Best Ragged Poems
“When the curtain drops, should we not applaud” ~ by poet
age wrinkles the face of youth
and dulls its eyes~
in no time, Death is at my door
a shadow of a shadow...
my ears pretend not to hear
His approach
gasping in ragged breaths ~
His nails
scraping against old bones
Death drinks my tears
Categories:
ragged, age, angst, anxiety, death,
Form:
Grook
She holds the yellowed book for a long time
Bound first in cloth, then leather, at last again soft
She notices the gilt has gone
It holds a story ragged and raw
Bound first in cloth, then leather, now again soft
Like a weary old heart, nearing the end
It holds a story ragged and raw
She presses it to one wrinkled ear and the sound is faint
Like a weary old heart, nearing the end
She notices the gilt has gone
She presses it to one wrinkled ear and the sound is faint
She holds the yellowed book for a long time.
Categories:
ragged, old, sound, old, sound,
Form:
Pantoum
"Her pain was so jagged. You couldn't touch her, without it slicing through you too. I wanted to fold myself around her and absorb the rest of the blows life would deliver."
~ Tarryn Fisher
"My faith didn't remove the pain, but it got me through the pain. Trusting God didn't diminish or vanquish the anguish, but it enabled me to endure it."
~ Robert Rogers
Tears flow down my cheeks
like small rivulets
Pain is like a volcano erupting within me
It burns down all defences
I sob like a little child
Agonizing spasms cut through me
like a jagged knife sharpened on both sides
I cry out loud
Is there no relief?
Torment churns my being
like a grinder mixing it all or a mixer grinding me
I toss and turn
restless and lachrymose
Anguish pricks my insides
It's like walking barefoot on jagged rocks
My physical pain is just a minuscule fragment
compared to my Saviour's agony on the Cross
He knows and understands my heart’s deepest aches
And so, I remind myself of that
and find my comfort in Him.
20th March 2022
Categories:
ragged, deep, pain, simile,
Form:
Free verse
I’ve been ragged on
I’ve been pushed around
And I plead to the sky above
When is my time to be loved
Is there a time for me
Oh I just let me be
It certainly is not their show
How would they know
It’s been such a long time
To be standing in the long line
Here I am I’ve paid the fare
Laying my lonely heart bare.
© Paul Warren Poetry
Categories:
ragged, love, love hurts,
Form:
Ballad
A ragged cloud from horn-filled hell
Restlessly tumbles and yaws
A silent beam, bounced off this cell
Made echoes hooked like claws
Now the swirling serpent comes again
Caught by radar’s sweep
Against a snake the souls must fend
And wake from slumber deep
Categories:
ragged, storm, weather, wind,
Form:
Quatrain
O, hurry, where by water, among the trees,
The delicate stepping stag and his lady sigh,
When they have looked upon their images
Would none had ever loved but you and I!
Or have you heard that sliding silver-shoed
Pale silver-proud queen-woman of the sky,
When the sun looked out of his golden hood?
O, that none ever loved but you and I!
Oh hurry to the ragged wood, for there
I will drive all of those lovers out and cry
O, my share of the world, O, yellow hair!
No one has ever loved but you and I.
Categories:
ragged, absence, beautiful, body,
Form:
The little girl had lost her doll,
Searching up here, searching down there,
The doll was ragged and so small,
Where had she gone now? Where, oh, where?
She looked under her little bed,
She looked under her bedroom chair,
"She must be so scared", the girl said,
She searched for her doll everywhere,
She looked in her big brother's room,
But she couldn't find her anywhere,
Eyes full of tears, heart filled with gloom,
Off she went, with her mom to share,
Mom said, "Oh dear, no need to cry,
Your doll took a bath with Brown Bear,
Look out, I think now, she's all dry,
Your dolly's clean and bright and fair."
Categories:
ragged, child, mother daughter,
Form:
Rhyme
Since I've been born.
Just a peasant girl,
Not worth diamonds or pearls.
Born with the sheep
Have to sleep in the big dung heap.
Used and worn,
Ragged and torn.
Categories:
ragged, childhood, sad,
Form:
All night, wind ragged as rain blew.
And the moon is seen as a squire view.
To be a mentor to the cutting wind.
In the sky, a single moon might askew.
Oh, hurry to the lake in the wild.
Both the lady and the bird sighed.
If only we'd ever loved each other!
If all they've done is look in mind.
Utterance cracks as we become older.
A lighted match's rosy cheeks, blusher.
A sun storm raged underneath the ground. ?
I clean our crystal skulls with a safe utter.
I ramble with most of yesterday's wound.
Along the ragged edges of a river round.
Among the hopes that will never realize
It was only me, my last day, and my hound.
But yet, doesn't all life exist to demise?
Can't the sun have some night bronze?
Isn't it all promise that flickers so dimly?
When faced with the stout dawn rise?
It's likely that the odds aren't so dreary.
But some, we will have to fight certainly.
Surrounded by the lowland meadow.
So I dare to daydream to attain victory.
Written: October 5, 2021
''R'' Contest, New Or Old Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Constance La France.
Categories:
ragged, analogy, bereavement, community, confusion,
Form:
Rubaiyat
Out, vile jelly! Sightless orb.
Horrified, yet we absorb.
Never sated, always thrilled,
Captives to the ink he spilled.
Our eyes thus peer through fingers tight;
Coveting his wit, we write.
The play’s the thing, its own reward,
Yet emulate we our dear bard.
For a moment, he draws near;
Perchance, we dream, our verse endears.
Nay, with scorn he soon departs:
“Thou art a very ragged Wart.”
----------
musings on Shakespeare be Damned by John Lawless
Categories:
ragged, appreciation,
Form:
Couplet
Ragged Mother...
She pumped her lungs
To keep the fire live
Her wailing kid's
Dried tears
Pausing the sound
In anticipation
Of a morsel of food
That the mother
Struggles to cook
Soft moonlight
Peeping through the cracked roof
Envying the rugged child
Sitting in a ragged sling
Wishing that in all adversities
He had a mother like the one
Pushing her being
To the bare existence of her child...
@ 'dusk'....
Categories:
ragged, life,
Form:
ABC
Ragged
Ragged heartbeats,
Shut in
But not
Shut out,
Tattered heartbreak,
Tragedy
Flung
From high towers
Swooping down in towering tornados
Descending
Ascending from foul marshes
Quick sand
Stalking careless footsteps -
Stealthy quagmires – fetid slime -
Like a shredded storm -
Lurk by the doorstep
Round the corner
Up the highway
On the highroad
Near the low road
Alone
But not lonely
Colleagues of long ago,
Companions on the quests,
Coax my muse to contemplation
Far from the scheduled, frantic crowd,
Erratic cacophony
Blowing horns, sirens,
Lonely whistles of nighttime trains
In frayed harmonies
Wooing scruffy inner child
Emerge
Play again;
Bundled up against the frozen banshee’s breath,
Sitting in the lap of time -
Lost and unrestrained
In candied dawns and lavender midnights,
Ignoring the scream of seconds to pay attention
Startled by life peeping in through rosettes –
Intruder with vacant eyes -
Calling dance with the dance macabre
To the dirge of who knows when shutters close;
Turned out
Not turned away
Turning ‘round -
Grabbing the hand of verse – friend called lyric -
To the sound of remembered carousels enchantment;
Freeing elfin earthbound energy;
Essence escaping boundaries at a welcoming hearth,
Exploding
From isolation’s shabby womb.
10-5-21
Contest: “R”
Sponsor: Constance La France
Categories:
ragged, angst, birth, life,
Form:
Free verse
the homeless people
alive in cracks we avoid.
each displays no grace nor glory.
We turn our backs, are so annoyed.
Worn overcoats over scrim pajamas,
angled hair and leather-ed skin,
bags and bottles are their bangles,
we’ve become loveless manikins.
some have singing voices.
souls beautiful yet never heard.
some lay choice-less
all have only what we deserve.
there are angels among them
Sent to check on you and me.
watching, waiting for any kindness
To save us from what we deserve.
What do we know about the homeless people?
Sleeping in the cracks that we avoid?
Those who seem to have no grace or glory.
We turn our backs we’re so annoyed.
John K. O’Zemko
Revised 01-13-2023
02-19-2009
Categories:
ragged, abuse, addiction, blessing, environment,
Form:
Didactic
walk in these shoes a dozen miles
hang down you head like a defeated, disciplined child
think in your mind the times of strife you have
beating in your heart your last blood you bleed less
go asleep and as you wake
you awake just to sleep
and all your dreams you've been denied
come and go run and hide
Over the stones
over the mounds and hills
Over the grasses roam
Over the on through river banks
over through meadows lakes
while yet still in the distance
still you walk in worn shoes a ragged dozen miles
walk
walk
walk
walk in worn shoes a ragged dozen miles
1/12/22
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr. 2022©
Categories:
ragged, adventure, analogy, anxiety, destiny,
Form:
Rhyme
In your absence, a ragged purple dusk stretches over the soul,
And is petrified, reliving at the frozen window of a heart invaded by silence,
I close my eyes, and the air becomes the cold silk of evenings once bright with a star,
While your memory, a sifted cloud, wraps itself gently over times futilely unwound.
I have locked our love in a crypt battered by the wind of thoughts,
Bolted with tears solidified, like diamonds torn from the depths of my being,
I keep it hidden, to pulsate with echoes of a lost laughter, wrapped in darkness,
I stand and wait, like a watchtower, in the unbounded tear of the night.
I count the echoes of silence, which have become my realm of thoughts and undying longing,
The tormentor of yearning awakens echoes and shadows over the shameful palace of memory,
The latch of reality shakes illusions; my hopes swing between fear and fantasy,
And in the flash of a moment, when the light of unrest seems to glimmer, I fall into the void.
Your nearness is a barren vision, fleeting love in the fabric of time that eludes my senses,
The pedal of longing spins the thread in a macabre dance, in the corolla of our separation,
My fingers slide across the walls of nothingness, tracing the shadow of your phantom step,
I try to catch your evanescent whisper on the deaf melody of a petrified world.
Thus flows the river, showing its banks in the absence of your warm droplets,
In the sheath of this icy reality, where are you, ice flower, lost
Generous in waiting, on the ship of desolation, I sail through the ocean without your presence,
Until the sun is born again, perhaps, from the foam left by a wet and strange dream.
Categories:
ragged, absence,
Form:
Free verse