Best Ridges Poems
Gentle light flows through the pines,
Inviting the oaks, the laurels, to sigh,
Echoing soft breath, smoke rising –
Mist in the sky, a moment of silence
Breaks the song, playing on the crisp morn’
This is summer’s sadness, when August
Shadows the heat, the sweltering thoughts
Erasing July quicker than sunlight erases
The dew from tender petals who remember
Only the beginnings of dawn’s presence
Soon, Autumn will write its lyrics in dancing
Leaves, vibrant promises of scarlet and gold,
Enchanting the dreams with laughing hues,
Music playing quietly on the still, cool morning
When a heart reaches through the misty air
This is the best recollection of the autumnal
Wings, airborne, soaring gracefully over the
Trembling skies – into the endless veils, vapors
Still, ashen clouds, mysteries in the heavens,
Inspiring poetry from those who write visions…
Warmest wishes, feelings like leaves faded
Beneath the strongest branches, oaks and birch,
Inspirations beguiling the moon to heed the stars,
Blow away the doubts from the storms, rains falling
Melodiously, stirring the embers of a heart, a soul
August noon awaits the temptations so soon removed,
Washed away by the fond webs, the drying memories,
In tones of ashen amber, soothing auburn, reflections
Breathing out psalms along the mountain ridges,
Repeating the trembling hopes, the dreams of a spirit
Eminent woes, memories peeled away in layers –
Intimate and healing, reassuring that fall will be what it will be,
Always alive with reflections, embraces, traces of hope,
Heartfelt desires and wondering affections kissing the truth,
Abiding inside those who know this is God’s unfinished painting –
This is the treasure of summer poured out in wistful
Memories and promises, prayers for the seasonal grace,
The inspirational – the thanks, given to the One who
Captured light and poured it across the earth in one enchanting
Explosion of amazing, marvelous, stunning – even the greatest poet
Can’t write a wonder like that –
His hand, His sculpture, His creation… baffles even the most confident artiste
With God, there is no impossibility and no reason for upset
With Him, not only autumn, not just august, but the entire heart
– the whole life, the entire soul – is blessed!
Where cradled canyons sing
Of ebony wood in the forest
There lies a gurgling spring
Where cockcrows sing their chorus
To the melody of singsong birds
There I’ve concealed my sensuous words
Filled with befitted signs
The saccharine whiff of my designs
Come to me my mortal youth
To the wild realm of your truth
Where nymphs and gnomes abound
For the earth is filled with weeping
And only your tears be found
Where the fogs of night are fountains
Spills of glistened moon ignite
By distant silhouette mountains
We dance with passion of fight
Entwining ancient stance
Mingling hand in hand we dance
Till the mountains smile on high
Near and far we spring
To pursue the realest of dreams
While the world cries at its seams
Anxious in trouble to cling
Come to me my mortal youth
To the wild realm of your truth
Where nymphs and gnomes abound
For the earth is filled with weeping
And only your tears be found
To where the ridges merry make
From the beaks of wooden bright
In sparkly pools the ghouls awake
That scarce to stir our night
We watch for seekers down under
Muttering secrets in their soul
We bid them lucks of shivers
Dipping gently in
From reeds that hide a tear of a foal
Under the gentle rivers
Come to me my mortal youth
To the wild realm of your truth
Where nymphs and gnomes abound
For the earth is filled with weeping
And only your tears be found
Far away she shall ever churn
The taciturn eyed
She’ll listen no more to turn
To the working mills beside
Or the scrubbing of the barn
May peace weave in her song
She shall wave in the yarn
To a haven known as Belong
Come to me my mortal youth
To the wild realm of your truth
Where nymphs and gnomes abound
For the earth is filled with weeping
And only your tears be found
For she comes, the mortal youth
To the wild realm of her truth
Where nymphs and gnomes abound
For the earth is filled with weeping
And only her tears be found
Mountains come alive;
deer, trout and conifers thrive. . . .
Springtime’s scenic drive.
As ridges grow dry -
climb the verdant trails toward sky. . . .
Hear the eagle’s cry.
Cooler, shorter days -
highland’s gold and crimson blaze. . . .
My nostalgic gaze.
Snow-capped giants loom.
At the peak of winter’s gloom. . . .
I await spring’s bloom
For the Mountains Poetry Contest of Julie Rodeheaver
River’s Arising
By Michelle Waters
River’s arising. Danger’s on hand.
Gather up your kinfolk and get to high land.
The campgrounds are empty, RVs are all gone
Tourists packed up their bags and headed back home.
The storm clouds retreated for less than a day.
For on the horizon, they’re making headway.
Torrents of water and mud surge down from the ridges,
Wash out the gullys, and ravage the ditches.
The creeks are all swollen; their banks have been breached.
Winds tear through the trees, wild and unleashed.
Muck and debris cover roads and driveways.
Surplus of water sweeps cars off highways.
Weatherman's warnings- often unheeded
In times like these, good sense is needed.
Destruction continues, flood water advances.
The wise take refuge, the foolish take chances.
Those who live in the valleys will stay to repent.
Once the floodgates cut loose, there’ll be no defense.
River’s arising. Danger’s on hand.
Gather up your kinfolk and get to high land.
I ride the vibrant crests
Of a tangerine moon
Glowing across stardust ridges
Where inspiration tickles
My heart with laughing dewdrops
I drift on the edge of a smiling
Emerald forest filled with
Whispery pines and strong oaks
All the trees remind me why
The birds make a home on branches
With their bristling, dancing leaves
I walk through a thriving garden
Alive with scarlet and cobalt
Rare colors in the choiciest purples
Mauves, sunset yellow and lavender
Hastening to create a sweet fantasy
I breathe in the crisp, cool air
Of an autumn night, a summer light
Feeling the freedom of a heart
Gentle and warm, feeling forlorn
For the tender caress of rainfall
Caressing my shoulders lightly
I kiss the silence with hope
For moments poured full of joy
While my heart whispers
Recklessly thrilling in the vitality
Of a dream that fulfills me
I ache for these days of simplicity
When light plays with the shadows
Echoing through the longings
With cries resembling poetry
Lingering on the edge of sanity
I dream, I imagine, I praise
With a prayer of faith
Believing in the God who reigns
High above my thoughts
In a heaven where I will hope
Love continues to abide, eternally
Inner Child Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Chantelle Anne Cooke
September 1, 2021
Time To Ponder This World And So Much More
Within dreams that this soul truly adores
Where mountain ridges highlight bright sun's glow
Green valleys below, lakes with sandy shores
Life content as blessed happiness pours-
Pathways that a true, sincere seeker treads
Lined with beautiful flowers shining bright
Gems dancing within Mother Nature's beds
In this earthly realm, a glorious sight.
Morning's promise, day with radiant rays
Time to ponder this world and so much more
All the better, if one will learn to pray
Eye opening deep truth, never a bore-
Such rich treasures are found, if one but looks
Beyond those tragic shadows this world casts
So much more to find, far beyond school books
Love's deep truth, richer life, that truly lasts.
Robert J. Lindley, 9-08-2019
Rhymer, ( What Life, This World And Nature Gives )
Serging through life, I whipstitch, weft, and welt,
But always, my thoughts are pick-threading.
As stippled patches of emotion rise and fall in me,
See me, feel me, touch me, heal me
Just too many scars.
The mindless mind stresses itself through mental snares,
I waste away beneath it all, piecing and pondering.
Where the struggling soul and pleating body meet,
I seek significance in life’s lucid-lined layers.
Confronting my inner fears as an owneress,
Time leaves its cursed mark in starched stitches that cut.
Each moment experienced is like a closing zipper,
My calm exterior ridges are often rough, ready, and ruffled.
A life full of scars.
While unique experiences blend like transient ombre shades
My essence feels like a needled complex knit.
Memories form patterns from life’s four-patches
Challenges scissors cut are like shredded sharp diamonds.
Yet more paths diverge along life’s shifting chevrons
I strive to fit somehow; this square is what I do.
Yet my world stands out like tri-recs blocks
Creating stars and pineapples to fight fifty-four forty.
Scars that are hidden and visible, surface and deep.
Like trapezoids, I sense those oblong obstacles loom
Worth or less by my own limited gauge, I measure.
I pray each day new chapters begin casting on
While others exhaust, reaching their bind-offs.
I do seek a pattern master, and I need to pray for one.
I contemplate constantly along selvages of thoughts.
They hang like dangling tails…
I start to visualize my purpose slowly seaming.
Look as I whipstitch, weft, and welt through life, serging.
As I graciously and sagaciously test life’s many swatches,
I devote my life to the Master Seamster the…
Healer of scars.
Mist feathery drifts
last night’s breath loosening
above basalt slopes of Huatung
Pacific swallows trace morning brushwork
over Fuli’s rice paddies
new green scented with rain.
Xiuguluan River flows jade mountain-born
among ancestral stones
white willows in Ruisui weep
dew-kissed
cycad fronds catching first sunlight
Leaf pearls gather on my thatched sandals
Walami earth holds stories in its coolness.
Bihe Pond rests hidden in Wanrong’s stillness
waters reflecting the tribe’s quiet prayers
Bamboo leaves in green and gold
crested mynas gather in quiet repose
wind moves with the chime of a temple bell.
Ancestral path wanders into the Central Range
oolong tea clouds drift
above Qilai’s blue ridges
A white egret lifts over Guangfu’s terraces
air clear as poured Longjing.
A bulbul calls
blue magpie glides
the slow unlayering of day
Huatung Calligrapher’s span warm to newborn light
time unspools—
bright
unmeasured.
Light widens
dawn follows Yu Shan’s shadowed valleys
the world in quiet promise
soft light
drifting into morning.
My spirit flew away to far off lands,
travelling over hills and vales,
o'er seas and deserts dry,
until it arrived high
on a cold chain of ridges,
where soft winds caressed my face,
freshness embalmed my inner self.
Perhaps that's why I saw her there, alone
lying on her back, gazing up at the sky
savouring the exquisite joy of silence.
For in that treasured tranquillity
dreams have room to spiral
from the depth of her eidetic memories
renewed and revived, never forgotten.
Out of that quietude she heard
the soft voice of her essence,
reflections of her life,
the joys of motherhood,
the fulfilment of love,
the pangs of parting,
the pain of illness,
the weakness of humanity,
the dreams and emotions
that ebbed, flowed and ebbed again.
I knew she left her home town
deserting her desolate living
renouncing all the humdrum of city lights.
No wonder she flew away
seeking refuge on a mountain side,
above a cascade of water,
lying on the sweet grass
that bordered the lonely stream.
For here she was at peace.
Relief tears trickled down her cheeks:
she could never really forget.
My spirit felt for her for I could feel
that deep inside her was beauty never bound.
I knew despite her tears,
she was happy there:
oh, that she could remain
on that pretty mountain nook
holding tight to hope:
happy amongst the heather
near the tumbling brook
for ever and evermore.
He was airlifted to another place.
The heaths, the dales,
the high ridges,
all began to slip away
under throbbing wings.
(When you are unearthed,
roots still wriggle,
flecks of native mud
cling to your senses
and come with you.
A sediment makes its way
inside wrinkles and pockets.
Places you have slept on,
waded across,
had breezy sex over,
tether your turf).
He began to plant.
He left lichen trails
on the faux marble floors of shopping malls.
he placed moss under plastic rocks.
In time he discovered good clay in a new land.
If asked:
to what country he belonged?
He would show the dirt
under his fingernails.
Once I was a little girl, caught up in dreams
Coloring my world in hues of crimson blood
Flowing through my veins of glittering gold
Whispering feelings of mesmerizing insights
Into the inspirations created from my spirit
Once I was filled with brilliant tones of purple
Sighing with vivid arrays of soothing blue hope
Enchanting the warmth living within my heart
Reflecting soothing sincerity alive with serenity
Capturing my vision and revealing pieces of me
Once I was encouraged by the honesty I could see
Dancing, swaying softly, with a sense of empathy
Filling up the gentle embrace of a familiar place
Where I could see the satisfaction I believed to be
A part of me, the piece that imagines true reveries
Once I was delighted to be alive and free to exist
With shades of peaceful, misty frost, touching upon
Emerald and sapphire ridges and peaks where I knew
The difference between wisdom and knowledge, a walk
Through the combination of faith mingled with courage
Once I was growing stronger in my heart and soul
Discerning the changes that came about with miracles
That graced me with their amazing purity and creativity
Assurance that everything I could hope to be or believe
Would be wrapped up in shadows of promising fantasies
Once I was a fiery yearning breathing out truth and passion
Inspired by sensitivity and melancholy, rich sincerities
Murmuring touches of comfort through my depths
Portraying the essence of dedication and loyalty within
Lulling my anxieties to slumber and finally leave me
Once I was a little girl who only knew the meaning of hope
Through small instincts that left her with a passionate wish
For the moments filled with sincerity, acceptance and faith
The discerning of the spirit that would bring peace and grace
Feelings of security filled with a sure belief in God’s love for me
If this was my last poetry contest poem Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Silent One
July 17, 2020
I dream that tonight I am a raccoon
And it is here in this body that I store the notion
That my sadness will last forever,
In the treasury of unclaimed awareness,
Where pits of the peaches could never re-sprout...
I dig deep into the indent of a Denver ravine,
Gnaw knee-high into the hollow ridges of hominids and their homelands,
Belly-wade in bottomless mud waters west of wherever they don’t go, though
Lurid in my languor now, I laminate my slick turf onto Continental limestone slabs
And, then, all-at-once, at noon, just like that,
I call it a day.
A tired little raccoon
Can’t bear without a rest
Through the midday...
I arise as the coon falls under.
Reclaiming Human Sorrow, my Wrong-Headed Brother,
Waxing thunderously, now, in the mind’s cluttered cage
In this day of coffee and chit-chat and left-turns,
I’ll dream tonight I am a raccoon.
So that we may both get out and roam.
Block by block it starts to rise, Great Wall of China begins,
A barrier to stem the horde, marauding Mongolians,
Must be bigger and better, than ever attempted before,
Also should be breathtaking, far into the clouds will soar.
Where on earth do we start, going be thousands of miles long,
Everywhere at once, of course, otherwise it’d all go wrong,
Need to find lot’s of workers, ten million on the ground,
This is China, unlimited manpower, labour forces abound.
Build a wall upon mountain ridges, never been tried before,
Yeah it’s a pickle ok, most shall die, replaced by millions more,
Emperor decrees, “Thy Will Be Done” no matter what it takes,
Nothing can impede our way, even the country’s deepest lakes.
So onwards and upwards it goes, for better or maybe worse,
Now he demands a road atop, for soldiers to ride their horse,
Crowning glory, the beacon towers, seen from all around,
These almighty fires, warn our armies, from hilltops to town.
Like most things in life, comes with a double edged sword,
So ulterior motive triumphs, for planners and overlords,
Even back then, a master stroke, laughs Dynasty of the Ming,
By keeping invaders out, our slaves imprison themselves within.
Best N-A poem of 2020 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: John Hamilton 13/01/21
N/A COMPLETELY YOUR CHOICE(38) any theme any form
Brian Strand 12/3/2020 12:00:00 AM 11/5/2020 1:08
The year is 2025
I have come back to my past
To witness the Mayans
Who said Earth would not last
2012
Was the year they declared
That the planet we knew
Could never be spared
An Asteroid shower
We could never comprehend
Sends this heaven to hell
In catastrophic spend
The first to hit
Was the daddy of them all
Our axis twisted
The human race in fall
Just of Madagascar
In the Indian Ocean
It's where it all started
That set our demise in motion
Tsunami waves
Like giant tower blocks
Swamped Indonesia
As Polynesia rocked
The force of impact
Reverberated west
On the Canary Islands
A dormant volcano so reft
It's massive mountain side
Into the Atlantic slipped
To the eastern seaboard
Of the United States it shipped
A second Tsunami
Half the world long
Would submerge the east
Taking the weak and the strong
The second to hit
Hit a place struck before
Tunguska in Russia
Receives another sore
Daylight turns to night
As earth meets our skies
Fallout from the reactors
In shattered demise
Radiated clouds
Eventually filter down
Leaving bleeding lacerations
As we humans death drown
Smaller asteroids
Some just a few hundred feet
Around the world they were marvelled
Until they meet their greet
The place where I stand now
Was Yosemite National Park
Now dark ridges of black
So bare and stark
It's been many many years
Since the sun shone through the screen
When I close my eyes I remember
When the earth was lush and green
How many of us survived
Will we ever know
Was this in our destiny
I think all around me, now shows
WALKING NEAR THE WATERS
Under the warm golden hug of sunrise’s bliss
shielded by rugged ridges and flagging trees
emerged a peaceful scene.
Through the clear, somber, sleeping, water
sunlight revealed shadows spelling odes beneath;
odes unfolded by rising ripples in cerulean gleam,
touched by nothing but the gliding breeze which
seizes silt and shingles causing baby currents lift.
Sparkling like priced pearls in the still noon,
their waves, a calm heart’s pulse, speak.
I linger, tranquil, afloat in the ageless ocean’s
lea, sitting on a dry old rock-sheltered bank,
drinking the healing power from the scene.
Time is suspend; I see the lake like a child,
the ridges and trees, His grand legions line.
The shadows stretch, His noble progress to a life
unfurled during years of swarming battles.
But, He has a wealth of hope and stood amidst
the sudden ripples; unmoved by fear, for He
can hold the shifts. He who’s polished tough
and wise has championed in a sunken time.
He matured. He populated good influence
calling others to imitate his stance. He promised
life without fear cherished with gratitude, and
his shared touch was not dulled by passing years.
His memory endured, so many remember Him.
______________________________________________________
~Inspired by the painting: Lake by Georgia Engelhard ~
***For the painting, Debbi Guzzi's Ten Paintings, Ten Poems, Not for a Contest, thanks for the wonderful experience.
__Olive Eloisa D. Guillermo__
9:17am, January 14, 2015