Best Selfsame Poems
I was a red-violet, sunny morning person, usually up at the crack of dawn,
When orange light poured from the east, upon revival, dewy green lawns.
With a cup of aromal coffee, I'd watch yellow sunrise creep in the window,
Enjoying the zestful song of red robin, while night and day were in limbo.
I would take walks at the golden hour, flooded in light, just after a sunrise,
In the serenity of wanton, floral summer, slowly unveiling a destiny prized.
Visits of friends were features of morning, for sunup fondness is infective,
As flowers soak up colors of white sunlight, telling of the new perspective.
Family and I fascinated flaming sunsets, fancy dancing like we had forever,
At evening fetes, long fated; like feathery, dark green ferns-wind treasure.
I lived in the house of taupe sunrise, always trending towards golden noon,
As fitful stars, flickering like fireflies, stay on course, in presence of moon.
Sunhats, sandals and pretty sunflowers, were summer sights on my street,
In tranquil days of wild seas, giving the selfsame roar, as it cooled hot feet.
Nearby stars gleamed like natural pearls, on nebulous nights of neighbors;
And the natural conversation flowed nonstop, like the whistling wind labors.
Bat orchids awaited watchful moon, yearning for caves among field flowers;
When ballerina orchids danced, entranced, by plum shadows' magic powers!
Crimson corpse flower was blooming, in a torrid wake, held in lazy summer,
And snapdragon seed pods imitated skulls, where future flowers slumbered.
One day dawned exceptionally beautiful, a sight bringing rapture to my eyes;
As plum and orange, merged with pink, gold and red-fleeing night disguised!
I went about my productive work, but I noticed the day did not seem to age,
Like a glorious history book caught open, when distraction didn't turn a page.
Although I was very puzzled, I relished a pause for precious, pretty mystery;
Like the lovely, floral pause of gemmed hummingbirds, in times of blissfully.
After several long and rapturous hours, testy time gradually began to move,
For a beginning ever looks towards the end, as if it had everything to prove!
Categories:
selfsame, beauty, color, fantasy, morning,
Form:
Couplet
The tricky question of how many animal farms we have
May be more complicated than most of us think;
There are at least some fifty-five animal farms in the world
Where wild mammals play and eat and drink.
And although there lightning is feared more than law,
These farms all seem to have the selfsame collective code.
Since different from the mainstream law, we may call it lore:
The silent cipher that governs the primitive farms.
There everyone is entitled to their share of breath
As long as they breathe within their native home,
Breathing within the territories of other beasts
Wins you mob lynching according to the animal tome.
No animal may acquire such vast knowledge
As to threaten the rule of the Elephant and the Lion.
The acquisition of illegal learning only leads
To the doom Artemis wreaked on the restless Orion.
There you must not shout of forbidden things
Such as animal rights and equality of beasts oppressed;
For it is clearly stated by the immutable silent code
That some mandrills are more equal than the rest.
A beast of worth begets offspring of the same worth;
If a beast be an outcast born, the same must a pariah remain.
No animal may rise from the bottom to the aristocratic realm:
No beast must such thoughts of improvement entertain.
The lore of the mandrills is not lean,
As said, these codes make a huge-volume tome
Which you can’t leaf through in a day,
Though you may get a copy and read at home.
Yet the problem is that censorship there is tough
And as such the lore has never been put in print;
The few Cheetahs who championed for a free press
Were one by one snuffed without a hint.
Categories:
selfsame, abuse,
Form:
Verse
I hope this letter, to you, a stranger
Becomes a letter to a friend
As we travel on this journey to its end
Yes we’ll start off as mere strangers
Trying to share the selfsame track
And what matter, if you stray a little
For I'll just lift you up and bring you back
I will steady you if you stumble
Catch you if you fall
Hold your hand when you get weary
Guide and protect you through it all
Oh I pray you learn to love life with a passion
With a zest and inner smiles
For that in truth, is the secret fuel
That will drive you countless miles
If loving life is too hard right now
If deep worry spreads across your brow
And your health is not as good at it might be
Well don’t fret my new - found friend
Just stay with me until the end
And that youthfulness will bloom again you’ll see
Together we will tackle any fear
Banish doubts when they are near
Grow a smile when one is lacking
For you have always got my backing
I’ll help you always go the extra mile
Help you scale mountaintops in style
Then I sincerely promise you will find
Life will love you back in kind
In more ways than you would ever guess
Adding life to years and years to life no less
For your circumstances always follow thought
And a life worth living is never cheaply bought
I’ll keep you on the straight and narrow
If you will but let me take the lead
As if we stick together on the journey
We cannot fail but to succeed
And no longer will we be strangers
But partners till the end
Now that’s a heart felt promise to a friend
Categories:
selfsame, cancer, death, encouraging, friendship
Form:
Rhyme
My love, I make a solemn vow to you,
Before our families, dear friends and God,
My love will always be completely true,
Until one of us lies beneath the sod.
I had no thought I ever could defraud
This precious man who opens up his heart.
The match my friends and family applaud.
There is no roadblock keeping us apart.
And yet I knew right from the very start,
I’d made the selfsame promise to another.
I gave to him the whole of my young heart
And like now, vowed there would be no other.
You cannot know part of my heart I save,
For one who lies so lowly in his grave.
Categories:
selfsame, love,
Form:
Rhyme
Not a true Choka...but uses a 5,7,7,5,7,7 format
-------------------------------------------------
Chill, steaming vapour;
Silence over pale water;
Faded, thin wisps of ribboned
Pink
Above the east gate;
I dip oars...and silence
Breaks.
Trace of flame in lilac sky.
Raise, lean, dip and pull;
Sculling forward little
Twirls
Swirl away from dripping
Blades;
Uplifted soul -- soaring!
Remembering how, when young...
Each new day would bring
New hope.
Extends the shoreline --
Sweeping inwards at the
Point;
Green bulrushes in the bay;
A bittern booming:-
Rising up like slow thunder
Drifting out of jade mountains.
My busied childhood,
Hidden pate not yet shaven;
Shrimping with a fine mesh
Net;
Loud, boyish laughter;
Brimming jars crammed with
Sunbeams --
The golden, darting minnows.
Horizon widens,
Shadow retreats from low
Hills;
Gathering orb comforts me;
Selfsame warm comfort
When held by sleepy women
In cold grey of early dawn.
The vaguest murmur,
Faint as drowsy breathe,
Of the soundings of dim chimes...
A call to prayer?
Hands hard-clenched on the
Staid oars;
Restrained by yesteryear.
Categories:
selfsame, fate, life, loneliness, longing,
Form:
Choka
Passing trees with gauzy nests
Of caterpillars hanging down
Jars a memory that rests
Within the folds of brain cell town.
My dad and all the neighbor men,
With flaming torches, did attack
Those selfsame sacs so ne’er again
Would gypsy moths be coming back.
We children gathered ‘round to gape
As fiery clumps fell from the trees,
A happening which helped to shape
A reminiscence there to seize.
The dads, the dusk, the shadows cast,
The neighborhood community
Unlocks a peek into the past
To visit with impunity.
Categories:
selfsame, memory,
Form:
Rhyme
We meet on equal playing fields,
we strivers wielding pens,
with timid hopes, exposing thoughts
to harsh or candid critique.
The selfsame words are ours to use
in manner of our choices.
They lay in helpless, inert piles
until maneuvered by our pens.
Just as the paint and brush await
the artists soulful touch
or notes without composer's skill
are only noisy sounds;
just so a simple word can be
an ignored out of fashion thing,
until lifted by the poet's skill
into phrases for the ages.
Some have used proud words in prayer
that others use in curses.
We poets take them charily
and in literature we mold them.
The gifted take a simple word
and recognize its virtue,
They can combine, connect and phrase
as no one has before them.
Dear Reader, take these offered words
and mentally assess them.
The author hopes the unity of thought
will have made them worth writing and reading.
(Reworked and expanded July 30th, 2014
From short rhymed poem written earlier and
named Mystery of Words.)
Categories:
selfsame, word play, writing, ,
Form:
Free verse
Memory is my fading friend
of millennial days transpired—
faithful scribe and guardian
who measured mercy and intent
and gauged love’s joyful glint—
yet never turned from rutted path
when sorrow’s specter, tinged
in mottled shades of gray and black,
sought only to inveigh.
Dissembled memories puzzle,
viewed dimly from afar—
where motes of recollection dust
swirl in thoughtless disarray.
I stepped within to query,
asked what’s to be done,
but rueful silence was
the sole reply of ones
not only deaf but mute.
Then appeared a trove of treasured books,
pages crisp and white, without a crease—
gatherings firm, oblivious of age.
I lightly touched the gilded words,
their selfsame title: Wisdom: Gift of Time;
the Author’s name was mine.
I nodded, smiled and then withdrew
aware at once of where I was,
secure in all I knew.
1st Place, Portrait of a Poet, Gautami, Phookan
Categories:
selfsame, introspection, wisdom,
Form:
Free verse
My love, I make a solemn vow to you,
Before our families, dear friends and God,
My love will always be completely true,
Until one of us lies beneath the sod.
I had no thought I ever could defraud
This precious man who opens up his heart.
The match my friends and family applaud,
There is no roadblock keeping us apart.
And yet I knew right from the very start,
I’d made the selfsame promise to another.
I gave to him the whole of my young heart
To him I vowed that there would be no other.
You cannot know part of my heart I save,
For one who lies so lowly in his grave.
For Dr Mehta's Spenserian Sonnet contest
Categories:
selfsame, love
Form:
Sonnet
Exegi monumentum aere perennius
Were that to be true,I would clearly be a genius
Like Quintus H. Flaccus who presented us with that trope
Inviting every poet to share that selfsame hope
Of clothing our visions in immortal verse
Which is what our poetry seeks to rehearse.
With words aplenty we endeavour to imitate
What Raphael in his bright art did delineate
When he transformed his beloved Fornarina
Into that sacred symbol Caeli Regina.
But how pale is our verbal imitation
Beside such delicate delineation.
Bacon with his spare aphoristic style
Readers of every age does beguile.
Keen and sharp his words pierce rapierwise
To etch his meanings tartly through our eyes.
His work will eternally live on
For us he remains a paragon.
Wildean wit is our next port of call
As with earnestness he does us enthrall
And with his epigrams makes us all smile
As he toys with words forever and awhile
His aesthetic makes language both sing and dance
Will we ever behold his like again perchance?
If only I could marry Raphaelesque immaculate conception
With the acute penetration of Baconian perception
To the gossamer lightness of Oscar's touch
Then would my poetry be improved much.
So it would be that every generation
Would consider my efforts truly Horatian.
Categories:
selfsame, poetry, words, , cute,
Form:
Rhyme
Come now, people - we've all heard this before:
Barbarians at our gates, enemies without the door.
Their shapes the image of our own,
Their shadows like as well; though some be lesser known.
Sound loud the alarms, deafen the ears
Harden our hearts, feed on our fears -
Divide the Volk, call them Unified
Against a foe who has ever tried
To gain just this - a national suicide
Of what was once collective reason,
Confounding balanced thought with treason.
Take up the broadest brush and paint
That He That Stands Within a Saint,
And He That Waits Without a Devil -
Those who doubt judged twice and treble
To be vile, accursed knaves
Who serve the enemy as slaves.
Attend the tune of Sturm und Drang!
Forgetful of that one who sang
The selfsame tune not so long ago
Leading to a peoples' eternal shame and woe.
Let our better Angels, while yet they may,
Draw us back to the light of a better day -
A day not defined by confused fears of the Other,
A day those shades may be possible brothers.
Categories:
selfsame, anti bullying, bullying, courage,
Form:
Rhyme
There is no ‘you’ or ‘I’
Except that you choose
to call the fat clouds a name
and make them feel like overlords upon the others.
And, there is neither ‘you’ nor ‘I’
when we collect in droplets into rain
and percolate the crevices between rocks and questions.
The free flowing water you rinse your feet in
Collects the geography of the places you’ve been to
That the same water you now wash your hands with, is what
You once called ‘dirty’ and fed to the gutters of nevermore.
There is no ‘you’ or ‘I’, save ‘we’
We, driblets of water
Garnering into puddles,
Some, redeemed in pots of human bellies.
And, there is neither ‘you’ nor ‘I’
Little dribs charged with pain, break out
As saline rain, bouncing off troubled eyes,
A cesspool of wails in the offing.
And some others, not ‘you’, not ‘I’
Distraught to meet this uncertain world
Are lagged in rocks, trapped prisoners.
We are all waters, variously hued
To boil in teapots and warm the mien of takers
And a few, crystallized into heart-shaped cubes,
Are nursed between the parched tongues of lovers.
Loin waters all! Congealed over time
Sneaked into places like shy rivers
Collecting genetic snapshots of their bearers
Then those ones frozen by fear, iceberg-solid
Make the routes of our ideas unpassable
A few, like calm ponds
Unperturbed by gravity and noise
Undress before the caress of the setting sun
We all are waters,
Not you, not I, but we; streaming
In endless pursuit on the surface
While selfsame dispatch, gather like roots undersea.
**previously published in Sentinel Quarterly Review
Categories:
selfsame, beach, together, truth, water,
Form:
Concrete
O cruel marraige,
That dost join souls,
And tear them apart,
By serpent's tongue,
Today, on Heaven's Eve.
Dead!
O Apollo, mourn,
Your daughter is dead,
And I with divine tongue,
Sing to mortal ears.
But no more...
My song is choked.
By these selfsame tears,
That once happiness evoked,
Now locked in bitter mourning,
Through the twilight's final flame,
Having thy deathbed soaked,
All in vain...
Eurydice?
Is it but passion's fire,
That I hear thy voice,
In the playing of my lyre?
Hark! Dost thou hear her?
Mumbling in the wind...
She's not left yet,
She lives within.
Hades;
Cruel engine,
Burn thy spite,
Or I shall smite thee,
With love's might!
Yet with eyes aflame,
And passion wild,
Hell's fire does tame,
And leave beguiled;
What place is Dis?
Fervent heart,
Are you still beating,
All is dark,
All is bleeding,
Fire rains down from the skies,
Love is lost,
Elysium lies,
Deep within...
Give me thy hand,
I'll walk therein:
And drown for a thousand years.
Cruel rivers,
Bathed in flesh,
Alive with fire,
And with death,
Afresh.
Eurydice!
My love is Here,
Above the sea,
Pale as the twilight sky,
Stifling its final sigh,
C'est pas la vie...
Hold up thy head!
Animate thy heart!
Let's escape death,
And never be apart.
So with trampling feet,
And passions new,
We left that place,
Or so I knew;
For when love is lost,
And passion stays,
The heart beats on,
Although the mind decays.
Eurydice?
Forgive me...
Categories:
selfsame, loss, lost love, love,
Form:
Free verse
Observing a street scene from point of high vantage
Is a reminder of something really quite outlandish
The people seen below are all purposefully scurrying about
But in reality they seem like ants do they not?
So take this scene and apply it much higher
Those selfsame ants that were seen on a street below
Are now invisible, not even ants any more
But they still harbor an illusion that is astounding
That they're the dominant force in an infinite cosmos
Which makes them godlike, well maybe almost
And like god, who it's not known if he's big or small
These delusional creatures, from afar, can't be seen at all
Maybe the universe isn't really infinite after all
It's the humans in it that are invisibly small
And god said he would create humans in his image
But no one knows God's image; is he a flea or maybe a partridge
The Higgs-Boson is called the god-particle that creates mass
It takes this particle to create things like brass or grass
But it's so small it can't be seen with an eye
Therefore placing an order is hard but give it a try
So if it's desired to create grass or brass
It's a tossup if the result is a sea of brass, or grassy bass
Categories:
selfsame, analogy, confusion, fantasy, humorous,
Form:
Couplet
My love, I make a solemn vow to you,
Before our families, dear friends and God,
My love will always be completely true,
Until one of us lies beneath the sod.
I have no thought I ever could defraud
This precious man who opens up his heart
To match my friends and family applaud.
There is no roadblock keeping us apart.
And yet I knew right from the very start,
I’d made the selfsame promise to another.
I gave to him the whole of my young heart
And like now, vowed that there would be no other.
Now as I pledge, part of my heart I save,
For one who lies so lowly in his grave.
won 3rd in Brian's contest
Categories:
selfsame, love
Form:
Sonnet