Best Revision Poems
In the middle of my own small world I stand,
Both feet planted firmly on the land.
Gold is the sun in the sky.
Oh, that I could fly!
Then you see -
I
Would be free!
Earth-bound, though, I sigh.
I'll remain so till I die.
Knowing that out there is something grand,
In the middle of my own small world I stand.
Written 2/5/15
Now for Joseph May's 'Andaree - 11 Lines' Poetry Contest
She comes to me on four small feet
which softly on my blankets tread.
So beautiful is she, so sweet;
she comes to me on four small feet,
then reaches out her paw to greet
me as I waken in my bed!
She comes to me on four small feet
which softly on my blankets tread.
Like silken midnight is her fur.
A black cat is my valentine.
It soothes me to be petting her!
Like silken midnight is her fur;
a dulcet lullabye's her purr!
This green eyed beauty is all mine.
Like silken midnight is her fur.
A black cat is my valentine.
Jan. 28, 2019 for Chantelle Anne Cooke's Midnight Valentine Poetry Contest
removed for revision. 2016 election diamante, last view 758
Misty lived on the tracks on the other side;
What was perhaps a nice home in thirty-nine.
Now a decaying shell of mortar and wood,
On the gray banks of a foul, polluted creek.
Windows now boarded, with a loose, hanging door;
Inside was dark, bleak, an austere barren shell.
Electric been shut off for many a year;
Only its doleful ghosts to shed their sad tears.
She lived with her father, a homeless old bum;
They lived off the welfare and a few begged crumbs.
At night she'd come home from her studies at school,
No one the wiser, Misty had them all fooled.
Only just nine, the acumen of a teen,
Her studies she'd do in the light of the lamp.
Her father a shadow of a once proud man:
Old and now lame with but one reason to live.
This sad man, out begging on the streets til' dark,
He'd stay, until all the people had gone home.
The Mission people came that terrible night;
Whisked Misty to the Orphanage - not a word!
Misty never knew her father's sacrifice;
She never knew, how close they'd been to her door.
She's now thirteen and her new life is on course;
Though she yearns for her boarded home on the creek.
A constant murmur,
with bickering voices
and occasional shriek of glee.
All when I'm trying to revise,
down in the library.
[written in 1988 - do they still have libraries in universities?]
Upon a time, a story once composed.
Across the pages dancing letters waltz.
Met eyes. Together, him and her apposed.
The villain, against them, inflict assaults.
It leaves us guessing, due to twists and turns.
However, does the hero save the girl?
Distressing times until the girl returns.
A fight against a dragon, swords unfurl.
Heroic. Saves the girl, and dragon slain.
Afraid no longer. Village folk’s delight.
Wedding. Love is true. Continue to reign.
Espoused, and she is pregnant. Future bright.
Life is less a book, and scripts offhanded.
Plotless stories. Rules unwritten. Candid.
Once long ago in the fifth grade I had a small vocabulary.
Maybe from the hill folk family where I grew up On Caytons' Hill. We were not hillbillys. There is a big difference. They now teach this stuff, in college courses, our Appalachian way.
My Dad had a sixth grade education, my Mom an eighth but they wanted more from me.
We didn't leave the farm, except for school, and Mom finally left a few years back, when my brother went bankrupt and lost it.
We didn't much socialize outside of our family.
Me and my brother would walk to the general store if, after our chores were done we were hired by another farmer, we got two dollars for a couple hours work.
We had all we needed. We had food and clothes and shelter and love though no one ever said the word.
We were taught to survive, but who could survive that boy in the 5th grade?
He mocked me, he made fun of my vocabulary, and laughed.
Then, the second stair from the top, he tripped me. He tripped me on those metal, asphalt stairs built in the 1800's and I rolled with it,
but it hurt me,
a joke.
Perhaps maybe I am the biggest joke around. Boy, I sure proved him wrong with all my eloquent wording and such
But when does it stop?
I'm "just me".. of all the things I could ever do and do with my best, is to show you what matters the most of course. It is proper manner.
Beautiful is beautiful.
There are beautiful cars, and limousines. There are beautiful skies and dreams, but I am not a beautiful lady. I wasn't meant to be, but actor Johnny D in Kentucky said that I was pretty. It kind of made me feel like the first time a boy called me that, and I didn't think so but I smiled anyway, because he was serious.
I got called gorgeous and enchanting, then I was drugged for sex at eighteen, and I guess I've always allowed those things at times.
I guess the best way how to relate to you now is to simply be myself.
Truthfully, you probably think this is crazy writing, but it's not. Crazy is as crazy does and I feel pretty fluff, like a cloud or something furry, ya know?
Goose and purple i saw it strung up in a window in chicago
I saw factories written in your eyelashes and hair and industrialization vomited
Limp and edible bruised and calling
Geese sing every morning and they glare through
masks
They go to venitian parties and clocks strike but i am in France a burglar
I am at the ballet and the sun is rising on my face my short eyelashes my cloth
Greek dancers hang from cyprus trees and eat helios for small prices persimmon cream they pick the sun out of groves and pull salty fish from the river grinning
tail bone in throat choking/swift passages
It’s throat is staring at me and i am called to dinner
You pull the neck off with one tug and it falls to the floor it stares carving stone and
Fish eggs
Singing knives/ brutalist still life concrete grapes
The geese flew to the meditarenian that morning but one was left behind, they are at the bacchanal but we have our own drunkenness that I almost felt wine in the tablecloth that infernal smell and people who have seen galvanization!
She talks about anatomy and veins and capillaries she cuts her bread he carves the bird he slavers at the blood our guests are dripping and apparitions
I dream of the ballet the conductor wore a suit made out of feathers that he stole from a bird
somewhere
That bird has been plucked and left
somewhere
you can see it’s parasites dance across open skin it gets sun burnt on unforgiving beaches
I can cry for something dead and hurting but i’ll gag when you stuff it’s fluffing grayed neck down my throat
It’s bill scraping my teeth
It’s pearly lesions white collar crime
Eyes like silver marbles like fish eggs bite down fish eggs this little bit of caviar
And eat this dead uncooked bird?
You’re crazy!
An arrogant hare challenged a lethargic turtle to a race.
The hare ridiculed the turtle due to its lumbering pace.
"The loser", declared the hare " will be destined for the pot!"
The "hare"-brained turtle agreed knowing he didn't have a shot!
The turtle desperately tried to figure a way not to become the dupe,
And end his long and illustrious life as a repast of turtle soup!
They began the race and the hopping hare surged way ahead.
The ponderous turtle trailed behind with a growing sense of dread!
O'er the meadows and through the piney woods they raced.
The turtle could readily see that he was being outpaced!
"Fiddle faddle!" wheezed the hare "I'm gonna stop and take a nap!"
The turtle trundled steadily onward and quickly closed the gap!
When the hare awoke the turtle had crossed the finish line!
"Aha!" quoth the turtle, "it won't be me on which they dine!"
The bewildered hare was stewed and made a fine rarebit stew,
Making a tasty meal upon which the turtle could leisurely chew!
The moral of this tale is one that is echoed from the past:
"The last shall be first and the first shall be last!"
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
© All Rights Reserved
Placed No. 1 in Poet Destroyer's "Turtle Soup" Contest - August 2010
Music is more than a passion I enjoy,
It is food to my very soul!
From the time I was a little boy on momma's knee,
It helped me maintain self-control and calmed my nerves.
Music kickstarts several passions inside me.
I love to sing and dance to a groovy melody moving.
R & B makes me wanna indulge in a steamy romance.
Hip-hop makes me wanna grab my girl and dance and kiss!
I can feel the beat, the bass booming from the speakers.
Like an athlete, I can show you some moves you wouldn't believe!
I can salsa, two-step or even break dance!
Music makes me smile and takes me over the rainbow.
My music must be played loud at all times.
The sounds put me in the mood to write some poetry!
Some lyrical content inspires my writing hand.
Music was heaven sent almost like a direct intervention!
I wonder without music where I'd be.
I enjoy ballads and even rock and roll.
But as long as I got a song,
Then it's food to live by....
Mystical crystals
Frigid snowflakes from the sky,
Ice on the cold ground,
A white blanket from above;
Crystalline white everywhere.
nymphs unfold first wings
together and right on cue. . .
an all-male choir sings
For the Magicicada Poetry Contest of Maureen McGreavy
5/7/5 checked by Howmanysyllables.com
The trees arrest cool air, and bright vermillion.
Light rebounds around an old log
swimming under a bridge.
The edge of a sky seized clouds.
Mother sashayed with her children;
the grass was amused.
A tackle-box posed on a porch waits
for my fishing buddy to fill our driveway
with a Buick.
Mother pinned clothes to a wire.
Shirts flourished in the wind, her
dress wasn't new but well worn.
It tasted cake flour as it waited on evening.
Night was a book of dreams mother read.
I sank into a wrinkled pile beneath a framed moon
yes, even then there was a moon, and stars.
(The assignment, on another site, was to write a poem
using at least two words from those suggested. I first
used six out of their list. Now, here is my revision,
using all seven:
* Alabaster
* Veil
* Tower
* Bells ringing
* Silent like snow
* Precise
* Depth)
Cold Keys, Warm Art
Speak not of frozen alabaster
from the halls of statuary,
rather of melodious sounds
imparted now by living bells
ringing out their glory from the tower,
and of the man who shares the power
of feet and fists upon
the pedals and the levers
at the top of the winding stair.
Speak of him, the lonely creator up there,
the carilloneur, for without him
few know that the bells would be silent,
like snow seeking only the depth
of precise calculation, undreaming of scale
measured only by music, by mind flight,
until he lifts the intangible veil,
releasing the art and the joy that they tell.
~
I had the privilege once to mount those stairs
with a carilloneur, and watch her perform from
a very challenging and complex score on this
fascinating array of levers and handles up there,
as the huge swinging bells rang above and around
us. Never to be forgotten!