Best Scorning Poems
Hungry stomach and hungry voice
Choice of the capitalists
Skin and bone girls and boys
Their creature and they rejoice
Words and paints latent in their look
Contents of a hundred books
In those naked socket of their eyes
Variety of hunger multiplies
They come and they go
Flutes of skeleton playing with turmoil
Hapless sons of the soil
Born with the desire to say no
Two handsome young faces
In their nation-made ungraces
Posters depicting street protest
Against the sucker pests
Poems in their dormant breasts
Lurking in their scorning look
Blending with gainless cry
Empty hopes in the still false sky
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April 9, 2016
For the Images that make you think – Poetry Contest
Hosted by: Silent One
Is there anyone who can explain to me
why someone in the Soup community
would gripe about those on the lists,
ranting on with their pen in clenched fist?
How important can the lists possibly be
to set someone's nerves off so repeatedly.
Why dwell upon them with such negativity,
screeching and wailing like a banshee?
I don't know what the fuss is all about,
but I certainly don't see a reason to pout.
If their name is not on the lists, no doubt,
could be they're just jealous as all get out.
I don't care who writes the most poetry.
I don't join contests for people to notice me,
but why do they impugn poets unpleasantly?
Just ignore the lists and drink some Chablis.
If you are guilty of this, take a drink or two
and put an end to your nagging like a shrew.
I'm weary of your protests and hullabaloo,
squawking all around the site like a cuckoo.
Contest themes give poets a place to start
silly limericks, or something from the heart.
You disparage them, tearing them apart,
but a poet's lines are treasured works of art.
What's it to you if poets want to compete?
Are you afraid that you'd go down in defeat?
Instead of bahing like a sheep with each bleat,
turn your sour scorning into something sweet.
You get poem of the day or poem of the week.
How quick you are to label yours with a tweak,
not the mark of one who's humble and meek.
It's a bit hypocritical. That would be my critique.
Entering contests is a poet's choice, not a crime.
If there's a laddered list poets wish to climb,
it's not right for you to sound off or chime.
Why don't you just find some other pastime?
I love you in the morning
I love you in the night
I love you without scorning
I love you with my might
Save your kisses just for me
Save your caresses too
Save your song of what will be
Save your words of love so true
Say you’ll be my Valentine
Say you’ll be mine forever
Say you’ll love me for all time
Say you’ll leave me never
"People will forget what you said, forget what you did,
but will never forget how you made them feel."
~ Maya Angelou
I woke with twisted thoughts, coiling in my mind
like a trellised vine, weaving through my head
Gnarled bits of thread stitched me to my bed
and both my eyes were sewn shut til I was blind
I heard the sound of my notebook pages turning
by one whose mind was gnarled and full of hate
I could not see to stop him. I was much too late
to save my poetry. They'd been set afire, burning
A grizzled hand ripped the stitches from my eyes
A man with bony knees, bulbous nose, nubby toes,
said, "I am an ugly thorn, and you a beautiful rose."
He cursed at me with a snarl, "It's you I despise!"
Tears bled from the gnarly bloke. One fell on my cheek
I asked him to please free me from the tangled thread
He released me, and then I stood before him and said,
"When a rose needs protection, it's a thorn it will seek."
He stood to full height. The scorning frown disappeared
A smile curved his lips and he flexed each fingertip.
He shook my hand as if we'd just signed a partnership
His life had meaning, for he felt esteemed and revered
Each time I raise my gaze to the night sky,
A million stars stare back, shedding happy tears of light.
And I cannot but stare back in delight,
Wondering which one of them holds your great soul.
Tell me, Old Nelson, do they--these stars--still shine upon
you?
Heaven should grant that they do,
For like them your example still shines upon us, pointing
to us the true north of life--
And, oh yes, this one great lesson: that life's struggles will
endure our stumbles but never our mumbles.
Yes! Our hopes may fall and our fortunes dip, but on their
feet our voices must keep.
Twenty-seven years did rough chains bind your feet,
And twenty-seven years did they girdle your breast,
But not once--never--did they bind your voice.
"Only free men can negotiate," you scoffed at your jailers,
scorning to barter your ideals for your freedom;
And to that crooked Boer court: "A free South Africa is the
great ideal for which I live, and if need be it is the one ideal
for which I will die."
Then to a bleeding, seething nation: "Let's break with the past."
From the flesh of these words a new nation was carved for
white, brown, and black alike.
Twinkle for twinkle it matches the skies,
And in its bosom you now rest forever: quiet, contented,
victorious!
LAMB AMONG THE LITERARY LIONS
Housewives, secretaries, the odd pro willing to stoop,
All came, delinquents, child prodigies, derelict old men
“All welcome” – the Chair of the Writers’ Group
To those looking for support, with a love of the pen;
They were decent people bonding, scorning the pub
The roll call a hedge school of ancient fame
They read poems and stories like a literary club
And enjoyed playing the great writing game.
Anthology reviewed, the twelve year old took accolade
From the shyest to the most arrogant, all were shook
He was savaged by the grande dame in an envious raid
She was terrified someone so young would produce a book!
Even the chair demurred, and went to The Times
Requesting deletion of “all welcome “– young souls are stilled by such crimes.
SYLVIA WAS AN ‘A’ STUDENT
and Alpha woman
The Abyss was bared, and malevolently yawning,
The deep black pit of endless loss to rile
You, and you didn’t know the world was turning;
And you saw the winter trees in mourning
You weren’t short-changed on their willing lack of guile
In the Apollonian myth - your soul was burning.
Telling time too true, that spring was coming,
But you let the yellow sorrow of your bile
Flood the Arcadian dark your soul was scorning-
So, you died, without ever learning
That your Attic grace would give time its shining dial,
You did not know it then, but the world was turning,
The aureole of dawn crept in, to us a warning
We only have our children for a while
The Austrian angst in which your soul was burning,
The sense of happiness missing you by a mile –
In our Aphasian gloom, your words are burning
Up rivers, mountains, roads, with a killing style –
You didn’t know it then, but the world was yearning.
FROM IN MEMORY OF HER 2004, 2008
Good morning, good morning,
I'm giving no scorning,
But just for the record
Let this be a warning.
I'm through with the hatred.
I'm through with the pain.
I'm through with the comments
That drive me insane,
I've had it with lying.
I've had it with greed.
I've had it with planting
An unholy seed.
Then I packaged it all,
Threw it high on the shelf,
As I looked in the mirror
And spoke to myself.
The Suffering HE Bore
We will never fully understand the depth of the suffering
that our Savior bore on the tree of Calvary,
nor the pain of separation from His Father that He wept through
during His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane.
This Savior and Son of the Most High God we can surely see
what tremendous love for man he has shown,
Yet we can only scratch the mere surface no matter how much in Him
that we have grown
How can mortal man fully understand the way our God
even comprehends and thinks,
His infinite wisdom and the understanding He exemplifies as He
grasps the problems of the whole universe while we have only the time to blink.
When the Lord Jesus left Heaven for us and came
down to the lowly level of man,
it is truly the picture of a King leaving His palace and
taking up residence in a large garbage can.
And what about His honor and authority having His
angels snap to attention at His command,
then in contrast His creation was laughing and scorning and jeering at Him
only to strike Him with the back of their hands!
He, trying His best
wanted the good for man to see,
that He is Creator God Who has come down
to man’s level and with him He had chosen to plead!
Oh, at times, I know with me
I caused Him to be wroth,
while dealing with ignorance on my part
yet patiently He endured and finally I understood what He had to me, taught!
The Darling of Heaven as they say
came from Heaven to reside in the lowly town of Galilee,
oh, won’t you hear His call to save you as I heard
and gladly chose and let Him save me.
Written by: Marilyn S. Jennings
July 19, 2015
Deep in my heart I cry out to the owl,
A feathered fowl represents watchfulness
And the everlasting search for wisdom,
Brown speckled bird that hears the call of truth,
It holds to its high perch tenaciously,
And is thought so infinitely stubborn.
The owl is the messenger of the sky,
It is free to skim across the chill air,
Riding the breeze, scorning distance below,
Its sharp hearing picks up the smallest sounds,
Sensing every movement below on ground.
The herald of change, harbinger of death.
The owl's eyes bright can see in the darkness,
Its senses of steel pierce through illusion,
The owl is surrounded daily by night,
Warm symbol of new morning creation,
And navigator of intuition.
I rarely see, yet is dear to me.
Within cries decreed with shadows mourning
Mortal sin translucent through eyes scorning
Brewing storms amidst silent atramental abyss
Accruing waves breathed loves lingering kiss
Minds melting transfixed thru ravaging ruins
Blinds building walls amongst cerebral fluids
Demonic seeds with remorseful ruling hands
Chronic dementia within bloodstained sands
Temptations afloat amidst sinking verbal voids
Frustrations colliding of inner spacing asteroids
Ignorance blissful with hemispheres declining
Innocence destroying within minds confining
Illusions manifesting with tribal ritual intentions
Extrusions of thoughts entwined with abstentions
Tumultuous seas of marauding cores deepening
Tempestuous squalls landing ashore secreting.
...a BDHR-[backward double helix reversible]
Mourning shadows with decreed cries within
Scorning eyes through translucent mortal sin
Abyss atramental silent amidst storms brewing
Kiss lingering loves breathed waves accruing
Ruins ravaging thru transfixed melting minds
Fluids cerebral amongst walls building blinds
Hands ruling remorseful with seeds demonic
Sands stained blood within dementia chronic
Voids verbal sinking amidst afloat temptations
Asteroids spacing inner of colliding frustrations
Declining hemispheres with blissful ignorance
Confining minds within destroying innocence
Intentions ritual tribal with manifesting illusions
Abstentions with entwined thoughts of extrusions
Deepening cores marauding of seas tumultuous
Secreting ashore landing squalls tempestuous.
Oct.09.2018
Soap Opera Titles Poetry..."The Secret Storm"
Sponsored by: Sian St. John
N/A for contest
Angry shouts echo off of plaster walls,
Painting them sickening shades of despair.
She tries to block the noise out;
But nobody seems to care.
The words aren’t meant for her ears,
She is not the one who the barbs are meant to sting,
But with their searing heat and deadly edge,
Her wounded-animal soul begins to sing.
A song of loss,
A song of mourning.
A song of pain,
A song of scorning.
She can’t fight the pain.
It’s much too real.
She just needs something;
Something to heal.
To heal the pain
And heal the hurt
And to bury a hatchet in the fresh-tilled dirt.
A knife in her hands;
A heart in her throat.
A lighthouse blinking out;
She can’t stay afloat.
The pain feels good;
The wounds are what heal her.
The knife’s deadly call;
Its revelry reels her.
She finally feels something;
Something more than pain.
She’s finally gotten something;
Something she thought she would never gain.
She’s got healing,
And she’s got closure.
But her sins are dangerous;
She can’t risk exposure.
So she slips into silence,
Never uttering a word.
She’s too far gone;
The lines are blurred.
Her mind is a frosted glass,
Her mind is her playground.
Her wrist is a canvas;
Her soul has drowned.
A paintbrush is in her hands,
Gleaming in the secret moonlight.
She’s given up;
It feels so good to lose the fight.
Her skin is the stone;
Her knife is the chisel.
She feels so strong…
She feels so brittle.
Their voices are in her head;
She carries their hearts in her hand.
She is dry-eyed now;
It is only OR - no and.
The blade touches her skin;
Their screams reach her ears.
If actions speak louder than words,
How come nobody hears?
THE FATE OF FUTURE
A romp of childhood, descending my steep driveway, to the bus.
My urgent path lit dimly, filled with compacted snow, shoveled
with steel blades. I wearing a woolen coat, always late.
Still on time, before great big wheels grind down a country road.
Youth, with hair still damp, long and fine, shyness hides inside.
Tired teens, all around me, I watch the wipers swipe morning flurries.
The repetitive motion, bestowing comfort, like a lullaby -
before the din of crowded classrooms and impertinent teachers.
My math teacher, with a schnoz that crests Everest,
an informer of intelligent students. Less inclined
to teach her fearful ones, to shame us with a shun.
A glare of eagle spectacles, nearly scorning our dark plight.
Yet, classrooms with nouns, adjectives, verbs spur me on
to serendipitous highs. I fly with Kilmer, dip with Plath.
I lean forward as psychology and sociology take me by the arms.
I feel the fate of future, the lovely breeze has dried my hair, sublime.
9/5/2017
Non Rhyming couplets
Hear the Fear
When the world stops its spins
And Love no longer wins
When the shadows condensely cast
And forever’s forever last
When your sweet sensuous smile
Evaporates in its exiting exile
When the Angels sadly sing
And we feel their scorning sting
When a child stops to laugh
In a faceless frowning photograph
When the birds slowly stop to fly
In a scabrous salacious sky
When lovers stop holding hands
And cures for Love are their demands
When our hearts stop beating
Our Souls lost forever fleeting
When Love no longer seems to last
And future’s become the ponderous past
When faith is sold in a biogenic bottle
And beliefs dispensed at full throttle.
Sept.28.2016
Your greatest fear - Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Lewis Raynes
Walking down a forsaken road will often lead to mourning
Life offers no guarantee of happiness. There is no warning
that in dark places, there lurks a wicked demon, spawning
temptations before us. We should reject him with scorning
Never make a deal with the bird catcher who lies in wait
He'll know your weakness and cast a line with lure and bait
He knows you wear no armor, nor a protective breastplate
impregnable enough to prevent him from sealing your fate
Faust, the fool, sold his soul to the devil in return for power
It was an unwise pact from which any Christian should cower
But the need for greed causes a heart to be cold and dour
unable to repel the diabolical one's angry stare; his glower
Flee from the serpent's talons, close your ears to his flatters
or you will discover your life torn apart in pieces and tatters
Too late to right your wrongs when your whole world shatters
Before bargaining with the devil, think about what matters
Selling your soul will do you in. Sin will lead to your doom
with you trapped in his cage; a burning hell with fiery plume
Don't be like Faust, faltering when choosing power to consume
Turn your back on the wicked beast or live your life in gloom
Stay your hand from signing your soul into the pit of hell
Raise your defenses, unlike greedy Faust, who long ago fell
into the clutches of evil when his integrity he decided to sell
so, the dooms day bell will not be pealing your death knell