Best Refer Poems
On her terrace where she once had viewed a crimson field,
she stands recalling heroes who were battling their foe.
She still can feel the terror! How her poor heart reeled
thinking of her lover fighting on the field below,
with others on that plain bathed red as the sun dipped low.
The brave men lie in caskets which now are concealed
beneath a plain that ran with blood, where bright irises now grow.
She thinks of her own strong brave man, draped in white and sealed
forever in a casket too. He was her Romeo.
The sorrow flooding her she had never thought to know.
She looks down from her terrace with a heart that won’t be healed.
The mighty dead now lie in grassy fields. . . and lo!
Around the graves are swords, which are green blades revealed
with *purple flags that softly wave as a May wind starts to blow
and she is bathed in red again, there in the sun’s last glow.
* Purple flags refer to the name of the purple iris that resembles a flag
Submitted for Mark Toney's '2019 Poetry Marathon Mile 25' Contest
Hey dear muse, come out from behind that chair,
You can’t hide from me for your hair is too fair,
And I desperately need your input, creativity and flair,
For I am totally blank of late and need you to dare
Me to say things, I perhaps never would, yes don’t glare.
But like a naughty child you skip out of human sight,
Needing some space, but I need your shining light,
Somehow I know you won’t be gone for too long a while,
As I need your great imagery, guidance and fertile style,
Always been there for me, a great comfort, I have to smile!
I really need you my flirty muse, now more than ever,
I want you to ponder, perhaps show me how clever,
You are, I would like you to try with your every endeavour,
To help me, I’m well and truly stuck, please return however,
And help me to write and encourage me with whatever.
I paid little attention to my muse in the years gone by,
Silly me, and she has such bright ideas, and would never lie,
We get on well, refer and exchange thoughts and, on her behalf
I must confess she’s hysterically funny, she has such wit, I laugh,
I love my muse my eternal dreamer – in height a pint and a half!
So excuse me, won’t say too much in this write or use my imagination
For she still hasn’t returned, and I need her desperately for inspiration,
Wait, I hear the bath water running, is she back, without any hesitation,
I pick up my pen and try to write something which needs poetic creation,
She’s gone to sleep, no ideas till tomorrow, together we’ll discover elation!
For once in my life,
I want to be a poem,
Written with many metaphors,
By a poet with a heart that flows
Flowers of romanticism like the rivers
That roar with devotion deeper than the oceans.
I may never last forever,
Immortalise me in your poem,
I want to smile forever,
I have had oceans of tears
Splashing my heart
And tearing me apart.
Little less anaphora,
Much more allusion,
Refer not a rhyme or a rhythm,
Let me be free, wild and witty,
Just like the sunflowers smiling
In sunbeams in those dreamy paintings,
Let my hair be reckless like waves,
My eyes serene like grey graves,
My lips rosy like bleeding caves,
My fragrance drowsy and dreamy like the dead poets.
Can you write me like those burned up passionate pages in the night where the moon is just hanging low longing to be brought down in the grave glow of the cherry red candlelight.
Please, please,
Let me be a poem,
Say yes, say that you will write me,
Your glorious glass pen,
Ingenious emerald ink
Crunching on an aged, mushy parchment paper.
My typewriter won't work,
The ink on my fingers consumed me,
I choked on my coffee,
I am nothing but just shards of the coffee cup
That kissed my mouth every morning
With gardens and gloom,
Brought a sparkle on my face
That tends to bloom.
I want to be a poem.
If 2012 prophesies prove true
And Earth’s life cycles again renew
Mysteries of man will be more than a few
Challenges may await future life forms
With intellects far surpassing our norm
Created to live without doing harm
For if they decipher man’s history
What will they make of our great mystery
The one we refer to as bigotry
Black labs, gold retrievers live side by side
Wild stallions and mustangs on prairies ride
Both red ants and black, free to colonize
Man’s refusal to accept differences
To wiser beings may make no sense
What in man’s makeup can give it credence?
Earth’s subsequent creatures may reproduce
Not needing two sexes to call a truce
So mating rituals may be pursued
A single-sex species might not comprehend
Why women workers were paid less than men
And why “free speech” was not just a given
Questions would most certainly arise
How a believer in God denies
Rights to free worship without compromise
And how could so many wars be waged
Evoking God’s name in death-march crusades
With killing, torturing in every age
Indeed such mysteries in man’s history
Would leave a perplexing legacy
Sure to confound any new species
New cultures may thrive on diversity
Of religion and genealogy
And speak of our inferiority
Note: This is dedicated to Christopher Higgins whose poems about prejudice inspire readers
to do more than just think about one of the greatest ills in our society.
Should doomsday prophesies prove true
and our planet’s life cycles renew
mysteries of “people” will be more than a few
Provocative questions may await future life forms
blessed with intellects surpassing our norm --
creatures who live without doing harm
If they decipher man’s history
what will they think of our great mystery --
the one we refer to as bigotry
Black labs, gold retrievers sleep side by side
wild stallions and mustangs on prairies ride
both red ants and black, free to colonize
More-evolved species might not comprehend
how women workers were paid less than men
and why “free speech” was not just a given
Questions would most certainly arise
how any believer in God denies
the right to free worship without compromise
Indeed such mysteries in man’s history
would leave a perplexing legacy
sure to confound any new specie
New beings may thrive on diversity
of religion and genealogy
and speak of our inferiority
I wonder
If ever, a day would come
That
You and I, my friend
Would
Refer to ourselves not:
As American, Asian, or European
As black, yellow, or white
As Christian, Muslim, or Buddhist
As friend or foe
But
Simply as brothers
Inhabitants of this planet
That
Care and love one another,
United under the flag of humanity
With
One nationality
One religion
One God...
... I just wonder!
© Demetrios Trifiatis
06 September 2021
* I would love to share the honor of POTD with all of you my kind friends, who always support me with your gracious visits and comments. I thank the officials of PoetrySoup for making this possible. May God bless you all with health and happiness. Remember, we are all brothers and citizens of the city of God!
My picture of pain,
Exists with a slight twist,
I place a sharp razor on my wrist,
Dragging it vertically and horizontally I make slits,
Feeling the urge after every heartbreak,
Feeling the urge to cut with every mistake I make,
Someone help me, but please do not refer to me as insane,
I’m not seeking attention; my body gets numb to the pain,
Expressing the pain I’ve felt emotionally by hurting myself physically.
The endorphins which releases from each cut causes me to fell high
If you ask what’s wrong I’m going to lie.
But as you can see the truth, I am not fine
I’m slowly breaking down inside,
But I cover up all this pain with a smile and pull down my long sleeves,
That cover up the all the memories that each scar leaves.
Mom caught her boob in the washer’s wringer
Rotor made Mom an opera singer
Tit for tat, she got redder
Pop struggled with the lever
I pulled the plug, was able to spring ‘er
Wow! Mum is the word on this awful day
We don’t refer to this deed of foul play
“Hah! Your Dad’s a dud," she cried
As with pain pills she was plied
Now under the radar Pop stays away
*Entry for David William’s Palindrome Mad Contest
By Carolyn Devonshire
Palindrome Words:
Mom, boob, rotor, tit, tat, redder, Pop, Wow, Mum, refer, deed, Hah!, Dad, dud, radar
Children as young as three years old,
Killed for not doing as they’re told,
Forced to forget their culture bold,
What a tragedy to unfold!
Two hundred fifteen, that ain’t less,
Young innocents abused, suppressed,
How can humans be so heartless?
It breaks my heart, I must confess,
Wonder, how they would have pleaded?
Their cries for mercy unheeded
Residential schools, not needed,
Were soon closed, but lives conceded,
In the name of education,
A way of ‘assimilation’,
Native kids faced termination,
What a gruesome excavation!
07.01.2021
{On 28 May, 2021, the bodies of 215 children were discovered in a burial site at the grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential School using new, ground-penetrating technology. The deaths are believed to be undocumented. The school, which was closed in the late 1970s, is located in Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation. First Nations refer to a section of indigenous inhabitants of Canada, along with Inuits and Métis people.
Between 1831 and 1996, Canada’s residential school system forcibly separated more than 1.5 lakh First Nations children from their families in order to assimilate them into the Euro-Canadian and Christian ways of living. They were forbidden to acknowledge their indigenous heritage and culture or to speak their own languages.
According to an information resource set up by the University of British Columbia, children were subjected to physical, sexual, emotional, and psychological abuse.
In 2008, then Prime Minister Stephen Harper publicly issued an apology, on behalf of the Government of Canada, to all indigenous people acknowledging the country’s role in the residential school system.}
For Edward Ibeh's "This or That, Vol 4" contest
The Name Game
Understanding human nature can be very complex indeed
Especially when there are people whose names are hard to read
Let me give you some examples to explain what I m talking about
There is no simple rule to follow, no single rule to flout
Perhaps you can take for instance the case of Marylou
Underneath her disarming nature could be a cold and heartless shrew
Or when Mary Jane who’s far from plain is a stunning movie star
And Johnny who never stole any sugar or uttered Yes Papa
One should never plan a vacation based solely on the name of a town
“Accident” a place in Maryland is actually quite safe and sound
Or” End of the Road” is the name of store and does not refer to a street
There you can find everything you need from shoes to books to meat.
Consider why Ideo locator merely means a “you are here” sign
Or Morton’s toe simply means your toes are not arranged in line
Griffonage , unreadable writing , they should simply say hard to spell
Honestly with names like that , one really cannot tell
Have you ever wondered why no rats have ever run a rat race
Or a slip of your tongue seems silly when your tongue is firmly in place
What’s in a name asks Shakespeare, really there’s quite a lot
Would you smell a rose if it were called a Stinky touch me not?
Mentors like priests preparing me for holy rite
Institutional slaves to a false trinity
Subduing adventure, exploration and discovery to classroom rigor
Eternal stairway ... moonbeams to the golden dream
Dismatling who I am so I become who you want me to be
Urges denied constructing scaffolds, setting beam
Castling on beam, I climb like Jack the ogre tree
Ability acquiring arrows for what's embattling me
Tensions beyond the classroom, teacher grading my
Intelligence as if it were a canvas to her eye
Opportunity has too narrow a door for all our differences
Nestled in her pocket, I see the ogre search in vain.
Offering us like children to the fires of Molech
Frantic prayers sibilant in flickering tongues of despair
Teeming the locus of the African nightmare
Husked of gold, silver, uranium, copper and diamond skies
Each one scrambles up the vine compassless of self
Nations fall - without the eyes of love we are blind
Emerging people shaken out in global disarray
Groaning for nothing from classroom to classroom
Refer to their budgets and see what is prioritize
Oysters get their pearls from pain, I know, yet
Errors must be corrected, education must mean more, we
Substance truth only by the purge of a regulated history.
B.C. has been the acronym applied
for all events before out dear Lord’s birth.
Who knew another god would change the tide
and wield a power of great global worth?
To what do I refer? Or have you guessed
the god to which we each now bow our head?
No matter our religion, all are blessed
with this thing vital as our daily bread.
It took away the jobs of common men
and gave new jobs to geeks. You now must know
this god of our new world, who loves all sin
as well as good, has nothing it won’t show!
I think “Before Computers” seems a way
to say A.D. became a new B.C.
Now things have changed so much that I would say
that my own past is ancient history!
Before Computers, life was not so fast,
and even in the 90’s I could keep
abreast of news and make my free time last.
High-tech today both makes me thrill and weep!
More time for family, a slowed down pace,
more time for God; I weep for things we’ve lost.
yet thrilled am I to see the human race
now bonding. But we do it at what cost?
Our children growing lazy, rude, and fat
and less connected, addicts to a phone!
To play outside. . . . Do you remember that?
B.C. meant doing more things on your own.
With jobs, our kids and all our lives at stake,
we now embrace our new computer age,.
Omitting our true God is the mistake
that might well do us in; we must be sage!
Recall the values getting left behind
as into this computer age we cruise.
Look back to decades past and you will find
B.C. had greatness that we must not lose.
For Deb's Contest (B.C. = Before Computers)
The Merry Minstrel of Mickleover
I strike this chord without a sword
For I am not so brave
Whence came a knight with armour bright
Who vowed princess to save
The wicked sire of the shire
Had seen well to kidnap
The daughter of the king and bring
Much wealth into his lap
Handsome he thought the ransom
The king was sure to pay
For fear his precious princess dear
The wicked sire would slay
From his abode the knight he rode
Through wind and rain and storm
O’er hill and dale and muddy trail
His quest to keep him warm
The castle wall it looked so tall
Impregnable in height
Banged on the door and yet once more
His iron fist with might
The surly sire quoths to enquire
“Who raps upon my door”
“Tis mystery, now set her free
Or death you’ll lay before”
With lunge and slash with swords they clash
Upon the open plain
Died his desire there in the mire
As evil sire is slain
The princess freed from needless greed
Sort knight to gift reward
“Place in my hand just thine hair band
If this please thy accord”
( The minstrels song lived large and long
Was sung all o’er the land
Where ‘ere he been could still be seen
Rebec ‘dorned with blue band )
Rebec; A medaeval violin type instrument
Mickleover; A village in Derbyshire, England
Though now a suburb of the City of Derby
The residents still refer to it as ‘The Village’
For Medaeval Idealism Contest
Sponsor, Isaiah Zerbst
As I see it there is no cure
Meds can help that's for sure
But meds can make things alot worse
Mental health is a real bad curse
The meds will help you sleep at night
Or even help you fight or flight
The effects may damage your internal store
Kidneys livers even more
I know this at first hand
So join me on this awareness stand
I stand here totally med free
Trying to think rationally
Its about trapped memories
We must search for the keys
The only way to rid this fear
Process the memory shed a tear
To process the memory we must go back
Get the processor back on track
Its a complex piece of machinery
It's called the brain can't you see
They talk of trauma and incidents
Put it in the box sounds magnificent
The filing cabinet is over flowing
PTSD just keeps on growing
So relax and ground yourself
Another winner in mental health
Do this and return from hell
Use sight,touch, sound and even smell
Bring yourself out of the dark place
Look around for the friendly face
Open up and talk it through
This victory does belong to you
Many types of help out there
A lot of family and friends do care
Don't try to fight it on your own
The black dog has just grown
Try the doctors or self refer
You need help that's for sure
Once in the system your tool box is bigger
Hit the black dog with the big yellow digger
He will never totally disappear
You will be stronger have no fear
When he raises his ugly head
Your strength will put him back to bed
I am referring to therapy
Non intrusive just you see
It's not for everyone I do know
But surely it is worth a go
Finally I will just say
Take every day
DAY BY DAY
Stay strong and remain positive
You've deserved the right to live
I move with stealth, assurance
Muscles taunt beneath striped coat
Footpads softly caress the ground
My home
My sanctuary
The grasslands and forests of India
Men refer to me as Bengal
They wish to trap the predator
Sieze my freedom
Place me in a cage
I would rather be mounted on their wall
My brothers and sisters
Pace within their prisons
Lifeless meat placed at their feet
Not wild buffalo
Where is the deer, the wild pig
No thrill of the hunt
No honor
Life without balance
Eyes that have lost their fire
Oppressors and their children
look through bars or plexiglass windows
What can they truly see
Just a shadow of beauty
A glimmer of strength
They do not witness one like me
Powerful
Ferocious
Regal
I am Bengal
I am meant to be free
I will fight to remain
The master of this land
Come witness me here
I'm not in a cage
So I say beware
Don't come too near
For Regina's Animal poem contest.