Best Rode Poems
Through the gates of Absalom,
steed and gate did ride,
charging fast and furious
o'er centuries gone by;
peace did shout in vain,
the Lidless Prophets...
must come again,
nigh is the evening sky
but full of hope
The ramparts held fast, ballast and beam,
cannon-fire bombasting flesh and bone,
groans of death ---
such dreary breath!
of decay centuries old
The Rose of all that is Earth,
her petals unsheathed,
torn for time ---
tear and antiquity ---
her red sheen lilts in the new day sun,
begging for Love, she asks:
Shall they come?
I rode shotgun
with someone
who look just like me
Had the same skin color
as far as I
could steering wheel see
I rode shotgun
with a racist someone,
who hatefully
talked the same way as me
Had the same gnarled speech,
same gnarly hands,
same ugly voice,
same cursive feet
like the carpal in the passenger seat
I rode darkie mind shotgun
with a ghost face someone
who look unholy, just like me
Had the same 20/20 side-by-sidearm vision,
same 20/20 gauge belief
As near as I
could peer passenger see
I once rode shotgun
with a rearview mirror friend,
now a gas pump-action enemy
It’s hard to double barrel conceive,
I went from zero-to-sixty in a heartbeat
Change of attitude direction
came baptismal trigger swiftly
I was passenger told ... and I prayer hope,
distant objects are closer
than they appear to be
The wind I rode was a northeastern gale
With a downpour of sleet and balls of hail
Wind at my face, plummeted with ice
Whore for a friend, needle for a vice
I was as lost inside as a soul could be
As the war forever raged inside of me
I once blamed the Lord for my fate
I was full of anger and living on hate
Then one day something happened to me
I said, “Forgive me Lord and he set me free.”
My body blasted with tattoos of hate
I accepted the Lord and changed my fate
Since then my life has been really cool
Bought me a home and returned to school
I love my children and adore my wife
God has blessed me with a wonderful life
And I’m positive these words are true
God’s there waiting to do the same for you
(Re old poems)
By the moonlight, night's pearly softness glowed,
In their slumber deep, fog skirted knolls shoaled;
Through the winter cold, clipp'ty clop he rode.
Down the twisted alleys and to highroad,
Flew out in wind his fluttering hair gold;
By the moonlight, night's pearly softness glowed.
In the silence bare as the mist bellowed
O'er the turrets enshrouded in their fold;
Through the winter cold, clipp'ty clop he rode.
His shadow tossed on the water that flowed,
As galloped o'er the bridge, ' twixt moorlands old;
By the moonlight, night's pearly softness glowed.
Meet his bonnie lassie her chin furrowed
'neath her cherry lips in his hands to hold;
Through the winter cold, clipp'ty clop he rode.
Her dark eyes under green eaves that mellowed,
Where blushes of their love in whispers told
By the moonlight, night's pearly softness glowed;
Through the winter cold, clipp'ty clop he rode.
..
© gautami Phookan (24/5/2011) , All rights reserved?
1st Place 'August 2011, Poetry Soup Contest'
..
Big hands taxied me up
to the seat
I took for a cradle
on a back already bent
and filled with rutted lines and bite scars,
his hair was still brown
but in spots,
where the skin panicked for cover,
age sprang up like the General’s venerable gray
and He stood there laughing with the crows
about how regal I looked
with a toy whip in one hand
but how I looked
was unimportant
as we moved my smell bled through
and two aggressive rings flared
and figured me out-
a few more feet and I could feel the unsettling shift
of unhappy weight beneath my reach.
So I held fast
to the great Van Dyke brush
(its fibers and bristle
magnetized from front to back)
with a handle carved
from thick muscle,
that clung for life to the bones
but He did not notice
the flex in the gelding’s arcing neck,
and He must have sneezed, or blinked,
through the vital twitch
that shook
and dissolved into
hyperbolic, bay curves:
when it upset the Dauphin’s new throne
with a weak kick,
everyone was surprised.
Limerick: Once a mum Mademoiselle rode in a Metro
for Heather M.
Once (a) mum Mademoiselle rode in (a) Metro
Felt snug and dozed dreaming of Brando
Lights went out, the train stopped
Coach temperature dropped
She woke up in arms of Eskimo.
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2013
Like beautified
Double-winged butterfly
Took a ride beautiful
There I rose
And you I rode
On petals of a rose.
So I love
The hive of your love
For thence scent I rode.
In cool breezy saddle
On bright scented petals
I rode a red rose.
Limerick : Once a rich Janitress rode on a broom
Once a rich Janitress rode on a broom
From cheek to jowl her looks spelt dire doom
She thought she owned the world
And the world owed her gold
So she chewed gold and lost gums and bloom.
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2013
It was a small forgotten town
With general store and a grange,
Where a small boy asked the old man:
“When’s the last time you rode the range?”
The old cowpoke just paused and grinned,
And puffed on his old briar pipe—
He thought kids these days didn’t care,
With minds all full of games and tripe.
But here was a boy that did care,
And that hung on his every word—
That wanted to be a cowboy—
Of that one fact, he was assured.
“Son, it was back in the ‘30s,
A long time fore your folks was born—
It was the last gasp of the West,
Fore towns made the range forlorn.
“A man could ride on forever
On a wide range that did not end—
Just a man, his horse and his God,
And the free wind that was his friend.
“Yes, a man knew who he was then—
About life there was no debate—
There was right and wrong and true love—
And when called he was never late.”
But Jess,” the boy asked once again,
“When’s the last time you rode the range?”
The man smiled, but held back a tear,
“When I got old and the world got strange.”
She rode the train to glory,
Her star was shining throughout the territory,
They called her the princess with red hair,
Her eyes were blue and skin so fair,
When she danced on stage the cowboys whistled,
While all the women folk bristled.
Her given name was Nancy Smith,
A plain-Jane name given by kith,
One day a broken mirror caught her beauty,
She then changed her name to Redonna Agouti,
Her hand-bills listed her as the dancing Italian,
A countess who two-stepped with the battalion.
Redonna's heart and soul was with dancing,
Her famous legs wouldn't quit prancing,
She was the queen of the gaudy stage,
Wearing her purple plume in a suspended cage,
She caught the eye of a cowboy named Ranger,
She fell in love at first sight with this stranger.
He asked her to dance a waltz with him,
They kept dancing until the gaslights were dim,
Both of them were smitten with the love bug,
Before the night was over he gave her a hug,
Ranger proposed after the first kiss,
Redonna said yes since she was in bliss.
The Italian countess and cowboy were married,
For forty happy years until they were buried,
Their tombstones lay side-by-side,
With a drawing each of a groom and bride,
And her engraved inscription read,
Nancy Smith Smith, Loving Wife of Ranger Smith.
She rode the train to glory...
November 10, 2017
Choose a Topic Contest
Subject: (A) Love and Romance
the magi rode again
after the star of David rose to reign
the royal in manger in the stable
lay he ready to enable
but Herode wanted him slain
Last night, I rode upon a sea of dreams,
a whale and grandpa rode them with me.
I felt water hit me as I sailed in my bed;
it was only the whale nodding his head.
He splashed all around those waters of blue,
while rays of moonlight cast silvery hues.
The fish, how they danced in and out of the waves;
a Salmon leapt by me, a Tuna, a Blue Hake.
My bed, it sailed better than any old boat;
when the dream began I was trapped in a moat!
As it turned into ocean with waters blue-green,
I realized the whale, it was a Baleen.
The whale, he told me that he was endangered,
why should he confide in me, a stranger?
My Grandpa told me the very next day,
when I grew up, the whales I could help save.
Three Aussie cowboys set out one morn
With old rugged faces weatherworn
As they made their way through the Outback
A croc sat watch, prepared to attack
When riders neared his nest by the stream
Two cowboys could hear the third one scream
No Crocodile Dundee came to help
As seasoned old Sam let out a yelp
The croc had pulled him off his horse
Sam quickly became the croc’s main course
The cowboys’ guns fired to no avail
For all they saw was a bit of tail
Sinking deep into flowing water
The croc had led old Sam to slaughter
Two Aussie cowboys returned that day
Crossing the stream, to tears they gave way
Old Sam had rode with them for many years
Before falling to their greatest fears
Sam’s horse they led back to their home
Through the Outback they’d not again roam
*Written for Tracie’s “A Little Bit of Aus…” contest
In the palo verde and black chaparral lies,
A cross by an empty grave where no one cries.
It notes the lonely death of a man named Chance Roam—
Just a proud young cowboy that never rode home.
Far on a sparse hill it cuts the sky like a lance—
That pale, nearly white cross with just the name ‘Chance.’
He used to ride those hills and echo each valley,
Before he rode to war to make us all free.
Yes, his country called, like it had many before,
And he gladly went off to fight in that war.
There were no questions asked, no concern for the cost—
If none volunteered, our country would be lost.
Then one day the dreaded letter came, edged in black—
And we knew then, that he would never come back.
Be it rancher or mere clerk – all went off to war—
And while most returned – some would be seen no more.
And long before there was a Memorial Day—
Our young men died for our American way—
From wars of revolution to wars of the world—
All of our soldiers fought with our flag unfurled.
There are bright jade prairies of gray and white crosses,
That recount endless wars and many losses—
Now in meadows bloom reminders on each plain,
Marking names of those who have not died in vain.
In the palo verde and black chaparral lies,
A cross by an empty grave where no one cries.
It notes the lonely death of a man named Chance Roam—
Just a proud young cowboy that never rode home.
.
She rode with him to Shebuktoo
she rode up and down the hilly concourse
riding shot gun like on his big white horse
when he shot his gun high in the air
a huge blast of shouts shook the pair
in frenzy she bucked, too, arriving with a force
connie pachecho
2/24/17