Best Roughed Poems
A funny thing happened on the way to my hanging
Couldn't sleep the night before my head was banging
I was innocent of a crime that I did not commit
But they roughed me up and got me to admit.
The face on the wanted posters said it was me
Anyone seeing those posters would be inclined to agree
I was in a horse drawn prison wagon with bars down the side
Thinking to myself, it will be my last ever ride.
Heading for the gallows then onto Boot hill
To pay for shooting a bank teller that I didn't kill
Two miles from the town all hell did break loose
Unbeknownst to me I'd be dodging the noose.
For ten desperados' brought the wagon to stop
Then ordered the guards, their weapons they drop
Some gang members got me out and they set me free
The gang leader approached and he looked just like me.
He said " in this life you look out for your own "
Then he told me something that I hadn't known
" We were Separated at birth and we had the same mother "
And that this mean desperado was in fact my twin brother .
" We heard that you'd been framed for our crime spree
But you are my brother and that's why we've set you free.
The teller had died because he went for his gun
We grabbed all the money and went on the run ".
He gave me some money and said " start a new life "
Told me head south, settle down and find a good wife
There was so much I wanted to ask him and so much to say
My brother said " some other time, best be on your way " .
Written on 4th July 2018.
For a funny thing happened on the way to...poetry contest, sponsored by Robert Haigh.
Smooth as ebony silk, black aquatic waves the melting
Essence of liquid evil, stirring this lake placid of our
Eternal nightmares, deadened space in the fathoms
Deep, beneath the dreaming realm for which we sleep.
Translucent tears, left dripping in our unconscious mind,
Trick, trickling, encroaching, drowning us within the
Fear factor, heaving, and tugging at the reality of
Humanities thin realism.
Raw is this blackened well, of emotional plunging,
A pit bottomless, in suctions raw force of power.
Thy soul trying to cling against the porcelain sides,
Yet sliced by the roughed edge of illusions delirium.
Sheer glasses elliptical memorization, hypnotizing
The lucid mind, smacking hands blister at the panes,
Begging for this bad dream to end.
But your voices scream remain nothing except
Echoes refrains, that are lost amongst the complete
Darkness surrounding thee, in this murky abysses
Tidal surge.
Wake up, wake up, this is not real or is it,
The torn spiritualist grasps at faiths buoy, but
Instead sinks farther below the currents swift
Under currents, then light slits through the dark,
As lightening slashes at the blackest night, and
The dreamer shivers beneath his covers warmth.
Laying within his twisted sheets of sweat,
He wonders if any of it was real at all!
But whom can tell what lucks under the black
Waters of our nightmares, dare you to go swimming,
Into the rivers of the unconscious to find out, and survive.
BY: CHERYL ANNA DUNN
Absurdity, chaos,
strife:
The poet chooses
virtuous reality.
Sisyphus, a
titanic wave of metamorphosis, waiting, salted nausea:
The thinker roughed by sand
a solitary tree in a barren desert
defies absurdity
by seeking meaning in the absurd.
Authenticity,
vision, conformity, religion:
The rebel a roaring
wildfire igniting change like:
authenticity,
vision, and non-conformity
forging their own path.
Project,
reflect, individuality:
The human river
tasting the minerals of experience
expresses identity
and discovers themselves.
Leap,
Übermensch,
ethics,
logotherapy:
The agent
acts with freedom and responsibility
finding purpose.
Meaning,
joy, void, hope:
The sweet-smelling optimist a sunflower
fills emptiness with hope
seeking light in the darkness.
Truth,
illusion, reality, fiction:
The rationalist
discerns the real and the imagined.
Contradiction,
logic, emotion:
The harmonist
strives for balancing
the rational and emotional.
Freedom,
authenticity, manipulation, conformity:
The individualist
resists pressure and influence.
Awareness,
paradox, courage, hope:
The existentialist
embraces the absurd and transcends.
Leak,
speak,
strike,
kneel:
The activist challenges-
The status quo and injustice.
Tirelessly fights for justice!
Death,
suicide, violence, genocide:
The mortal
faces limit and horror with courage.
Despair,
nightmare:
The lover
shares and cares with love.
Existence
precedes essence?
Or essence
precedes existence?
The question
haunts forever.
The Stoic
Observes, unmoved yet aware:
Virtue alone suffices
whether essence or existence;
In reason and nature
we find our constant companion.
SONNET FOR WINDS OF CHANGE
Cross cirrus sky swift brush strokes paint mares' tails
Tree tops are in restless susurration,
While cumbrous clouds traverse in vapour trails
Mead grass is fanned in wild undulation
Lake face whipped to agitated motion
Plumes roughed, wildfowl voyage with discretion
Gulls in-land tell of wild storms on ocean
All braced to face nature's bare aggression
When young I chose such rugged medium
Deplored the concept then of perfect peace
Such state suggested endless tedium
Hazard preferred to slow drawn out release
While I now sometimes seek respite from strife
I yet love winds that change, give breath to life
Against the pale October Moon, a lone howling cuts
Through the chill of the winter’s night, gleaming yellow
Green eyes flash in the forests wilderness wild.
Sleek mystic swift of feet, white powder chameleons,
Living by the creed of basic instinctual desire to survive,
In this harsh environment of the Rocky Mountains.
By the flight of the morning blue jay, spooked from his
Perches vantage point on high, the pack hunts in the
Deep valleys thickening glen.
Snow wolves on the prowl, seeking freedoms liberation
By tooth and claw, but these are beasts of the free spirit,
Out laws nomads, wondering where the restless heart so
Leads them.
Beguiling creatures of beauty, representing the raw
Force of power of the untamed soul, roughed individuals,
Stalkers of the ice and snow.
Spiritual brethren to the tribal Indians are these
Sacred guardians of the great spirits creation, darned
With mutual respect and admiration honor, let them
Roam freedom’s path forever.
Symbolic warriors under the skin and fur, does the animal
Run beside the human hidden within the shadow realm of realism.
Echoing in the distance, with a chilling presence that
Crawls up the neck bone of mankind, announcing,
Erriely, of the hunger driving them in silence.
Nature’s selectors, weaving the weak from the strong,
Legacies ancestral brave, soldiers of canines pack,
Living on the edge of extinction mighty wrath.
But looking into the eyes of the beast, one can only
See the beauty of a wild creature, whom wishes to remain
As he was born to be, simply put FREE!!
BY: CHERYL ANNA DUNN
groom gone, mocked
by wounded run
from enemy bomb,
red hydrogen on
deep ground: journey of
gunpowder fog , ebony…
mercy, mercy!
he roughed on,
he moved on
bore robbed order…
beyond doggone echo,
honored cup of God reborn
one more eve…
now , bound for home.
(a)
peaceful tidings to all soldiers who were
re-united with their families this holiday season
. . . . ..
It's not easy becoming a Legendary
Major League Baseball pitcher.
It never was and will never be.
You get put through the wringer
and hung out to dry.
From time to time you'll get little or no
run support.
You may have to face Legendary Icons
of the game 2 and 3 times in a game.
Come face to face with undisguised
Batting Champions.
Silver Slugger Award Winners.
Members and potential Members of the
500 Home Run Club.
Members and potential Members
of the 3000 Hits Club
A few Future Members of
Baseballs Hall of Fame
as well as Iconic MLB ALL STARS.
You will face monumental challenges.
You'll get worn down and roughed up
being on the road 82 games a season.
As a Major League Baseball Starting Pitcher
you suck it up, go out on the mound
and challenge history.
You bring your "A" game
You bring your best fastball
your best curve ball
and your best change up.
When you average 33 starts a season.
Average 10 complete games per season.
Average 3 shut outs per season.
Throw a No Hitter every 3.857 seasons.
Face an average 972 batters per season.
Average 232 innings per season
Through hot , cold , humid and sticky weather.
Give up an average 169 hits per season.
Average 232 innings per season.
Average 82 earned runs per season.
Give up an average 14 home runs in 33 games
over 232 innings per season.
When you average 120 walks per season
Strike out an average 246 batters per season
for a career total of 5714.
It kinda looks like this.
6.6 hits per 9 innings
4.7 walks per 9 innings
9.5 strike outs per 9 innings
Over 27 seasons.
When you do that for a total of 27 seasons
The critics will call you the next
Nolan Ryan.
The Legendary Strike Out King
Member of Major League Baseballs
Hall of Fame.
Michael E. Harris
02202022
Mad Love
Hate to see you smile
Hate to watch you in a mile
Hate to see you talk
Hate to see myself do the stalk
Hate to hear your scream
Hate to stare you sitting like a prim
Hate to touch your roughed back
Hate to see you wearing black slack
Hate everything about you
Hate seeing you in all shirts of colorful hue
Hate watching you glare
Hate to see sparks incredibly flare
Hate to feel this thing
Hate to find myself terribly sing
Hate to know about love
Hate to see myself madly in love
Im Saven my freestyle rhymes so I got da proof n soon I'll be raising da mothaen roof, feeling bullet proof..with all my skills shining through..my competitors ain't know what to do.. when I grab da Mike ..they know they through... Spitting dope rhymes til they getting high from da dope fumes rising from my Microphone, now they leaving yo. They know they got no chance 2 win any battle against me. No competition for this oleschool rap musician making them disappear like im a en magician...they b running they b twichen n of course they b en n wishes they didn't motivate this freestyle main-e-ack now they all under attack.
I've been writing a lot lately, poetry. Comedy n freestyle raps, giving mothaers heart attacks. My compatision fallen fast, blasted n smoked. I ain't no joke. Everyone finishing last. Day taken snapshots at my sexy ass. I'm now standing alone at da Top of da class so all my haters can kiss my ass.. . Fast or slow.. it ain't matter yo..I am unstoppable, like an F5 Tornado, blowen my competitors apart ..morning, noon or after dark, sreadding MC's like im a great white shark!!
Tearing the mothaers slowly apart from every possible angle. Die-angle to a en triangle. I got every possible angel covered til them mothaers smothered n I'm so hot they starting to smolder n smoke. Take a nice long toke til u start 2 choke..now they know what dis freestyle rappers all about. Turn u out ..choke u out til you en passen out. While I'm passen out my demo.. that is gonna demolish anyone in my way yo. Either way ya wanna see it I'll be undefeated n I en mean it. Gotta gansta lean a gansta limp with a tight gansta grip on my .45 with an extra 50 shot clip. This is real n legit n I won't en quit with da.45 hangen off my right hip with that extra en clip..
Maken mothafukers limp like they a dope pimp...
Now I'm heading 4 my dope ride..
2 get da away from dis homicide...
The seen was messy, the seen was sick..
Mothaers learning arithmetic..
5 glock 9 rounds will kill ya quick!!!
Or it will kill ya slow..
Either ing way your gonna die Yo!!!
ing with me n keeping yo life..
Don't ing mix, n I'm not gonna tell ya 2wice...
Once is enough n s gonna get rough..
U gonna get roughed up ..stuck up ..n hit up..Your body on da back of da pick-up..
Not anymore able to hick-cup..!!
Bloodstained windowpane,
Light like lipstick gloss-touched
And here I sit,
Fingertips stilled,
Distilled, maybe,
Into something clearer,
Cleaner
than this metal framed
Bar-roughed
Body of a looking glass I’d shatter,
If I could…
Transparent only for a moment
When wiped away-
It screams “Don’t touch me!”
So I don’t,
I distill myself
Into something cleaner,
Clearer, maybe
And I sit, and sit,
And sit at the sill-
Can’t see;
Maybe I couldn’t see
To begin with
And it’s me,
Not the glass that is so dirty.
I arrived at gadgados
today TD our receptionist
is on leave and i have to multitask
between HR and customer care desk
We did lose the keys to the washrooms
turns out the HR forgot and they ended
accompanying her home.. as we are almost
giving up hope of ever finding them..
The boss arrived and they popped out of her bag..
TD arriving at the office these days he keeps popping
up like hes traveling on the fourth dimension
And mi i do know there is no way those keys could
have ended in Madams handbag for the previous day
i am the one who had custody of them last
But the cybertrack ringing in the air.. ability
give me ability... i bet it must be young bujas
who is up to his usual tricks once more
they say he formed the puma squad with the crown prince
and here at gadgados no one really knows what the silver
sentinels are up to... the pumas are very evasive
today the HR trying to corner me wanted to know why
the crown prince deserted duty at the military academy
i don't know i mussed... no one really does know
Maybe Bujas does.. its rumored left to start the puma squad
private silver sentinels... and they have made gadgados facility
their operating base... what they do no one wants to knows
Later in the evening we lost the front door keys only for them
to mysteriously reappear again an echo of the cyber track.. strength
strength give me strength to overcome for you are strength...
I have to mention Bujas strange companion Roy now prowls this area
and the other day i heard Lemmy roughed up people after i declined....
declined work... like TD and took a leave of absence to do music
for i week i sojourned in music traveling trans dimensional arriving...
at the land of light not very unlike Roy.. but different from Roy i traveled
in the eye of my mind and unlike Bujas i have no need for a time machine
Lewis Nyaga
a day at gadgados
I wake up in the morning
With the alarm clock going off
The Major League would hire me
If they got a look at that toss
Landing perfectly in the trash
On the other side of the room
Didn't wake up then
Till mid-afternoon
Pretty sure for certain
My boss is wondering why me he hired
On the job less than a week
And already on the verge of being fired
Forgot to pay my phone bill
So I couldn't give him a call
Seems the only thing I do right
Is doing wrong
Too cheap to buy flowers
So I pick them out in left field
Right next to the honey patch
With bees munching their meals
Brought them home to my girlfriend
Who proceeded to sneeze and cough
With a case of hay fever
This didn't go over as well as I thought
Her sneezing also interrupted
The bees in the bunch
Sticking their heads out from
The middle of lunch
That's when Miss Noisy
Was repeatedly stung
Seems the only thing I do right
Is doing wrong
Needing to withdraw my measly savings
I head down to the bank
Step inside and holler HOLD UP
As I was running late
All the tellers they screamed
And pointed accusingly at me
As I stood there in the middle
Of all the melee
The cops roughed me and cuffed me
And took me to jail
With no boss and no girlfriend
To pay on my bail
Now here I sit in the slammer
With no idea of how long
Seems the only thing I do right
Is doing wrong
You've thrown me over the edge of the highest peaked cliff imaginable.
As I spiral further down, my outer shell gets roughed up by sticks and stones until my body is disfigured beyond recognition as if I'd been torn apart and restitched together by a confused child.
Will I ever hit the bottom?
And then it happens, I'm slammed to a standstill.
I don't know if I can make it out, I'm so terribly down on myself.
Do I have the strength to save myself? At least go halfway to safety?
I'll try.
But the only way to go is by crawling, dragging my nearly lifeless self along the railroad tracks that no one seems to come across unless they want to hide away and wait for death.
The track eventually runs into a tunnel I must get through to receive any chance of comfort.
But so many have died on this very set of tracks. Can I make it?
I'll try.
I'm gripping the cold, hard ground.
Struggling to continue on as each and every movement, even tiny, cuts deep in me as if slashed by the gory blade of a masked offender as I move along the rugged tracks.
I'm almost under the cover of the tunnel.
Oh God what's that sound?
A train?
Of course. Along comes the train.
The train constructed by all the grim gray deaths that have been committed along these very tracks.
Chugging, chugging, chugging along. Way faster than any pace I can produce.
The very structure of this train is held up by malicious spirits.
The steel walls are formed by the souls of all those who've laid out on the tracks and awaited their brutal deaths they so longed for.
I do NOT want to become an etched soul in that steel.
But it's coming for me.
I can hear it's whistle, and in its sound one can hear all the cries of the dead ever screamed aloud, formed into a single sound so evil it must've been the work of the devil himself.
But wait!...
I see a light.
A light at the end of the tunnel.
Hope.
There's still hope for me yet.
I'll be there. Just wait for me.
Southside Sunset
Poverty stricken pink, purple, orange incognito
After chasing down the poor paleta man and taking his stock of Paletas de Limon
The Fantastic Four, always together
grabbed up their baseball bats and mitts
And left me,
“Stupid Girl”
To play tea and dollies, girly follies
“Hey, HEY! Wait for me!
I want.. To play too”
“Girls Can’t Play Baseball!”
Shocked and angry, as if it was the most
Sacrilegious and blasphemous thing they’ve heard
All day
Dirt stained faces, roughed up knees
Yucky boy cooties
Walking across the street to the empty lot
“It’s a MAN’S sport. Your not a MAN. You absolutely cannot play”
“Yeah, IsaDORK! It’s against the CODE, the MAN code”
“You’ll never understand.”
“Go HOME!”
Defiant, I followed, watching patiently
For my moment
“Pleaseeeeee, Frankie, I wanna playyyyyy”
Finally, after some whispering among themselves
They lent me a bat, pitched it hard
And watched me hit it one straight out of the park
Open mouths, silence echoed
After the scream of the ball ended through the air
Smiling at their despair
Skipping off, saying
“see, I told ya so, I can do anything,
‘Cause girls are better”
The day after, the fantastic four became the fantastic Five
Always together, inseparable, From me, they never knew what to expect
Because from that day forward, I, at last had
The Boy’s Respect
-Dedicated to Mis Angelitos-
Heaven must be sweeter if your there, Guys
Miss you, Frankie, Emmanuel, Carlos
You left too soon...
Amigos para simpre
Balveen Cheema
The winter breeze blows
When I walk down to work
Carrying me a decade back
When you and I unfolded some leaves
On the eve of my departure
From your southern home.
The cool moonbeams walked into our room
As we sat on your bulky cushioned floor
With flowing curtains throughout the chilly night
Drowning mugs and mugs of coffee
Talking out our incomplete lines.
Much of the cooled trajectories on our shoulders that had
Intervened between our joys and bottomless burdens
Nurturing our hunched backs
Were roughed out for smoother walks
To view the twinkling lighted city behind us.
~A Poet Destroyer Collaboration~