Best Rumpled Poems
The evening
is soigné in outfits of rumpled elegance
at the tables and on the bar stools,
resplendent with a necklace
of glistening notes from the piano
in the corner,
rouged by the blushes imprisoned
in our wine glasses.
Let's stay for a while then,
until the blushes have flown to our cheeks,
the patrons are back on the streets
or between the sheets,
the pianist has played the last song,
and the night is done,
or waiting to begin,
its shyness shed.
Categories:
rumpled, drink, night, romance, senses,
Form:
Free verse
Darkness engulfed me
I struggled to adjust to the shadows
blinked when my vision brought to light—
an empty room, rumpled sheets of an unmade bed
a tear-stained pillow where I'd laid my head
There was a wooden luster on the furniture
I sniffed the unmistakable church scent of candles
six long white tapers on two candelabra
My fingertips smoothed white satin beneath me
Thoughts began to drift, sifting through... what?
I was carrying the weight of an albatross
My back bent from the burden held too long
Something was wrong
A mewling of fear formed a question
that I dared not ask
In my ear, a whispered hisssss
"Go ahead and asssk it. It'sss commonplace."
A voice without a face—
disappeared without a trace
My submissive nerves feigning bravado
I tried to rise but curdled
There was a hurdle of some sort in my way
Eyelids too heavy to open
My arms reach to set me free
but I cannot move
No words escape on my tongue
I cursed the albatross that held me down
Away from me, I wanted it flung
I searched to find courage to ask
if I was facing death or a demon's call....
In my ear, a whispered hisssss
"Go ahead and asssk it. It'sss commonplace.
Asssk the question if you dare."
That voice without a face—
disappeared without a trace
I felt a kiss upon my cheek
from trembling lips that did not speak
That pungent scent of too many flowers
should've had me suffering a headache
Had I been resting here for hours?
"If this is not a dream
then tell me...." I beseeched
But the world was out of reach
Thoughts abandoned me
I tried to feel a pulse, a heartbeat—
There was another kiss
Tears on my cheek, but not my own
I froze at the sound of another hissss
Categories:
rumpled, dark, fear,
Form:
Narrative
Things We Think
He said, “Every man is busy earning money.”
She said, “Is there anything more important than love?”
He said, “Is there anything more important than sex?”
She said, “I think we all just fear death.”
He said, “It’s like the Cats in the Cradle we just need more time.”
She said, “I think we really need more space.”
He moved out to a place with more space.
She soon did not have enough money.
She had to leave behind the house and love.
Once they vowed nothing would do them part not even death.
She never learned the aborted child’s sex.
Biologically he still had more time.
He was ambitious, indoctrinated into the ascent of money.
She worked her fingers to the bone, until her death.
He afforded local expensive sex.
She began to view local nature as expansive space.
He did not connect space and time.
She knew what connected it all was love.
In time he found a new love.
In love, she found time.
He equated good passion with good sex.
She found the emerald walls of nature the best space.
He loved the crisp or dirty, rumpled, green of money.
Homeless— she was reprimanded in the rain “You’ll catch your death!”
it's been said,
The root of all evil is money.
Money can’t buy you love.
Nothing is certain but taxes and death.
I don’t know the question, but the answer is sex.
I need my space.
All we have is time.
I’ve learned to give love and learned that is love.
I’ve learned one’s time is worth more than one’s money.
I’ve learned a small space in nature explains all infinite space.
I’ve learned that gender should not be judged by one’s sex.
I’ve learned that empathy slows time.
I’ve learned from the leaves of grass there is no death.
He is more than his money and she is more than her sex.
In death we find love.
In space there exists time.
Categories:
rumpled, death, love, money, space,
Form:
Sestina
A lesson I have learned before the birds and the bees
was when I tripped, tumbled and fell, frightened by my bloodied knees
My mother came and helped me up, patched my wound, smiled and teased;
“When you fall, always get up, you don’t want to stay down and freeze”.
Curiously what marked my mind and what stood out most vividly,
other than the way she took care of me so tenderly;
How could she have heard me fall and come to my aid instantly,
for I knew she was asleep, and I sneaked out so quietly.
To this question she laughed, rumpled my hair with amusement
“Don’t you know moms have a radar, switched on to permanent?
Be it trouble, or a lie, for us there’s no concealment,
or sudden fever at night, we know.” she said to my amazement.
“Hear with your ears, but listen with your heart, often save the day.”
These words I carry till today, for a mother’s role I now play.
Inspired by Craig Cornish' theme - NOT FOR CONTEST
07 May 2015
Categories:
rumpled, life, love, mother, mothers
Form:
Rhyme
I am here on an archaeological quest,
to satisfy many a curious mind's request
for knowledge on antiques and artifacts
of Egypt's long extinct historical facts,
in treasured sands buried, like gold mines earnestly
sought for in stories shrouded in mythology.
With a large contingent just as curious as I,
hardly daunted by curses, but with shoulders high,
we went to the field, the sun baking us chaps
to a baker's delight. With our rumpled maps,
we searched every clue, and were bitten perhaps
by a million flies. Getting relief from sunless skies
in times of fair weather, whilst hoping something lies
in the depths of the hot sands for our very eyes
to see. With my tools by hard work and search worn out,
I brushed to full view, the tomb, brilliantly carved out
of young blue blooded Tut, regally laid to rest.
To my wearied colleagues, I spoke in real earnest:
'To exhume the past, we are here at last.'
Categories:
rumpled, history,
Form:
spare change
he takes shelter in a cardboard box
old newspapers for a bed
threadbare clothes rumpled and dirty
a concrete pillow for his head
picking up used cigarette butts
from the crowded littered street
dumpster diving for table scraps
searching for something to eat
huddling in an open doorway
on a cold cold winter’s night
battling to keep warm
swiftly losing the fight
asking hurried passers by
if they have change to spare
no one gives a second look
no one seems to care
a salty tear rolls down
his ruddy weathered cheek
what has happened to his life
that it became so very bleak
March 5, 2020
Categories:
rumpled, caregiving, depression, men,
Form:
Rhyme
Crumpled Thoughts
They wait – in hues of vibrating silence -
Like leftover orts of rumpled paper wimples
On creased clandestine journal pages –
Bent scraps of wrinkled inspiration
Smudged moments held in their one moment of time
Musings fading to illegible
Lost chords in treasured memories of radiance,
Sunspots of incomplete illumination,
Or crumpled creativity on paper wings
Snapshots of raw moments in tormented terror
Footprint creased signatures of incensed avenging angels
For abandoned ragged beggars in pencil
Of partial tidings
Wearing incomplete tatters of disturbed serenity
Waiting – lined up – for their turn to speak –
Vying for resuscitation
As actors reading their scripts –
Players auditioning for ideas
Of ice castles throwing off anonymity
Whistling like nonchalant sentimental journeys
In phases of the moon begging for words
Libretti confronting notes wandering in obscurity
Impatient plans in fits of tantrum’s flight
Residue of fantasies for
Gypsy fortuneteller’s phantasmal globes
Rescued by ruminations tender muse
With the gift of time to take them from her
Nurturing womb into full life and maturity –
Blinking in the brightness of real time
Bits and snatches adjust sight from consecrated darkness
To lumens brightness of looming footlights
Now taking bows in postmarks of epilogues -
Snatched from wondrous oblivion -
Profiles sketched in hope’s penumbra.
1-11-21
Contest: Crimpled Thoughts
Sponsor: John Lawless
Categories:
rumpled, art, birth, muse, words,
Form:
Free verse
My head has known a thousand rests;
it has floated on feathered softness,
and silk curlicued with a silken tress;
been prickled by the grass of a meadow,
under a hung menagerie of clouds.
Into rumpled sheets of sand it has pressed,
and the sleepy valleys of maidens’ breasts.
On cold concrete pavement it has lain,
my senses by a drunken torpor slain.
It has been stood up by sleep,
on origami pillows made with coats,
the rugged terrains of sofa arms,
on bony cushions fashioned with my palms,
and gold threads needled into coats of arms.
My head has known a thousand rests,
but never the rapture of a dreamless nap,
till I laid it in the sweetness of your lap.
Categories:
rumpled, appreciation, blessing, dream, happiness,
Form:
Free verse
Summer Quatrains – Swap Quatrains 6-19-24
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Summer Quatrains
Silk ribbons of ice melt into wellsprings
With jubilant serenades, heartfelt,
Frozen heartbeats freed from rime flow on wings
Into wellsprings silk ribbons of ice melt.
The brooding nimbus bows to solstice’ clouds
Dandelion days doze in clover now
As the Dayspring moon chants reveries out loud
To solstice’ clouds the brooding nimbus bows.
The rumpled season rides on wings of change,
Dancing in the ether where dreams abide,
Somersaults o’re a wishing star’s exchange
On wings of change the rumpled season rides.
In summer’s sunlight winter’s rose arises
Past the melancholy veils of dark starlight
Opens silky buds, rapture’s surprises,
Winter’s rose arises in summer sunlight.
Categories:
rumpled, change, life, nature, summer,
Form:
Quatrain
~ autumn pandemonium ~
unkempt piles of leaves
carelessly tossed from branches ~
autumn leaf debris
tangled leafless boughs
autumn’s hair in disarray ~
scattered frost crystals
messy season sighs
disheveled threadbare forests ~
rumpled cloak of fall
bands of color float
into shabby sable mounds ~
jumbled rainbow heaps
hollow winds discard
bits of fall hued confetti ~
autumn ignores brooms
unruly autumn
leaves remains of fall glory ~
pandemonium
Categories:
rumpled, autumn,
Form:
Haiku
The events of last evening were such
that I awoke this morning to find
I was beside myself—
not metaphorically,
but in the most literal sense:
two versions,
one body short.
The mirror caught us first—
a flash of double movement
where there should have been one.
I blinked.
He didn’t.
Or maybe I didn’t.
It’s hard to say
when glass begins to lie.
We shared a glance,
the kind exchanged between commuters
who suspect they’ve boarded the wrong train
but are too polite to ask.
It seemed prudent
to seize the opportunity
for a discussion between ourselves—
a kind of internal summit
to determine the rhyme and reason
for our dilemma,
and sketch a path
toward reunification,
assuming it was worth the effort.
The other me—
slightly more rumpled,
possibly wiser—
suggested that last night’s self-reflection
had been too honest,
and that dreams,
when left unsupervised,
tend to rearrange the furniture.
We debated causation,
as one does:
Was it the unresolved metaphor
in that unfinished poem?
The hat and the boots,
still waiting for closure?
Or the quiet betrayal
of pretending to be whole
for the sake of social ease?
Outside, the morning
was already making demands.
Inside, we negotiated
terms of reentry—
no apologies,
no revelations,
just a mutual agreement
to pretend we were whole
until further notice.
I stood to leave,
feeling the weight shift
as the double lingered behind,
stuck in the mirror,
arms crossed,
expression unreadable.
The other me was unimpressed.
Categories:
rumpled, introspection, irony, mirror, philosophy,
Form:
Free verse
The dawn sky of life splashed blessed beams of bliss
on dream buds that unfurled joy in my eyes,
rapture took me to rare realm I didn’t miss,
cloud of sunset storm heaped at edge of skies.
Splintered by the flicker of tinged twilight,
in spasm vortex I saw my sky decay,
crumble with my dreams in abyss of night,
in dark depth I found the end of my way.
Flushing garden turned to rumpled debris,
the buds didn’t see the new sunrise in spring.
I prayed for God’s kindness to make me free,
I could fly devout on sanctified wing.
Categories:
rumpled, analogy, god, life,
Form:
Quatrain
Johnathan, Innsley, Marie, and Paul ---
Tom, Trish, Bea, and Jack: all of them.
Black, white, asian; Jew, gentile, zen...
Sex, art, love, mores revolved,
entering ever-shallower circles of discovery.
Clear ice cubes clanked on glass;
religion, sex, quality imported Scotch
and Cuba made the rounds.
Conversation calmed, each with his own idea:
the ultimate word.
Fake furs, donned, drifted into oblivion.
Feeling alone, J. C. cleaned up.
From the dulled Johnson's Wax luster
on a genuine Duncan Phyfe table,
his distorted rumpled reflection
stared up at itself.
J. C. looked away, noticed four new white rings,
picked up a soiled Canon towel,
and wiped away three beads of water,
a few ashes, and himself.
Categories:
rumpled, allegory, angst, introspection, life,
Form:
Narrative
Idyllic Pleasure (Anacreontic Verse)
Laughter and delight
under a blue sky
on the verdant bank
of a bubbling stream
where luscious food
dulcet and divine
tempts taste buds
teeming with desire
while wine flows freely
like the roaming hands
and ardent kisses
of indulgent youths
lured by spring’s warmth
to an ebullient
effervescent mood
where inhibitions
slither unrestrained
in rumpled heaps
as latticed lacing
yields to deft touch
and the setting sun
shyly reticent
slides behind the hills
in a blushing haze
of purple and red.
------------------------------
2nd January, 2016
Contest: Anacreontic Verse
Sponsor: Edward Ebbs
Placed 4th
Categories:
rumpled, romantic, sensual,
Form:
Lyric
Miss Garner, Miss Garner. I HATE your Gymkhana,
I loathe every second it's run.
I dread all those horses and obstacle courses,
and everyone else having fun.
Now Mummy is frantic, the panic gigantic;
my pony won't go in the box.
She's shouting and screaming (and often blaspheming),
when Dobbin sits down on his hocks.
We stop in a field, by others well heeled,
their lorries all parked in neat rows.
My Dobbin looks grotty, all rumpled and spotty;
their ponies are plaited in bows.
I get in Show Jumping my usual dumping,
when Dobbin refuses the last.
I'm beat in the Bending (and cry without ending);
my pony is not very fast.
You're calling my name? Is this all a game?
And now you are pointing at me?
What me in the line, at Prize Giving time?
Oh, my? Have you answered my plea?
Miss Garner, Miss Garner. I LOVE your Gymkhana!
It's been such a jolly good thrash.
The Rosette I won has made it such fun;
my Dobbin has got a bran mash!
~
For Francine Roberts' "Children in Rhyme" Contest by Charles Clive.
Categories:
rumpled, children, sports,
Form:
Verse