Best Serrated Poems
Today I found you cornered, drenched in cold,
your fur coat nothing but a newborn's down,
a tiny ball unfolding while I hold
you shivering. Your lacerations frown
and at a distance, I can see the why
of your abandonment, the birds of prey.
I’ve saved you, but you’re causing me to cry:
serrated weapons, Nature’s passion-play,
as blood-attracted sharks, still circling, wait:
I sense the breath-starved fright that made you flee,
those teeth, those claws, you were their blameless bait.
You can’t yet comprehend that you are free.
I see the wounds, some healed, some raw and new,
they're deep, beyond the matted fur and skin.
Four little paws, so tender, sprawled askew,
I seem to feel that you and I are kin.
You mark each move. Mistrustful eyes, so green,
incapable of rest, stir to suggest
you'll try to bite if I will try to clean
the bloodclots, so I hug you to my chest.
You flinch to feel my cuddle. Have I planned
some fiendish way to torture you anew?
The tiny space your wretched life has spanned
has taught you only suffering is your due.
Careful now, I’ll wrap you in a cloth,
And whisper words you cannot comprehend.
Oh tiny one, you're no more than a moth!
It’s alright now. You’ve come across a friend.
Your warmth is blossoming against my breast.
I want to teach you gentleness and calm.
There’s nothing here to threaten you: so rest,
You’re safe now from anxiety and harm.
I'll guard you through the night until you sleep,
until the chesty wheezing eases up.
This is protectiveness, it's seated deep:
I’ll always help a vulnerable pup.
Your heart is racing hard against my hand,
awaiting pain, as wizened captives do.
Believe me, Little One, I understand.
For I have been a broken prisoner, too.
***
May 30, 2017
Copyright © Darren White
Categories:
serrated, analogy, animal, hurt, metaphor,
Form:
Quatrain
Through somber steps each climb is made;
The fruitless efforts fail.
Thus, love unshared and work unpaid
Disturbs the nightingale.
In song it copes
With fears and hopes;
From limbs it hung,
All feelings sung.
Warm waters crawl beneath its wings
On lonely twilight trips.
Yet, cold of nighttime softly stings
The feet with which he grips.
So many are the shamed
Whose sorry sights were aimed
To win the hopeless fight;
The one unanswered plight.
Where care once came
Comes only shame;
Now only rhyme
Recalls the time
When lovers held each other tight
On nights of endless laughter.
The nightingale would take its flight,
Rejoicing ever after.
But friends refuse each others hands,
The sign of cherished life.
On edge of death his heart now stands.
Serrated is the knife.
Now gone away again to mourn
The winged creature flies,
Until the warmth of love reborn
Revives the sunken eyes--
Those bitter sockets filled with tears
Reflect the speckled moon.
Escape from tortured life appears--
He ends the final tune.
Categories:
serrated, death, depression, loss, lost
Form:
Rhyme
Waning love is a cold diamond thing
The hurt pressure
from the thought of losing you
is such a hard burden
Squeezing the hope out of me
Heavy-hearted acceptance ain’t easy,
especially when the weeping pang of separation
comes prematurely rushing through
Day by day,
I get premonition pulse signals of distress
Diamond bit by bit,
I receive this coal crushing feeling
And the hurt pressure
changes the beauty of what once did exist
Your vow of discontentment is tearing us apart
Day by day
Making our bond weaker
every 24/7 ...
I do feel a new heartbreak
Your ice cold eyes tell me the love flame
is no longer lit
As your heart becomes more
Diamond bit by bit
Pointed act of your future departure
pierces my mind deeply
As this soon-to-be severed heart pleads empty
Affectionate feelings voiced are on the decline,
your dispassionate vow sound
has a hollow golden ring
Echoes of neglected conciliatory healing
drowns my restless pain
in watery sheets of serrated discomfort
That jagged sharp sound,
thrust hard through my mate severed soul,
has a diamond sting
An asunder carat cutting my heart in half
Broken altar promise darkly coal uttered,
portends of your leaving
Those sacred two words,
once spoken with past caring intensity,
are now double troubling ...
And “I do” know why that is,
because you no longer desire me
Keeping your two-folded arm distance
is a cold diamond thing
As love on the wane wears the bosom hard bling-bling
Day by day,
my evening pillow dreams
get so very misty sigh moist softer
Diamond bit by bit,
my mourn awakenings
get teary pure carbon crystalline
Categories:
serrated, emotions, hurt, pain, sad
Form:
Free verse
icy daggers serrated his chilly mind
memories sharp as polar bear’s claws
wielded reminiscent evocation in pain
how he longed for selective amnesia
heart and reason at war with the enemy
a battle only to be won if he surrendered
to inevitability that conflicts were useless
unless of course they concluded in cease fire
his father had fought at the Russian Front
which left his own upbringing out in the cold
no Potemkin façade could melt the chagrin of
twelve years of Germanic menace and madness
both of them prisoner to emotional deprivation
trans-generational transmission of trauma in action
it was bitterly cold in the heat of many a moment
and icicles festered in the young brain to be formed
shape up they said – fight flight or freeze
food for thought no doubt but what about feelings
many winters have passed and the old man is dead now
took many secrets and memories into his grave
the boy now in his sixties decided he needed a snow man
carrot charcoal eyes and Che Guevara’s bandana
collected drift wood from a beach of forgiveness
and danced around the bonfire of exorcised hurt
until permafrost yielded to fire and passion in time
he had been his own antagonist for far too long
Categories:
serrated, war,
Form:
Free verse
With a slight glow of early morning sunlight
a single flower-bud unfolds bright
from its green protective wrap
to serrated knap
revealing
soft pink
appealing
velvet petals of
a carnation, Mother's Love
with a fresh spicy clove-like perfume
coursing through benignly and at last, consume
6/30/2019
Poetry Contest: Writing Challenge 2, June 2019- A Summer Flower
Sponsored by: Dear Heart
Categories:
serrated, flower,
Form:
Rhyme
A rose is guarded from prying hands
By thorns along the stem
Reality makes the truth known
A heart can be kept safe
From those who wish it maimed
By icy spikes of bitterness
And distrust
Thorns are beautiful
As are my own version of such a Godsend
Serrated barbed wire
That hurts both the offender and the prey
It works both ways for us
We had some bond
That the fairy tales paled against
Though what naive child was I to ignore
The untamed look as you swept me off my feet
And killed the innocnce
I longed to preserve
A wound carries infection
When left untreated
A shattered heart
And useless dream
Will not infect
But most surely
Scar
My burning heart
Bleeds for salt
To make it worse
And yet
To make it feel so much better
Now I have played my part
And those thorns that once looked
Deadly yet respectable
Made me see
Time does not always heal all wounds
The memory will stay caught
Onto those pikes of self preservation
And your Betrayal within me.
Categories:
serrated, betrayal, me,
Form:
Free verse
FROM SUNSET TO SUNRISE
Her clinging mermaid-figure, auburn hair - french braid-chaste.
Pearl’s arms circumnavigate his nautical-neck. Strong arms gird her waist.
His hands, like the current, draw her in. She inhales with fingers laced.
Like the sublime shoreline, their outlines traced.
Water and sand swirl around their feet, hearkening to the flautist-tide.
Pearl’s arms circumnavigate his nautical-neck. Strong arms gird her waist.
The sky, stars, and moon vanish - in a lover’s cove, they hide.
Recognized with a full-moon revelation - no disguise,
She is likely to drown in the whirlpool of his eyes.
With the whispers of his high-tide love, she does rise,
Answering in kind - breathing in and out her replies,
As their lifetime stretches from sunset to sunrise.
The aquamarine of Pearl’s eyes match her swimming gown.
She is likely to drown in the whirlpool of his eyes,
Snatched by the undercurrent, of her lover’s seaweed crown.
The shrieking seagull o’erhead, her memory recalls.
The darkened lighthouse, stronghold sinking, falls.
Feet weeping on serrated shells, his footprints lost in sandy halls.
His sea-drenched bodysuit, her frightened squalls.
Inlet eyes, stained red, revere venomous jellyfish - tentacled balls.
A shallow survivor - her lover’s footprints she could not save.
The darkened lighthouse, stronghold sinking, falls.
She dives into the cold abyss of a mourner’s grave.
Pearl will find her eternal love, beyond the sun’s rays.
11/2/2017
Laura Loo’s Rhyme Time II Contest
Categories:
serrated, love,
Form:
Rhyme
In neatly lined up pots in a row
Flaming red and purple balsams in clusters grow
A visual treat to adoring eyes
A haunt frequented by the bees
Do not need much care, but may fade
If not allowed a little shade
Flimsy they are of delicate stems
With light green leaves of serrated hems
Planted in my skilfully laid up yard
They invariably make me glad
Gleaming in the first rays of the sun
By their simple beauty, my heart they won
When the flowers wither, pods appear
In time, for self dissemination, they prepare
When fully ripe, the pods explode
And seeds fly as birdies from their nest to explore!
Thus Nature’s ways are so amazing
Even in plants is an inherent training,
For seeds to leave the comfort of their pods
And find their own space fighting all odds!
___________________________________
June.2.2022
~Placed First~
Purple Flower Poetry Contest
Sponsor – Nayda Ivette Negron Flores
Categories:
serrated, beauty, flower,
Form:
Rhyme
Hot zones of danger,
dark places
where dense hearts go
Hearts that are cold as ice
Roll the dice ...
take a chance on fatal corona exploration
Go ghetto orbital
and gamble with your porcelain life
You’ve been whitely warned:
Shun the spots —
the darkside of the Helios shadows,
where the sun don’t golden glow
It’s best to yield to your coin conscience;
the fade-to-black pulse
of the societal dusk, dimming yellow
Go colonial orbital,
where the cloudless reign
of oppression is rife
And the gravity of poverty
is sol cranial heavy
Irradiated cries cuts through
the poisoned atmosphere of hatred
like a serrated knife
You’ve been white noise warned:
Danger!
Avoid the riotous flares of destruction ...
hot spots,
where obstruction of justice flow
Shun the leper spots
of the volatile igneous rock dimming yellow
Those event horizon spaces —
ephemeral stardust places
that were polarity flux created not to burn slow
5-11-21
Categories:
serrated, dark, metaphor, society, visionary,
Form:
Dramatic Verse
Golden paint drips from diaphanous air,
beneath the opalescent autumn blue sky,
jade foliage enfolds full-bloomed flowers,
I fly my heart like a bird over the canopy.
The canopy of your allure so beguiling
takes me to the enticing height of ecstasy.
The nest we build in the cleft of boughs
glistens in love-laced moonshine night.
Night of strife surged as wrecking storm,
the nest is demolished to debris of despair.
You drift away to the sunny sky obscure,
leave me to languish in the spasm of winter.
Winter frost slithers with the north wind
to desolateness of the defoliated boughs.
I feel my love freeze within the arctic heart
amid the serrated shadow of broken wings.
_______________
Written : August 10, 2022
February 6, 2023
2022 Poetry Marathon Qualifiers' FINAL
Placement Poetry Contest
Sponsored : Mark Toney
Categories:
serrated, analogy, imagery, lost love,
Form:
Free verse
The desolate wasteland of deprivation traversed
by my jagged life that tried so long so very hard
to smoothen the angularities of the serrated mind,
swirling in the egregious whirlpool of indignation.
Sucked into sordid abyss of despondent delirium,
I searched out for myself a path of passion within,
leading through the pulsating portal to my heart,
not yet frozen in the prolonged winter of despair.
The spring of yearning came with fragrance of fervor,
drifting on the dreamful wings of the sensuous time,
from the flowers of my blooming heart where you flew
like a butterfly creating cadence of surreal symphony.
Harmonized with the mesmeric music of my longing,
enthralled emotions danced on the ripples of rhapsody
that rolled between you and me to entwine us forever,
consecrated the concept of concealed craving called love.
You let it bloom with the floral design of fervent desire,
the patina of silky petals would shine till the end of time.
____________________
September 3, 2022
For A Brian Strand Premiere Choice Contest
Categories:
serrated, analogy, imagery, love, passion,
Form:
Free verse
In tastefully lined up pots in a row,
Multi colored balsams in clusters grow.
A visual treat to adoring eyes,
But never a haunt frequented by bees.
Balsams do not need much care, yet may fade,
If not allowed a little shade.
Flimsy they are of delicate stems,
With light green leaves of serrated hems.
Growing in my neatly laid up yard,
They invariably make me glad.
Gleaming in the first rays of summer sun,
By their simple beauty, my heart they have won.
Unlike the charming red, red rose
Hardly any poet, on them, odes compose
They have no scent, yet as a colorful throng,
In my courtyard, proudly they belong
When the flowers wither, pods appear
In time for self- dissemination, prepare
When fully ripe, the pods explode
And seeds fly as birdies from their nest to explore!
Thus, Nature’s ways are so amazing
Even in plants there's an inherent training
For seeds to leave the comfort of their pods
And find their own space fighting all odds!
Categories:
serrated, appreciation, beauty, garden,
Form:
Rhyme
A covert curtain raiser pulls a string and marvels at an epic scene
Though parsimonious in essence the stage appears rather obscene
Black cross and pitch dark raven on bold charcoal sable tapestry
Ragged clairvoyant who twiddles cross bones by Caron's decree
The program had promised naked clarity and seductive treats
But now no bodies couple on the wooden floor in satin sheets
The truth however fresh from history's and other sad cohabitation
Sours moist appetites and threatens voyeuristic contemplation
A simple box white as true innocence depicts death's surrender
Rusty nails large as serrated daggers stick out of wood and tender
For anyone's guess as to who holds the moribund mortal keys
And for what the final will and wish decides to bequeath
Maybe the dramatist shows kindness after the transmission
Once champagne flutes held council in one last rendition
For when audiences in deck chairs recline on the Titanic
But the fool's vessel succumbs even when Satan is manic
Spectators wait on fleshy bums for anything to be told and relieve
The grandstand platform from misery far too mournful to conceive
But while the actors carry on with epilogues and future insanity
There is no second act and no dress rehearsal for humanity
10th April 2020
Categories:
serrated, imagery,
Form:
Rhyme
How can I sever wolf-waves from the selfish sea?
I ache to cut the rogue from the relentless flow
his crest —swelled in high rise on testosterone tide—
swindles my tease to tame his blue Neptune flame
mocking my sun dried bed with unruly despise
he rides a white steed in petulant power with the moon
I am the passive strand of sand longing for his rhythm
oh timpani thunder roll in roll over me my skin awaits
taunt of aerated fate I await with serrated silence
stranded by him… I await… as inconsequential
as an oyster shell without a pearl
as a pearl unfulfilled without a knotted strand
I am the beach exposed at the lowest ebb
my eyes not sand-blind when cherry sun colors him red
and fuels his restless quest for honeypot conquests
to consummate sunset with supple skies far from home
and conjugate with sugar-shores not his own
my protests to his stray-sprees lay like loose scree
lure-lyrics litter air but then die a pale chitter in his ear
fruited gripes broken in breakers re-rhymed into pulp
summer-sweet to his palate as beach plum wine—
whine in the grind of my grain soundproofed by his kiss
where is his echo to my thirsty plea of love
when he’s the romeo sea and I’m the sand seduced
and exist in recline to absorb his homecoming
while beach-grass-bending-wind
whips my voice away from my throatless soul?
my resist drowns in liquid grooves of his drum beat—
spume churned in surf zone… our spindrift in bloom yet
echoes of the silent shore echo in me alone
Categories:
serrated, beach, conflict, longing, love
Form:
Free verse
~ the ragged-edged word, breathed like a blade in your grasp -
you thrust deep ... "goodbye" ~
~ 2nd Place ~ in the "Wow Me With A One-Liner! Monoku" Poetry Contest, Silent One, Sponsor.
Categories:
serrated, heartbreak, loss, love hurts,
Form:
Monoku