Best Roofless Poems
nascent
dawn appears
kaleidoscope
of
color
midnight
sighs
leftovers
of
last night
plateful of
unsaid
words,
a
tablecloth
of rapier-sharp
folds
&
fireplace
dying
to be
kept
alive
sensitive
hearts
feel
powerful
in
mundane
rain
pelting
petals
think
of
others
when eating
remember
pigeon
food
when fighting
remember
seeking
peace
paying water-bill
remember
cloud-nursed
when homecoming
remember
homeless
campers
when sleeping
counting stars
remember
sleepless,
roofless
foodless
healthless
hopeless
be a candle
in
dark
snow
mixed
drizzle ...
dust-covered
man
holds
hand
of daughter
dying
slowly
under
slabs
of
concrete
life
illusion
dream
swoon
ecstasy
oblivion
1st Place Contest Winner
Written: February 14, 2023
YOUR SELECTION AGAIN Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Brian Strand
NOTE::THIS IS AN OPEN(organic) FORM VERSE using spaces&breaks without grammatical symbols ,the ' open' relies upon 'the one breath limitation' (intuitive cadence)& so inherently requires the 'reader' (reciter) to input and responds thus making this enigmatic form a two way interplay & interpretatIon unique to the moment& changing according to mood is inherently variable.
There it stands, desolate and alone
That roofless shell where the winds
Still whisper of the past
When scampering children's squeals
And wheeling seabirds' cries
Rose thinly through the air.
A thatched croft from which a healthy living was scraped
A shirt-sleeved man, braces showing,
Bald pate bunneted against the sun,
Bent over to tend his plot
An aproned woman cheerfully shooing away the hens
To collect the eggs for the evening meal
Beside a silvery sea stretching
To the horizon
Hiding the city lights and its imagined pleasures
Until those dreams drew the young away
Watched sadly by the elderly pair
Their exodus damning
The island to its desolation
Where still the birds' cries squeal
And the wind through the grass softly whispers
Surrounding the now silent croft
In the salt sharp air
What homely pleasures such a life once offered
Now the graveyard of fading memories
While the once busy city streets
Stand empty drained of life
As the virus continues to take its toll
Within these vast and roofless hallowed halls
Under skies holding clouds like distant smoke.
Beyond heaving hills sunlight fades and falls.
Stands a solitary, grand, majestic oak.
As this great oak's shadow looms far and fast
Stretching as light of evening turns to shade.
Colors red and yellow soft clear as glass.
A moment's view this picture God has made.
In Heaven gold and silver will be His grass.
His love is extended beauty's center piece.
Not briefly, but eternally beauty shall last.
Heaven's pasture with light, sweet joy, and peace.
Theo artist have tried with word, oil and stone
To recreate which God to all men give
No canvas or sculpture shall ever clone
Beauty of both pastures where we may live.
Concluding Part of
Oh’ Kashmir - Last Part 2
One grave mistake was
Shown by the decision makers
Of Kashmir,
To convert the green valley,
Into a valley of concrete.
Dams, buildings and houses,
Were built on places,
Which were the nourishing orchards of Nature. ..08
Changed by the greedy lovers of money,
The builders,
Who built tall buildings and dams,
At the cost of destroying
Brooks and streams,
Lakes and forests, the serene hills
And the meadows,
Which always reminds us,
As the playground of shepherds,
Without caring for
Trees, plants, animals and seasons,
Which always remains the back bone
Of every civilization. 09
Another grave mistake was
That when some people were trying
To drive out,
Several thousands of those innocents,
Who were the inhabitants of Kashmir,
'The Kashmiri Pandits'.
Those who were living there,
In Jammu and Kashmir,
Since thousands of years,
Couldn’t get any solid support,
From their friends and neighbors,
When they were forced to leave Kashmir,
And their friends and neighbors,
Who could have stopped the miscreants. 10
But the others remained only
A silent spectator,
While watching the destruction,
Of their friends and neighbors,
By those, who wanted to make,
Their own separate heaven,
Without the presence,
Of the blooming smiles,
Of these innocents,
Who were their friends, their intimates,
And their childhood companions. 11
Since a long time,
These people in exile
Are living in roofless homes,
With tents on their heads,
They were ignored and were thrown out,
As if, they were not humans,
And not the oldest inhabitants of the valley. 12
Even after the flood of fifth September
When the army men were trying,
To put a healing balm,
Even at the cost of their lives,
On the suffering masses,
Trapped in the disastrous flood,
During the floods havoc prime time,
Some people were throwing stones,
On choppers and on these men in service,
So that the suffering masses,
May not get,
The life giving water, foods and medicines. 13
Perhaps the Nature has not liked,
Some of these actions,
And has shown its anger,
As never before in the history of this land,
To make us realize,
The serious follies and mistakes. 14
Ravindra K Kapoor
Kanpur India 17th Sept. 2014
Wait for hope, another sunshine,
Screams un opened, ache suppress,
Tears hold in eyes, cry less whine,
Penniless life eked out with depress,
Roving on the way with shoeless feet,
Spent dreadful life in great poverty,
Staring at shop for seeking of Sweet,
Sleep tight in roofless sovereignty,
Playing in downy mud, and quag,
Whether it's a winter or summer scorch,
These innocent child utter no nag,
Pass rest of their journey with single torch,
Being empty pockets and hands,
No mean to them for which they can,
Buy things of choice and colorful bands,
Scenario, the same for all poor clan,
Their life is full of burdensomeness,
Where no calm or rests exist,
Dawn to dusk with onerousness,
Embrace the hurdles, thorns and curvy twist.
Shahid Hussain Chouhdry
My Bothers and Sisters
(Street Kids)
We grow up in public landfills, train stations,
under the bridges of towns,
victims of all kinds of abuse, but we still had rights…
because of conflicts with our relatives,
we did not want to return to families.
The public is unfair towards us;
they regard us as street kids and a danger to society.
They also label us 'thieves ', 'dagga smokers ', 'glue sniffers '
and 'alcohol abusers ',
while they have no idea who we are."
We lack the basic necessities of foodstuff,
health care and a safe place to stay.
We eat unhealthy foods such as ice cream, cakes, etc.
known as vagrants, rag-pickers and glue-sniffers
and blot out the violence we faces on a daily basis.
we share the same name- street kids.
It is painful to be called 'a street kid'
when we are not responsible for our situations.
Yes, some of us ran away from home,
but others like me are orphans,
and our relatives are not prepared to live with us.
They laugh at us as we ate food from the dust bin,
we are often dirty and infested with fleas.
We are felt stigmatised,
homeless, hungry and abused,
surviving by begging, finding odd jobs,
scavenging rubbish sites, or prostitution.
We had huge suffering, we are abandoned...
going to the streets is an act of despair.
We are not only homeless or roofless,
but we are also culturally rootless.
clothe crop-dusted with dirt and orange crumbs,
as are our shorts, shoes, hair, faces.
Our hair is still damp with perspiration,
and beads of sweat streaked little paths
in the dirt on the sides of his face.
Form:
ROOFLESS
Incommensurable conditions
without shelter nor food,
winter storm clouds overhead
frigid chill deep within my bones,
a haphazard zipperless parka
down feathers withered ages ago,
trembling in the frost sans fire
hoping in the very least for
the kindness of a stranger
offering me a steaming
hot cup of coffee,
sole thing affordable is nostalgia
if even that, dauntingly recalling a time when - -
snowflakes were still charming
Beng Homeless Contest - Seeker
seeing a rainbow
summer dream of roofless life -
Comfort in God's niche?
Brian Johnston
December 19, 2015
Hold the trod, limit the space
The offspring's of Tuareg Cowhead cut my heels
The breaks on the hind been slammed
I break to a halt, he breaks to a sprint
Wagere, if you skip by the race
Render it bare to Takuruku's mind
His piteous lead, leads me to a lid
Layed on my coffin though a living corpse
His wanton waste of debts secured
In a paupers hide, the wrath I incurred
The burning fire he spiked to burn
Has burnt the burning amber yet aglow
Now in my roofless un-sheltered soul
My burnt roof permits me limitless vision
To the million gold trinkets on heavens fragile neck
Watching as dawn noisily creeps by
To unveil the hood placed on the aglow ball
While crickets sings me a lullaby of mockery
As the mocking cries of the high heavens
Whose exaggerated piteous tears flood my bare hide
Soaking nothing except everything decent
Never allowing my guts be dried like in an ocean layed
Wagere, as you skip by the race
Render it bare to Takuruku's mind
His insistence I strip to my bare ****
To acquire me a she's loving leisurely lease
Has raped my dignity to face my adversaries
Will then, the debt of my bare **** asunder be layed?
Urge him to make haste my she restored
'Cos in my second childhood
No one has been left in this leaking backyard
Infested with green serpentine in green shrubs
No foolish lamb to draw a lid on my coffin
When my sealed heart couldn't feel my life throb
Will the sight of my flesh in Vultures gizzard
By your secured lock not a stir made?
These agonies you rendered for my cradle
The melancholic property of misfortune ceded to me
Plus to see me enter heavens with pains
Even though my soul has no pains
I very nearly died thrice of this shame.
He is not just the one who lives in a street
But, that who has millions and eats beans
Then farts in a narrow spot in Wall Street
The one who has several ID's, names,
and passports with multiple loyalties
None of them is true
None of them is blue!
Who cannot use his real name nor identity
Like a mouse in dark night,
Roofless scared of others
Particularly dispossessed snakes, cats,
And generally many more ..
Oh lord! Please answer to my questions
Why is there sorrow everywhere?
Why men gain superiority
While women shiver sheathless in the utter winter?
They say children are God’s angels
Then why do the little angels sleep hungry and clotheless?
They say God helps those who help themselves
Then why do poor labourers work hard day and night
And earn nothing more than humiliation?
Why do they starve and survive roofless?
They say God has his eyes on every man
Then why do the criminals roam free
And the innocent men are crucified?
They say God has justice in His court
Then why is there no justice for those
Who have done nothing but good to others?
Where is the justice to the one
Who fights for his own rights?
Why don’t you listen to the hands
Which rise not just for prayer but to help the needy?
Why do true lovers not meet?
Why don’t they deserve blessings and satisfaction?
Why does the child of a soldier,
Who dies during war, not deserve his father’s love and care?
Where is the justice in your court, My lord!
Please, answer to my questions…
P. s. This poem is mainly wriiten on the Condition of Indian society.
All my life,All my days
Wolves and sheep alike flock with me
Like a magnet,they are drawn to me
Like bees,they swarm around me.
Sucking my honeycomb to Sahara
Like mosquitoes,they bite and go
but like Twist,they want more
Vampires,what a befitting title.
They've built roofless shelters
Right in the corner of my pocket,
the home of my juiciest fruit
believing in its strong cover,
when the rainy days roll in.
They milk me dry with their pincers,
Descending on my defenseless self
Pouncing on my vulnerability
Like a relentless leech,
they hold on to my apron.
Ripping me has become a hobby.
Till i am as dry as the fig,
my udder will be home to them.
Venomous blood sucking parasites
They will follow me to the end.
Capri
roofless cubes, spidery with wire,
cakes of azure and enzian;
above at the Villa San Michele
Rilke smiles down at the broken beaches,
at coves of defiant waves, compacted sea
Pompeii
a chessboard of honest stones
open to a sky of hushed shouts;
we huddle in a boned frame
of another life, a stopped day
Napoli
warm and secret, olive-eyed
an infinite beauty makes a new face
as we gaze ape-like from our bus;
an act of moment
I am a traveler
In a place beyond time
I speak the language of stone
And adobe,
Listen to the echoes of history
In roofless, melted walls
This is my journey
I am a traveler,
An earthbound melting misfit
Whispering in the language
Of leaves and lizards,
Of rustling cottonwood leaves,
Taking pictures with my mind
This
Is my journey
I am a traveler
Just passing through
On my way to somewhere,
Always on my way – on my way to
Else-where, to else-when, to else-wise
Even so, I tarry here
This is
My journey
I am a traveler,
A stranger from
Time beyond
To long ago
In this ghost-filled home
Of peace and contravening conflict
This is my
Journey
I am a traveler
Who sits cross-legged on the earth,
Alone with the ancients
Alone amongst shadows and sunshine,
Silence and grace
My heart and soul cry out in echo
This is my journey
Into my head stink in mythic one hissing
of running are ratters, as I hated by
up nearly level of piled woodsheds rottenly sites
at weediest the backyard’s place,
of my neighbor’s unit close edged up wards
side by sides, feet away from my place . . .
Once lucky I bound at woodsy near duty
she a terrier if the ratters in her site been gone
over willowy apart, as roofless patio
the backyard's sensory stain at royalists’ land . . .
Upper away of gallant converted living by
out of mind, she the pureed-bandit around
bazaars think backfill thy new world
in menses aid raised velvety clubs by wards.
Miserly her space and empty from kindliness
consorted in byte ratters her terraces
downfalls by sight, in careens simply mode empty
my home unfair or caustics up a side,
at silly carrion backyards as waste as hissing
up I needing help from as careless chick!