Best Rued Poems
Hectic day, the device beeped incessantly:
Salient, superficial, attended all, not to skip,
the vital from the plethora of logs.
Voices buzzed interminably : known, alien,
the bulk superficial and unknown;
Irritated, lulled the apparatus to silence;
urged own moments from the bustles!
That mercy on the mode,
the lulling turned erroneous; fateful!
Rued the decision; the most urged one,
was missed like never before!
Irony! Took the tool to ring back; came another,
vital one, as clarion call.
Engrossed in the pivotal, forgot the ring, missed again;
no sooner did arrive, reclined, took the device to recall.
Fated! On that very moment, the gadget beeped again,
to convey the harrowing, the man behind the missed call, was no more!
The abrupt demise of the yearned voice, numbed the core!
Dumbfounded! how could that be the last call?
That last glimpse! That intimate husky voice!
Unable to hold the irrevocable;
Unruly drops rolled down from the sterling eyes unbidden:
A mere heave: could have catched that beep of the last call!
You talked about me when I passed by,
You said I’m so girly when I standby,
I shake it, fake it but still you see it,
You said I am sassy when I am making it.
You talked about me when I just said it,
You said I’m so softy when I talked it.
I make, twist it but still you see it,
You said I am touchy when I am holding it.
You talked about me when I dance it,
You said I’m so comfy when I move it.
I look it, jump it but still you see it,
You said I’m so gay when I stared it.
You talked about me when I’m denying it,
You said I’m a movable cad when I’m forging it.
I say it, tell it but still you it.
You said I’m different when I rued it.
All I can say is I’m so sure with myself,
I’m happy enough as long as I don’t hurt myself.
What they see is what they all get.
Identifying me is something that they can’t get.
In youth I learned to jump
First off steps, then rooftops
Spirit of adventure
Nurtured in the heart of a child
Preschool acrobat twirling on my head
Grandma swatted my bottom
Repeated words like Tomboy
Never learned to be ladylike
Catholic school discipline
Uniforms, religion classes, daily mass
Never satisfied with any accomplishment
Even the nuns called me “perfectionist”
Blessed with storytellers in my family
Dad and sis would send me to dreamland
On the wings of a unicorn
Or Shakespeare’s amazing plays
Family and friends I hold dear
Each has influenced my thinking
I learned to offer support in troubled times
And to thank God every day for special people
Unable to have children
The most crushing blow
Accepted at a young age
But rued for a lifetime
Lover of Jack London, John Steinbeck
From Jack, I found adventure
From John, I learned compassion
Dickinson’s poetry touched my heart
If I can find a way
To make a friend feel joy
Then this is my mission
Comforter, nurturer
November 16, 2020
For Silent One’s “It's a part of me - Life and the perceptions and philosophies you hold Poetry Contest.”
We dragged the slopes to our feet.
On the summit, we burnt our clothes
for wood and there shuffled our feet
in the hush of the falling snow.
We had come out of the scuffed grass.
With one look back in unbelief
exhuming the long trek
the silent keen
puffing through blubbery fingers.
We pulled the hoofed trail through
the trapdoor of our unchained links
foisting for new heights.
Beyond the Appalachian Mountains
the hanging fern on pine dripped snow
on moles burrowing in gashed hollows.
We paused. In that doubtful moment
we rued the climb, succumbing to the assault
upon this stilled millennia’s eerie silence.
All that time the swivelling blizzards raged
shifting soil, eroding avalanches.
Below, burgeoning customs
unmaned the silent dignity of bisons.
All bore testimony to a familiar preparation.
And then, suddenly before our eyes
the solemn ground rose with the breeze
the spangled map changing to the quick:
Chicago Pittsburgh Kansas City
wild barnyards dry-coughing, pop-corning garages
horrent timber ribbed the coasting steamboats
the linoleum walls
the mild Indian piqued he was
by the mahogany cubism of our speech.
We wondered if coming so far
only mattered, we would be content
to build a fire, here and now
and unpack our horses.
We saw little need to go on.
One night the summit might open
up and swallow us all or old age
would come upon us like a lonely neighbour
on a pretext to the door.
© T.Wignesan 1964
London, U.K.
[from the collection: tell them i’m gone, 1983; published in Fire Readings (A Collection of Contemporary Writing from the Shakespeare & Company Fire Benefit Readings). Paris-Boston: Frank Books, 1991, pp. 36-37.]
No Maria -
when a Bernstein motif lingers.
No rosary beads -
they'll simply slip
through bourbon-stained fingers.
God carved the seven continents,
with skillful guise,
and Puccini cries.
Adam's rib was imminent
when his chest burst splinters
into a scorned dodger's eyes.
No Turandot tonight, please -
Father willed him this disease;
a cancerous curse
Ben's learned to despise.
No Rodgers -
when Oscar Hammerstein is dead.
No hammered halos -
they'll merely desecrate
the madman’s head.
Ben abandoned rued religion,
with toxic breath -
as Mimi wept.
Noah made a revision,
as the pairs filed two by two,
and into his mouth they crept.
No La Boheme, does he dote -
Mother’s cocktail glass
cuts his throat.
A souvenir,
from his childhood,
he’s kept.
No Sondheim -
when one loathes another's company.
No steel wool ragcloths -
to dry the bloodshot eyes of thee.
He minded the duet’s jargon
endorsing the macabre,
and Calaf sobbed.
Judas rethought the bargain,
knowing the silver pieces
wouldn’t save the soul he robbed.
A lost weekend sates Ben's day -
two severed hands on his chest,
he’ll lay; never feeling
a heart
that once throbbed.
Joy rued another Friday night
of re-runs. What a sorry plight!
"No more!" she cried. "I'll head for town,
where I'll lose this pathetic frown."
Why would a loner feeling blue
take in a movie meant for two?
Before the show, she looked around.
The kissing lovers did abound.
The movie scenes were scorching hot.
She truly did enjoy them--not.
Then halfway through, a handsome guy
sat down beside her. My, oh, my!
Her rusty heart went pitty-pat.
For years she hadn't felt like that.
"I'm Shea," he said. "You like the show?"
"I'm Joy," she said. "Well, really--no."
It's been a year since she met Shea.
She never sees a lonely day.
The kissing scenes they love the best
take place in their own lovers' nest.
April 19, 2018, entered in Brian Strand's Late April Premiere Contest
If ever a frailty should be rued,
then my emotional resistance of
those who hold my affection dearest
to them, is the sin that equates my soul
with the essence of a Hitler, and condemns
my name to the highest degree of infamy,
While my heart longs to be understood, my
fear of abandonment dictates my legs to gain
distance as each loving gesture is offered in
repetition, Persistently they reach, only to be
disregarded, and embody me within my shame,
Friends and family alike, endure the coldness
of my introverted haven, staring into my eyes
in hopes of disconfirming the projected emptiness
that flows from actions, words, or lack of both,
As they hurt from me, I scream for them in silence,
A deafening continuous stream of soundlessness,
that elevates my withheld pain from ache to harrowing,
Yet they can only assume the contents of this confession,
For my words go directly from mind to paper, and
never see the eyes of those who need to know this tenderness,
To express such powerful statements and risk the familiar
sting of neglect or abandonment once more, is a fear that
surpasses every shameful tear, haunting my thoughts as
a reminder that lives on insomnia, thus I remain devoted
to a faithful vow of solidarity that keeps me sane and sheltered,
Moving at a constant pace, racing against my own fright, holding
every term or phrase of endearment within, and running from a
past that will not be relived by my decree, Alas, with mortal lungs,
mechanical legs, and a heart that lies somewhere between the two,
I run,
for and from,
the feeling I desire most....
Naive Guillotine
I once knew a poet named Balveen
Whose heart was not a touchscreen
Confused when she read some barbs
Until she was shot by shards
She rued at their naive guillotine
Syllables per line-97779
February 29, 2016
Contest : Sensitive Community
A PD Contest
When angst and hate my rancor stirred
Fuming indignation, reddening my face,
Emotions choked as muscles tightened,
Slurring my speech, abandoning grace;
And rational discourse then disappeared
Vowing vengeance to correct a wrong,
Dissonance hollered, yet no one listened,
Donning grimace that discords prolong.
Denouncing voice of the unjust, unfair,
I brewed in anger, drowning in malaise,
Despising disgust that misdeeds convey
Engrossed in egoistic, despicable ways.
When pettiness of feud conscious decried
Longing for peace soon buried my pride,
Conjuring sensibilities of forgiveness divine,
Rejecting impulses cordiality was denied.
As laments mellowed calming ego’s demands,
Mending misunderstandings sanity won
And dialogue sought armistice of win, win
When penitence rued things said and done.
Embracing silence, we hugged in remorse
Vowing to reconcile that which roiled us;
We understood, accepted, found balance,
Questing for benevolence~ loath to fuss.
July 1, 2022
Placed 2nd: Forgiveness Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Anoucheka Gangabissoon
Dissolute December
As far as the dissolute December went
And beyond , went the waywardness of minds
And the apostate April at last did end
The real- time revelries sometimes feigned.
Letting the reins drop and resting all bother
And clicking away till the parting of ways
In the thick of things , with one thing or the other
The reasoning remained stupid anyways
Depressed , texted; and devastated, e-mailed
The status quo still stood so starkly severed
Malware still ruled the failings soulfully rued
In the wake of rulings, rash, virus, fresh, brewed.
Booting up senses to download life once more
Gadgets of head were restored as never before.
@ 23/Sept/2012
When I was dewy-eyed I longed for sex,
a kind of sex fit for a male virgin
who lusts for the head of a fair maiden
regardless of what may then transpire next;
but my quest for this sex became a hex
and so I bedded a rough whore in sin
instead and succumbed to the act often
like a sex-starved satyr or male T. rex!
“O God, wherefore have I spoiled my body!?”
I pined and now rued the loss of purity
and was aware of lapse from the inside
and the lessons of this true irony.
But so long as breath, life and God abide;
Redemption saves despite that I have died.
Jude's
no prude, but
photo'd nude whilst
viewed by
some crude
multi-hued
tattooed
dude
who'd then
distributed
his lewd pics of her,
her mood
'blued.'
Brood she
did. Glued to home
she stewed,
eschewed
food
and rued that
he'd construed for joy
to elude her.
Her ire accrued and,
imbued with fire,
she clued him in
as she sued him: "You
had to intrude!
You too'd
exude rage
if I'd brewed this
and a feud
ensued."
Then with a rude
allude
to the brood his
not so shrewd
mother'd 'zoo'd,' she
'shoe'd' him
where he poo'd.
I got up late
and felt so tired;
I rued the day
that I'd been hired.
But all was well:
"Day off," I said,
and laughing loud,
returned to bed...
for Sara's 'Morning' contest
Written by Gail DeBole
on April 20, 2021
A woman desperate for fame
Who only had herself to blame
Decided to wed
A stranger named Ted
Which was an action quite lame.
A month after each said, “I do.”
They each called the other a fool.
Each yelled, “I don’t.”
“Stay with you, I won’t."
Their wedding was a day they both rued.
Mother asked her big brother to pass the sugar;
big brother ruined it by splashing on liquor;
father rued spilt liquor by throwing his jigger
that hit sister who lit an elbow hard slammer
straight into the hand of their rare guest and butcher;
butcher stood to secure a full-face slap on her;
slap missed, striking their napping, fat cat to a blurred
flying fur on shriek tour that dog crashed with claws bore;
clawed dog wailed and bailed, dragging tail out wee dog
door where he ran to distance pain until a looper
stopped his scooter – close by was one giant cougar;
too pooped to care, tired dog flopped right then and
right there; dog closed eyes, cougar cleared throat, then
croaked, ‘Hey, Lassie, are you insanely blind to cougar
claw lugers?’; dog moaned, ‘A quick cougar corker beats
home murder.’