Best Prophetic Poems
In these times
the prophetic leaks out
of lesions in language -
sacred scripts fester
promises of slaughter
by revengeful gods
born out of the fury
of our own inner dark.
The same has hovered
over bloody battlefields
for millennia, the dead
wrapped in the flags
of countless faiths.
Meanwhile,
the Universe looks on
finding nothing of itself
in such weaponized deity.
It has a list of more
important things to do.
Galaxy of Crystal
Reader of star stories – far flung destinies
Enclosed within a midnight crystal dome
Filled with flecks of leftover stardust
Cosmic plane of star-crossed constellations
And dust storms of the lost transcendent light -
Clearly sees through falling astral luminaries
And hopes tossed up for the first twilight star;
A gypsy crossing galaxies of interstellar legend –
A woman with starry vision clad in nebula silk
Woven from threads of spiraling chambers -
Knocks at a door with no handle
Star princess – celestial royalty – spends the night
Leaving bits of stray star clusters
To enchant the eyes of a dream child
At the stargate of the dusky etheral.
Thank you Line for your inspiration. I missed the contest but your theme set me spinning into a celestial wonderland!
In twilight slumber
Naked truths revealed
What you learn of you
Flows across the screen
Dreamer must pay heed.
Life’s message comes
Symbolic cloaked
Characters pose
The way unfolds.
Dreamscape brings
Future scenes
Prophecy
Be brave
Look close
Know.
sinkholes
suddenly slam
earth asunder
do you hear the thunder?
the rains are coming
can you sense it in the air?
Chaos everywhere...
mountains falling
streams heaving
rooftops caving
everyone shaving
parts of themselves clean
scoured and plastic
bereft of all real knowledge
standing above
looking down
sneering
clearing the way
for mediocrity
upholding vile
impudent waste
as predominately
IMPORTANT
No one seemed to take much note at first.
Old-timers on park benches passed a comment or two,
Somebody wrote a letter to the local rag,
but no one (who mattered, that is)
really seemed to mind.
Of course, you will always have
your bellyachers and woolly romantics
with nothing better to do than whine
about the way things are going, -
the loss of bird life, the silenced dawn chorus,
the vanishing English hedgerow,
you know the sort of thing.
The leaves began falling long before autumn.
"Funny," they said, "curious," "that's one for the book."
This was all very interesting for botanists,
environmentalists, chemists and the like.
Such words as "pollution," "soil erosion"
and "deprivation" were bandied about,
but no one was much the wiser though
the experts were agreed on one point.
"Photosynthesis provides the basis of all life."
This was interesting but nothing like
as interesting as the favourite for Ascot,
the football results, the Top of the Pops,
the late night thriller or the FT index.
All that changed.
Foresters and timber merchants became concerned
about the decaying cores of many trees.
The government became concerned, too,
(not so much about the fate of the trees as such
as about the effect the scarcity of wood
was having on the paper industry and inflation).
Then the doom-watchers caught the scent
and there was talk of an imminent ecological collapse,
but the man in the street still
passed it all off as the usual load of rot.
Then Kew Gardens, Epping Forest, Central Park,
the Everglades and the Bois de Boulogne
went the way of all wood.
A tramp, locally known as Nat the Nut,
was found in the village cemetery gibbering,
Before being bundled into an ambulance,
he was heard to say:
"With these very ears I heard 'em groan,
and this is what one of 'em said:
'Tonight we are dying, yew and I,
and the morrow sees us dead.'
And the willows wept in the valleys
and the trees on the hills pined away."
When the harvest failed,
the church bells tolled
for a woe no man could gainsay,
for none doubted then the trees were lost
or held it was only they.
PROPHETIC DREAM – JOURNAL IX
On the outskirts,
Framed on either side
By a farm house a barn
I discovered this winding path
It is early autumn
The trees about the house
Are full of lingering gold
Various harvest implements are seen
A silo rises in the foreground
With a tool shed beside
And the receding meadow beyond – cut
in two by the path – a luscious green
Far distant is a dense, black forest fronting
purpled mountains
I am just past my 85th birthday
And the mysterious future, creeping ever
closer, much on my mind
The dream vision is so colorful so clear
That when I awake
I must just lie still and wonder
if a tree should fall and there is no one to hear it
not even the merest susurrus for a poet to capture the moment
the encomium will cease
with each slight
each rejection of the light
and acknowledgement withheld
the all encompassing existence of all
called into question
the glacier crevasses gape
to engulf
the whole
however
frozen to the core
we must
remain undaunted
on a steady bedrock of the conviction
that all existence
isn’t in vain
if we can dream it we will not fade away
like unalterable photographs from bygone eras
we are the essence
the stases
holding
reality of
all life
in the
balance
23rd April 2023
A Wisdom Download Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Unseeking Seeker
3rd Place
Title changed AFTER the judging of the contest.
If in dreams prophets wield prophetic power,
then prophetic power have I; for I dream
of things to come, and of acts too extreme:
the saint, the liar (in the cave's dark bower);
the flying rug, the ivory-tower
(that touches the sky like a spire, a theme
where my fate now is realized and supreme);
and, the forbidden fruit (at the crisis hour!).
Though no prophet, neither am I a fraud;
so for the skeptics who read these pages,
let them see their mystery, and so be awed:
for now are they set down for the ages,
like the prophets of old who spoke with God;
and read the scrolls composed by the sages.
In the Tale of Marah Abbadon
Whose bitter spirit is long gone,
Her mother was a jaded Jezebel,
Who cast out Marah wishing her in Hell.
In life she wandered bare terrane
Plagued by pestilence and murrain.
She dwelt in caves and holes in the ground,
The warmest homes she ever found.
Nothing ever relieved her woes,
Through desert heat and mountain snows.
Her lonesome life was fraught with danger.
Wherever she went she was a stranger,
Searching endlessly for a home,
But finding none, thus doomed to roam.
After dolorosa years of strife
She sought a place to end her life.
Through Jerusalem’s walls she made her way
Stumbling into Siloam’s pool that day.
A Spirit stirred the waters there.
Her heart felt lighter than the air.
It would not work; the angel told the wench
Her homesick thirst it could not quench.
A prophetic, white-robed passerby
Offered living water that shall not dry,
Blessing Marah with a place to dwell,
Forever closed to mama Jezebel.
5/2/2023
Whispered messages heard only in your mind
do not mean you have received heavenly advice
If you were to have yourself examined you'd find
mental instability to be a descriptor most concise
To be. To feel.
To feel, to love,
To love. To rage,
To rage, to die
Like a good Romantic, or to sleep like this,
Ghosting about
Like a loose plastic bag
That flaps on a windy night
Under a sodium street lamp’s
Eerie all-submerging light.
O Shakespeare, pity us,
O Wilkes, O Pope,
O Voltaire, O Heine,
O Byron. O Shelley,
Shed tears for us.
We have mislaid the liberties
You fought for.
And the truths you taught us.
The Board of Standardisation
In the interests of this nation
Will suppress the imagination.
Like ranters at Hyde Park
We’re still good for a Sunday lark.
Our patrons are benign
as long as we are innocuous.
They’ll allow a little room for satire
(as long as we keep our hats on)
Just to show what sports they are.
Toothless protest’s just a cliché,
But don’t let slip a waspish quip,
Or “Sirrah, Sirrah, the whip!”
Tow the line. That’s fine.
“Douse that prophetic fire by nightfall, sir,
Or the neighbours will complain.”
A D-Notice served on the brain
deadens every joy and pan.
Cross the heart with this red pencil
And with this stencil write:
THE END OF ART.”
Deep inside where shadows lounge
True love was lost no magic found
That fleeting thought run now it's not too late
Never fathoming his deceptions so great
The magic once encompassing both
not knowing how far afield he'd go
One content with passions flash
The other forever chasing **ASS**
Both now knowing somethings not right
Could it have been his continual lies?
Trust in her he failed to do
That lack of such - he respected few
Passions dimmed and flames went away
Both responsible for the path they lay
Question, curse, fight till dawn
The demons inside released for none
The trick to regain the Sorcerer's touch
So simple even wee people would gush
Stop seeking that which you should not attain
The searching causes both great pain
Be humble and love that one you have
Or all for naught be forever sad
Stop looking seeking far afield away
Or else true love will fade away.
‘We played wedding songs,
and you didn’t dance,
so we played funeral songs,
and you didn’t weep’
Luke 7:32b
Scribes and Pharisees, lean in.
They lean away, their fingertips at play,
nimble, with no paper cut. The pipers toot
out a jig and they scowl; then a dirge
and they skirt. Skittish of prophetic noise,
they amble for their toys and go on
walkabouts to gather up the fish
before the net goes out. Digits, hush,
or like the dastardly, wiggle about
underhandedly.
Scribes and Pharisees, at the skirt
of the Savior, don’t recognize
his mild behavior; they criticize.
Whereas, one woman chances to believe,
to receive power to be healed of her infirmity;
Pharisees harrumph to repeal - “not on the Sabbath!”
The scroll rolls out like a red carpet, snatched back up.
It is only for the designated driver to enforce.
And enforce with force, he does; take his pill.
Chill while each stays blind, lame, deaf, demonic.
The wise that hide their eyes in Jesus’ hem,
go left and right, on the narrow. Miracles
and forgiveness of hidden rose petals.
Heaven is dung to those who would rather cling
to popularity, religiosity, to their perfect life.
And what will they have at the end of the dusty trail.
No one to listen to them. Will every day be like a Sabbath,
where they aren’t allowed to pick up their mat
and escape through heaven’s gate? Yet, they shall see
the walk of their enemies, piled high smiles, the light
before darkness, fire and brimstone, hell
to be exact. Never again will they catch a glimpse
of what they lost, though they try to unscramble
their minds, lost to forever time, without a save.
American broadcasts carry details
emerging from government hints
indicating journalists kindly “leaked” major news
of presidential quote reputedly saying,
“Trump’s ultimate victors were xenophobic young zealots.”
My favorite job is to stock shelves
Now here is what is a shocker
in High School I was voted most
Likely to become a stocker!