Best Preferable Poems
What are we but vibrant green leaves in the foliage of the tree of life, soon to be turned brown and fall before others take their place?
What are we but fast-moving waves on the surface of the ocean of humanity, heading towards the shores of oblivion where they break up and die?
What are we but wandering clouds, chased across the sky of existence by the winds of necessity and consumed by the sun of voracious time?
Let us ponder for a while, my loving friends,
And
Let us try to answer this:
How sensible is it to waste our ephemeral life by
Hurting one another?
Wouldn't it preferable be,
more holy and wiser
Only love, us to harbor in our hearts and
Nothing other?
© Demetrios Trifiatis
20 OCTOBER 2014
Categories:
preferable, life, love, people,
Form:
Free verse
The hideous wrinkles and folds
unmistakingly reveal the damage
that the harsh years had wrought,
all the battles waged and fought,
won and lost.
I look at her now sunken face,
beaten and badly weathered,
and there is no mistaking
a perfect beauty she was
not that many years ago.
She smiles, a hint of a dimple
peeking through the loose skin,
faint signs of high cheekbones
desperately wanting to be seen,
strong jaws chiseled on a face
that must have been stunning
when she was younger.
Alas, all her enviable perfections
the passage of the years wasted,
disfigured, marred beyond repair
by the envious hands of time.
While this ugly observer focuses
on her now terribly faded image,
with a smile I sigh without envy,
listening to a voice whispering:
the more beauty one possesses,
the greater is the loss in the end.
Time, the great equalizer!
Ugly from birth and ugly till death,
I can take it all with a hearty laugh
as there is not much I will give up,
for the years cannot take away
what from the start I never had.
Ah, ugly is much more preferable
and perfectly beautiful after all.
Categories:
preferable, life, timebeauty, beauty,
Form:
Free verse
Look at my skin,
And categorize me.
Put me in a column,
The society is sickening.
Not a day would pass without me getting called out.
What do I need to do to live in piece?
My skin doesn’t define me,
When can I speak?
Freedom of speech?
Huh, what a silly thing.
Every time I speak,
You act like I’m a little kid.
The color of my skin,
Is hard to find on screens.
Perhaps white is preferable,
Or I’m just overreacting
I have a name you know,
Why call me by a color?
I’m not a walking object,
And yes I am bothered.
I never received apologies,
After anyone said anything offensive to me.
I am a human too,
Put yourself in my shoes.
When can we end this?
How many more poems to come?
How many more riots to count down?
How many march to volunteer?
A crazy old man said “the end is near”
No, stop calling me selfish!
I’m trying to defend myself, can’t you accept this?
If this is what the society has become,
No wonder there are suicides around
Gunshots and wounds,
Can never teach the fools.
If a color is what it takes to get hate,
The humans we are now is a disgrace.
The generation would come,
Would be a hopeless one I’m sure.
If the society is like this,
The seed of success is ruined.
My dearest ancestors who died in their grave,
They are thought being brown was a mistake.
It is still the same until this day.
I guess society has never changed.
A color is not my name.
A color should be praised.
A child should be taught,
Being themselves is not a fault
A color doesn’t define anyone,
A color doesn’t speak for anyone,
Actions are what separate us,
A color plays an innocent part
A color is not my name
Categories:
preferable, 10th grade, 9th grade,
Form:
Rhyme
Leaving my car, I hasten my pace as
silent pain, screaming inside me
intensifies with the increasing movements made
by what I only can describe as an invisible snake
slithering beneath my flesh.
It’s felt by only me, and seen by no one -
the strange phenomenon
of a nervous system gone awry from side effects
of the “miracle” of modern medicine.
I know my conditions now by the title of Neuropathy,
but that definition does not come close to
describing what I experience unceasingly.
Mere “tingling or numbness”
would be preferable
to the feeling of a slithering serpent
squeezing or pressing down along my back.
Striding into the grocery store,
I find what I need as quickly as I can.
At any time, my metaphorical serpent
might decide to wildly strike,
perhaps while in the checkout line as I wait
with my silent screaming -
Please, line, move! Just let me finish here!
Afterward, with grocery bags in hand,
I scramble to my car.
Once inside, I press my back against my seat.
Ahhhh, relief!
The snake loses its momentum when I am reclined
or pressing myself against a surface,
and so I am not physically as active as I used to be.
People with chronic unseen disabilities
are not just a few.
When you chance to see someone fidgeting
in a line, looking as if
they’d like to “jump out of their skin,”
maybe you are seeing someone like me
with silent pain, screaming
from within.
Nov. 19, 2022
For Edward Ibeh's Pick-A-Title, Vol 33 Poetry Contest
#3 chosen: Silent Pain, Screaming
Categories:
preferable, pain,
Form:
Free verse
YOUTH AND OLD AGE
Get off your galloping horse of youth’s impressions
Stop looking down upon old age with contempt
You are still on the planes of doubt and uncertainties
Having not yet made in life any real attempt.
Not even a hill of problems have you ascended
Neither have you faced a serious thunderstorm
How is it possible for you ever to be assuming
Without experience your elders to reform?
You better stop and think for a single moment
All those whose heads have turned white or gray
How many hills of harm and mountains of troubles
Have they been through and climbed to this day?
Your youth, a spectacular time, for you to enjoy
Dreams to make of what you would wish to assure
Sadly though the future for you a possibility is only
For everyone knows that nothing in life is for sure.
So the preferable thing you ought to be doing
Is to listen carefully to these experienced old folks
For better, it is to learn from mistakes they made
Than knowledge to gain from your very own faults!
© Demetrios Trifiatis
30 NOVEMBER 2013
Categories:
preferable, education, old, youth,
Form:
Quatrain
Jesus did teach us to turn the other cheek,
But never suggested we ought to be weak
In those instances of obvious wrongdoing
He sent the moneychangers gelt strewing,
And he called out the miserable hypocrite
In the strongest of language, as he saw fit.
Keeping the peace is good, I certainly agree,
But not at the expense of a bully’s spree,
Who goes about inflicting pain unchecked,
Comes the time when they must be decked.
For bullying indicates feelings of superiority
While it actually cloaks an inner inferiority.
We need to show bullies they’re not “all that,”
Sometimes it calls for knocking off their hat.
Letting them know we will be calling their bluff
When we are fed up with their hateful stuff,
Not allowing them to feign self-righteousness
As they hurtfully nose into another’s business.
It is always preferable to be meek and mild
But not when an adult acts like a spoiled child
Taking pleasure in causing others’ distresses
Probably struggling with their own sad messes
And acting like their way is the only way
While refusing to allow their victims a say!
Written December 8, 2022
Categories:
preferable, anti bullying, bullying, perspective,
Form:
Couplet
Different pains can be preferable
Though all hurts
Though all hurts deep
There are different
flavors
of
ferocity
Stinging, high pitched and sour screams
Burning, low boiled growling
Sharp, a swift high jab
Psychological
no
not
emotional, psychological
My psyche hurts
My emotions burn
My soul stings
My despair is sharpened
None can be seen
no evidence given
no one forgiven
My psyche HURTS
The warmth between hypothermia and death
warm and soft
I
want
to sleep
always
sleep
only
sleep
sleep is the only relief
there is but one other waking relief
Pain is relief
a jolt
a shock
that punches you out of the emotions you're drowning in
just a gasp
but it's preferable to drowning
a gasp
a slap-in-the-face-wake-up gasp
I can't breath
a gasp
Categories:
preferable, analogy, depression, sad, self,
Form:
“I feel my life so empty. It is preferable to fill a tomb to being doomed to live out a life that is empty” ~ By Poet.
Darkness encompasses my space.
My future is seen so bleak where feral beasts hide.
Not even a glow worm to throw light.
I see no chance of deliverance.
Through the mazy depths of gloom, I wade,
Struck with the pestilence of rejection and hate.
Hopes are now like shredded threads,
Frayed away from a rope.
I seek shade under a leafless tree.
I hold on to a crutch as a prop.
I curl up like a helpless embryo,
Floating and whirling in lucid agony.
Shutters of Distress is about to close in
Before that, I should invite death.
Lying in death is preferable to living with death.
I must cross this cursed field.
My tomb I see under a humble stone.
I shall rest there, no more haunted by the fret of life.
It could be just a mound of earth,
My lone resting place in a deserted corner
Where no one will ever visit this nondescript.
Where no one comes with a bouquet of blooms,
Where dandelions may sprout from cracks,
To honor this mongrel of a man.
* * * * * *
In the absence of pallbearers and a hearse
I totter carrying my orphaned corpse,
And walk the deserted road,
Inching my way to my grave.
Categories:
preferable, angst, death, grave,
Form:
Free verse
Written: February 19, 2024
____________________________________
The dam, in which
the tissue residue is present
has a saline ecosystem
despite the dryness
It is still preferable
to a carnival of wood and
burnt bryony bushes.
You could smell it.
from light-years afar
a tourniquet grasp of
saffron soil in a swooshing
flame is inscribed on the
plains armrest.
The grassland dips in
revealing slabs of an ancient utopia
the focal halftone of a
floating forehead features
a house of clovers motif
my torn lobes throb
beating as a breathing bruise,
hiding behind the partial eclipse
the integral aspects of
crimson maple.
I started overlapping
the threshold
to be buried as an
enigma in the depths of her soul
in the funnel, mists of ash, and shaking
sprinting into the intricacies of a
heavenly sanctuary
dubbed heart.
Categories:
preferable, analogy, appreciation, emotions, heart,
Form:
Free verse
I grabbed her hand
Hope and love sweling
Mixing into an enticing brew
Whose flavor
brought forth
all the wild creatures
from the desert araound me.
They applauded m success
and ran back for their's
But I had the luck
of the blessed
I held her hand tight
Told her who I was
She nodded
Her light engulfed me
Suddenly my fright swelled inside
What if she left too?
The dark roadis too hard
for me now.
She grabbed my hand
Told me she loved me
In twelve seconds
she smelt my fear
tasted my love
Tired of my existence
and departed
I was rooted to the spot
Her flesh's warmth
had yet to leave my palm
when she passed into the sunset
Shock numbed my feet
Shock numbed my tongue
It was dark
Darker than it had been
Too dark to breath
Too dark to walk
I fell by the roadside
To the vultures
Even crawling was too hard
I poked out my eyes
So no more beauty could touch my soul
I cut off my feet
So I could not walk
It took all of two seconds
for the vultures to come
My end is here
But death is preferable to pain
I welcome the big grey birds."
Categories:
preferable, allegory, angst, loss, lost
Form:
Ballad
An outcome more preferable than becoming a slave.
Peace beyond dreaming on the way to my grave.
Accused and found guilty, I was not remanded.
Inflicting retributive punishment is what I was handed.
The noose hung before me, my future to die.
Onlookers glaring in silence, then an insidious cry.
Relentless struggle to take in air, my voice so rasp.
Agonizing, laborious striving to inhale, I gasp.
Monotonous effort, to force my body to breathe.
All energy spent, a body not worthy of life, I seethe.
Too weak to continue, as hopeless as it seems,
To end this misery, was only in my dreams.
A calm settled as images of my bygone years showed.
The irony of death giving me life was blissfully bestowed.
All pain diminished, as visions of heaven came to me.
The brightest light was all my vision allowed me to see.
Categories:
preferable, death,
Form:
Rhyme
Was once a display
The sudden eye ambition
Trusty appendage
The hind to the heel
Broken in to much appeal
A preferable feel
Inspired by Raul Moreno’s “still life” contest!
Categories:
preferable, funny, happiness
Form:
Senryu
I cringe at the thought
of approaching old age,
falling hair, sagging skin,
hideous wrinkles and all
as the reality of mortality
finally beckons.
Yet when I look at old photographs
from my now long gone youth,
I find to my complete horror
a malnourished-looking,
ninety pound scarecrow!
was that really me?
Youth and old age,
one side of the same coin,
neither one preferable to the other.
Categories:
preferable, life, timeold, old,
Form:
not in the heart again
for chrissakes it's like Swiss cheese
decoffinated please I'm a yet ambulatory zombie
off his medication as usual
alternatives to logic 101 with Prof. Spike
far too much work for a dead end
saw his only ally the embalmers needle
left his innards spilled in the sand
history in its entirety mocked his comprehension
had the nation in tears and then nausea
several dueling scars graced his genitals
if our perceptions already lie
why shouldn't we
I had to laugh
it was all I could do to keep from smiling
even after a thousand years of AI research
the electronic government was helpless
my Microsoft forehead radiator
absolutely charmingly couldn't get any focus
but the Royal Society of Blind Philosophers
helped me with my little problem
a miracle of recipe repair
because our endorphin soup is a bit thin
the quicksilver cooks ate first and fell asleep
having thrown away their brains long before
in the field kitchen of the gods
after the air raid sirens of postmodernity
can there be too much truth
for an army of blood diamond merchants
now a bit more about para electrics
if only I were at liberty to discuss it
yes imprecision can carry signal
but the place is crawling with dilettantes
wearing their secret butt plugs
it's a guessing game as you can see
petitioning for a visually diagrammatic idiom
although it's a devilish seesaw but let us restart
The Oblivion Ride was the big theme park attraction
my extended family was in the sideshow
justifiably taken for a pack of fools
then the sun went down and never came up again
and we stepped into the stone circle
chanting evidence is preferable
to the moonlit tombstone
good luck with that in your airwaves
broadcast on radio Sarajevo
signal drifting drifting drifting
with minds great and small
and smaller and smaller
the Internet is the yearned for Messiah
there it's done and out and not to be unseen
you wrestle with it while I proceed
dashing among startled commuters
mesmerizing the fact finding committee
their dictatorship of x-ray leeches
tossed him out of several monasteries
apparently the production quotas were relaxed
in a kaleidoscope of normalcy
the style crazed mannerist martinets
howdy do nail in my shoe
From "Engine of Didactic Beauty" available on Amazon
Artist Portfolio: http://walteralter.byethost32.com/
Categories:
preferable, how i feel,
Form:
Free verse
Sanatan Dharma in Hinduism means
Universal religion, eternal truth, Ankh
Globally it means Universal law.
Religion is like the peel of banana
and spirituality is the banana.
Speak the truth which is preferable that
Intelligent one prefers it while the
Ignorant one selects the pleasurable.
Do not speak the truth to manipulate
Do not speak to please someone.
The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over;
Thus the wise say, the path to Salvation is hard
So begins The Razor’s edge of Somerset Maugham
Who visited India and met The Saint Raman.
All these leads to Yoga, so the wise one thinks.
When the senses are firmly reined in
From distractions a man is then free
for Yoga is the coming-into-being.
as well as the ceasing-to-be.
===============================
Ninth Place winner
For the contest: Broad Horizons by Deborah Guzi Subject- Sanatan Dharma - Hinduism
========================================================
*The word Sanatan means ‘Eternal’ and Dharma means religion. In broader sense Dharma
means spirituality.
*Salvation is hard." taken from a verse in the Katha-Upanishad - 1.3.14. Maugham had
visited India in 1938 and met Ram, the great Saint of India.
*The words Hindu and Hinduism came from the usage of the term Sindhu. "Outsiders" who
encountered Sanatanists living near the Sindhu river in the western portion of Bharat (the
original and still used Sanskrit name for India) referred to them as "Sindhus" and their unique form of worship as "Sindhuism." Though there was a Sindhu river, Sindhu is actually a generic term for river, and many believe this term was used in a metaphorical sense implying the river or spirituality that flows through all thing–in other words, Sanatan Dharma. With this understanding, the terms Sanatan Dharma and Hinduism become interchangeable with an identical meaning.
Categories:
preferable, religion, river, truth, ,
Form:
Verse