Best Precipice Poems
Is it insane to want to watch your step,
to purposefully plant a foot?
Must one’s eyes always be downcast,
if not pierced or piercing are we lost?
leaves fall
color flees
we stand clothed
but bare before the storm
across a distant lake the light shimmers
like mercury under glass
the sky larger than the landscape
lays down tumble weeds of cloud
tripping across a buried morass of roots
the beauty under foot screams for its share
of gratuitous attention
floriforms of fungus blooms
resplendent in silence
static and maudlin
is the eye
Somehow, I think sanity is not
all it’s cracked up to be.
First Published by Five Poetry Magazine January 2014
In 2028, the votes were tallied
and the winner announced.
The loser had been trounced
by a good woman of the people.
Soon, epaulets came into her office
and other shiny suits so fine
as the new President's eyes did shine
in warm greeting.
These men quickly cut her smile
telling her how the world was to be
for the power was not hers, you see.
She was their marionette.
They would pull the strings
as they had for many, many years
manipulating human fears
throughout the world.
Many more were hidden
never in the public view
in fact, the President never knew
the extent of their realm.
So she sat at her desk
highly crowned and ordained
never showing the disdain
she felt from her lofty precipice.
Atop a precipice there stands a tree
Amidst a large canvas of white and blue
Below ships set sail on a tranquil sea
Around it, a flock of albatross flew
Coniferous tree, positioned on high
God planted it there for the world to see
Poignant green color complements the sky
A hundred years old - and pretty, as can be
Each limb aligned, each leaf sublime,
Beautiful gift from God, for all to see ---
Strong and mighty, until the end of time
Symbol of life and immortality...
Atop a precipice there stands a tree,
Positioned on high for all to see!
"What is our life but a succession of preludes to
an unknown song whose first word is surrender."
Quote by _Constance
My life has been one of high cliffs and deep dark pits,
oh, the map of my journey is unfathomable;
so often I have fallen from a high rocky precipice,
and with courage climbed from pits of sorrow and grief !
But, somehow on this doomed voyage I found strength,
and have an inner courage to take a step within the unknown;
I can now face the puzzle of my strange life,
can explore unfamiliar and uncharted winding paths !
Oh, sure there are days I dangle from a lofty crag,
with a sheer drop into angry blue surging ocean waves;
and there are days I walk in beauty untold,
a foreign visitor in a mysterious forest on an adventure !
I have no fear of climbing vertical walls to find my bliss,
immense peril will not stop my quest for the purpose of my life;
I love finding the obscure- the secrets in the beyond,
and enjoy the view from a mountain overhang !
"And though scars are the roadmap of my life,
I drink from the deep blue cup of sky."
Quote by - Constance
______________________
January 27, 2022
Poetry/Verse/The Precipice of The Unknown
Copyright Protected, ID 01-1424-917-27
All Rights Reserved, 2022, Constance La France
Written for the Standard contest, Pick-A-Title, Vol 28
sponsor, Edward Ibeh, Judged 02/13/2022
Second Place
Rumi Quote "Doubt is a precipice on the way to God. Blessed is he who is freed from its bonds."
__________________________________________
Walking toward the edge, facing a gray sky,
Paradise magnificence is dazzling below.
Goals are shrouded amid dense, rimy snow,
Amid scarlet stones, serenading scary lullaby.
Mountain summits catch nascent sunbeams,
Time for either primal bitterness or delight.
Flagrantly feeling fearful of a factious fright,
Falls fully into the recess of sliced streams.
Positioned on the edge of annihilation,
I was looking into the distance of my mind.
I am seated and pensive, on muse behind,
Have I the resolve to move toward obligation?
Yeah, the road ahead is all thorny and broken,
So I'm trapped, admiring it from a distance.
However, I am unable to reverse my insistence,
for the route I've taken is empty and betoken.
I've no action as to dwell in confine of truth,
Observing dread and splendor of doubt.
Skilled in leaving to safety despite flout,
Wish to dive into the dimness, still in my youth.
Fear the ambiguous; it is nothing but dread,
If not brave enough to tackle a rough path.
As I felt anxious at this point, unfit to lath.
Still, what path can I decide to sail ahead?
Should I return to weird safety or leave?
Is the charm of the enigma alluring to me?
What can I do? not a clear path to foresee
Yet, such ways will always be a lie to weave.
But I must purport to persist on this precipice.
Hinders the impending gravity of genesis.
upon this precipice of change
where all must succumb
hues of brown to orange to yellow
where limbs become bare
shadows dance in skeletons
once bodies in fullness stood
the air no longer needs temperament cooling
a cold wind dances in, destiny unafraid
and only the most hardy of those with wings
sing in the early morning stillness
feast at feeders, grow fewer in numbers
it is in this moment of seasonal beauty
my heart aches for a time
when all this landscape holds
is a war that rages among the transition
from ice to mud
i wait within most deepest
the breath of the robin's song
dancing joyously upon the lawn
when at last the inner eye
sees the blooms waiting in the sunrise
it is here my faith is deepest
where all the promises are kept
so i sit on this bench as time
calls the next season in
when change permeates all i see
the inner eye knows
all assurances are waiting
when life takes me past time
in my own war of mud-to-ice
i will be forever free
where blooms greet the sunrise
where the green sea turns a deeper blue
the morrow of no more sorrow glistens
Oregon 9/23
Steep, sharp, split, and, as an abandoned architecture, weak
How I managed to get to its top, I truly don't know.
Fear, frustration, angst, awe, and helplessness were at their peak.
Over the sea beneath the cliffs, worn-out yachts slowly row.
On whom should I put my faith at this hour of nullity?
What a fool am I who could go up and couldn't come down?
Amidst tensions and terrors, thrills find no utility.
In the circus of existence, have I become a clown?
A tinge of pain and despair mingles with my loneliness.
Avalanches of aches fill and drill my physique and psyche.
I pray to Neptune, Najm, and Xama; crawl down in coolness.
Though well-drowned and dead in dread, I touch the fringes of Nike.
Each precipice venture is one's inner soul's exploration.
Midst the loss of self, there's divine identification.
I stand upon the precipice
Feet teeter on the ledge
A step away from peril
My emotions on the edge
Look down into the valley
Search for signs of life
A light within the darkness
To end my lonely plight
But all I see is emptiness
Stark and hollow ground
No sign of peace, serenity
There's noone else around
So I inch my body forward
One twitch will seal my fate
I brace myself then suddenly
A voice tells me to wait
It says that I can make it
That I can soldier through
I'm stronger than I think I am
Got important things to do
So I breathe in very slowly
Back myself away
No longer on the precipice
This pain won't win today
And so I go on fighting
It's gonna be alright
Just keep on pushing, going
Through darkness you'll see light.
Stand I here upon the Precipice of Time
between madness and derangement-
In a grief so profound
ambiance of rage,
with darkening clouds abound
marring my every breath
Declaration to your joy unsound.
Yet- from this stance
I envision you, my perfect
seraphim of light-
aching for you
Ceaselessly grasping for that which
I have no chance.
Grasping – bent in half
weeping-
My corrupt nature defies
All I hold sacred and true-
You need know
My soul rages in disparity-
Immortally, hourly, minutely, secondly…
ETERNALLY-
I cry.
The Dragon’s shadow awaits me.
Shapes, wraithlike and laughing-
clawing… dragging…shadows
eerily baffling.
Veiled obscurity- most refuse to see
This sickening reality
Tis only righteous- to set you free…
Paled I am by another’s word-
his creed, I allowed this blasphemy
Unable, enable, culpable-
Guilty, frailty, unreality, liable.
Covet, yearn, anticipation- keen ambition
overshadows any austere regulation-
We two do stand upon this Precipice of time
My love stands as most depraved of crimes-
Stolen and deceived- Options extinct
Surrender is an unnatural ailment for me.
- dedicated to my Seraphim
Ignoring our fate
we dance at the precipice
as the oceans rise.
I do not know how men many we were
or how we went, what we saw on the way
nor do I know for what ungodly purport was ours
or what goaded us on into deeper uncharted territory
despite our tortured souls and aching bodies protesting to refrain .
I vaguely recollect through my befogged mind
some arcane words like Shoggoth and Mi- go and Dagon,
so much gibberish and blubbering babble of deranged minds
gone at once numb and addled with sights and sounds
forbidden to man in his wildest dreams and thoughts.
Through crenellated valleys grey misted in their troughs
and crests and covered with slime or ooze as from some
white-wormed denizens from unnamed and should-not-be-named
lairs in regions in deep damp grottoes of infernal charnel mounds
did I and my ill-fated team wander wild-eyed and unkempt.
Do not ask me what we saw when we reached our goal
for what my skulled orbs beheld or what my brain deciphered
I know nor remember not all semblance of sense and sensibilities
having fled with a volition not my own but driven by transfusions
of thought telepathically imposed from without from the miasma.
I know not whether to thank those who found me in the sorry state
that they did - a blathering caricature of the human form more ape,
nay, an ape has more intellect and dignity, than man- a creature more
fit to dwell in the mire and morass of a cess-pit than tread the same
hallowed soil or breathe the self-same vapors as civilized man.
It was far better still that the group of kindly souls, most rightfully,
had left me to my own contrivances and let me wander in my unknown
quest for unknown and mysterious things best known to myself once
but now lost to me forever.
I find myself in these padded and strait-jacketedand dreary halls of Arkham
standing at the edge of the precipice of an insurmountable mountain with
an abyss at the foot, both of interminable depth and dark as the devil's heart.
I have leaped from this vertiginous height perhaps a dozen times to end my misery
but having felt all the terror and thrill of finding absolution, I find myself here again,
and again.
Nigeria is on the precipice
A country in dire need of redemption
Blessed extravagantly by providence
But ravaged ignorantly by
Leadership failure
Built on faulty foundation of
Impunity, corruption and nepotism
Which has engendered overtime
Inequality of crass proportion
As insignificant few
Swim in obscene opulence
While embarrassingly majority
Wallow in criminal poverty
Arise you men of good will
Silence is no longer golden
Arise wrestle our country back
From the spirit of live and let die
Arise my compatriots to the clarion call
To rescue God’s masterpiece
From total annihilation
Stand up and be counted
Together let us overcome
I wait on this precipice looming down at my fate. A jagged Niagara daring me to soar with abandonment onto its edges.
The abyss tells me fables, a serenade of its amorous ruse. Crashing waves harmonize the melody that shuffle my steps closer, closer I ebb.
It sounds so beautiful, the peace. To be washed away.
Drowning in my lamentation, I close my eyes and embrace my declivity, because fallen angels don’t fly, and humanity has scorched these wings for the last time.
Please step away from the cliff edge
Really, we need to talk, come sit by me
Eric, we‘ve been through difficult times, but
Can’t you see, jumping won’t solve anything
I‘ll admit, I’ve been at rock bottom myself
Perhaps that’s why I came up here today
I considered ending it all, but then I saw you
Come and hug me son, I miss your dad so much
Everyone encounters grief, we must be open and honest
Drunken pills and stumble trouble
caught beneath a lifeless rubble
he assigned some roles to play
burrow deep now, all the way
fill her needs and smile bright
play your part, it is your plight
After a half a century
The buried child wants to see
still embryonic, primitive skill
denial listless, secrets spill
he knows now he was never loved
when he spoke, quickly gloved
and suddenly he needs and feels
he rebirths, stretches
-but then he reels
He has no knowledge of his likes
as he waits, the doubt, it strikes
it shoves the boy right off his core
it shoves his real self out the door
Agony splits role and boy
living chaos without joy
when he ponders go ahead
he also weighs if kinder dead
he’d like to give you tied up bow
but that’s not he, that is his role