Best Resourcefulness Poems
Born the daughter of a Lemhi Shoshone chief
she was captured by the Hidatsa in her teens.
And sold to the Mandan Missouri River tribe
where she met and married Toussaint Charbonneau.
A French Canadian trapper and a trail guide
Charbonneau was familiar with the region.
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark spent a
winter with the Mandan waiting for the spring thaw.
Toussaint and Sacagawea were hired as their guides
and in 1805 they set out to explore the wilderness.
While on the trail she gave birth to her son Pompey
and strapping him to a cradle-board they trudged on.
A strong woman and a gifted interpreter
known for her perseverance and resourcefulness.
Bird Woman helped to persuade many native tribes
of the peaceful intent of the expedition.
Once a canoe capsized jeopardizing all of
their valuable possessions and journal entries.
Yet she saved the logbooks of this epic journey
including the navigational charts and maps.
A legendary figure in history she
was indispensable to Lewis and Clark’s trek.
And today She’s honored on a golden dollar
a rare coin issued by the United States Mint.
Scorpios are known for their passion
Their resourcefulness and compassion
Since a Scorpio I is
Here's a toast with sloe gin fizz
May our traits always be in fashion
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
© All Rights Reserved
Placed No. 6 in LeeAnn's "Zodiac Race" Contest - September 2010
Oh when I was a child I loved Popeye cartoons,
Guess there’s no real accounting for any kid’s taste,
But you always knew spinach was up Popeye’s sleeve,
And that bullies like Brutus would soon be disgraced.
“Just deserts!” to all thugs what the world hungers for,
“In the kisser!” whatever their color or stripe,
“Missing spinach” like kryptonite something to fear,
Till at last Popeye sucks in its green through his pipe.
But it’s Popeye’s resourcefulness that saves the day
And the vegetable really a means to an end,
For the spinach is mindless, along for the ride,
So though green stuff is “good”, maybe “best” is a friend!
Brian Johnston
September 23, 2015
It was a summer of indifference
Billionaire Nazis who preach ethnic cleansing
And powerful ladies clad in iron
Play tug of war
With the hearts and souls of the people
While governors deceive the populace and their own parties
And confused men in collars and cassocks
Betray their vows, principles,
And even the people
They are supposed to lead.
It was a summer of blood
Black mothers in black clothes
Attend the funerals
Of their Black sons
Killed by
Their own Black Brothers
Or by Blue Klansmen
With smoking guns and shining shields
While urban brigades
Mourn the loss of true knights
Murdered by
Desperate, exhausted, and enraged men
Who have witnessed more than enough
Of their people being oppressed
By those sworn to protect them
While the suburbanites and gentrifiers
Look the other way
Or applaud the lynchings
While savages plow into school children
Behead Christian babies
Rape Christian women
Slash the throats of priests
And destroy Christian communities
Even though we are supposed to be
People of the Book
While those who peacefully practice Islam
Are being told they are unwelcome.
It was the summer of chaos
People parade the streets
With signs
Shouting
Black Lives Matter
Blue Lives Don't
Men use toilets
Next to little girls
Six years olds
Are being taught about
The birds and the bees
And the ticks and the fleas
Infanticidal Mengelites
Teach girls
confidence and resourcefulness.
We are no longer people
With free wills and open hearts
We are no more than pawns
In a political chess tournament
Of the Sick Left
Against the Cold Right
What is right is wrong
What is wrong is right
Dear Lord
When will you have enough?
When will the
Fall of Jerusalem
Finally arrive?
Maybe that is the only way
This madness will end.
How many more chances
Do we need?
How much longer will you stand there
While the pigs come to
Spit on Your Countenance
And crush Your pearls?
I sigh for Your
City on the Hill
And long to see its gates
Meanwhile, I tarry to the mountains
Before I am tempted to
Join the sultry, drunken orgy
Of lost souls who hang the decent
And silence the morally outspoken
Whilst chanting
Eat, drink, and indulge
For you only live once
Oh, where do you sleep my lost German friend,
where do your bleached bones lie?
Believe me good Sir, we did search for you,
we gave it our best try.
You woke from its sleep this giant of a land
by treading the wild unknown,
displaying true grit and resourcefulness,
you're known for that alone.
From Brisbane you trekked to Port Essington,
a journey of courage no doubt.
You gambled with fate, though played out a trump,
a feat still talked about.
By ship you then sailed to Sydney down south,
where you were lionised.
Your name it was on almost every lip,
your fame unequalised.
The blood in your veins, though, hungered to
search
that never-never, land
and set on your way to wake her some more,
though fate laid down her hand.
The last written words you penned to this world
came from McPherson's run,
north-west of the town called Roma, Sir,
then near oblivion.
Though men talk about you to this very day
around the campfire’s glow,
your name is embedded in mystery, Sir,
"Just where did Leichhhardt go?"
"Oh, where do you sleep my lost German friend",
is asked by city push
and all that the country folk can reply,
is "Leichhardt”s in the bush."
The Cecil Plains Homestead, on the Darling Downs, Queensland, held a special day to
commemorate the explorer Ludwig Leichhardt and in conjunction with the day they held a
written competition with the subject- theme being, “Leichhardt in the Bush”. The above
poem took out 1st place.
Iridescence
intermingle
explicate
wriggle
& inspire
placidity
immaculate
prearrange
dedicate
& appreciate
accolade
amplify
achieve
affection
&bravery
intrepid
explore
galvanize
promise
& specify
symbiosis
relationship
cooperation
stipulate
& venture
shrewd
resourcefulness
recommendation
unpredictable
& corroboration
Obdurate
resist
persuade
endure
&reincarnate
acquiesce
argue
comply
quiet
& blissful
tremendous
tempting
teamwork
tantalizing
&bespoke
conundrum
intricate
wrestle
to nurture
solemnity
Written: March 24, 2023
1st place contest winner
A Brian Strand Premiere No 1202 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Brian Strand
There is beauty in your absence
there is greatness in your silence
there is pain in your wishes
In your innards, there are dreams
Poetry and you are synonymous
I am synonymous with love
how I love you both.
Poetry is a susurrus
that tickles the nooks
and crannies of resourcefulness
every recourse, every nook
and cranny, and life itself
the shadow lives inside me
an almost flawless replica.
It moves when she moves
smiles when she smiles
all is well, a shadow says
shadows from the past
stretch longer when the sun sets.
Weaning from the breast
of grief and tears
becomes starker and harsher
Mother, you are long gone
yet in the fading light
I suckle on your memories.
5th place contest winner
Written: January 28, 2023
Your Pick Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Brian Strand
My given name is of no consequence.
You can call me Spider Girl.
It’s an appropriate name, I think.
I’m indistinguishable in many ways
from billions of other creatures just like me.
(Character building experiences
tend to breed cartoons.)
I might appear pretty easy to step on
but don't underestimate resourcefulness
and long legs.
Anyway, I’m going to do my
darnedest to weave something
worthy of your attention
or whatever you will end up spending
to buy this comic book
because I’ve got a daughter to raise
and let’s face it: long legs alone
ain’t gonna pay the bills.
My enemies vary:
Thugs who crow too loudly,
evil geniuses (they tend to keep mum),
crime bosses,
even monsters who are out of this world.
I share a universe with heroes, too,
some I used to run with –
although “with” sort of works as
an elaboration of the truth.
A prevarication.
A provocation.
One should not provoke me.
I don’t quite know what I’m capable of yet.
Mommies of all species will kill for their young.
I’ve heard it’s instinctual –
but, what if that’s just an excuse to
step over the line,
take a seat,
cross one’s legs,
look tough,
and watch someone else suffer?
It’s that violence
the drug I crave…
Are you frightened of me yet?
Good.
Maybe you should be.
Tiny finch you land with a beakful
of nesting material spinning
a pretty crimson tail
I am motionless, considerate of
any mishap that might interrupt
or cause you to reject my presence
I watch your numerous returns
where with lightning quickness
you successfully organize
into a tiny nest, various grasses,
downy seeds or woolly tufts
plucked from a grazing sheep-
I marvel at your resourcefulness
Your tiny survivability
Your happy twittering
which makes life seem,
suddenly less daunting
I keep ringing your phone
Only to get back the last memory again
A voice frilled with youth
Laughing at the old man's obstinacy
One day you shall wish to find
In the centripetal torment of the world
I still pray for you
That his promise to you only good
And not evil
Through all your unmeasured out days
Will be more obstinate than my love.
I once rocked you from side to side
And know more days with you still
That any journal
Written between coffee break and lunch
Or long nights of absences and lies
To the empty heart supplied.
When you remember this and call
May lips not be sealed
Under some slab by a concrete wall
I just want to hear your voice ring
In my heart once again
ii
Are you whole yet
Or you still afraid of shadows
Painted by your regrets
In the minds of crowds?
Can you make a fool of yourself
And love the way
The world laugh with you in a silly moment
Can you be yourself
And be proud of who you are
And your freedom not to follow some script
Of self appropriateness?
I tell you there is no success
Like the maturity
Self fruitfulness from that resourcefulness
Of acceptance
Of self and the world
As different places in similar times.
You sprout quickly
ready for your debut
setting an example
for all to see.
Your two arms intertwine and meet
at one point, one body.
I see your beauty,
you rose amongst thorns.
The other grandiose angiosperms
envy your resourcefulness,
your readiness, your confidence.
You stand out like a red moon,
your beauty misconstrued.
Nevertheless, I love you.
What does it mean, when the Sand gets stuck?
(Gets stuck in the Hourglass)
What does it mean about time?
What does it mean about space?
Are we given a Respite?
(I meant, ‘was I?’)
Does this mean that all callow cruelty has been redeemed?
Resourcefulness in God has won me over?
Right Use of every tibbet (tidbit) that was unspoken
Is to come?
… I do not know, I do not know, I do not know…
And yet, I climb, as if my Life depends each step, on climbing
(And somehow, I feel sure, that I will fall!)
And yet, I crazy-climb, as if my pictured Life is useless without climbing
(Will I, someday, eventually, reach a wall?)
For TIME to STOP, man, that’s a gift worth having!
It means, you haven’t left me, though you died,
It means, a breath is open for my salving,
Before another breath comes, and the Tide
Comes, bruising
All my sand-castles, and halves of dreams, and hopes
And Azrael* has got me on the ropes…
But, he’s my friend…
He’ll only come to me, when my date’s Due
And though I run from him, still at the End,
He’ll gently come and take me on to You.
____________
2/18/2019
____________
*Azrael – in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem of the same name, the Angel of Death
Swimming in together shoals
All at one with one another
Taking turns within the in-crowd
On the lookout under cover
Doing what we always do
Chancy spins in life’s roulette
To bounce around the spinning wheel
A guessing game of our best bet
Riding high on peaks of energy
Propagating for tomorrow
In the bedrock of resourcefulness
No need to beg or steal or borrow
Caught off guard in suddenly
The palace of the unprepared
Where the rule of action stations
Wrote a new book to be shared
One of the freely
bestowed
ingredients,
Existing thickly
within
the solid formation,
Brought out, after a
boring exercise,
And seperated from
its
siblings.
It is stretched long
in
distances,
Prior to measured
reduced divisions;
Then comes the
adjustments to
classes
Of designs; sharp
opposite blunt.
Used in both internal
and external
Arenas - performing
required tasks.
It floats with calm in
light and dark grips -
Willingly adhering to
any
outlined order.
It's quite famous for
ending flesh;
Whether it be that of
the articulate
Or the asinine;
spelling
out, in loud
Terms, its
availability
as the royal slave.
It's been branded
more of a woman's
tool -
Though used more
effectively by a man,
In settling scores on
the battle field,
Or spinning final
silence
in a dark alley.
Its resourcefulness
goes on all points,
In diving up,
heading
down, and swaying
sides;
Playing out its grand
role of putting
asunder,
And finding slits or
gaps
in movements of red.
Ikenna C. Igwe
I comb thy noblesse, in that some lost hurt
might bring thee sorrow, choosing some avert -
a random's borrow to then so divert,
God's asking of our faith, to so invert
our courage, from His marrow of exert.
I comb the gray to know my own alert,
in functioning abuse from its framework.
Would guide me forward then to not berserk
my soundness, in thy Holy needs' concert.
I comb exactness, from its true cost's blurt,
an over action of confining skirt,
that harbors definition by insert.
I comb resourcefulness from feelings curt,
to truth's contraction, without haste's overt.
That Godly sanctioned glory not desert,
of calling's minded motion, nor revert -
I comb my love for thee, that tangled worth,
that faith and understanding give new birth!