Best Shaper Poems
Erato
Out of an ethereal mist her form –
round, soft edges shimmering, a milky
apparition, like the full moon on a foggy
July night. Myrtle and roses came first
in the aroma that took him to the shores
of Tunisia and a Mediterranean breeze –
his mind wandered until she came full into view
and then his focus was secure…her beauty
filled every available space and he was captivated,
captured by love’s rich palette. He recognized her
not from a daydream nor a fantasy but his Big Dream.
“You…we have known before the slippery
rocks and the gypsy dance…stars over Mont Royal.”
With one look and a flash of lightning she charmed
his sight; he should have known he was doomed
to make the pilgrimage to Samos and the tomb.
She came to fill his head with poetry, rivers
of words to fill his verses and charge them
with emotions. Instead she filled his heart
with a drunkard’s love, a spring wine
with a delicate bouquet…morning weighs heavy.
“Let me open the gate and chase the noisy
dogs away, my riches lie within the garden.”
The shaper of words then took her guitar and sang
sweet melodies like kisses and he was the Best Man
far too drunk to resist her passions. He partook
in the creation of music divine amid the cries
of idolatry but he was deaf to the discord.
With every song they sang he fell deeper
into her graces and his destiny was sealed;
he traded his heart to be skilled in the art
of making love with words, a noble task.
Whenever his vision appeared
he sensed infinity within his grasp.
So, could this awakening be
the pebble whose ripples rock the sea?
The seeker, who had found his treasure,
was now swimming in fatal hope.
I am jealous of White Feather to have kissed
the artful lips of Erato and survived.
Contest: Your BEST
Sponsor: SKAT
I met a man who was a builder, harder life than some.
His lifetimes measure built of him the man he has become.
A carpenter who works with hands, grown tough through each nail driven.
For each connection made he stands to witness love he’s given.
A life that’s built of wood and people, dreams all shared with God.
Connected through a path of faith, a worthy man might trod.
He builds the dream of home and hearth that each heart so requires
with hands that strive forever forward, even though he tires.
With back that bends toward prayer as a soul on bended knees
he places pieces one by one til finished home he sees.
A sculptor of each family’s home and all their vested futures.
With caulk and nail and sweat and blood his only given sutures.
Directing useful trees to be arranged by artful hand.
Conducting symphonies of glory, weather to withstand.
A visionary born of lumber, plaster, tile, and stone,
making memories of houses where his light has shown.
A designer of dreams he moves with speed to completion.
Steady with strength, quick with purpose, into every season.
Delivering hollowed caverns of life for those to call their own.
Shaping shells whose contents hold the people he has known.
A shaper of fluidity, measuring courses, marking flow;
constructor of places where souls reside, and lives have space to grow.
This man I met is but one finger, not at all so odd,
who moves with steady purpose, on another hand of God.
From the shower to the mirror I stand
With my breasts cupped in my hands
Oh my gosh they're too small
As I stand there and bawl
You men simply just don't understand
He suggests I take some toilet paper
I've to rub them, Oh what a caper
Blimey, how long this will take
It'll take months, just wait
Keep rubbing you'll soon be the shaper
Golly, I'm starting to feel a right tit
My new Bra they ain't going to fit
Well it worked for your ass
Keep going darling lass
There's the proof, no lies, didn't it
.
When caught mid-flight
End to bloat against gravity
Thanks, rejection is not of the earth
My eyes are welling
I won’t hold back with shame
Even warriors often times loosen, weeping
A good mother’s breast thrust
Not in for the oldest trade
Gives the child, from infant, the best trust
The sexton is a pagan
Lushness of the hashish field
Makes his story from Canaan
Morals pillar nobility
But nature spares by –
Insofar as the choice is moderacy
Over me they seek to keep
They can shape me, me too a shaper
Just that I start a peep
A quest to solve the world
Challenged to fix my head
Get me defined – no word
Launch talks for luck
One screen sets parts
Grace, lone-stands, earns buck
Formless strife made me worry
An envoy made as of succubus
Made me awoke being sorry
He who sounded the gong
Has done it wrong
And rhythm’s lost in our song
The earth, about the Sun, rotates
Science, my house remains on its plot
Lies make the pupils dilate
Africa! Here some questions
Khartoum, Mogadishu, Malaria, HIV, Genocides . . . ?
Orients through Occident find me solutions
Muses – a kind that’s potent
Might make me hit the laureate’s podium
And be free of amateurish latent!
Untie the knot, patriarch,
the broken kiss was
intimidating.
The backhoe picks up the
devil, it was within you
when you were casting stone
at the fear.
The pagan was covered
with leaves
raw and pailful;
belief in a thought
was not working,
think, man think.
The system,
the birth of rebirth of sorrow
was the tragedy.
The shaper,
I am, still wandering
to find the words.
Satish Verma
• After leading the massacare of 57 people in southern island of Mindanao Philippines on
23rd Nov 09
Winter
Father of the Year.
Severe in the time you rule,
Shaper of Seasons.
14/4/2016
Acceptance of the truth
Heard it, comprehended
Tears eluded, insisted on suppression
Ascended to above it, insisted on overcoming
Realized and harnessed my inner power
Refused to be a victim
Empowered by recognition
This was all my doing
Inhale release it
Can get pass this
A blessing but mostly a lesson
A shaper of future choices
The fact is… it’s cherished
This experience so beautiful and heart wrenching
Like the sunset breathtaking but fleeting
Captured in my mind eyes
Stored in the special compartment of the heart
Remove the once shiny crown for now it was tarnished
Bitter, sweet experience cherished
Just before joining the military. TF
For whom do you write, vainglorious poet?
Who are the disciples you seek?
Shall converts worship at the altar of your prose;
Devoutly reciting your works?
Is there passion alight in your breast;
The call of some unknown muse?
Or does your pen labor of its own accord,
Guided by some universal force?
What is the sermon?
What message do you proselytize to the masses?
Shall all bow, or bend knee;
Demonstrably awed by your articulate compilations?
Self-fashioned prophet!
Or perhaps it is godhood you seek.
Author of verbal constructs.
Creator.
For who can judge your writing?
Who can look down their nose?
Furrow their brow?
Scoff?
For what you have crafted stands.
In grandiloquence or simplicity.
Perfect.
Crafted just so, and gifted to the world.
Can a critic better evaluate its worth;
Can the detractor eclipse the creator?
Perhaps then, it is he
Who fancies godhood the more.
A Grand inquisitor!
Laying to rest the heresies of your writ.
Sound the trumpets!
Send forth the drums of war!
Who shall emerge the crusade?
Shaper of public opinion.
Master.
God?
Flat on her stomach Grannie rode
her adrenalin overflowed
she went in style
with a big smile
into the paddle battle she flowed
The heart of an ancient wahine
she called her personal genie
a goofy foot true
she already knew
she’d forgotten her bikini
Grannie won the right of way
a righteous spot they all say
her stick’s outline
her own design
shaper champion this day
William in Drag
Shakespeare
Makes *****
An Alter Boy’s Job
Handles
Candles
Fancy Nude Dancer
Jangles
Spangles
English Only Creed
Banish
Spanish
Origami Artist
Paper
Shaper
Dynamite
Whammo
Ammo
New Feminine Hygiene Product
Clamp-On
Tampon
Worthy of love, unbreakable togetherness, and lasting compassion would have been instilled
strongly in the vessel of thirsting heart and unstable mind of a child.
But, why soup of hatred, a platter of pale love and a bowl of spoiled unloving thoughts
are laid in the niche of the child’s sprouting character?
Family ties were untied by a father who neglected his pure actions and encouraging words
and translated into unspoken greediness and unnoticed carelessness of expressed thoughts
that form the growing character of his son.
The family bonding is disbanded by a mother who works in the scope of her comfort where
eyes and mouth are only the weapons of her love and care for her curious daughter and for
her wandering son.
A father who offers a well of gold and silver, a mother who clothes sparkling dress of
worldly wealth to her offspring!
Their children have worn ever the brightest smile but not for a while,
The pleasures of their tongue were satisfied but not their hearts.
Corruption begins at home.
It creeps to the nerves of the heart of your son.
It envelops the innocent soul of your daughter.
For every dishonest word that is pronounced by the indifferent father,
For every unchecked actions that mother has imposed,
Are a sure lifetime shaper to the values and character of the children.
Family brings serpents of corruption in every corner of the home.
It blows very hard like a destructive wind of the storm.
It is like a starving lion that preys on the flesh of good virtues and leaves nothing but
dead soul!
Father, Mother, May I appeal to your deepest conscience and understanding!
May you be vigilant and be watchful of your actions and your ways of life!
Your most beloved children are at stake in the breaking and making of their character!
Pitiful pitter patter, snotty sorrow
On top of tattered parchment paper
Every poetic pause was a bright idea
That somehow turned into vapor
Rhyme and reason had disappeared too
Yearned for a makeshift poetry shaper
The next time I got an inkling of inspiration
Evaporation was no longer my condemnation
Actually I offered my muse a potent libation
Readily rectified that dry pen situation
Salty sobs are now tears of joyous jubilation
5/1/16
Fragile paper, white and quite a shaper rolled into a round
On a rod of plastic, tumbled gently draping to no abound
In the toilet room; a violet bloomed where stray peddles were found
Upon the windowsill the sunny feel was warm and peddles browned
Grandma's bathroom, powder, perfume, and a glass for stray old dentures
Was softly messy, cluttered, prissy, and layered with eye-squenchers
Such as brassiers hooked on brass spearhead hooks and dental cushions too
And a girdle. Yet, handpicked myrtle and blue rugs brought my ease through
The shower curtian caught the spurtin' water from the showerhead
In the tub a scrubber club with soft bristles hung tween silver knobs
In the thick steam the echos carried as I showered before bed
Sometimes the streams would mist the tissue then it would come off in globs
whirl …
where waters mingle -
the inky black that pulls down
swallows … enfolds …
the ballet breaks -
sun’s golden coins a-dancing,
birthing pixies to the brine
to draw the gaze with dazzled magic …
the glassy smooth that
dopplegangs a billowy azure and a
quivery, star-daubed vault …
the ruffled swells -
turning masts to pendulum poets,
ticking time as the hulls roll …
and rock … and roll …
and the foaming rage -
surf that breaks reefs to ruin
and howls at Calypso,
the salty sirens screaming at
her for just a taste of
jagged justice …
the seas roar and ebb and
sunder suns to ache
the rills run to the low to find them
and feed the confluences
water weaves and wells and works to
be the All of life -
the precious matter, miraculous
the shaper and sater and savior of
everything that actuates
yet …
the oceans, and washes, wild
and weeping heavens
in all their splendor and abundance
can not hope to accommodate
the love, sorrow, spirit, or
significance
of one single, solitary
child’s …
tear.
Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden, July 27, 2024
Stories that stood behind soundless shapes;
Silence have finally found its way,
Dressed in a tall sky of towering tendons,
Wishing-wells weeping for wagons,
And as fiends of the forest frame fervent flavors,
Gruesome gravels aching for a touch of dirt from bittersweet barrels,
But one day the festering foe will see ,
what it means to be on scorching knees,
When summer is gone only the snow shall bleed,
A sonnet shaper than the dark Lead you read,
What good are ammos without the gun it fits to,
Perhaps threats are just a view only to sit through,
Salt and pepper beard too seek not for fluffy old warm rugs,
when your floors were far too cold for your own bugs,
You’ve stained the better half of what was meant to be,
Then required a fully functioning me?
There is no room for light in this foggy page full of grief,
For hope is a delicacy garnished for thieves.