Best Purged Poems
Modest woman moderate woman
Your inner beauty strikes me
Like the tongue of noble eloquence
More than gold even refined gold
Or our purged fulgent silver.
Black woman proud woman
Your pride is not haughty
But a humble pride of eaglets;
Your black eyes are so glittering
As the eyes of our dark rivers
Filled with messages of peace
That banish the broody turmoil
From those panting hearts
Of your foreigned offsprings.
Gentle mother diligent mother
Your kindness kindles the fires
Of my heart –
Your dexterity dresses
The table of our ageless history
And the thought of your being
– Oh kind mother! –
Makes the most delicious menu
For my heart.
I remember your naked feet
Fast and fair as a pigeon’s limbs
Treading the invisible paths
Almost covered by shrubs
Small shrubs misted by the prime mist.
I remember the wood from the wood
The water from the water
And manifold items from jungle alleys
Borne by your delicate hands
And upon your soft black-haired head.
I remember the constant match
To markets and to farms
And your bright face smeared with
The ash dust
Making you more beautiful
Than any woman whose feet
Ever touched the naked earth.
I remember those burdens
Upon your cheerful kin-souls
And babies strapped to your backs
Babes full of unspoken words
To unborn others in patient wombs
Waiting in an endless turn –
Indeed, mother is dove!
A black dove and a dark huntress
A hunter’s gift from the maker?
Mother is like a weaver-bird
Building a big foot-like nest
Filled with corn and warmth
A bundle of eagle-flight
Mother is dove
And the hunter calls her
The clan’s eternal dove.
Oh, mother loving woman
Gentle as our black horizon
To you we humbly come
From these far and lonely lands
Hoping to grace our love and beauty
Before that jealous grave
Makes her temporary feast.
Ironic tears that spill are mocking me
in scathing streaks delighting down my cheeks.
They trace their paths as soft as fingertips
atop sad ivories caressing pain -
but shame me in their scalding disregard
and blame me that they even do exist.
I ache in death knell spiral of regrets,
their embers smolder as they stoke with ire
with flaring pain till nothing’s left but ash -
besmirched by lust reduced to worthless grey.
My life now but an aftertaste of soot;
sweet self-indulgence too much to withstand.
In sunset mood I grow my shadow’s length
in angst I’m reaching out midst twilight guilt,
beseeching in day’s fade Salvation’s light;
forgiveness of my own abandons me.
Oh, burn of sins does choke my soul in smoke
as tattered heart is purged upon the pyre.
Susan Ashley
February 2, 2018
~ First Place ~
Contest: Contest 600, Any Free Verse, Any Theme, Max 20 Lines
Sponsor: Brian Strand
Oh seed of Dante, dost thy path
in mid-life's turning gone astray
upon a sylvan darkness hath
to tread a rut with feet of clay?
Wast thou that youth of virtue pure
who bargained not with Judgment Day
untempered green convictions sure
before life's tests induced decay?
Didst compromise and circumstance
thy dreams of glory put away
to promise them a second chance
if thou but wouldst concede delay?
Rejoice upon thy wisdom learned!
With youth's illusions purged away
there's still a kingdom to be earned.
Persist, persist, and find the way!
June 28, 2014
Standing at the easel of life a portrait of a man so much in love with that to tempt the mood,
unable to caress his wanton spirit when cohabiting with a spent part of life’s toxic waste,
his need to step off the world to escape its inhabitants from choking him to death,
yet somewhere deep within his sunken soul a desire,
to carve out a memorial in poetry with words now strange to him,
but words they were of love the sweet scent of flowers, sunshine and simple things like that,
yet his battle against his poison was arduous and, on the wane.
a summer’s walk purged
winter through nonchalant eyes
seasons of despair
Suddenly amongst a throng of internet poets an angel appeared,
one to care, when magically she began to chase away his need, when painting
a different picture of the world one he once knew when that he was of a child,
one he needed to be able to reach out to, when from across the curvature of the earth many
words of hope, tenderness sincerity, words of understanding and purpose.
Yet with an abruptness she gave him a choice
‘Lie down my friend’ She said ‘Defeated and die’
Or rise everyday with the perpetual sun and live, give something of yourself,
antidotes to aid those hankering down the same road you travelled,
you can build on the positivity, armed with love and care,
and with it your body your mind your soul will be cleansed.
oh will-o’-the -wisp
those that walketh in the dark
reach for the sunlight
© Harry J Horsman 2022
revamp of an old free verse poem.
I love the myriads of mystic stream,
and so I wade into their wonder flow
and drift with them as if inside a dream.
I follow them wherever they may go.
I long to know their depths and be immerged,
to feel them fresh and singing in my soul;
to grasp them well, at times, I can be purged.
They glisten gold as fish among a shoal.
Immortal, they are yesteryear’s. . . Today
they tell the tales of old that never died.
I catch the ones with which I wish to play,
rejoicing when they take me for a ride. . .
When grouped uniquely they can soar like birds.
I’ll follow them forever - shining words!
*Not sure what to put in my note except that I sometimes try to emulate classic poets such as Emily Dickinson.
For the Ars Poetica Poetry Contest of Thomas Martin
Knowledge gained liberates or mutilates.
Ramifications of reality’s realm reached
make your insides want to abandon the body ship.
Rocking back and forth as you hurl dry acidic pain
expelled by the force of shell shocked lucidity:
You’re not good enough to be loved.
Breathing in is treason.
Your heart demands release of life’s lease.
On the kitchen floor
crumpled dreams drag to prostrate form.
Alone…..
Every reason to stay is obliterated.
Ascorbic failures scream.
Heart blood transforms to salty rivulets.
Self-loathing usurps the throne of belief.
"Appeasement sacrifice,” it sagely suggests…
"Your life!"
Relevant Reasoning...
For someone for whom love is cell oxygen
grey matter food
supreme soul sustenance,
life without full bodied Love is death.
Might as well...
Cowardice cackles and goads….
The cut isn’t deep enough.
Red streaked line mockery of mental hell feels
abhorrence breathing between the sobs
that one hears …
No one hears
Troubled mind has drained desirability’s delight.
Not strong enough to live not strong enough to die,
you are spent…
negligence purged.
Silence begs to benumb,
yet a reminder remains.
The thorn of truth finds a home.
Embedded in my side,
it won’t be denied.
Removal immuned
it is unseen by naked eye-
exposed to the naked heart.
With every movement of love making
matrimonial mattress yet exudes
the faint scent of virginal dreams...
Pain permeates
It digs in deep.
Nothing will change.
YOU cannot change.
You are unlovable.
You're troubled and troubling brain
takes beauty down to notch of insane.
Give it all away.
Lavish and ravish.
Obsessively bid for love
while you auction respect away,
but herein is the cursed truth:
You are not good enough to be loved.
You never were.
You never will be.
For Charlotte's Heart and Soul Contest
September 2, 2014
I am your inked inamorata,
enamored and heaven-drunk,
sipping courtly creed
from the chrysalis chalice
of what love could unleash ~
as the heart heeds what’s unsaid
when stellar heat waves
thunder in sync with lightning,
still musing with
the monotony of muted music…
It was never the radiant rhythm
of romanticized rhymes
that pulled me,
but the arcane gaze
of your trip-uh-licious alchemy,
the ice-flame blues of
a draconian dreamer,
still intriguing this
intuitive incandescence
like a dangerous desperado
sailing me to an ocean of devotion.
O primal paramour,
purify this pained pulse,
heal the hurting nocturnal Helios
amidst your eyes that roam,
reaching for the rhinestone flickers,
blind to this burn.
While your hallowed hands
unknot the sky, wedded
to the thrilling threads
of my mourning moon,
calm your vagabond psyche
and listen to the evocative voice
of my unwavering verses ~
veiled in vermilion,
within the purged pages
enveloped in sand-soaked silk.
There you will hear
the black-cat moan
footprints of faithful fervency,
the lifelines of loyal luminescence,
clawed to compassion
generously giving,
serving the aromatic air
that carries your mystical musk ~
So let the ghost awake,
let the forgotten rise again.
Watch the wickedness unweave
the faults of an untamable warrior.
Are you satisfied being
vehemently investigated
by an emotionally intense telescope,
holding you viciously
to the lethal lens of feral ferocity?
Here comes the grace-giver.
I am born to dominantly bestow…
We wander all, in feral dreams
of jagged thoughts and cryptic yearns;
a labyrinth of mirrored turns.
Along a ridge of moon stitched seams,
lie melancholic tapestries,
unfolded in an abstract frieze.
Subconscious angst weaves heart loomed themes
from pain sewn deep, through puerile eyes,
till daybreak’s alabaster guise.
As savage beasts from darkened streams,
complicit servants of the id,
form insights purged at slumber’s bid.
Claw toward light as urging deems;
these taloned gasps of hidden truth,
burst from the depths of shuttered youth.
We wander all, in feral dreams
along a ridge of moon stitched seams.
Subconscious angst weaves heart loomed themes,
as savage beasts from darkened streams,
claw toward light as urging deems.
19 Nov 2019
For Carolyn
By Carolyn Devonshire & James Marshall Goff
My hand
Wet with tears pouring down my face
Reaches out and finds nothing
Empty spaces where familiar voices
Once comforted me
My only hope
Is sleep, where dreams, in sketchy
Re-wind, promise a glimpse of lost
Loved ones, maybe a voice, if fleeting
Even, to soothe me
Those still with me
Look to me for strength, my motor
Memory urging me on, focusing
On the well, deep in my heart,
Cycle renews
Another beloved soul passes
Light they find
But darkness they leave behind
Grief
Hungry monster
Selfishly consumes my life
Devours all glimmers of hope
Leaving me
Destitute on a perilous plane
Mere existence
Not life as it once was
Sanity
Confronting memories, loneliness
Trek on an unbalanced bridge
Connecting life and death
Emotions purged
Shadows of yesterday surround me
Wisdom of loved ones
Permeate my thoughts
Filled
With clear vision, handed down to me
From my ancestors
Unpublished
2014
Rainbow Nation
Blanca is white like beautiful snow in the Drakensberg Mountains
she snorted star powder past the perforated septum into her brain
Black as coal from the underworld mines in Mpumalanga Melanie
had her stomach pumped and purged while sleeping off darkness
Amber is coloured mixed race in the Rainbow of Nations her work
still paid in dop cheap vine that slaves her away in alcoholic trance
Arnav of Indian descent was hooked on dagga grown by the ocean
converted to heroin sold her frail body and skin for brown liquid sugar
Jacobus Bandele Lungelo and Bhavin shared needles and comfort
on the streets of Johannesburg flirted with disaster drug related crime
and their dealers cracked at the dawn longed for dust in the dusk
Drugs do not respect colour gender ability social class and religion
all druggies are equal with craving dependency not restricted to some
Now united in rehab like the state of the nation they all stood at the
table of mountains with one foot in the grave at the cliff face of habit
One day at the moment they now battle their demons resist the temptation
for only the time being from one morning away from the devious mourning
one drug line not taken one fall off the wagon shunned and avoided for now
They have all chased the dragon for far too long and imbibed with the devil
for so many wretched days and nights of delusion torment addiction and pain
Again once more each day anew their only chance to abstain one day at the time
Everywhere i look i see absence,
Even past barbed wire fences,
And it seems all life is past tense.
My whole body then tenses.
Is this a prison,
Because the sight is not by choice,
Life is becoming but a vision.
Random glimpses leaves me with no voice.
I cant speak about what i feel,
Even if urged,
I cant speak because that would make it too real.
Hate not dealt with but purged.
I don't really hate... not in that way,
Its an expression of emotion too deep to tell,
The deep cauldron of hope to untouchable to slay.
Anguish only matched by the fire in Hell.
Glasses half full leave me half empty,
White noise is the right metaphor to use,
Life that's too void to tempt me.
Existence is an unsolvable puzzle yet I'm searching for clues.
Dead Roses freshly picked and sold,
In deep soil that seems too fertile,
The use of life for gain shown so bold.
My mind only seems to see deep shades of purple.
The color of insanity.
On the bank of the James River,
Virginia Colony,
a proposal was conceived to constrain the African fire.
The ploy, a real achievement in the West-Indian settlements.
In Rome, bodies were paraded along the byways,
to make a statement.
My Massa used ropes.
We dangled by our necks like roosters in a slaughter house.
When the pining for liberty was stirred up in the marrows of our bones,
we set ablaze a few bungalows,
and murder some dumb beasts.
The statement we made was called an uprising.
The fields were abandoned, the livestock ran wild,
and the slothful young mistress had to breast-feed her own child.
The scheme had the ingredients of breaking a mule,
and Virginia Colony was the first lab for creating fools.
A prophet’s blessing was given to the merchants,
and black diamonds were shipped;
they were purged of the soil of the mother land.
A new being was fashioned, dependent on Massa.
A man was set against his consort and his seeds,
and the whips wrote rules on our backs in their faces;
our pride drained from the gorges in our hides,
and respect slowly seeped from their eyes.
The bond was broken;
a ***** was concocted
without the spirit of Ghana, the Warrior King,
and the Ashanti, the pre-colonial backbone.
Should we not push as a woman in nativity for the renaissance?
Along the pilgrimage path
life purged and plundered
minds wept and wondered
weeds steadfastly grew
knowing not what we now knew
weary travelers groaned and grumbled
stepping cross wayward stones, tumbled
some had stumbled or even fell
seeking separate stories to tell
ink driven, dried up, cursed, then forgiven
bent in half, twisted, some curved
tales told, valient bold and self served
where whispers turned and ran
down along side stolen scripts
falling elegantly off loose lips
masses cheered the absurd
romantic scenes poetically heard
death defied and defiled
joyous celebration in a time
infectious an emancipation
liberated through rhyme lest relief
"To weep is to make less the depth of grief."
What be of love if one was purged of thee
To claim a life of constant misery,
To wander lost a blind alley not free
Turned from once a flower to shrubbery?
When dusted away the shadows from time
Those that festered within a view so plain,
Yet not wanting to veer from daily grime
An act from Shakespeare as one did feign.
Like the first key of spring one did open
A cold heart locked in ridicule and shame,
To live in pretence of nothing broken
When thinking it were he the one to blame.
So never to curse the day that time took so long,
When written in verse becomes a beautiful song.
© Harry J Horsman 2021
The year is grey and cold,
And we bid the winter go;
So all the dark and weary world,
Will be purged of blowing snow.
Tomorrow cry the branches,
From out of their sad heart;
My closed buds will open,
With green leaves all apart.
Tomorrow sings the robin,
To pipe her song again;
Her nest filled with eggs,
Warmed in spring's soft rain.
Tomorrow bleats the sheep,
My little lambs will run;
Playing in the meadow,
Beneath the golden sun.
We too wait for tomorrow,
That spring should come to be;
For Him to weave the threads,
Of life's dark destiny.
So all the hearts grown cold,
From life's cruel time and pain;
May bloom all fresh and green,
In Springtime's soft cool rain.
For all the hollow promises,
Of sad and empty years;
Are bringing back to tomorrow's
Joy with no more tears.