Best Sheaf Poems
Treading upon a thread so fine,
Finer than the strands of silken twine,
Ah, but we err in our belief,
For hair is but a protein sheaf,
A chain of amino acids, aligned.
Is this vision but a mere mirage?
A fleeting, ghostly apparition?
Why then do they link,
Like carriages of a train, in sync?
Perhaps harmony is the adhesive,
Binding them in a dance so vivid,
Racing along life's fervent passage.
I ponder, perhaps the line we tread,
Is nought but points, closely wed,
In the fabric of togetherness spread.
Come, take my hand, let us forge
A lifeline, a path to endorse,
Disregard the trifles, my Love,
For nature cherishes balance above.
© 25/09/2014
Malik Yaseen
Categories:
sheaf, imagery, inspiration, relationship,
Form:
Free verse
(Base USO club, Zweibrucken, Germany, 1963)
Of a lazy afternoon, I sit
propped up,
Bones aching, sorely tired from
lack of work,
And dutifully read the comic
strips
With bored eyes while my mind
dozes.
I sit enveloped in my peculiar
Grayish pallor, which clings
And will not disappear,
And martyr myself to the gods
of convention.
I smoke acrid-tasting cigarettes and
Loudly chew a cud of gum, popping it
Absent-mindedly, and I turn the
crinkly sounding
Pages, one after one, slowly
and intently,
So as not to disarrange the sheaf.
The dryish smell of printed
comic strips
Irritates my nose, but I don't
sneeze --
Merely wriggle it a bit for some
relief.
My brightly polished shoes are propped
Upon the table and I lean back and tilt
the chair, and my hair
Is closely cropped and combed with care,
no strand
Out of place, pomaded and arranged.
My clothes are neat and clean
and stylish
And I brush away a nonexistent
crumb and
I slowly chew and loudly pop my gum,
Moisten index finger, moisten thumb,
And turn the colored printed page
of comics,
Snicker at the antics pictured
While I glance about.
And wonder.
Categories:
sheaf, absence, angst, anxiety, loneliness,
Form:
Free verse
In homage to Mr Poe....
He dreamt a dream,
a violent vignette
a sorry scene,
he could not forget
He rose from his rest
and bolted the bed,
but the visions he'd viewed
would not leave his head
He set to scribbling
those terrible thoughts,
thinking that would
be the release he sought
He penned a poem
of the saddest sorrow,
a vivid volume
of terrible tomorrows
He wrote those words
in an ink of tears,
with a pen of pain,
on a sheaf of fears
He trusted those thoughts
would salve his soul
so he'd sleep soundly
in his hole
But when he woke
again next night,
his heart now had
a fearful fright
He saw in waking
the very scene
that'd in his sleep
afore he'd seen
As he looked on
his horror grew
and as he watched
'twas then he knew
Now, in his room
the dream did dwell;
it truly held
him in its spell
This cursed vision
of fear and fright
now ruled his mind
both day and night
But then, he saw
the candle burn
and his fevered thoughts
began to turn
He took the pages
that he did write
and held them to
the candlelight
The words began
to dance about
and leapt from the page
with a mournful shout
The pages then
burst into flames
and ran round him
chanting names
'Oh Lucifer,
Beelzebub,
Sammael
and Belial'
'Baphomet,
Mastema,
Lilith and
Azazel'
The words whirled round
and round his head
as he lay quivering
in his bed
And as he watched,
he came to see
his own body
floating free
He began to spin
at such a pace
no longer did
he know his place
He'd spun so fast
by this evil's throttle
he turned to liquid
and was quickly bottled
And now he waits,
he sits and thinks
of when another
will use that ink
To write a poem
of pity and pain,
so he may yet
be freed again
Categories:
sheaf, dark, dedication, evil, fantasy,
Form:
Rhyme
Sweet lady, combination of silliness and laughter,
all wrapped up in one sweet sheaf.
Amusing limericks, she is definitely a master,
so talented, watching in disbelief.
Dulcet stories about her special mum,
I hold gratitude for her beneficial feedback.
So much love held for her darling son,
convinced positive energy she'll always attract.
~Written By: Laura Loo~
~Date Written: February 24, 2016~
Written for a lovely lady...Jan...
Categories:
sheaf, appreciation, happy, thank you,
Form:
Quatrain
With stretched brows, while sitting in a corner
I look up from my specs just out of love.
As she lays food on table and stoops lower
Snipes me from grace of her body thereof.
With eyes on her I come there as if drugged
Feeling tickling smell of the hot soup.
Now she puts a sheaf of flowers in a jug
And pours in water pressing it in group.
I see how the necks and cups get entwined
With the curls of her hair and points of crest.
See how at each stalk her waist curves defined
Budding, abloom in the shape of her breasts.
Soup and food lay cold and my body warm
As she swirls and whirls her skirt like a storm.
+++
December 15, 2014
Form: Sonnet (Pentameter)
First Place win
Best of 2014 by Carol Eastman
Categories:
sheaf, nostalgia, drug,
Form:
Sonnet
I saw a tap-dancer with
Squirming sheaf of vigor
Toes tapping as if dancing.
Is he hoping for a rendezvous?
His Dachshund-clan romance?
Prancing around like ponies
With gentle nose, silent eyes
With sweet licks and nuzzles.
Care free clan, if they like it
It can never be of anyone else.
If they take it anything from anywhere
It’s theirs and of nobody else’s.
The four legged hairy puppets
With all the fascinating features.
I don’t think a dachsie thinks of money
Or fame or other worldly pleasures
But thinking of the pure love of God
Remembering always those moments
By waggling his tail with pure love and joy.
When He made him to brighten up
The day of Adam and Eve and then
Christening them as “dog”, a reflection
Of His own as one looks into the mirror.
January 20, 2015
Form : Free verse
Contest:Dachshunds
Categories:
sheaf, animal,
Form:
Free verse
I sit and watch.
Changes come so slowly.
So, vigilance is required,
an attentiveness to minutia.
There are layers of wardings
erected between
the watch and I.
Thoughts, which flit and skitter
fight for outward movement.
Flesh that is too weak to hold attention,
leans toward the walls of cracks;
where even the plaster pulls
from its sheaf
and the dirty
double paned glass
waylays the eye.
Enthralled by the changes:
rain to sleet, to snow, to hail, to rain,
the maple buds leaving
their pointillist, rouge-lacquered shells,
dropping like the wings
of an emergent butterfly; I root.
Nights of storm-slapped branches
unfurl orchestrated by wind –
How the maple now dangles leaves like earrings
from the tips of the smallest twigs.
Tomorrow they will open
to palm the morning breeze
and welcome the spears of Lilly of the Valley,
as they emerge overnight beneath the mother tree.
The deer have eaten the tender,
green, tongue-rolled, delights of Hosta and Day Lily,
but they are stalwart plants and will return.
I’ve watched and watched but not seen the deer
though I have seen their bedding spots
among the mulch beneath the maple
in the winter and their hoof
prints in the snow.
Today, I will watch
temperatures are rising
and soon there will be
lilacs.
First Published in Latchkey Tales 2014
Categories:
sheaf, beauty, blessing,
Form:
Free verse
Attack the clutter
In the attic pieces of life
And bits of me
So much clutter, sorting through
Old letters flutter
Unwanted, unread
Daring me to show I care
To reach through time
So dust-dimmed ink
Can speak again.
“Into the sack with you.
I have a job to do”
There’s all this papier maché
A flaming crown with snake entwined
I was the wicked queen
One Halloween
Daniel was a devil
Here are his horns
And a tail in a paper bag
Too good to throw
But this other stuff can go.
Made from the Financial Times
Significantly pink, a gun
So many things begun
I mutter “So long, adieu
This day of clearing clutter
Is so long overdue”
Now that could be a poem
And, right on cue
From a stack of boxes
A sheaf of paper slithers down
Littering the floor
I gather up the poems
Like a gleaner in the field
Picking out choice phrases
And, sitting among the boxes
I read them all
then put them back
Old photographs reproach me
Unsorted, stuffed in envelopes
Waiting for something
Or someone
Who never came
Adieu adieu
Wait, here’s a name
“To Mary
With love from Freddy.
I am in the back row
Second from left”
A group of smiling boys
Dressed as soldiers
Captured
By the camera’s shutter
A sixtieth of a second, in 1942
All dead now
adieu adieu
So much clutter
There’s so much time
Spent sorting through
And in the plan-chest
So many plans
Pause to reminisce
Remember this?
Posters made for Art School films
Drawings, prints and paintings
They call to me
But I am determined
I put them in the sack
Pieces of life and bits of me
So much clutter,
And when I’m through
I’ll have some space
To move
Adieu
Categories:
sheaf, allegory, life, nostalgia, philosophy,
Form:
Blank verse
What kind of day was it. Clean
the house. Notice the full moon.
Read a sheaf of old poems.
Listen to jazz tunes. Open mail.
Refuse to make of it more
than it was. What is it for,
don't ask. Squirrel or spider
your cares are yours to savor,
enjoy or fear. Tinnitus
of the ear, sinusitis
of the nose, bale contriteness
of the soul. Moriturus.
Consider economy
soul's eponymity.
The opening canopy
panoramic mystery.
Neither joyful nor depressed.
Not the worst and not the best.
I lived, as did my dentist.
To the east and west, the self.
Categories:
sheaf, care, day, fear, moon,
Form:
Verse
In Japan the small is much revered,
transformed within the womb of heart and mind
to grandeur never gained by those who fear
what is unseen, unsaid, what’s left behind.
A leaf, a sheaf, a treasured grief in kind
becomes a shrine the living must repair,
as is the brace of kite upon the wind
in Japan the small is much revered.
When sunk beneath the tide it disappeared
a transitory fate a watery clime.
Arise, arise, on Mother’s crust appear
transformed within the womb of heart and mind.
Birth the beauteous butterfly in time,
unite the scattered children to those dear,
and each sylvan mountainside will align
to grandeur never gained by souls who fear.
Hurl all regret aside and persevere
reform what’s torn, to budding new design.
The ghosts must wait attendance, must forebear
what is unseen, unsaid, what’s left behind.
For each bold challenge met the world cheers
Japan is a nation where ties do bind
and the fate of all will be, well shared
the youngest to the eldest of their kind
In Japan……….
Categories:
sheaf, caregiving, friendship, history, inspirational,
Form:
Rondeau Redouble
A wizened witch of wizardry,
With warts and wooden teeth,
And weird-like cries, like banshee ghosts,
Lived west of Warlock Heath.
The Heath was wet, with winds so wild,
The witch had withered wings,
With waffled edges like a bat,
Which flapped like wilting things.
She tried to wrest the winds so wild,
Her withered wings to soar,
But neither which the witch would use,
Would waft the winds galore.
And so she wished a sheaf of wheat,
To whisk her to the sky,
By whether want or willing so,
It didn't make her fly.
Alas, we wondered what she'd do,
To waltz along the wind,
To work her wicked, worldly spells,
Instead on earth be pinned.
We watched the wench with withered wings,
We watched her wilt and fall,
We wondered if she'd ever win,
We watched her hit the wall.
The worried witch had had her fill,
She wouldn't have her way,
And so she wisely weighed the odds,
And on the ground would stay.
But wait, what's that? - Was that a stick,
With wheat wound at the end?
Would that propel the wizened witch,
Upon the winds to wend?
A wonderment, a winsome way,
The wizened witch has found,
To win the battle with the wind,
And lift up off the ground.
Whenever now we walk along,
And feel the winds of gloom,
If we would see that wizened witch,
She's riding on a broom.
Categories:
sheaf, fantasy, magic, water,
Form:
Alliteration
Daisy
and nettle,
poppy petal,
willow weeds..symbol
life's deeds-
pain and
innocence,
forsaken love-
tragedy lies beneath
death's sheaf
Categories:
sheaf, death, life, love
Form:
Cinqku
Rid me of this damn corn,
the progeny of past laquered
loves, its to, its fro, they lap
like cats at milk, destroying all
Returning then to orange groves
and furnace fire/sing to me the
song of could have been, sweet
orchard’s milk and valleys
The wiry sheen below the
capstan’s turn, to anchor goes
the choking deep; all’s not well,
fifty fathoms down
Now granted pure by nature’s leap,
the sequinned, peppered snow,
from mountain’s irridesent yawning
glow, descends to us in a throw,
of sower’s hand!
Lilliput and Gulliver, side by side,
lead the band, and bring the sheaf
to altar bare: but quick!
Before the earth be dead, and all
its winsome jewels to share
Categories:
sheaf, environment,
Form:
Verse
Lithospherical clunking, zest of our navel
Tumultuous melt, fizz ridden obliquitous
Inestimably stemming, trunking, branching
Exaspergrasping for equichosis, ecliptic apotheosis
We shimmer and charade as though dwelt in strobe
Inscribing the vitroglyph, micro slinks to macro
Then back again
I sit lotus, perfecting the interlocking polygonoids of this scape
I resonate and learn over a new sheaf
A Palm Map.
Categories:
sheaf, art,
Form:
Carpe Diem
A breeze did slide in under eaves
and stirred inside the air that grieves,
my children grown my dreams have flown,
alone I sit my rocking throne.
My chair in front of window bare,
I look… but husband’s soul elsewhere.
Beneath my feet the floorboards moan,
alone I sit my rocking throne.
Each day I rock the same tic tock
and change not from my sleeping frock.
Once soft my face now turned a crone,
alone I sit my rocking throne.
The length of cobwebs measure time
they speak no secret sing no rhyme,
but air that’s stirred does tend to drone…
alone, I sit my rocking throne.
I pray to rock myself to sleep
as old-age-chains do rust with weep.
These tears from seeds of sorrows sown,
alone I sit my rocking throne.
The run of beads and crucifix
will not unfix life’s mix of tricks.
A rosary my rope and stone,
alone... I sit my rocking throne.
Of God I beg relief from grief,
unbind my mind from mortal sheaf.
This plea endures like sun bleached bone—
alone I sit my rocking throne.
Categories:
sheaf, fate, grief, irony, life,
Form:
Kyrielle