Best Shabbily Poems
A tear was rolling down Melinda's cheek.
She simply stood and did not wipe it off.
She stared right at us, but she did not speak.
A tear was rolling down Melinda's cheek.
Dressed always shabbily was she, and meek,
the one at whom the children loved to scoff.
A tear was rolling down Melinda's cheek.
She simply stood and did not wipe it off.
For Brian Strand's Contest:
A 1 to 8 Line Poem, any form. . . .
...inspiration from 'Preludes' by T.S. Eliot
Loose leaves rustle.
The grey light of evening dips and sways.
Evening birds bleat
their lonely tattoo.
Gone are the jays and the wagtails,
the burnt-out end of smoky days.
No fancy gadgets,
just a jar of pencils newly cut.
The clatter
of a typewriter
haunts the silence, like a 'pecker
jonesin' for nutrition, finding squat.
Curtains flutter.
She's shabbily dressed and thin.
A lonely candle sputters
and she struggles.
Notes and erasers jostle for space,
still no inspiration will brighten her face.
Coffee and cigarettes,
vodka and tears, and none will curb her fears
of ever grasping
white from black,
light from limbo, the curse of the damned,
the neverland that has her clammed.
One word, one spark
of enlightenment nudges her back.
Exhilaration wracks her,
electricity whacks her
like a sharp evening breeze,
and her fingers are dancing all over the keys!
We are all the same they brag
So we can be friends
I look at them
One old one young
One toothless, one with pretty straight white teeth
One dressed shabbily, the other one a band box of beauty
I know I am missing something.
I am thirteen.
I should be able to figure this out
Surely nothing is more important than appearance
In love with Pirates
When titanic sank,
we were on the deck,
The boat did rescue us afar,
destiny had in store a new avatar,
The ship we asked help for,
lately been captured over,
Pirates killed kids and men,
sparing only few women,
Ugly faces, red eyes and shabbily dressed,
killer instincts, hatred be guessed,
Tears down the cheeks, my heart bled,
Days in captivation, breathing half fed,
Agony put to end with new pirate friend,
all different stories I could comprehend,
The day captain said his sad tale,
Catching up, I was no more frail,
Months passed as I lost my cool,
Tough ordeal, life dwindled in blood pool,
Countless shots even with my gun,
Pirate captain now is my only son !
Written Sept 17th, 2015
For contest "A pirate's life for me" by Kelly Deschler
AFRICAN KID's, KING OF THE STREETS.
From the ignition of time
Where spirit of wine loves every
Mind,
I stroll down this town backing my
Brilliant child
Traditional symbol of dark's motherly
Pride,
Africa the diagram in my eye
At age nine I understood every episode
Of the street life.
Web created of metal tread
But reacts shabbily to external treat
My kids with a pan on his head
Perambulate the streets on legs
Life span rich in hawking and gambling
Forgetting any basic help
Elementary education under this orange
Tree
Was my best,
Basic health care is located far by the
Left
In this shallow well.
I pity for my incumbent king,
With royal feet
Purposely neglects tomorrows wish.
African kids vomits tartared english
As my teeth is the sanctuary for disease,
Even with my dark skin,
I know majority who succeed,
I beg, lead me through this path
Nic_named winning
Let the rich forget been stingy.
All I dream ends under this overhead
Bridge
And I see opportune kids sing and
Eat
Under her equipped class room ceiling.
I am also an African king carrying bitter
Tears of neglect,
I fall to prostrate to my magistrate
Please help to redeem and eradicate
This stinking image,
It will never be late to celebrate
When internal love becomes adequate.
HABIB AKEWUSOLA.
Walk down the streets and roads past closed doors.
Many with curtains or blinds that are drawn.
Study the various facades as you stroll by.
Give each house it's own story, big or small.
The one over there with the yellow door,
such a tall narrow house with blinkered windows.
Are the people living within the same?
With narrow life's and narrower minds?
This one here beautiful with elegant lines,
surely its owners must be someone famous as
they dress in latest fashion with presence
that shouts, look at me, I am someone important.
Next is one that is squat and rather ugly,
untidy grounds that shout of neglect.
Kids running around shabbily dressed
stunted in growth from a lack of food.
Pictures that may or may not be true,
Yet each with a life all of its own.
Impressions that linger in the mind.
How close to the truth is your vision?
I have been made mad before
With my clothes on my hands
Shabbily treated by children in the street.
My hair shaggy and rough.
YOu could see me going through the hoote-nanny
Smiling to every one that comes
on my way in a mischievous manner.
Then they sang the lost song of missing instrument and Bongo
And i dance stupidly in an open field crowded with fools.
They watched my buttock going higgledy-piggledy with no questions
I flagged off my clothes and let them see my bare chest
Swirling and twisting its Skin.
I have tolled every night and day upon the ugly mountains
With my back welcoming the dust of the ground in agony.
I have been pushed to the lunatic asylum because they thought
I was mad but your love made me drunk and insane.
Lyrically, my songs boomed and welcomed thousand children
Home to celebrate your bravery yet you seems not to
admit my effort as i sustain lumbago which made me lumbering.
I have embarked an arduous journey on the south west to obtain the
Roses and egg of life made for you in the land of the spirit
Because the priest confirmed you to be Ogbanje.
I have worked in the zoo, worked in the oceans, fought
the masked spirit and won for your sake.
Worked in the farm land where the monkeys mocked me
With their ugly black teeth abusing my personality.
I made the ridges with your names written boldly on it
To remind the birds and wild creature that it is
Untreadable land for a pretty damsel.
I have pronounce your names millions time with the parrots
Taught the toddler how top read your names on books.
I have become a hooligan and hoon all because of your love.
I have worked in the vineyard of the king as his servant,
Many maiden clutched to me and laid down their humble
Lives for my soul rescue but i denied them all of love.
Millions tears have i drooped for your sake,
Rebel against my flesh and blood all because i love you.
I am bound to your body by ardour love,
Love me so that every thing would be hunky dory.
Verb
What is a poem absent the context of motion
a meandering spark of nebulous intent
a senseless sentiment bereft of sphere
an ultimately monumental apparition
a lie of omission
and a trivial pursuit of nothing
there can be no intensity before breathing
before tasting the gun smoke
rebellion and anguish in the air
before inhaling the acrimonious stench
of one-sided comfortable silences
and before biting one’s tongue until rage and red ink
suddenly crescendo into a scream
you’re a poet…
so what?
a world full of torment and vitriolic laughter
is no place for empty sentiments
in the end what sacrament
will you have sacrificed silence for
what will be the punch line of it all
when the stars are obfuscated by
your failure to protect the sky
and all of the water is as black
as the hearts of the damned
and the Earth has chosen to mirror
the austerity of men
when all the choirs have died
and there’s no one left to praise you
who will you pray to
who will be your refuge
when you finally deduce that you are small?
will you awaken
when the apocalypse descends
will your words miraculously echo new meaning
alighting seraphic wings to reach the ears of God
an apology shabbily prefacing their recollections
when there is nothing left to say
in real life
what do your insights incite
where is your wit
the incisive intent of your pen
what hours odds and ends are too long for your will
too over the top for your “god given gifts”
how will you be remembered
in the end
as you reached for the stars
how deep did you dig
were you the oracle that God intended
the deliverer of liberation
diminishing the sum of the dimness
if it took withholding nothing to save a no one
how much were you willing to give them
when it is all said and done
what truly was?
in retrospect
when you spoke
what did you move?
So why does it end with the love lies?
Now once you got to Jr. High
People were cruel, it was hard to get by
Getting depressed in the circle of life
But now girls are better, more shapely now than then
You started getting excited when one made the slightest bend
It happened again and hit like softball
When a girl named Mason picked you for the team above them all
And the one day when you graded her paper
Pretended not to know her, and asked the teacher
And not too shabbily you made a new friend
And a new confidante to make laughs with sins
The Summer went by, you wanted to ask her out
But she moved away, strike three you’re out!
And maybe Betty, Jocelyn weren't anything to you
And Cindy Snow, Lola, Mason meant so much it’s true
You found yourself back in your self induced prison
Until Casey brought you out of your demons
She was a nice young thrill who’s looks could kill
Nothing could go wrong you thought, until it will
She was a young sporty type with her head in the game
And the only true thing you knew of her was her name
You slipped a note in her locker, putting feelings in honest
But never knew what could have been ‘cause you left it anonymous
And the feelings grew for two long years
Until It grew a life of its own that you always feared
Rejection, no question
It’s always been near
Just imaginations, delusions
Simply all too weird
And into the ride in your Sophomore year
You’re still all alone, everyone’s found their dears
And it pierces you like a thousand knives
Well not quite, 50 billion more like
It’s so sad because he’s perfect and there’s nothing you can do
You spent so much time worrying about something that wasn't true
You loved her too much that your friendship got stuck
Can’t love again, at least for a long time not
So let me ask you again, why do you feel?
That only unrequited love is the only love that’s real?
Maybe it’s just you but look at everyone else
Before you think about love, maybe you should love yourself
You were always a step ahead
of the backbiters
Thoroughly progressive in your thinking
A woman of intellectual substance will always
be treated with some male hostility
But for other women to despise your gift of wit,
and treat you shabbily because of it,
is a gender obscenity
Yet your acceptance of other’s intolerance
makes you stand even taller still
A giant among Lilliputian pettiness
keeps you moving further ahead,
striving instead to be better than your tormentors
Though morally superior, you chose to take the high road
Others who are low brow inferior,
look so tarnished in the presence of prodigal gold
Entering the realm of advanced intellect,
you accept the fact that you have so much to learn,
and just how little you know
No guile keeps you grounded,
staying ever so humble
Acceptance by peers who respect you,
allows you to have the freedom to pursue
your dream of letting ego go
And observe with clinical curiosity,
your intellect quantum leap exponentially grow
You will see me alone, dining.
Always near a window
Watching people hurrying outside,
Or well-dressed patrons
Frequenting the five-star diner,
My favourite eating place.
Alas always alone.
Still one lady, impeccably dressed
Always visited the place every Saturday.
And always with a different escort.
I wondered who she was,
But I could hardly ask her, could I?
Her escorts seemed rich and elegant.
Not that I was shabbily dressed.
But I was not the handsome type.
Then one day she came in alone.
She had no escort as she ordered her food.
What could I do? I approached her meekly
And asked for her company.
"Finally, you came," she smiled.
We never dined alone from then on.
FICTION
Men of the Flame
Men of the flame,
Basking in the aura of fame
So confident with signs and wonders
Proclaiming to raise the dead and heal the lame.
They cast, bind evil spirits tame
One even said; "God is game"
Is this offerings for God or the priest-
Whose deceit thrives under God's name?
They feed upon the people's emotion;
Men who believed signs and wonders was the only solution.
Shabbily clad in penury's pad
Those offerings dropped; just to seek God's attention.
To them they came like men heavily laden
And to those they came their minds hidden
Winning the poor man's soul to messiah's gate
While theirs was the devil's haven.
Hallelujah! Voices echoed loud
Strange incantations ransack the misty cloud.
Tongues twisting, bodies falling
Only God alone knows what lies beneath their mystery shroud.
Deceit must thrive over religion
Tell the truth; there goes religious rebellion
So, trick will do the trip
An antidote to amuse the desperate congregation.
Prosperity opens the sermon's door;
"...He never created you to be poor"
Cars donated, empty bags with cash impregnated
Still they filled it more and more.
I thought salvation was free
That we need not bribe our way you and me.
"Thou shalt not tell lie;"
But why do these men refuse to call a bee a bee?
The air around us is dosed with sin
Followers in rags, leaders draped in suits covering their skin
In seclusion alcohol and fornication is no longer ungodly
But to us they are forbidden.
We have heard of your festival of fire
And the cars and jets you acquire.
The veil of servitude as blidfolded our thoughts
Hoping for divine favour when we retire.
Men of the flame
The world knows your name
carved in devil's corsive
someday, you shall go back to the fire from whence you came.
I have been broken
Like a man left without a token
Staring surprisingly at the cruelty
Melted out on my fragile soul.
Here in my solitary state
I try to patch up my heart's pieces
To forget about the pains
And let tomorrow heal the scars left by yesterday.
Broken! Like a marooned sailor
Broken! Like a traveller in the desert
Broken! Like a lover rejected by a loved one
Broken! That's simply the words that escaped my lips
So I watched the wind blow the dust on my face
And yearn so much for a saving grace.
Helplessly I wandered like a raging spirit
In shackles of emotion I staggered all along.
Oh! I look shabbily claded
And the hair on my head seems overgrown.
This look, like that of a taunted soul
So devastated, crying out foul.
They are the traumas of being broken
Left to the cruelty wrapped in mortal flesh.
Trampled upon by hatred of men
Sent down to languish in a disastrous den.
Broken; like a building shaking to its core.
Left with body and soul to carry on.
Staggering helplessly for someone's arm to lean upon.
Mothers are devoted to their children from birth,
When their offsprings are in pain,
Mothers also hurt,
Social graces are thrown out the door quickly
especially when their children are treated poorly,
All their power and wrath become unleashed
to protect their children from charlatans and
thieves,
They will rearrange places,
shutdown cities if someone
treats their children shabbily,
A mothers rationality goes out
the window,
if their children are plagued with
bullyism and innuendos,
Children can always depend on their
mothers putting all worries to an end,
even if they have to turn
themselves into super heroes,
They will not give up until they
eradicate all their childrens' woes.
People that stare, people that glare and people that simply don't care,
Hot people, tense people and people who's life isn't fair,
People who don't want to talk, poor people and people who are lonely & sad,
Shabbily dressed, barely washed, ill mannered and some who are plainly bad,
Good people, sometimes, polite people, rarely and people in some way are glad.