Best Redesign Poems
You ask what poetry can mean to me?
No glib reply will leap forth from my tongue.
As well to ask if food and drink might be
Of any use! I reckon it among
The minimum necessities of life.
A poem can affect us many ways—
Caress like a lover, cut like a knife,
Cajole, instruct, enthuse, amuse, amaze,
Can take us places we have never been,
And show us sights our eyes will never see,
Or like some fairy godmother or jinn
Transform us into what we’ll never be.
For poetry can soothe, enrage, extol,
Engage one’s mind, or plumb one’s very soul.
Written February 23, 2019
This poem was selected as the winner, in the adult category, of the 22nd annual Anne Dittrick Sonnet-Writing Contest, sponsored by the Nebraska Shakespeare festival. A link: http://www.nebraskashakespeare.com/a/nebraskashakespeare.com/nebraska-shakespeare-2017-redesign/education/sonnet-contest/2018-winning-sonnets
While I gaze at nightfall through chilled droplets
my musings try to redesign past reveries:
oh those exotic, summer escapades now buried
in gravestones of ice- powdered vapor…
and now the blistering winds return
when a frigid son of Poseidon veils
eve's tableau with ghastly pines
like numb statues macabre and furrowed,
hiding the radiance of moonlight.
Looks drab, not interesting, yet come early morn,
the sprigs beckon a tune elegantly droning
on lucent flakes to nibble the skyline red…
a mirror of stars circling in a gentle, gentle prance,
this, only in the magic of a white winter spell.
9/24/2016
Interesting Contest for john lawless
Another Time Another Place
Push back the great clocks leavers
With giant Godly hands
Roll over the years
Reverse this tocking tick
And redesign sweet destiny
Find for me
Another fate
In a different time
Where my wanderings
And travelings
Took an uncommon path
To the present
Cut a chunk from my days
And make again younger
Less wise ways
To treat with impetuous
Dreaming
Let me not stay in Europe’s
Home of familiar
Let me instead
Fly the Oceans
To land in America
And there to find the
Mating souls poetry of another
I found in these meanderings
So much later
Give me back the spent seconds
I never noticed
To capture
All this knowing
Lead my feet then quietly
On ponderings
Secret spirit of my lover
Take back my hand
So love burdens your hours
With smiles
And just for the sake
Of love
Fly me
Lead me
Entreat me again
With your sweet destiny
Lift me to America
And by a lake
Of blue grass
Where flutters a fall
Red
In her colour-ed
She waits
Let me find
In another time
And in another face
Sweet destiny
Let me
Find
Her
In the gentleness of this breeze
I sense hope and grateness
True affection and emotion
Like the world is forever mine
Looking into your eyes
The siren of your beauty tells
All queens are graciously made
Honey you are graciously and beautifully made in the garden of all queens
At first the emotions seems asleep
Today it's been awakened
I have come not to leave but to stay
You are the rainbow I've been drawing since birth
Mummy and friends said I am mean
Honey you studied me and convinced them
By putting your untested saliva on my mouth
Redesign me and put thousand smile on my frown face
You are the jewel that brought out the real me in me
Never cease to present your golden presence
Watching you speak with many smiles on your face
Is my soul ecstasy and fantasy
An angel escaped from heaven
Angel without wings and with countless power
You are the roses of three light glittery tree in my poetic garden
No doubt saying you are my menera muse.
Our daughter wanted to build a tiny house.
We laughed our rears off, showering her with hoots.
She had more clothes than sixteen other women.
Where will she put two thousand boots?
Her furniture is oversized, her closets are stuffed.
A tiny house? A tiny house? We laughed and cried.
I can do it, she said, her voice was stiff and gruffed.
Not if you tried, we said. Not if you tried!
She had it built but nothing fit, maybe her cat.
So she had them redesign the front, it is nice.
A cozy, warm place for her silly cat to take a rat.
A tiny house? We laughed more than thrice.
Improved quality of food shall surely benefit man.
Quantity increases will feed the hungry and poor.
To the common man, at first, it sounds like the perfect plan.
Gene changed gorgeous fruits adorn the produce store.
Genetically changed super plants manipulate God’s world.
Seeming positive at first, scheming power at its worst --
Undermine the little man; devious research unfurled.
Appearing beneficial, redesign is by greed cursed.
Third world countries co-align as those in power hold their hands.
Their research advancements are supported from sea to seas.
Genetic exploration changes God designed croplands.
New producers thwart small farmers; they manipulate bees.
Homestead farmers feel the pain; sterile seeds do not grow plants.
Meanwhile the power hungry cannot quench greed’s growing thirst.
Generational practices work hard to keep their stance.
But into microscopic life new laws of order soon burst.
Lobbyists seek to stop homesteaders that grow their own crops.
Sterile seeds and dying bees are the super’s starting spot.
Rooftop beehives and small farm home-crops try to mend teardrops.
Changing God’s world is the backdrop to a shifting hilltop.
12/29/2018
FORM QUESTION: I know that this is written in quatrains, but there is a form for poems that try to influence reader's opinion ... or religion. What form is that? Does this poem fit in that form?
Frank N. Stein began to whine,
He has been accused of awful crime,
Scaring little kids in their bed,
Setting off metal detectors with his head,
He just might need a redesign.
expectations blurred the page
of motherhood. I thought it through,
each point of view. My plans were laid
a shade of pink, a hue so new
would come upon the heels of two
who sketched my world with shades of blue
I'd framed her world for my display
a trophy of my fantasy
chiseled clear, I saw it all,
beyond the stage of snakes and snails
growing boys, trucks and toys
tossed across my pregnant form
doing mindless daily chores, I crafted dreams
rehearsed the themes, disarming tales of nursery rhymes
I'd plan her life to suit my theme
but, who was I to redesign
a perfect child, I thought I owned?
sowing selfish schemes, she'd be
cloned to be a form of me - I'd live my dream
through her, all mine, to hone, redo
a mother's fragile paper doll
I did lose sight of destiny
compared, alike, - we shared a trace
resemblance of hair and face
presumptions swept between the lines
she was not meant to be defined
this child of God withheld her dreams
of ways to make the stars align
this aquamarine was never mine
what stirred her heart - vast worlds apart
she felt the sun within her soul
and thus, I've learned
I must let go
she must be free, not who I own
I've closed a chapter to that book
one looks in awe, as she became
a person who can touch the soul
beyond my dreams, she brings to all
a million lights, they've never seen before
emerging stars are bright with gold
hers comes alive. old dreams are cold
no two alike, as it should be
each one a star with different poles
I've owned the fear of letting go
____________________________________________________
4/20/16
Contest: OWN IT!
Sponsor: Cyndi McMillan
In a world of democracies, in a world where the great projects that have set humanity on fire are the projects of the emancipation of individuals from entrenched social division and hierarchy; in such a world individuals must never be puppets or prisoners of the societies or cultures into which they have been born.
Child slavery is a crime against humanity. Humanity itself is at stake here. A lot of work still remains, but I will see the end of child labor in my lifetime.
I think music in itself is healing. It's an explosive expression of humanity. It is something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we're from, everyone loves music.
There is no present.
We are living in the future.
Risk, risk, risk
We are all risk
Risking to go,
Risking to die,
Risking to learn.
Risking to fly.
We have made it.
We are ancient as we speak.
We are living in the future.
So some give their lives to history.
We are history.
So some give their lives to us.
Humanity has been challenged.
They have challenged humanity.
We have risen out of the ashes
That are not ashes.
We have picked ourselves up
Out of the oceans
Over and over again
We learn that we’re not safe
So we redesign.
We learn that we are wrong,
So we scrap and start a new.
We try again.
They call back to us,
"Please, try again!
Over my departed dreams,
Try, try again!"
We the undernourished,
We the underfunded,
We the constrained,
We the brave,
The daring,
The curious,
The planet,
The humans.
Life.
We are nothing if not inspired.
We will find a way
To our stars.
From whence the atoms in our souls
Were fashioned.
We are Challenger.
I am a Challenger.
A Challenger Challenges only?
To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.
By Aliza Kashmala Kiran
Cried loud all "innovate or perish" all around the World
Why not the education which gives the greatest mould
Primary , Secondary and Tertiary are the steps to consume our life
This system is age old not have any logic with the time rife
Mature are the minds today before their age
Then why You Educationist let their brain waste over page
Think twice and RETHINK, REKINDLE the Hope
Education is stepping stone not a joke
Let the death-knell takes its toll on the past
Rest assured, Children will fly high without a mast
So restructure, redesign redefine the system
That makes the life , CARPE DIEM!!!
I danced around the circle how graceless i am
The tones i used to sing was no longer mine
Food id like to eat turned bitter in time
I looked at the mirror the face is not mine
How cruel the world so clueless no sign
Pieces by pieces will i ever redesign
I feign day by day that everything is fine
Love i once held was now undefined
The tramp, loafer, bummer all in one
Whatever you call the name is one sound
Pond of lust and laughter and fun
You may win the game but your cloud has no sun
My eyes are bleeding in pain and on fire
Indomitable anger so hard to respire
Look at me now how you made me desire
Exhausted, berated, Please condole by my side
God seems has created this enormous universe
from one point and emptiness
In the honor of his great love
As if after tragic lost his best beloved,
For really immortal memory of one heart
whom he so strong and limitless devoured,
that after lost her forever
he overfilled with hate and vengeance
to decide redesign and reshape world,
aiming wipe away Death at all
completely and totally
expelling and terminating it jealously
from any spaces, measures and way of existences
have left any room for his arch enemy,
presenting in the honor of love
her condolence. memory and unavoidable resurrection
this grandeur, stunned, fearful, limitless, deep
and full with unexplained and unfolded awesome love
act of creation.
A vast explosion in the sky
of supernova’s great goodbye
is how immense celestials die.
Yet these demises have their worth
to aid perchance in future birth
of star to house a planet earth.
Our human species’ vessel home
beneath the heavens’ vaulted dome
is floating in a sea of foam
where we’ve been sailing safe and sound
with bubbles multiversed around,
so novel theories propound.
Thus in our ‘brane’ with solar world
that’s strung with particles unfurled
we dwell within dimensions curled,
as per this unifying stance
about the unbeknownst expanse
which hosts our mortal song and dance.
The firmament we peer into
plays hide and seek with what’s in view
to shift with varied light anew.
When sets the sun at day’s decline
and darkness shapes its redesign,
somewhere a star will show its shine.
Longfellow’s classic epic said
that endless meadows overhead
would ‘one by one’ in silence spread
their star ‘forget-me-not’ arrays
of blossoms for the angels’ gaze,
his lovely lines to paraphrase.
‘How countlessly they congregate’,
wrote Robert Frost of stellar spate
that waits beyond the darkling gate!
Though death all life may underlie,
in cosmic twinkling of an eye
somewhere a star is born on high…
~ Harley White
* * * * * * * * * *
Some sources of inspiration were the following…
“Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven,/ Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.”
~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline: ‘A Tale of Acadie’
First line of ‘Stars’, by Robert Frost, from Robert Frost’s ‘A Boy’s Will’, 1915…
M-theory ~ Wikipedia…
Your eyes are so bright, clear, I will forever explore their splendors of crystalline
Sensual, you give the meaning of true beauty, a much-needed redefine
Running through your hair, as your lips run through and all over mine
You've taught me unrequited love is not the only one in my life line
The rebuilding of my heart, given by you, a complete an utter redesign
Never have I questioned us, our love throws like an infinite candleshine
Long before a calendar day, you were already my one only true Valentine
I met the new soul I was due to become,
This morning, around about two.
He was beginning to redesign my thoughts,
He was going to make me feel new,
When I thought, hang on, I haven’t finished
Creating and being all that is me,
I haven’t finished building everything
That is fun and friendly and free.
So we had a discussion about
A time share throughout the year;
I could be the weekend painter,
While he could be the career.
This morning my new soul and I started
A great work/rest time plan,
Just the two of our souls living together
Sharing this one single man.