Best Ruins Poems
Squabbling with words; spats in opposition
can bring about discord and suspicion
Christians should be able to live in harmony
or their accord and union will atrophy
What kind of world must humans think to mold
in bringing warmth and not a chilling cold
fashioning traits with kind words of diction
not spawning hurtful thoughts, causing friction
Antagonism unfolds to reveal hostility
ruining mutual trust and tranquility
With staunch optimism, I faithfully pray
that no chasm of rancor will whorl my way
For as long as the risen sun casts mornings in glory
we will not bind our souls with fear and worry
Each night a profusion of stars shine from above
I pray one day we will all share brotherly love.
In a world bejeweled
with tainted trinkets,
and feigned flowers,
we follow the
wailing waves below
whirling wind,
like secluded silhouettes,
stranded on the
cusp of chaos,
unable to find the sparkling
streak of hyacinth hope-
between dusk and dawn.
Perhaps there is a
reason why I stopped
rewriting runes with
cashmere conclusions,
as I’ve long been
dreaming of dahlias,
on weathered willows,
oblivious to the
dancing rays
of rising sun swiftly
cascading like
caramel confetti.
I am like the
sleepless ocean,
letting the
fleeting phases
of bewitching moon
lure floating sapphires;
pushing and pulling
my insomniac tides
with turquoise triggers,
as the inner-child
continues to sail
through tumultuous seas,
healing from
the trauma I’ve been fed,
concocted with
raspberry ruins,
from silver spoons,
on dulcet trays.
I’ve tasted poison
in the fruitiest of cocktails,
although the flavors
of life remain
a mystery within a fickle
game of chess,
incomplete
and unattainable.
I search for a sanctuary
where peace lilies sprout,
beneath the eclipsed horizon,
blindfolding my third eye,
as I waltz through astral
spheres to reach
an elysian dimension.
Amidst unanswered questions
hanging like
unsolvable equations,
for all that I’ve believed
was but a myth concealed
in illusory amulets,
bruising my inner psyche,
preventing me
from seeing beyond.
Yet the morning sky
convinces me to
reconsider and realign,
as the whimsical breeze
whispers in a soft cadence:
the Universe is infinite,
so am I.
This pink granite
heart is as vast as
the spring-hills with
deepest of falls,
prevailing traces of
my silenced voice.
And when mauve clouds
kissed my frail fingers,
I remembered how stars
do not need our touch,
to unravel fate laced in
citrine dust,
Like how I breathe-
lavender love,
within me,
leaving no blood
in my veins but poetry-
flowing as the poem
of pearlescent tomorrows,
through thin
sangria streams,
in daisy dialects.
So who am I~
but a mere dot on a
faceless canvas,
an echo of your rosy rhymes,
an incomplete verse with
complex metaphors,
weaving woes in
sunflower silence..
The walls have fallen and the grounds overgrown,
If you’d never been here you might never have known,
The stair that lead nowhere from the cracked ocean deck,
With the waves of the hurricane slowly it’s swept,
The light from her windows once lit up the Atlantic,
From all over they came for that weekend romantic,
To take long evening walks on a moon water beach,
While the laughter spills out and the music would reach,
Stirred in with the breeze creating crisp melodic sound,
In the flash of an instant discover paradise found,
For here moments were shared and each one becomes,
The memories of time in which we’re forever young,
A place to rekindle that once adolescent desire,
Here the poets retreated to compose and inspire,
Now these few crumbling walls are all that remain,
From a night of disaster that devoured in flame,
Now the patrons return their memories cupped in hand,
Hearing ballads of wave from the sea’s ethereal band,
I saw them closing their eyes once again hearing those tunes,
Traveling back to their youth…as they dance in the ruins
In the puddle of monsoon floods
Autumn boughs are quick to erode
From the grate of colder evenings
Finely whipping each earthen lode.
Yet for all I bemoan the end
Glowing through lambent summer’s blaze--
Who could not be enthralled by fall
Its rain and hued portrait amaze.
The slow wilting ‘midst vibrant tints ,
Now paints an oak tree that loosens
A tight grip upon mauve-lined twigs--
O fall…a beauty in ruins! ~
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~Writing Challenge- Decay-Poetry Contest
For Constance La France 9/25/2020
Note: Norwegians are proud of many things, but above all, they are endlessly proud of Sissel Kyrkjebø, the Voice of Norway! International singer.
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I live in a deserted chapel,
Buffeted and corroded by harsh winds,
And yet to me it is a godsend haven
Away from hazards of fellow men.
Dry from incessant downpours
But cold and damp and forlorn,
I rest in a forsaken sheltered corner,
As my thoughts linger on you.
For I can never forget you
Though you prefer me no more.
Instinctively I rise from my sad corner
Hobble towards the broken altar,
There I light a candle small
In loving memory of you.
Its feeble light shines wanly
A lonely shadow it throws
Down to the depth of my isolated soul,
A little faint flame of hope.
Soon a turbulent wind violently
Blows its way across the plain.
Like a horde of evil demons
Sweeping all that's in its way,
The candlelight is snuffed off
At least for this desolate night.
Is love so fickle that
It can be stifled so quickly?
Is love so petty and trivial
That it's comparable to a candle wick?
But such a light can be renewed,
The wax ignites into life once more.
So let the gusty winds blow
For I know deep within me,
My love will never be stifled
That I should lose all hope.
From afar only
I have surveyed the things once known,
now decayed and crawling
slowly, yet inexorably,
toward a time I’d rather not see.
I have not stood with you
in the desolate places we knew,
places we knew before their desolation,
I fear to stand there
and I fear to be forgotten by you.
I remember them well
and I remember you too,
and you lead me, and chase me,
through mourning and mournful places,
places not known until now.
I may have feared you, loathed you,
or neither, or both,
and perhaps I loved you
or didn't, but should have,
but I could only have loved poorly, I think.
You lead me through unknown wastelands
and chase me through crushing battlefields,
always in the dead of night
when we cannot see
the things that so merrily tear at us.
We dare not see them,
and dare not see our wounds, we needn't,
we feel more surely than we’d see,
and surely they are real,
I fear they may never mend.
24th April 2019
Pondering Castle Ruins At Dusk
I came upon you near to dusk
watching on the final hill
as modern sculpture, graced stone
calm, slumbering, still.
I wandered through the ghostly rooms
sparely traced by tumbled walls
seeking echoes from soft souls
who coloured life into your walls.
I touched your stone with tender hand
seeking signs of yesterday
a remnant of another time
rains had washed your tales away
Yet something of those times remain
within the spaces of your keep
the wind it sped a reedy tune
and voices murmured slow and deep.
RUINS OF TRANSFORMATION
Hands hold, faces face
Eyes lock, bridge distance
Time stops in silent grace.
Hands hang, faces distort
Eyes glare, bridge burns
Past crashes, time aborts.
Minds close, hearts abrade
Egos blaze on identity incinerated
Pledges wreck, bonds degrade.
Road deserted in journey to isolation
Past keeps the future shrouded
Time rues the ruins of transformation.
Written : February 24, 2018.
March 27, 2020
Contest : Strand Choice R, Any Form Any Theme
Sponsor : Brian Strand
While I sip tea sitting in my cabana, enjoying the nature
I watch two deer playing joyfully as the sun shares
My lovely neighbors are barbequing
Venison is on the menu...I have tears
Writing Challenge 5, March 2019, Four Lines-Poetry Contest
Sponsor Dear Heart
3-24-2019
But what of shells and ruins
The stories they hold
In silence they ponder
The truths of the past
And what of echoed voices
Do they tell what will be
Friend or foe
Piercing the wind
I also ponder the truth
As I stand among the relics
And beseech the looking glass
To speak to me
Actaeon’s ruins
(A pagan spiritual translated into the English)
Do not go with the boy with the beaver teeth.
Do not go into that goodnight
Do not go into the suburbs of social good graces
of creeping affluence where your baby fat is ever young.
Come, slip the noose so satiny soft, so thrilling about your neck.
Come, Diana, from the kitchen of your maidens’ recipe.
Come back to the hunt, back to the wilds. Come back
to the poetry of miracles where your heart pounds out of control.
Lose yourself in the chase … wherever it may lead, caution be damned.
Through the mud and lashing grasses there is a fount sublime and sustaining,
deep as your soul is pure. It is there that I see you and catch my breath.
Catch the first breath of the first man that very first day.
Do not go with the boy with the beaver teeth.
I long for your scent to not fade away.
Farewell, then, AUKN boss,
The next this year makes three.
By the time they find a substitute,
Slovenes will be at sea.
He tried to cover his behind;
AUKN boss of bosses,
As every week, balances grew bleak:
He weighed merits and losses.
With all this he'd no time to eat,
And round and round he flew.
And now he's split in a hissy-fit;
So helmsman, too-de-loo!
Day after day, day after day,
He drifted on the ocean;
Guano-vernment rained on his ship
Their suggestions for promotion.
Cousins, cousins, everywhere,
Corporate boards crosslink;
Cousins, cousins, everywhere,
Let's take you for a drink.
Accountants talking rot: O Christ!
Missions, visions - oh please!
Yea, slimy characters need legs
And slimy policies.
So has he done an hellish thing?
Not hired who? We dunno:
Was it absurd, to have a separate curd
From the whey Slovenia owes?
This wretch won't play, after 60 days;
Pissflaps, he'll have to go!
God help ya, gospod Bencina
From the fiends, that plague us thus! -
It's time to go — shot like cross-bow,
The AUKN boss.
Ah! walk-out day! what evil looks
Had I from Ernst and Young!
Who's at a loss? AUKN's boss
Wouldn't take a bung?
"You'll be" quoth one, "abolished - no
Stigma to double-cross."
He chose to go - why? We don't know:
Harmless AUKN boss.
Re-reading the original gave me a great idea for dinner until I realised all the storks have all flapped off to Africa for the winter. Pity, as I have some ancient marinade from Tuš. Like the subject of the poem, I didn't have the stamina for a Coleridge-length effort.
Story: http://www.sloveniatimes.com/total-mess-in-state-owned-capital-asset-management
The National Poet Of Slovenia In A Language People Understand interprets important Slovenian affairs for the non-Slovene speaking world. www.maria.si
Scared to fall asleep
As tides rip open shelters
Of childhood castles...
Scared to lower bridge
As hopeful heart cries exposed
Under jogger's shoe...
Ephemeral life
Whales eco-locate my soul
Tacit castles in the dusk...
for SKAT's Contest "Sand Castles"
THE RUINS OF LIFE
I sat silently listening to silence
Reflecting on how good life could have been but it isn’t
Reminiscing on how good it was before it all happened; life ceased to be fair
Realising how bad it is now and how worse it is getting
Thinking on how possible it is that life could still be restored to normalcy
Planning on how to prevent it from worsening towards the worst road
In all and all after the deep thoughts; I only see the ruins of life staring at me.
Woke up from sleep and felt like I dreamt of the end of the earth
Everything seemed so real; I have some bruises still in me
Looking so confused as I just realized that I have woken up in a new place
A better view in the mirror revealed more of me than I remember
I became so frightened that I so shouted and something happened
The echoes of my voice shouted back at me louder
Just then, I realized; I am the only one left in this ruin.
I thought there was hope until I saw hope running for his life safety
Then all became hopeless; the world is ruined and the ruin is the world
What is left of the ruin can’t be grasped; there seems to be no recovery
Women are faithly praying; men are fately striving hard
A quest of bringing life to order; a wish of normality
The hope of saving life from death and life from itself
The ruin destroyed life; all left now is the destruction of life...
Lordvip September, 2013.
We came to your home
Jack
Hidden amongst bosom
hills and armies of trees
past the State gates
who finally admitted
us entry to your tomb
they keep you here
Jack
in memory, first editions
your wife spent years
here alone, your phantom
haunting the halls
the woods
her memory
she built this place
like the Egyptians of old
dragging each mental stone
one
upon
the other
cranium slave labor
of awe
fear
love
a physical testament
to your published
achievements and
emotional fingerprint
you left your mark
everywhere
Jack
Hawaii where you
danced the headhunter
dance of primitive times
donned your outfit
and howled to the
new moon of inspiration
Jack
you and wife traveled
the oceans just like
your novels
your life ebbing and
alive
still
in these pages of
Calling and White
you observed life
and the universe
and without hesitation
you recorded it for us
Christopher Columbus
Sir Francis Drake
of reality fiction
But reality has a way
of finding even the
largest child as we
hide from it or
ignore it before its
to late
it found you after
your Wolf House burned
and the booze burned
you for far too long
you slept the final
sleep
on the porch of
inspiration
like a babe you returned
now we see the
ruins of the Wolf House
and your grave
your ashes
beneath the stone
next to your wife
across from the two
children's markers
the birds crying as
we all do for you
Jack