Best River Poems
Lily of the Nile
O Lily of the Nile, your enchanting
purple starburst blooms
rise on naked stalks to greet
lovers on their river stroll as
nature lifts their spirits high where
setting sun and twilight meet.
Known from ancient ardent times
as lover's finest floral gifts...
alluring in shadowed silhouette,
as blooms unfurl to a new day
as lovely as the day before,
in stunning shades of violet.
In regal stature, tall and fragrant,
with beauty and rectitude you share
divine essence when you flower
in tenured longing you so desire.
Alas, you fade at summer's end
and reluctantly release your power.
6-30-19
Tri-Con Poetry Contest ~First Place~
Sponsor Emile Pinet
~Poem of the Week July 7-13 2019~
Thank you very much Poetry Soup Team
and Poetry Soup Members for the honor!
Crying River (The Untold Ballad)
Undercover waters of rain dash
Cold children, no smiling splash
Tragic sobs, epic force of the mountain rain
Beautiful as it may seem -shallow basin
---Dream---
She cries a tune,
Mocking the Maple lands, a beautiful tune
Crooked Cornwall, she steams with the moon
Oceanic dreams, monsoon season, she swoon's
Frozen, dead, ice skating rink
Her wind, Pretty Chains O Lake
Wet and Wild, the Elk drinks from her garden
Water falls from the lids of Jordan
Beautiful as it may seem with open curtain
When the ocean succeeds away from the sea
She's wide awake during winter's rain and breeze
Lost in the mud's of Bellaire's heartache,
River Blues, ice cold snap, bayou stirring up
Racing rivers crying by the western gutter
Silent, bells chime in the Black Mallard waters
Streams, blowing and drying dew droplets
Little rapid tears, everything spotless
Sugar, Swan waves down by Devils Creek
Listen to the thunder bay rolling deep
Beautiful as it may seem, she weeps
A northern world with streaks of falling rain
Pretty running white hair pane
A weather vane, snow dangles above her domain
Beautiful crying winds
In the Eyes of Michigan
~3/5/14~
I’m listless as a lazy river
barely lapping at the shore.
I wanted once to find the ocean,
but I don’t care any more.
Would I even make a ripple
if a stone were tossed my way?
Even with the frogs and fishies
I no longer wish to play.
I’ve lost my course and lie inert
inside my riverbed.
Had I legs to help me run,
I think they’d be as lead.
So spiritless and dull am I.
I’m like the kite I see
motionless each breeze-less day,
stuck and hanging from a tree.
Languor sure did overtake me,
for this humid, hot July
sucked out all my energy.
I think perhaps I’ll simply die.
Posted Aug. 3, 2022
For Hilo Poet's Simile Poetry Contest
Submitted Jan. 31, 2023 for Julia Ward's
Your Favourite Rhyming Poem From The Second Half Of 2022 Poetry Contest
I move with the river, it moves with me
We move in synchronicity
My thoughts flow with currents
Push my feelings around the bends
It heals my wounds, the hurts it mends
It washes away worries and doubts
In motion it turns it all inside out
As peace consumes me all about
No hurdles, no rocks are in the way
I move by and beyond them everyday
Taking in everything passing by
--- The river and I ---
Heidi Sands
6/26/17
Wind whistling through the weeping willow tree
Its teary leaves drip silently into the fast flowing river
They float freely dancing in the dappled daylight
Caught in the rustic reeds they plan their escape
10th December 2014
To find solace from misty tides that curve,
In low beats gently weaving their way
Along the coastline where our town rests:
This aging lake I knew as a girl
Is now draped with crumpled lily pads,
Against night’s advancing shade. I heave…
Yet, the clear music of waves endure
All trespasses from environ's care;
Chanting the legends of time's folklore
Much like a rhapsody warbling stories
Passed from one era to the next:
This water- bend filled with salt of love, death
As I listen to its undulated psalms---
Still beautiful in a wilting habitat,
Knowing my lake resides in my inner world.
---------------
END JULY PREMIERE CONTEST OF Brian Strand
spilling mother’s milk
Nature’s bounty feeds her child -
river’s youth fades fast
Susan Ashley
April 29, 2020
~ Fourth Place ~
Premiere Contest: Hi-Ku (5)
Sponsor: Brian Strand
Take away the frost of winter,
rid the land of biting snow,
then who would praise the warmth of August,
how could April rivers flow?
Hush the deafening crash of thunder,
dull the flash of lightning's thorn,
and who would feel the calm of silence,
when the still of dawn is born?
Sow your seeds of evergreens
so that spring’s soil year-round conceives,
then who could reap the multi-colored
glory of October leaves?
Look beyond this thick façade,
you'll find four seasons in my soul,
but take away a piece of winter
and you'll leave me cut, unwhole.
written 4 Feb 1985
Nor thunder in the dark, nor flash, nor fire,
nor other pyrotechnics that, they say,
accompany all such events, nor dire
phantasmagorias, going astray
in the unconsciousness. I’m all alone
down by the river which impassive face
turns gold with dusk. The other side is grown
with willows. A bit cloudy; a quick trace
of water striders, playing tag; a heron,
hiding among the reeds; a leaky boat;
an empty planked footway. But where is Charon?
The obol I have brought for him to float
me far away lies on the riverbed:
the tricky death as usual misled.
05/14/2019
Favourite Poem from May, 2019 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Julia Ward
How I wish to scuttle alone,
over a gentle river,
from bank to bank,
in a small boat,
rowed with a bamboo pole.
The call of the wild is an irresistible call,
to venture into the silken waters,
to feel the wind and look at the blue sky
with nimbus clouds drawing strange patterns,
when seagulls’ fly, shrieking over my head,
and sense the misty spray of water
when weary hours shall sink to blend
with the soothing sibilance of the river,
winding its way through woods and plains!
October. 23.2022
~Placed Eighth~
POEM OF THE DAY
A Brian Strand Premiere Choice Poetry Contest
He left his sneakers by the shore
A backpack too, was laid aside
to pick up when the sun had died
He claimed his other gear, instead
The thrill of rapids filled his head
and sounds of water drew him in
His sneakers, backpack cast aside
would wait 'til dusk, upon the grass
when he returned to don again
They did not hear the roaring tides
They did not hear the shouts of fright
Nor did they hear, at last, the call
That came from voices through the night
Calls from those who searched the dark
While water surged and moonlight fell
And rushed instead, to grip a life
His sneakers, backpack, cast aside
assumed that he would come again
His sneakers wait, .........he kicked them off
In haste his backpack, too, was tossed
The river flows...... and all was lost
The cost was more than words explain
There's someone home who got the call
The words so wild, the last, that came
His sneakers, backpack, cast aside
assumed that he'd return again
It lies not in their province now,
to know the cost of human pain
___________________________________________________________
No mere river, thou art nation’s heartbeat,
That you came from heaven may be a myth,
Not that for common good ye fell beneath,
For centuries ye lift people’s spirit.
Let me call thee India’s stand-in sub soul,
O Brahma-vari, heaven’s holy waters,
Thou worshipped art in thy all as a whole,
I bow to Thee, Holiest of all Daughters.
Many a meditating muni’s mind
Mused were by thy serene, calming presence,
And far from the humdrum of mundane grind,
Shelter have found at thy banks for long hence.
King Bhagirath’s penance once brought ye here,
In penitence to wash ancestors’ sins,
With this hoary burden of long ye steer,
We need a new Bhagirath ye to cleanse.
Ye had, we know, condescended to come,
Known as Brahma’s haughtiest of daughters,
Boasting of ‘my cascading flood waters’,
Shiva tamed thee, taught a lesson wholesome.
Sad, mere rituals seem all that remain
Today, wreaking ‘pon thy soul vast damage,
Yet, all this done is in thy holy name,
Ye sure suffer, suffer in silent rage.
A holy thee flows in all us within,
We need not come to thee to wash our sin,
Bathe nor worship, sully thy soul so clean,
But people are what they have always been.
O Mother, under thy sons’ sins ye moan
As ye thyself need a bath of thy own.
A poet was so pained and hurt to call:
O Ganga, why ye care to flow at all! ____________________________________________
Brahma-vari in Sanskrit means (holy) water from Brahma, the supreme creator. Bhagirath (Sanskrit: ?????, Bhagiratha), a legendary king of Ikshvaku dynasty who brought the Sacred River Ganges (personified as the Hindu River Goddess Ganga) to earth from heaven to liberate his ancestors and Sagar’s sons from sins.
Ode |16.05.2021|
Topic: river, mother
by rivers memory bank - flowing current eddies of you
A long hard look softens to the touch
life lines rivers that ebbed and flowed
the midstream upstream fight
has left its nicks and scars
but the brooks that babbled batting lashes
that sent splashes over laugh line rapids
and pooled in floods of pain
have all eventually
come to swirl
in the curled corners
of an ultimately unerodible smile
11.26.2019
The Metaphor of your Face Poetry Contest
Sponsored by John Lawless
"In the echo of silence, the whispers of the Divine are heard." By Rumi
I entered the winding path into the captivating vale
Surrounded by ice-capped mountains and ancient trees
Firs, larches, redwoods, spruce, and ash, all grand
I shouted in glee: “I’m here!” All around some Echo replied.
A repetitive Echo, always vibrating and mesmerising.
What a singular sound to hear nature at its best!
I lounged beneath the shade of an old maple tree,
Where the verdant vale lay sprawled in front of me.
Balmy breezes blew through dark green trees, an Echo divine.
Tiny thrushes flitted from bush to bush.
They permeated the vale with their familiar songs.
Occasionally they rested on a dense bush,
Hush! Did I hear the song again?
Choirs of echo resounded all around the lush plateau.
Down on the majestic plain, a babbling brook meandered
Towards a clump of cottages, providing water for all.
The rivulet was a sight with fronds of ferns unfolding.
How delightful to hear the water emanating such dulcet echo
As the stream zigzagged around rocks and small waterfalls.
Every echo ended in silence profound and I was in God’s peace.
A holy hymn hummed serene: echo after echo, all divine.
Placed 1