Best Portentous Poems
Before the blast in April's darkened sky. . .
before the electrifying surge of insurgency -
when trucks and tanks were used to block the roads, and
when men and even boys were sought to aid in one malicious purpose. . .
before the rampant slaughter -
the raining of machetes down on flesh and bones
and the cornucopia of corpses left like butchered carcasses
on highways, nearby houses and in churches. . .
before the plundering, the rapes and mutilations
and the exodus of thousands to death-infested camps,
there were whisperings -
insidious and portentous to the ears of the wisely suspicious -
and a voice on the airwaves spewing hate.
Before it all,
there was a brewing of resentment
of a people with a history of poverty and
of transitory freedom and capricious politics.
And through it all, with such grave consternation,
governments debated. . . waited. . . . . . . and waited,
playing with semantics
while thousands dead became the hundred thousand,
and three long months - unrivaled for its number of atrocities -
came to its completion.
Seemingly, peace has been restored
and punishment stingily doled out.
Time moves on . . .
except for half a million
for whom compassion by the world
was spared.
Categories:
portentous, history,
Form:
Free verse
amid the bleats of lambs
and the moo of cows
in a far away manger
a baby, swaddled in rags was born
though despicable in some eyes,
He was the clone of Clones
the one, though Heaven sent,
was the humblest of the humble,
who halved history!
He walked the hills of Judea
with disciples many
healed the sick
met people
lived one among them
until three decades
and three years
the cloud laden sky
suddenly turned dark
the spirit of evil
invaded inside
and outside
premonitions
of portentous occurrence!!
at Gethsemane
the fatal rendezvous,
He sweated blood
as coins tinkled,
Judas through a kiss
betrayed his master
was sentenced
by the marshals of power
and was convicted
Pontius Pilate, washing hands,
absolved himself of his guilt
He tottered to Calvary,
lay on the cross, not by nails
but pinned by love
He poured down love
on those never deserved
to his love, there is no end...
among the hisses of revulsion
and the screams of a vengeful crowd
the tremulous cadence
of an agonized cry
“why hast Thou forsaken me?”
died down…..
did Golgotha’s cliffs echo that cry?
The Father kept ‘an aggressive silence’
The Sun (Son) set at noon
darkness shrouded the Earth
the curtain fell
but on the 3rd day
walked out of the grave
defeating Death and Sin!
Our Lord has Risen….!
to this day
the world
hails this victory!!
______________________
Easter Poetry Contest
Sponsor- Regina McIntosh
Categories:
portentous, blessing, celebration, easter, love,
Form:
Free verse
BLOSSOMS OF SPRING
O fairy wings ~ blossoms of Spring,
The sprinkling seeds flutter downward.
With outstretched rays the sun does sing.
O fairy wings ~ blossoms of Spring.
What portentous hues blest rain brings,
As v e l v e t petals f l i t upward.
O fairy wings ~ blossoms of Spring.
The sprinkling seeds flutter downward.
3/23/2018
Categories:
portentous, flower, spring,
Form:
Triolet
yellow, orange, red, ribbons stretched across…the brilliant sun
the sound of a rooster..,a fiddler on a roof, above Anatevka
where roads are muddy and tradition is a foundation…milky
town comes alive…chop, chop, choppy…and doughy…fish
feathers…generations…heavy bundles and matchmaking
questions, seriously funny with portentous blessing…worship
peace and harmony interrupted by troublemaker, dancing
dragging his boots down muddy or dusty…near chimney
the bow strides across strings, pointedly…dramatically
the sky still in lullaby state, far above all…it sadly waits
God only knows what will happen next…
In shadows, we all, knowingly or in denial
cross the boundaries from the past to tomorrow
in our present, we levitate, our worries like birds
tomorrow will soon be our yesterdays, faraway looks
no one can traverse nor enter, perhaps lean into
but never mine…embrace not…feel sorry for
not their fault…the split of friendship…waving
bye bye, forgetting the punch line
God only knows what happens next
eventually existence ends and if we desire
we may know the why and wherefore
but likely we, gadabouts, will be checking out
the horizon that is His hem filling heaven’s temple
Categories:
portentous, life,
Form:
Free verse
Ah, Red Macaw, you are the pestilence
of impatience
in my day, soaring far, far overhead
squawking and screaming
your face overheated and red
beak too portentous
for sweets, gobbling and demanding
if ever you stop, but the leaves
have no leavening, you’re all feed
and poop and mar my day.
Even though I seek you out
you escape, Scotch-free,
wearing a tartan of betrayal.
Who you seem to be
righter of words, merely mimics
what experience I bring
with my heart and days. I want to
wear flames, gold, drink juices
that drip from the blues of my mouth.
You wear my head where I have shadow.
You wear my flight, straight and narrow
Branching and diving and soaring.
You wear my hunger for the sweetness
of truth, but follow only my path
Where is yours? Where is your course?
Of course. Your caw, screams
Why don’t you speak your own language
Know your own. Your home.
Instead of mine.
Categories:
portentous, animals, pets, travel,
Form:
Free verse
Genial to avoid confrontation
Baseborn kind, complaisant character
A spurious recital, a cheap imitation
Apocryphal mind, and comical creations
Counterfeited Christ
An unholy effusion
Sons of Belial
Clutch arcane knowledge
Esoteric information
Delve into oracular verse.
Deadened faith
Recondite belief denuded denials
Portentous and abstruse
Divested of the truth
Desolate road
Traveled day after day
Seriatim in miles
Strangled in hyperbole
Hypothetical noose
Cheaply loose
Tightening
methodically
Suicidal salvation
Covertly clandestine
Do what art wilt
Deliver the chosen
indoctrinate guilt
Derision to the destined
To learn love over hate
Adoration to inculcate
Imbue their sick lessons.
Categories:
portentous, fire, hyperbole, identity, introspection,
Form:
Free verse
Fickle
The ebb and flow of life;
Fickle is, fickle does, fickle so
Yet struggle we all to know,
Can we really do this?
Love—yeah, Friendship—yeah,
Character, Smart, Dumb, Fun;
Do we know what we want?
Forever fickle can be that
Forever pickle that we laugh at
With Mankind locked in that
Forever maze ever mercurial.
Frazzle, frizzle, razzle are the now;
Dazzle is the How and When?
One who’s portentous in thought,
Whose mind is open but adrift,
May know this How and When.
Shall it be him or her or both?
Just maybe—it’s no one at all!
Gary Bateman, Copyright © All Rights Reserved
(March 28, 2016) (Verse)
Categories:
portentous, allegory, analogy, hyperbole, irony,
Form:
Verse
Almost always, as additional allurements arrive, ask as a Being...
By better borne behests become best Causes ?
Can causes create concise concepts Diligently ?
Do doers do decidedly dumb doldrums Ever ?
Each eek echoes egotistical efforts enduring Familiarity...
Faith fathers forgiveness for flaunting fabled Gifts.
Gasps give great grief, growing gruesome Hatreds...
Hasn't humanity had hurt hearts hung Innocently ?
Is insistence in increasing irritation inevitably incongruous Justice ?
Jimson jars...jitters...joggles...jolts...just jocose jurisprudence' Knell.
Kerfuffle kin, kickshaw kept ken, kindly knaves kneading Lamentations...
Leaving love's loaves, lordly lotharios, looking like lowlifes Made.
Marking more madmen mere moronic monsters meting mayhem Nearby.
Now, not never, nab needed nerves, nurture nasturtium near Openness !
Once only one, ordained our ostracism, outrage outdone on overwrought Plight.
Perhaps pride precludes passable patience, posing portentous prolapse Quickly !
Quiet quandaries, quarrelsome qualms, quivering quixotic quirks Resplendent...
Reaching relapse, revolving recidivism, reconstructed reflective reform Seen !
Searching secretive states, seemingly simple, sincere serenity sought Through...
Tender tears, touching together to total tympanic transformation Unjust.
Unique union...unimportant, unbending, unpopular, unless universal Veracity !
Verbose verbalism, vertical vignettes verify vital victory Won.
When written with wit...watershed words work wonderful Xerography !
Xyloid xylography, xeroxed xeno X, Yet...
Yesterday's youth, yowled yummy young yips Zanily !
Zeitgeist, zombie zealots zapping zonked zingers...Away !!
Categories:
portentous, conflict, fun, imagination, introspection,
Form:
Alliteration
Monotonous keyboards clicking
Redundant clocks ticking
Phones ringing, elevator doors swinging
Coffee pots brewing, vending machines spewing
Insouciant workers, carefree shirkers loitering
Clerks, secretaries previewing, managers reviewing
Visitors on stairs, in lobby chairs, lines queuing
Fate's dissonant chords o'er content hordes teeming
From Crescent's waning moon, spell of doom flinging
Across availing sky, a wailing strain is stringing
A portentous raven o'er torrentous swells winging
To his charted course, a venal force with guile clinging
Feral beast an imminent peril to prey quickly bringing
On the ethereal cusp perching, for crown jewel searching
Swooping down with force, beams from foundation divorce
Death's shadow in dust o'er screaming remnants streaming
Night's, palling darkness Day's ordained glint stalling
Categories:
portentous, allah, america, angst,
Form:
Enclosed Rhyme
There stood an old chest of mine
in the attic with empty bottles of wine,
covered by the woven nets of spiders
and layers of dust and darkness.
I unlocked it to reveal the treasure
and dusted out the darkness,
it contained memorabilia of my lost age.
I took out some toffee wrappers,
the ones cherished long ago,
Cadburys, Lotte, Nestle,
I once chewed them all endlessly......
Out popped a bunch of lolly sticks,
and a set of black paper clips,
beside them were lying my
carven pencils and inked papers.
And beneath them hid my
captured moments,
I pulled them one by one for
these moments forgotten long before.....
Inside the chest's lid
hung my colourful ribbon,
and there was a little mirror with
cute little stickers on its sides,
And all these stuffs made my childhood portentous....
Categories:
portentous, childhood, lost, , cute,
Form:
Narrative
The new sun hath risen again and shone
O beauteous sun, its flawless perfection it hath shown.
Thus light from it wast of haven impeccably urged,
For the destiny of its evil deeds’ concomitant wast yet purged.
None hiatus in the mist of its smirk to bepaint its gross,
Nor that that it loved so dear, so soon in oddly loss;
To shine t’other side wast its splendour but nought its wish
Nor to scald so deep to clear mistemper’d waterfalls upon earthly dish;
And never to wither the grass in the rejoicing forest,
But to make it lucid of aridness in the brawl against the worst:
The sight of its rays hath misgiven yet some consequence of despise,
Which somewhat didst profane pilgrims all made to paradise.
God asked: ’Sun, would thou likest to pray and die or livest and eat pie?’
The sun smirked, portentous in its tyrannous chariot; and chose to die.
Categories:
portentous, sun,
Form:
Sonnet
***An unexpected occurrence or event can ruin anyone's day***
Late Monsoon
She bares an enchanting smile like a crown
Torrential rain drenched her colorful balloon
Enthusiasm ebbed reveals portentous frown
Strode naked in the wake of a late monsoon
Penned: 02/26/2021
Riviera Beach
Florida USA
Categories:
portentous, metaphor,
Form:
Rhyme
Conquered by the circumambient incandescent
We are impuissant to all illumination
Its conflagrant presence remains incessant
The Mother's diurnal course without reincarnation
Purity of white, in its bright obsolescent
Beauty transmogrified to incarceration
Destitute to substance of atramentous
Yearning for just an ounce of clandestiness
Reverse fear of aura that is portentous
The cosmos suffocating, attempting solace
Abyss of chaos, our species remains apprentice
Our essence, Yang without Yin, remains starless
Categories:
portentous, absence, analogy, beautiful, day,
Form:
Rhyme
~ A rage ignites the azure mountain sky
as affirmations crumble with resent,
your ashes weep, then settle in a sigh
still mourning from their sorrowing descent.
Your essence fills the black mephitic plumes
with vile portentous clouds of seared despise,
and, through the dust, annihilation looms,
for all that stood before fell in demise.
Tehama, you lay scorched within the thrall
that torched all hope within the western staid,
so laud the day those tears from heaven fall
to drown the solecisms that were made.
As cinders cool to coals of charred dismay,
the wind filled billows carry you away.
Thoughts of California
9-26-2020
Categories:
portentous, america, angst, fire, ,
Form:
Sonnet
Cycles
by Michael R. Burch
I see his eyes caress my daughter's breasts
through her thin cotton dress,
and how an indiscreet strap of her white bra
holds his bald fingers
in fumbling mammalian awe...
And I remember long cycles into the bruised dusk
of a distant park,
hot blushes,
wild, disembodied rushes of blood,
portentous intrusions of lips, tongues and fingers...
and now in him the memory of me lingers
like something thought rancid,
proved rotten.
I see Another again?hard, staring, and silent?
though long-ago forgotten...
And I remember conjectures of panty lines,
brief flashes of white down bleacher stairs,
coarse patches of hair glimpsed in bathroom mirrors,
all the odd, questioning stares...
Yes, I remember it all now,
and I shoo them away,
willing them not to play too long or too hard
in the back yard?
with a long, ineffectual stare
that years from now, he may suddenly remember.
Photographs
by Michael R. Burch
Here are the effects of a life
and they might tell us a tale
(if only we had time to listen)
of how each imperiled tear would glisten,
remembered as brightness in her eyes,
and how each dawn’s dramatic skies
could never match such pale azure.
Like dreams of her, these ghosts endure
and they tell us a tale of impatient glory . . .
till a line appears—a trace of worry?—
or the wayward track of a wandering smile
which even now can charm, beguile?
We might find good cause to wonder
as we see her pause (to frown?, to ponder?):
what vexed her in her loveliness . . .
what weight, what crushing heaviness
turned her auburn hair a frazzled gray,
and stole her youth before her day?
We might ask ourselves: did Time devour
the passion with the ravaged flower?
But here and there a smile will bloom
to light the leaden, shadowed gloom
that always seems to linger near . . .
And here we find a single tear:
it shimmers like translucent dew
and tells us Anguish touched her too,
and did not spare her for her hair's
burnt copper, or her eyes' soft hue.
Published in Tucumcari Literary Review (the first poem in its issue)
Keywords/Tags: youth, puberty, teen, teenage, teenagers, teen love, sex, sexy, lust, desire, date, father, daughter, chastity, virginity, abstinence, hormones, photograph, photographs, effects, ghosts, phantoms, time
Categories:
portentous, daughter, lust, sexy, teen,
Form:
Free verse