Best Rankled Poems
On specific night, the moon shows part a story
With sliced light's slant on key rock,
By at odd interests' solarity—
The cold rock fires back
Through lumped scars mixed in as minerals;
From behind, dark side's show, light lack.
Haunted angles
Sun spangled
Rankled
On specific night, the moon shows part a story
Through lumped scars mixed in as minerals,
Rankled.
It continues to befuddle my inquisitive mind
why many of you have attacked and maligned
vaccines, and have decided to become aligned
with other naysayers. Are you physically blind?
It's not amusing when false dogma spreads terror
Your claims are outrageous and uttered in error
Open your eyes to the truth, and be a torchbearer
instead of creating hysteria as a rankled despairer.
I'm not suggesting you wear rose-colored shades,
but stop throwing darts at hearts and live grenades
at those fighting for the right cause in the crusades.
Life or death is not a game to play like charades.
I wonder how you'd feel if one you loved had died
for refusing to allow a needle to pierce their hide.
Would you admit your theories had been cockeyed
or pig-headedly insist, "Vaccinations are unjustified."
Remove the cloth binding your eyes. Set yourself free
of lies sweetened with rhetoric, so we all might be
safer in a world that's not destined for its apogee.
Listen, if you refuse to see. Please consider this plea.
October 5, 2021
This or That, Vol 7 Contest - Hysterical Blindness
Sponsored by Edward Ibeh
Reining in jet-black steed;
Rangle for her falcon.
Repugnant mudslinging,
Risible in content,
Rankled those in the know.
Recent loss of soulmate;
Ravens smudge the teal sky.
____________________________________________________
GLOSSARY
Queen Elizabeth II had a good seat, and her love of horses is well documented. [Edited]
Throughout the ages, falconry has been considered the sport of kings. In falconry, ‘rangle’ is a term used for small stones which are fed to hawks to aid in digestion.
The exposé led by her grandson, Prince Harry, had divided a nation—a number of assertions made, have been proven to be false.
Queen Elizabeth II lost her husband on 9 April 2021, whom she had viewed as her soulmate.
A group of at least six captive ravens are resident at the Tower of London. Their presence is traditionally believed to protect The Crown and the Tower; a superstition holds that "if the Tower of London ravens are lost or fly away, the Crown will fall and Britain with it."
Your black hair shimmered
I knew not the reason
I watched it every little season
My heart and head simmered
Your shapely body twinkled
As if never would it be wrinkled
Yet it had a little lesion
Which never ever rankled
You were my heart`s queen
Those organs of sight
Just witty and bright
They caught me off guard
An angel is all l had seen
I zoomed heavenward!
Far back in the cool green shadows
of the woods in a foreign land,
there blows a rose of thornless stock;
it is thornless by Love's reprimand.
The hunters have fled the battle;
the woodland lies placid and still
with naught to break the blest quiet
save for the nightingale's trill.
Kneeling beside the fair blossom
is a maiden of purest heart
whose virgin soul no man has known;
it was reserved for her true love's art.
Nestled against her maiden breast
lies the beast of the ivory horn;
he who discerns the virgin heart,
the magnificent unicorn.
The trees gather round enchanted;
their lacy tops whisper the song,
"home is the warrior from battle
for right is triumphant o'er wrong."
He rests, wings folded, victorious;
enraptured, she cradles his head.
Love is the balm his soul needed
for the wound that rankled blood red.
Far back in the cool green shadows
of the woods in a foreign land,
there blows a rose of thornless stock;
it is thornless by Love's reprimand.
The rose which blossoms eternal
knows the lovers will never part;
it is white for a love without blemish;
it is red for their passionate heart.
Faye Lanham Gibson
Copyright, 1987
We aborted the Christ a long time ago
What with the successive thousands of gentle fetuses strangled.
Stop stop! Why lament? Let not the wind be rankled
By thy silly bleats and unbaked ego.
Thee killed the Christ
Thee impeded his coming.
Thee cruel beast flaked with lies
O thee daughters of Jezebel’s sinning!
Thee killed him, that young Christ in thy womb
That lamb sent down to our sins loom.
What did so meek a lamb do to thee, predators?
What vice did he depict, O executors?
There, thee shake those cursed heads of thine.
That lamb committed none, but thee went for its throat.
When thee felt it kick in glee in thee
Thee hastened in terror for that mountain yonder
Where thee crucified him still like done on Golgotha,
Fronted by those lascivious Romans in their creel.
Those Romans were of a less cruel breed
For I watched thee in triple trepidation murder the Christ.
I peeped as thy hands pulled it forth from its manger
While that stiletto went cutting and shredding and beheading its soft cord.
I watched thee squash its throat:
A young lamb that has neither learned to kick nor croak
Nor mastered the humanness of weeping.
I watched thee young Jezebel, thee came stabbing. And stabbing. And cursing.
I watched thee as the sun set in the East
While darkness fell speedily from the mist
as the sun hid its head in fatal shame,
While thee with the stealth of Lucifer
Cast that messenger from the heavens two feet below
And again cursed it to the bowels of hell.
I found a photograph today.
Its discovery agitated my emotions
and I caught my breath.
There you were - suspended -
like some ancient fly held
eternally in amber.
Pose, expression, frozen - always.
I found a photograph today.
It awoke a memory long forgotten:
It was a hot sultry day.
We had travelled to our arrival
and we argued, our tempers
shortened by the blistering heat.
My neat linen skirt had creased
- like my mood - and you were rude.
What did you say? I can hear the tone
but the words are gone now and
suddenly unimportant....washed away
down the plughole of insignificance....
Gurgling then gone - lost in the
annals of broken promises and accumulating
hurt which precipitated our goodbye.
I look into your petrified eyes -
eyes that sparkled when I loved you
yet metamorphosed into damming hate at times.
Is your hand touching mine?
I remember when it did - tenderly -
I remember your fingers .... graceful somehow,
artistic, creative, piano playing, painting,
then hitting, hurting - same hands yet tender no more.
Same hands, there in the photograph, no, not touching.
I found a photograph today.
Its discovery rankled my emotions
and I held my breath -
like I did when you frightened me
with your unpredictability.
Your ability to swing from light to dark in an instant.
Yes, I found a photograph today
but its gone now .......
Torn to tatters and thrown into the wind.
Therapeutic in its destruction.
Aiding and abetting reconstruction
of a future without you.
You're gone -
washed away -
gone - down the plughole of insignificance.
Gone in the cleansing of reminiscence.
Gone, gone, gone........
....................... and forgotten.
Twas the night of the Ladies League Final and the atmosphere was tense
Only two teams were competing, no loyalties allowed on the fence
There could only be one winner, the team with strongest will
And if you lost you were losers, and losing meant you were swill!
The teams were made up of eight players, all with an aim straight and true
Each woman stood there determined and each with their own point of view
Still arguments were frequent and blood was often shed
Only last week Blackout Bertha got smacked in the gob, now she’s dead!
The marker called all to order, and with a toss of a coin they were off
The Fiddler and Firkham Ladies verses the Wenches from ‘Th’owd Pig N Trough’
The Captain of the Firkham was called upon to name
the player who was starting this dangerously ill fated game.
She shouted ‘Hot Legs Hilda - will play for the Firkham pride’
she was the one who’d smacked Bertha, you know, the lass that had died!
Well ripples ran though the public and scowls came across from the Trough
But they sent out their best in ‘Fat Freida’ and suddenly the game was off!
Hilda set a steady pace, with a one and a two, double three
As she stepped back off the hockey she gave Frieda a stab in the knee
But Freida was not to be mithered she went one, double two, double five
And folks sitting round the ale tables thought, ‘We’ll none of us get out alive!’
It was plain to see from the offing that this match was doomed from the start
As each woman rankled the other with poke or cough or a fart!
Eventually the pair of them, understood that the game must be won
And Frieda left Hilda three Arrows – her Captain said, ’This’ll be fun!’
Now Hilda was a psychopath who hated to lose, yes it’s true
But what she did next took all by surprise; it came totally out of the blue
She ambled across to her handbag and pulled out a crossbow of size
And with that she let loose an arrow that hit Frieda right between eyes.
You could have heard a pin drop as Freida lifelessly fell to the floor
As her Captian straddled the bloodied corpse her face took on a look that was sore
She turned to the Firkin’s Captain and said quite resigned and all meek
‘By Heck June not another – Oh well, same time, same place next week??’
PRETTY KITTY
They named her Princess
Coal black with long silken fur
She had this proud air
They had to laugh thought it cute
Not Caesar their bulldog brute
Caesar was not cute
had a face like a washboard
Always kept his place
But Princess had a free reign
And this caused Caesar great pain!
She ate at table
Was let out to freely roam
Welcomed on a lap
Not so Caesar not so cool
He was too big and he drooled
He was patronized
Princess her nose in the air
Scratched the furniture
Had a perfumed litter box
Once peed on the master’s sox
All this Caesar saw
Oh it rankled in his craw
That snip of a cat!
Bring her down to Earth he vowed
Dump her from her fleecy cloud
And then one fine day
As the Princess sleeping lay
Head on velvet paws
Caesar as was his habit
Lifted leg let her have it!
Dave Austin
...This rankled Ethan, deep down in his core,
his drummer just quit, but Ethan wanted more,
he pressed on touring, writing out new songs,
from catchy romps to grand epics, long.
Their next single climbed to thirty-three,
then the one after made it to fifteen,
they’re first album came out, Ethan was proud,
but the critics pounced, cried,’Sophmoric, loud!’
Some even proclaimed him a no-talent fool,
even rolling in cash he tasted failure fuel.
But he was not the type to stay settled,
they all would see his musical mettle,
so he set out to writing every day,
poured into his songs all he had to say,
for ten years it went, eight albums dropping,
hit after hit, four songs chart-topping,
until even the critics had to admit
that when it came to music, Ethan had it.
He stood at the top, secure in the truth,
you don’t get there without some failure fuel.
At fifty he gave a strange interview,
when out promoting an album, quite new,
He said,”They make one mistake, and they’re shattered,
too many folks don’t fight for what matters,
never told that failure teaches what won’t work,
that nothing is easy, and nothing deserved.
What wonders would they have brought about
if they’d simply learned to never drop out.
Nobody ever gets where they’re going to
without first topping off on that failure fuel.”
Tis' life I bring to my garden gate
On a palette of colors by my front door
Each day I can play as I cultivate
Many blooms I have spawned as a grower
Many suns, many moons have sweated and swooned
In the coming and going of seasons
But now even more the old metaphor
Has me thinking of all the wrong reasons
For now as I gaze on the flowery state
The day has drawn long and lost its mettle
As the giving up of the ghost Gladiola's fate
And the rankled Rose is shedding its petals
The collapsing Chrysanthemum has irritated the Iris
While the perishing Peony has drawn to conclusion
The senescent Sunflower floundered its prowess
The tired Tiger Lily needs an infusion
Drooping Dahlias and doddering Daffodils
Are waning with dwindling demeanor
No enterprise or miracle can save them with sheer will
Their disposition will never be lusty or keener
It gives a small comfort though to know
That even if beauty fades with the turning of the seasons
It gathers in blossoms of the moments that in our hearts grow
And lasts as true love always fresh, ever pleasing
Tis life I bring to my garden gate
Each day I can play as I cultivate
On a palette of colors by my front door
Many blooms I have spawned as a grower
June 19, 2019
INIQUITY
The absence of moral or spiritual values afflict
we detest them when at the short end of the stick
life is unfair—we are reminded—the reply quick
Afraid we might not get our piece of pie
even when offenders repent—apologize
never really payback—just a free ride
Further rankled when God’s time is not ours
trapped--Sylvia Plath in her troubled ‘Bell Jar’
choosing anger over trust—restitution bizarre?
How to make right when we have been wronged
biblical options rebuffed whilst hate is prolonged
perfect fairness not ours to harbor all lifelong
God makes things right in His way and time
‘vengeance is mine’ He reminds – never sublime
verdict of iniquity chastened—victimless crime
“Pshaw!” My grandmother said
as she thumped and bumped about
her crowded kitchen
steam rising, having
heated conversation with herself
Rankled by my grandfather's
latest excuse for not helping
around the house
Thwack! She smacked
the meat down on the counter
pounding and whacking
dinner into submission
Beyond exasperation
stewing, livid
“Pshaw!” She said again
louder this time, making me jump
sounding like the air-brake
on my Grandfather's big truck
letting off pressure
Little and fiery
fierce and feisty
my Grandfather had no idea
what he was up against
the volatile, volcanic fury
of a woman thwarted
“Land's Sakes, Willard!”
was his final warning
but he let it go past that-
to the point of
“Pshaw!”
even scrunching brow
defeats and doth be lie
this one measly mortal well nigh
tuckered out on par with calculating pi
tangential to asking if and/or
how i can access
fullest potential...say to write
about with the aid of symbols
i.e. letters to expound on an idea trite
or one that confounded mankind
many millenniums or quite
sum indeterminate orbits 'round el sol,
no ability within this mite
ova reproductive happenstance (yes me),
whom ye could tell go fly a kite
for inducing confusion,
but the nature of this har re: beast
with a little insight
gripped, harangued, rankled,
et cetera, thus communicates
hello or goodnight,
which understandable
simple words may not excite
as quotidian oft repeated philosophical
mental challenges
i didst expend effort to cite,
which mind exercises offers
no exit, ouch that doth byte
and if subjected to a brain scan
would blind technicians
and set alight
frenzied uproar amidst *****Sapiens
via intense thinking to induce blind
ness flailing at feeling trapped
asper being teased at find
ding no beginning
or end like a mobius strip
analogous to space/ time continuum
that little effort could
blow a fuse in the mind.
adieu: from matthew scott harris
hook halls schwenksville, pennsylvania
hiz home tow win.
Incomplete metamorphosis of this stilled adolescent...
petrified, sheltered, and mortally wounded prepubescent
I consider myself
analogously buttressed, cocooned,
garrisoned, hardened, insulated,
where cell baited jumping frog
o' Montgomery County ne'er
went leaving larvae stage,
now no divine providential
power can assuage,
yours truly metaphorically locked
within invisible iron bound cage
every occasion to shower
validates steep wage
permanently doled out,
yet tis futile to rage
against this human machine
i.e. body dielectric rampage
clocking three scored
orbitz chronological gauge
forever fixed feigned fodder,
when unlived uber story
of mein kampf writ faint
chicken scratch final page
gin hated anorexic
regressive toddling cribbage
deadly game of mine Life pampered
post infancy attended
Aladdin (a lad in) his hermitage
late childhood marriage
with grim reaper as
coefficient co-inhabitant
feasting emaciated lovely bones
verily scrawny, puny, and
nerdy, yea easy to lyft
courtesy lost livingsocial scrimmage
trademark spindleshanks -
stagnant embarrassingly useless
two legged equipage
at childhood's end...,
me skinny package then
weighing, eh no
more'n half dozen stone,
these days when
undressing to wash
forced to espy physical
*****sapiens wreckage
constant visual reminder
this spare rankled, stunted,
tendered ship of state,
yours truly nah oh sage
enlightenment gleaned i.e.
20/20 hindsight kickstarted
quickened, leveraged, mortgaged...,
principly unbalanced worthiness
anatomical disparity
impossible mission to salvage
accounting rent permanently askew
fixed APR rendered
amortization sabotage
irreversible penalty suffrage
escaping serfdom volunteering
self as webbed vassalage
til death do me part.