Best Shedding Poems
I've heard your whispers
in quiet moments
amongst the shedding trees of Autumn..
I walk alone our wooded path – listening
the air just as crisp as a bright-blushed Winesap
but my tears not as sweet – glistening
the wispy whispers haunting
taunting in their gentle tug
and I wonder; how easily the golden leaves let go..
with barely a breath of wind’s soft persuasion
they fall away from boughs
each descending like a fated swan
gliding circling fluttering to their end with a taffeta crinkle -
the crinkle reminiscent of a shy fire’s crackle
as they settle and nestle on the forest floor
I remember how we settled and nestled
on the rug before the fire’s supple tongues
home-made hard cider filled our mugs
made from untamed fruits
of wild trees
our flame untamed and wild too
when we were ginger-kissed
and the taste of your lips saturated mine
besotted with our nectar-like love
till satisfied cinders in the hearth serenely died..
I walk alone now with falling leaves
was it Fall who taught you how to let go so gracefully
while October’s wind trembled aspens like harp strings..?
I hear a thousand golden whispers of love
amongst the shedding trees of Autumn.
Susan Ashley
August 27, 2022
~ Second Place ~
Premiere Contest: Brian Strand Contest No 1178
Sponsor: Brian Strand
~ Second Place ~
Premiere Contest: 2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 13
Sponsor: Mark Toney
*Winesap: an American heirloom apple that ripens in October with a bright/dark red skin, a crisp texture, is aromatic and has a sweet-tart taste. Winesaps get their name due to their distinctive spicy wine-like flavor. Great for hard cider!
Photo: CU Denver News; 2020 Guide to Fall Foliage
Held unyielding in your narrow mind
is the ignorance which keeps you blind.
Building dams will only hold you back
from accepting that white is not black.
Like a slow moving, barricaded stream,
your thoughts clot like curdled cream.
Thin skin has need to slough rejection,
Your rigid stance in mirrored reflection.
Break open the dam across the estuary
that hinders your vision. It's necessary
to move in sync with malleable fluidity
instead of sputtering words of stupidity.
Shedding skin will allow you to breathe.
Release your potential from its sheathe.
Even a snake slithers out from its skin
to crawl from where it once had been.
Little is the chance you have to accept
new ideas if they are not circumspect
to the fault of having such a closed mind.
Throw off the veil that keeps you blind.
Don't become stagnant and decompose
by turning your back, continuing to oppose
any idea with which you just don't agree.
You'll drown in arrogance, acting so lordly.
Jesus came to earth as a man
but still had His divinity on show
being complete as God and man
no one had seen His like, hey hello!
Jesus loved especially three special friends
Lazarus and his two sisters were so close
their brother was ill in need of help
sent for Jesus who delays before He goes
Jesus came to raise Lazarus from the dead
but before that shows He does shed tears
His emotion was stirred proving His love
showing that His Father in heaven hears
Jesus sympathizes with our feelings
He knows how frail and feeble we are
so that when we feel fears within
our Lord draws near being not far
Jesus is God and showed Himself man
so we can know His wonderful love
shedding tears sent from heaven
today assures us Jesus is always enough
(John 11:35-"And Jesus Wept." )
“The Shedding of our Skin”
I am writing about the transition from lost now found,
Darkness to light, one being into another, death to life,
Old skin to new skin.
Its like the rejuvenation of skin
The restoring of flesh over flesh of an open wound
And that does not happen all at once but over a duration of time.
Little by little not specific, but unpredictable start to finish.
My skin was tough, tough as leather
It had to be broken in, sat and stomped on over time
It was miss-used, abused
Unappreciated, contaminated and unpurified with uncleanliness toxic substances, people, places and things.
Miss-guided with ill desires and will
But by grace my transformation had begun
Before it was to late there was a death to life ending activated
In my darkest space, In my mess
The shedding of my skin had begun
There was a shift in my ways my desires my walk and talk
My mind and heart had started to align up with the whispers of Gods divine word.
My old skin of the one-track roads, addictions, attitudes and desires.
I no longer craved or desired
My mouth was filled with affirming empowerment for myself and others.
I was able to articulate the things I felt, thought, wanted, and needed, liked and disliked.
Speaking fluent in the moments with no more hesitation or reluctancy holding my words or fear.
I am shedding my broken past of my childhood strongholds and obstacles.
Letting go of my resentments and anything that has kept me in chains.
I’ve moved from complacency to contentment with a peace and understanding I cant explain.
Compelled to be of service and good works with a drive of passion energy and love.
I AM SHEDDING
No longer stagnant in my engrafted past
Now free and flying through the fog, trauma and strongholds that once hindered me and my growth in so many ways.
Today my mind is renewed with thoughts and visions of life and light.
My new skin enables me to persevere on in faith and hope.
Trusting and dreaming of an abundant life sober and free
To properly handle and face life gratefully
Overcoming any of its obstacles that may come up against me
I am shedding with new profound revelations and abilities
My shedding has provided me with a variety of new talents and gifts.
Something that my old skin would have never allowed....
Continuing to shed “The Shedding of my Skin”
Shedding Feathers
One by Two
By Two and Three
And Three keeps shedding
because there is more,
Divine Feathers
which held and defined His soul.
He let them be White,
Paper White,
but proud as a Knight,
fighting enemies and Holy battles
on a destrier with a saddle.
He let himself be unconquered,
His Soul intact.
Many brawls and fights won
though corroding shield and armor,
a warrior with no starmer
and no history,
no claim.
Lest those feathers shed,
which claimed his immortality,
from slight gray to slate
they precariously turned.
'Here are feathers'
he somberly called his
Dear Friends,
fledging each one.
'Let me come down and drink
and give alms.
I'll soil myself and shed my feathers.'
he roared
while his friends cheered.
'I give thee my own soul'
he said almost passing out,
'to which one and two i hope you do enjoy.
My Plumage is with me No More
but forever with you evermore.'
trees shed their last leaves
a spray of mixed colors lay
strewn across my path
When ignorance and mediocrity is on display,
fancy title and salaries become proof thereby.
The incompetence to deliver is the destruction,
implementation without visions is a foolish attraction.
What makes it very clear, when too many idiots pulling the plug,
the ship will sink, regardless the excuses by this pathetic flog.
Leadership has to proof itself by sincere integrity,
or democratic politics become anarchistic misery.
The chances are that everybody stops paying the electric bill,
and those self elected wasters running for the hill.
The parliament exchanges all day long so many honors like a sugar wand,
pushing responsibilities further and further to dumbfounded stand.
Legislated arrogance creates a memory tread,
when relativities bouncing of the empty head.
When politicians and its sheep’s hunt the savage dream,
prophecies of failure are the current in the stream.
Ever since the times of enlightenment obfuscating harmonious balance
Romantic love has taken a back seat in the absurd theatre of minds
My light my mind my empathy bonds and my unconditional passion
have been shrouded in darkness have tainted romance and creation
Empiricism from the age of so called reason certainly towers over
inclinations and feelings burrows deeply and undermines emotions
Ever since Freud investigated libido and death wish attempted to
establish a science from Id’s superb battle with Ego and Oedipus
separated phallus and **** retention from sucking up oral tradition
we have been seduced by scientific dogma and lust for the vice of logic
Like Mephistopheles debating a Faustian pact with layers of devil
we pay tribute to Descartes who doubted his incredulous doubts
The clever guys investigate Philia measure orgasms and pleasure
take delight in quantifying empathy bonds hail to measurability
In perverse contradictions to faith and belief even Agape has been turned
and tossed over on spread sheets excelling in proof beyond reasonable qualms
Call me ancient and backward and taint me with the label of idealism
pour tar over my feathers hang me quarter me and try to remove my heart
Yet here it stands tall in celebration and without schism of ambivalence
transcends into every aspect of life and peace loving kindness’ compassion
Let me call it romance and pure love apart from sex and carnal desires and
let it be known that those amorous French guys in vernacular fashion
defined it as 'verse narrative' alluded to stories from creative excitement
I love you my lover and friendships adore my children like to be playful
seek kind connections and empathy do not discount altruism as a ruse
But I have this relationship with books emerge from ex libri in fancy and art
They are friends dear to my soul they talk to me evoke the whole palette
of stretching my life on a canvass of marvellous beauty and fascination
and when I engage with words and with pages they start to listen to my love
Charted performance has little place in my essence whereas reading enchants me envelops and embraces my spirits makes me whole and can’t tear me apart
I would like to thank you for your visit.
I have removed these poems for a distant future book publication.
I believe we poets, can make a difference
in this world. We live in the 21st century,
we have tools( technology), we have our past, and imagination.
We just don't have the courage, because
I guess most are afraid to fail, to loose money.
All I have to say is we can't take money with us,
when we die. I also say hasn't mankind failed enough,
and isn't mankind worth the effort, our children is worth the effort..
Thank you, and my your God Bless you
John E WordSlinger
I cannot help but feel this pain
For a man that I once knew
Now as I see him once again
My words I find are few
Separated years ago
Through fateful circumstance
Life's been a hard row to hoe
But here's another chance
To tell this man I love him
As a single tear cascades
It shows a love that will not dim
A feeling that never fades
A tear that belies all I've said
In anger through the years
The stories that were in my head
My resentment and fears
Now for this man I hardly knew
I stand here and I weep
I wish him a loving adieu
In his eternal sleep
He looks serene just lying there
Although it makes me sad
My teardrops show how much I care
As I say"good-bye Dad"
By Deb Wilson
for contest"Personify A Tear"
sponsored by HGarvey Daniel Esquire
sequestered in a
somber sepulchre
where I relinquish
dead memories
and iced nightmares
upon resting ivy,
twisted
with rotting thistle
I'm no longer
able to breathe
pulverized pain
as I shed this
stitched-on hollow skin
resuscitation under
Jupiter's moon
I found this poem at last tucked in one of my journal entries...I guess it was supposed to be a song, but I can no longer remember the tune...ah well... it was written a few years ago and it kept repeating in my head. So here it eeeessssss...... :-P Jan. 4, 2008
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I cry for help there's no reply
I know that I'm alone once more
I hope, I wait, I pray, I cry
kneeling to the bloodstained floor
The blood I shed for your dark fate
Is nothing that can be repaid
For the love you gave so true...so pure
That now seems nothing anymore
I long to hear your steady breathing
My head pressed against your chest
To hear your heart slowly beating
Never hesitating to rest
(those days are gone...)
The blood I shed for your dark fate
Is nothing that can be repaid
For the love you gave so true...so pure
That now seems nothing anymore
Now I wait in this dark room
Hoping you will come to free me
Hearing whispers in the gloom
Cold breath brushing right behind me
(can it be you?)
The tears I shed for your dark fate
Is nothing that can be repaid
For the love you gave so true...so pure
That now seems nothing anymore
Trees shed their leaves in the fall, like old skin.
All living things must shed and renew; leaves, fur, skin; nothing lasts forever.
In Spring, they’ll birth little green ones; then we’ll hear them sing in the breeze.
When will I realize that I'm not normal
People don't think or feel the way I do
It's ok. I will shed my past, like all snakes
Growth requires they shed their skin
Energy from the,' Year of the Snake' 2025
With this energy I will let the past go
Expectations need to be left behind
The skin holding me back in Life I made
Holding on to negativity true or not
Anger, Loss of a Child, Heartbreak, Guilt
Regret, Shame, Failures, even Success
Abuse, Addiction, Traumas all my life
All of that formed a thick skin
A protective shield from the World
Now it holds me back in growth
Remembering and finding Forgiveness
For everything even, the little things
Makes it possible to Shed old skin
Emerging to a life without limits
Becoming who I was born to be
A beacon of light for all the World
SHEDDING THE PAST
A shredding machine would come in handy
Regret simply vanish via this modus-operandi
Some people are able to never look back
Most of us ponder how we went off track
These thoughts can haunt and cripple us
Preoccupied with past—joy becomes rust
God never requests we check rear-view mirrors
Lamenting all shortcomings and imagined errors
Rest in the present looking forward with hope
Nothing in our past thwarts Gods vast scope