold moon's distant musings, her echoes can't be heard,
And but for the crunch of snow, silence waits for morning sun.
A blizzard has filled a reservoir, and so needs prepared,
Yet moon added sparkly diamonds to selfish pleasure's run.
The winter moon shivers with knowledge that her days will end,
And a yellow moon will rise during six months of the year.
The anguished, tormented moon whose dark murmurs now portend,
She will vanquish the yellow moon, and once more reappear.
Above, the shrill of neon lights portend
a promise of new love in garish hues,
but for a broken life yet on the mend
the darkness of the scape brings only views
of solitude when memory accrues
as strangers unimpassioned eyes peruse.
The music wafts from grottoes down below,
blue jazz and candles in a shadowed room,
while up here floodlights cast necrotic glow
as wind gusts and the drops of rain resume.
Cold luminance is all that they exhume
just as my mind expects a rose to bloom.
Your recent death keeps looping in my mind,
no passing faces in the crowd are yours.
I walk the night, imagine you in kind
emerging through the uninviting doors
like Cathy to go dancing on the moors.
I rush beneath an eave as now it pours,
your white reflection standing in the rain,
come back to haunt the neon night again.
1/23/18
Autumn's desires
Your amber-umber eyes, penetrate me
as saffron sun sets on faces, ashen
Your suspicious mind raves with jealousy
as pumpkin winds chill our summers passion
your love transitions to winter's fashion.
Fire and ice keep flowing through your bold veins
Wild imaginations portend cold rains.
I dream of your ruby-red crimson lips
my mind won't rest until you have returned
the touches from your ginger fingertips
we can rebuild the bridges that have burned,
then, we will laugh at all the lessons learned
I think of your flowing cinnamon hair
mem'ries of our home, and you being there.
John Derek Hamilton
September 16,2017
there is no hush...when silent dreams can scream
and echo through the haze yesterdays
just like the thoughts that float upon a stream
are lost in lackadaisical malaise
no peace within this torrid kind of blue
- horizons that portend more of the same
then taunt with hints of calm where wishes flew
to where they hide - and no one has a name
a sultry sax weeps like the sallow trees
as tickled keys stall on a lazy chord -
a cloud sails through blown by a trumpet's breeze
and patience snares its improvised reward
all tangled in a thought that never ends
- that solo break where sanity pretends
Satan in my bowels
All I can say is 'ow'
Cringing and churning
My biscuits are burning
I’m praying for relief
Some sort of lanolin leaf
Wondering why I wasn’t born
Before the devil had horns
Squatting in the bush
Mourning my tortured tush
Asking when trees portend
Charmin is our friend
So if you hear me cry
Shouting Jalapenos must die
Remember that camping is fun
Except when nature’s on the run
Embers and snowflakes, fire and ice;
Opposites joined in many ways.
Embers from fire, snowflakes from ice;
Both can portend the end of days.
Ozone depletes, sunrays pierce through;
Fires scorch Earth- hot embers sear rifts.
Smog fills the sky- sunrays are blocked.
Ice glazes earth, snowflakes build drifts.
Embers and snowflakes, fire and ice;
Which ending for us will it be?
Humans of Earth, turn a blind eye
Forgetting that we hold the key.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Desire and hatred, fire and ice,
Opposites joined in many ways;
Fire fuels desire, and ice molds hate;
Both can portend the end of days.
Desires for gain, passions go wild
To dictate command of the world.
Ice fills the veins of those who hate.
Explosions of anger unfurled.
Desire and hatred, fire and ice-
Which ending for us will it be?
Humans of Earth, turn a blind eye;
Forgetting that we hold the key.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Fire and ice, the end of days-
Embers and snowflakes, desire, hate;
Opposites joined in many ways.
We, end of our world, may create.
The blood and lapis daylight sets
in ether. How the mind resets
brutality of winter chill
with February's codicil;
what gossamer a dream begets.
I hear the crickets in the dark,
their clicking takes up where the lark
has been. The flagrant marigolds
have huddled into twilight's folds,
on sanguine nightfall to embark.
The eastern zephyrs fall and rise
with rapid movement of my eyes
and echo whispers midnight makes
of blood white trails on moonlit lakes.
In silhouette I recognize
a dogwood, though can only sense
its glowing coral consequence.
The blossoms tell me they comprise
sweet spawn of sun rays in disguise
and capture all my heartbeats hence.
Now honeysuckle is entwined
on crisscrossed pathways of my mind
with jasmine in a potpourri
to conjure shamrock reverie
that leaves the pewter scape behind.
Around the lambent dogwood tree
alone upon that verdant lea
buds can prosper, bees will hum.
As though seduced by opium
I greet a vista I can't see,
at least not quite. I know it's there
and feel the dogwood everywhere,
behind me, flanking left and right,
an omnipresence in the night,
like answers to unconscious prayer.
Now high upon a clovered scarp
the tree is standing clear and sharp.
In silence I see restless blooms
play music that my ear assumes
is chiming dulcet as a harp.
Such Efflorescent star bursts splay
like windmills on a gusty day
that in ebullience do portend
a vibrance that will never end
and all my reticence allay.
In waking to a winter storm
that's February's gelid norm
I long still for my fulgid tree,
resplendence that surrounded me,
but only meet a turbid swarm.
I rise and pull back hermit drapes
to see the torrid flurries traipse,
yet through the chaos can discern
the leafless frame for which I yearn
beyond the window storming scrapes.
The dogwood stands just as before
unclad upon the icy moor
with nascent berries undeterred
as though through humble verse and word
like daylight through an unclosed door.
2/23/18
Strength Thru Adversity
Gregory R. Barden
TEMPEST
Twin limestone tors thrust up through valley floor
Like isles or icebergs in a calm flat sea
Deep green save where shear rock can hold no spore
To spawn in fecund niche a vine or tree
Midday and all is calm untroubled, still
In tactile heat, all movement paused, restricted
No hint of ought that might disturb our will
A landscape placid, as in paint depicted
But look to sky the seeds of change are sown
There, signs portend a transformation near
Those gentle clouds mere cumuli have grown
To cumulonimbus, thrust t'ward stratosphere
And therein is enormous might enclosed
Stored energy, that soon must be released
Unleashing primal power unopposed
The laws of Nature never to be breached
Now lightning flickers o'er far mountain peaks
Faint thunder echoes round steep valley walls
The breeze accelerates and chills to speak
A warning of the fast approaching squall
The charge in air: has swallows energised
To move from circling low ‘tween tree and house
Their flight plans now are recklessly revised
To helix soaring t'ward the threatening clouds
A steady light drum roll on roofs - sound train
Starts gently then crescendo ends the prelude
Announcing clear the now impending rain
Prodigious splashes transformed to a deluge
The waves of rain traverse our panorama
Gauze curtains drawn by cosmic stage hand's might
Relentless, recasting features as of dark drama
Familiar scenes are shrouded, hid from sight
Now random electric arcs flare bleak view scanned
Cacophony of thunder rules all sound
Awesome darkness and confusion on the land
All visual anchors cast in shade spellbound
But in this world each cycle must be ended
Perhaps reverse events that had us unmoored
The drama, soon is played out and expended
Peace, light and order gradually restored
Known reference points can once again be seen
The twin rock peaks come clear through rain-washed air
Clouds make fine-spun white wraps for hills now green
We're reassured by prospects known and fair
Is this chronicle an allegoric tale
Of human life not granted free of strife
Would we choose bland existence without travail
Or fain confront the magnificent storms of life
And so legend goes, of a daisy, not a rose
of a love to behold that quickly grew cold
Etched in regret, Daisy ponders in a fret
should he return, for him would she yearn
One eve a sweet miss was given her first kiss
her heart took to flight on that moonlit night
He lured her with smiles using wicked wiles
Promised to be true in words he misconstrue
In Spring's lush bowers he gave her flowers
She was crazy about the ones called 'daisy'
He gave her a bouquet each and every day
With loving care he twined them in her hair
Near Summer's end came signs of portend
Her lover disappeared, so then she feared
He played her false with each sensual waltz
they had ever shared, pretending he cared
Legend is hazy, but it's said that each daisy
turned a shade of blue, of the deepest hue
That Summer it snowed and her tears flowed
salty crystals froze because of love's throes
Rejection brought pangs so now there hangs
a canvas of art, painted by her broken heart
Blue daisies in a vase, hung above the fireplace
where fire never burned, once love was spurned
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
June 17th, 2017
Blue Daisy Contest
Sponsor: Mystic Rose
If we could look into the seeds of time,
and say which grain will grow and which will not,
we would arrange our affairs defiantly
in the face of current opposition.
If a thought should geminate and flourish
in the barren soil of the status quo,
it would likely be by sheer providence
that ideas would come to fruition.
Our dreams, our very imagination,
are what keep our momentum in this world.
Sans the prospect of incremental feats,
we would not strive to attain excellence.
If the portent of riches entices us,
would we forsake every value system
to attain the pinnacle of success?
No one could portend the foreordained path.
Mend,
my friend…
Please, transcend.
Begin to bend…
with courage, defend
soul’s ache for Love to spend.
Free your heart; let arms extend
around this earth and back again!
Profits portend Divine dividend!
~*~*~*~*~
Rhyming Nonet written for contest.
Whoops! Contest was full....
Still, thought I'd post ;)
11/12/19
O’ to fade! To pass! To rest! To die!
To ponder, to listen
and not forebode -
you were as a thresher to the chaff
and the driven wind
that winnowed.
The thunderclap of Tawhiri raging
silence not a loving
fool’s complaint,
nor portend for whom the bell tolls
when the echoes
of time grow faint
My heart alas divided against itself
knows not what to say
or what to feel,
and with ponderous words recited
I return your resting
place to kneel.
Some final absolutions shared alone -
cold black rain upon
my brow and cuff.
Judge not a froward son - I am who
I am, and have
been judged enough
We are but the quick and the dead,
and just or unjust
no keeper of time.
O tell, what sin was imputed to you?
What concealed divine
law or crime?
And what burden so dark the lamps
of Heaven and Earth
burn less bright?
I ask do we in this realm find peace
or is death’s victory
our only respite?
Only in beds of posthumous sleep
will end my
unspoken confessions.
Nay, I no longer exhume the past -
it rebukes all my
searching questions.
From umbilical dawn to end of days
I failed you - I added
unto your woe.
In life and death there comes a time
when to hold on
and when to let go
May your life and times early passed
live on in the heart
that lives in me,
for in all the silent screams below
is my own howl
in my own vanity.
As I pen my verse the charcoal sky
again rumbles softly
over a distant knell.
No loss, no sorrow, no love unwept
can unring that
fearful tolling bell
Written: July 1991
Everybody’s seen it
And discussed it to no end,
Wondering what repercussions
It may yet portend.
But to have a welcome chuckle,
Go check out James Corden’s song.
If will guarantee a grin and likely,
You will sing along.
For the writer took the Bruno tune,
Which most of us now know,
And just substituted Jada,
Making it so apropos.
How it blows my mind when talent
Takes an item in the news
And creates a little magic,
Well-deserving of our views.
Awaiting Autumn
By end of August, leaves curl on the trees
as hues of brown and yellow catch our eye.
While shades of green fade in degrees,
we know September's cooler days imply
it's time our Summer bids goodbye.
Though Summer warmth may overflow,
September will end slowly to portend
more brilliance added to the glow.
To richly paint the landscapes it will send
October in to stir the Autumn blend.
Cool crispness comes to fill the air,
makes us aware October will resume
progressing well with Autumn's flair.
Aromas from bonfires and orchards loom...
replacing fading scents of Summer's bloom.
September 8, 2018
Contest: Autumn
Sponsor: Francine Roberts
Form: Quintain
The Constellations, intricate designs,
Displayed across the sky,
Truly show intelligence,
And a practiced eye.
Not just scattered randomly,
But very carefully balanced,
Forming systems all their own,
Not happening by chance.
Extreme precision, mathematics,
Portend another being,
Enormous power to create,
A solar system teeming,
With life and beauty everywhere.
Nature at it's best,
Proves to us that God exists,
And that we're amply blessed.