Best Shifting Poems
No other choice
as my shadow schemes in the sand,
lone cries on lovelorn wings give grief heart’s voice
over scorned wedding band.
Sandcastles are crumbled in undertow’s deceit,
longing and revenge; a million grains ‘neath my feet.
Avenged by briny blue’s retreat,
illusions built too closely to tide’s edge rejoice.
Susan Ashley
June 14, 2019
~ Fourth Place ~
Contest: Writing Challenge, June 2019, Crumbling Rhyme Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Dear Heart
Categories:
shifting, dark, longing, lost love,
Form:
Rhyme
Line of inquiry:
"here I am in human form, but it was not always quite so earth is not the only planet I’ve been to through past life regressions I definitely know"
Flashbacks flicker of images unknown,
wandering in gardens of cosmic scents.
Beyond this existence we're not alone,
as past is seen through Deja Vu events.
This form is only flesh and bone contents.
Soft soul knows this is no permanent home,
yearning to return where it once did roam.
In silence, spirit attempts to transcend,
farther above twilight's galactic gloam.
Travelling towards paths that never end.
Categories:
shifting, spiritual,
Form:
Dizain
(FICTION, PLEASE. It is easy for me to write in the first person, but nearly all my poems are fiction. Please don't attribute this poem to me. I loved my wife to distraction. For ten years she was sick and I cared for her like a baby. My only regret is that the ambulance which took her away would not allow me to be driven with her. I knew she would die and she would have wanted me near her despite her dementia. We were lovers. I don't know where I got this old poem of mine, but it is still fiction.)
Shifting relentless time,
sand in hourglass trickles slowly
towards its final hour.
Pretending I care not,
I bask in the sun,
enjoy mellow breezes,
I wait; the end will come.
The sky is clear, my mind is not,
in truth I am distraught,
echoes of a distant past
ripple through my futile thoughts
reminding me of your last visit.
Now you stir in your desolate grave.
My listless life is at a crossroads.
I hover in a vicious vacuum,
remember all the senseless shame,
slide after seamy slide recalled,
all your wants and needs
which I demonically and cruelly denied
despite the reparable ways,
you made my fantasies would not come true.
Now it is too late.
Frustrations tear my sinful soul,
I lie bound in a wicked web,
I'll drink my teacup of remorse
tomorrow is another curious chance:
I pray for spiritual rebirth.
Categories:
shifting, abuse, angst, betrayal, death,
Form:
Free verse
The glass once lucid
now deflects glow differently.
A chuckle clenched in the wind,
blanching and flaming.
Where were we?
Footprints echo, retreat, advance
sagging floor, missing nails.
Not long enough--
like a wheeze folding in and out,
a beam of light held in a still moment.
Sagging floor, nails missing,
steps forth, then retreat.
Where were we,
blanching and flaming,
a chuckle loosed in the wind—
now the glass, no longer lucid,
deflects the glow differently.
Categories:
shifting, memory, nostalgia, time,
Form:
Free verse
I lay me on the grassy lawn
And watch the stars, they're floating on
While one comes out from round the eaves
Across the sky another leaves
The sky is slowly shifting round
So different stars are always found
The dipper turns just like a clock
Without a sound of tick or tock
It turns about that central star
That guides the sailors from afar
While with it sails Queen Cassie's throne
And all the constellations known
Tonight's a clear and peaceful night
The moon is gone, the stars are bright
I slowly drift to seas of dreams
Alights with pinprick starlit streams
I'm thinking all the charming while
With placid face and hinting smile
That when I wake in early morn
Some different stars will be reborn
Categories:
shifting, dream, night, sea, stars,
Form:
Couplet
The Shifting sands
Kingdoms of Dunes
Desolate sands
No life. Low tide
Landfalls now twixt mud and sand
And then the seals appear
Their sad calls staying in my memory
I walk the dunes
Why am I sad?
I’ve just returned
Alive and not wounded
The girl I left behind
A friend I thought
No commitment
No declaration of love
The enemy advanced
I was hard pressed
But while in deep despair
I thought this was my end
I realised then
I loved her
But when I came to her
She’d found another
she said “Just a one night drunken stand
So ashamed
Could I forgive?”
Logic says I should
I made no promise
Nor did she
My ego’s not so sure
More seals arrive
Floundering on the mud
They call to me and say
“Forgive her? What’s to forgive?
You had no right
You do not own her.
Go to her now and beg forgiveness,
Declare your love.”
I walk the dunes
Why am I sad?
I’ve just returned
Alive and not wounded
I go to her posthaste
To beg forgiveness
“What for” she cried
“Because I turned my back in wounded pride” I said
“I have no right to judge
Can you forgive me
I love you please take me to you heart.”
Oh Joy unbounded
She forgives me
And offers me her heart
Kingdoms of Dunes
Desolate sands
No life. Except us two Low tide
Landfalls now twixt mud and sand
And then the seals appear
Their sad calls staying in our memories
We walk the dunes
I am no longer sad I’ve returned
To meet my love
Categories:
shifting, romance, sad, me, me,
Form:
Free verse
The ground rumbles, ominously, I'm on the steep side of a Mississippi River Bluff, mid-August, gathering bursting crimson red trophies of Staghorn Sumac for my favorite sumac-ade, a spright, invigorating tonic I enjoy this time of year. The smell in the air, forest-sage beginning to dry and ripen, the bitter tang of scattered paper-birch bark chimneys...must keep alert for the origins of the earthly rumble.
The unsettled earth, sweet and bitter smells...mix with my age and I sit down as if in a trance and drift asleep...harkening back to my training as a young man in a Manhattan Bagel Deli, assembling prep-stations for the customer onslaught about to descend. Proofed bagel dough, seeded and rotating in the elevator slate-shelved oven after a frothy malt-bath in the bubbling giant kettle, delectable aromas of fairly vibrating paper-sliced spiced meats and piquant aged cheeses, briny sheets of smoked lox, pots of sweetly acidic capers and luminous heirloom tomatoes...
But I'm much older now, my mind remembers, but my body can't function like it once did, I can't perform the once-easy configurations effortlessly like before.
The rumbling, just my imagination...
I awaken, gather my bunch of fluorescent sumac, which I am still able to concoct, mindful of God's Grace in my spiritual and physical evolution...He
Has Blessed me with.
8-13-20
6:03 am
Categories:
shifting, age,
Form:
Narrative
Elements need to shift if you desire transformation
You have to do things; at times in different ways
You have to be willing to try new things
Comfort can be a perfect partner though
But only if you plan to remain in the same place forever
That's the conundrum
We strive for more
But the second guessing and doubt
Hinder us
Nobody wants to remain in the same space
We all possess the potential to grow
It is just when segments shift out of our control
We panic and retract
That is the moment we revert to comfort
While change and growth is eyeing us
Just on the other side of the fog
©26062018205
Categories:
shifting, change, growth, life,
Form:
Free verse
Were I adept at shape-shifting
I would avoid shadow-lifting
And eschew re-gifting,
I would spend more time sifting
Through forms more befitting
And most likely give up babysitting!
Were I adept at shape-shifting
I think I would consider quitting,
Or at least admitting,
Shape-shifting is hair-splitting
All things possible permitting,
And take up crochet or knitting!
HONORABLE MENTION
Written May 15, 2022
Categories:
shifting, fantasy, fun, silly,
Form:
Light Verse
Proudly the white tummies purposefully sauntered forth
Orange arrow beaks decidedly pointed
Stubby feet not nearly strong enough to hold them up
Yellow mirrored eyeballs, reflecting the sun
In sheer giddiness, frightening the menfolk.
I stopped the wagon train and gave them a stern talking to.
Yes, I am the wagon master, thank you much.
And this is the Wild Venus, not the Wild West.
It is a new world, of course.
Unfortunately when I stopped them, they fell over
Onto each other’s laps, making the menfolk laugh and laugh
Making me sorry we had given them their lobotomies before we reached destination
It was the only way we knew to control their testosterone,
Of course, it was my idea, one of my worst I later discovered.
We resumed our journey after they all regained a semblance of composure
Our pet menfolk and our pet yellow-bellies.
I smiled, knowing I might have been right all along.
Women would rule the Venus colony
TVs would be banned, and no animals would be harmed
In cages or hunted or trapped or any of that nonsense.
Some other women came to my wagon that night
We formed a sing along bonfire, and we laughed and talked well until morning.
Knowing our menfolk would be more than willing to get up with the
One point two children we had allowed ourselves and our
Yellow penguin brigade.
Congratulating ourselves on our new status
Rulers of Venus, Committee of Sixteen,
Power of the Woman
In Charge Forever
Until we realized sixteen women cannot agree on anything.
Without at least one or two opinions from the yellow penguins.
That is when it all changed. And they slyly took over,
Feeding us the feminine-out-sauce that took away our will and our minds.
Well done white tummies. Well done!
Categories:
shifting, 10th grade, 11th grade,
Form:
Lyric
“Here I am in human form but it was not always quite so. Earth is not the only place I’ve been to though past life regressions definitely know.” -
Unseeking Seeker
I wish I could recall other times and
places where undoubtedly I’d been.
Beyond us are universes?
Can we even imagine
how many there might be?
My body may have
been different,
but I was
always
me.
Categories:
shifting, spiritual,
Form:
Etheree
the existence of known solubles
be they spiritual, molecular or imaginary
derivations, vain or divine
Protest
Implode
Disappear
Relinquish
Begrudge
Refuse
Rebel
Resist
Rebuke
Ignore
Mock
By chance, plot or plan
take maternity shops for example
pay phones
bill of rights?
alarm clocks
constitution?
looking up from our handheld
electronic god to greet passersbys
purge our souls
03/08/13
© All Rights Reserved
Categories:
shifting, patriotic,
Form:
Free verse
Seeing you in the soft blue
looking for the outline
I feel your quickly shifting silhouette
Watching your passing sigh
Knowing your shadows of soft shade
Feeling it tender as the moonlight
Seeing you in the flickering night
Tracing your filigree in the soft sounds
In your touch I hear heaven
At your center seeing the warmth
Of your humor seeing you
In the soft blue hue
A light that radiates from you
Categories:
shifting, allegory, allusion, art, blue,
Form:
Rhyme
Warm winds blow
Their golden grain
The sands not in charge
Off their own domain
These hills of sand
Aeolian processes form
Shifting at will
In any desert sandstorm
The shape of the dunes
You see today
Were not their shape
Yesterday
Crescentic, linear
Star and dome
Parabolic
Dune shaped homes
Masses of sand
On our continents exist
But where ever they are
The wind persists
Gobi, Namib
To name but two
These deserts of grain
Golden yellow hue
Drifting sands
Whistle in rhyme
But we will never stop
The shifting sands of time
Categories:
shifting, history, inspirational, nature, places,
Form:
Rhyme
“You've probably figured it out by now,
I am not really a human being,
my home is three whole galaxies away,
and the form that you now are seeing
“is due to the fact that my species can
sample and replicate strange DNA,
but every few weeks I have to recharge,
I'm sorry that you saw me that way.
“This image once belonged to an old man,
I touched his corpse at a funeral home,
didn't want to copy one of the living,
so I adopted his form as my own.
“I made myself look like his young self though,
felt it would be easier to fit it,
and in this form, I feel all that men do,
I know it's enough to make your head spin...”
Jenna just gasped, her mind still was reeling,
Calvin said,”Come on babe, please talk to me.”
Jenna shook her head,”How...what? No...how...why?
What you're saying...it just cannot be!”
Calvin nodded sadly,”Yes dear, it is,
but if you give me a chance to explain,
I think you'll see we're not so different,
that what drives me is a common refrain.
“You see though my people can change their shape,
most of them feel a strong need to conform,
it's even written into their own genes,
go-along-to-get-along, it's the norm.
“But I'm a genetic aberration,
excessive individual traits,
one-in-a-thousand, they lock us away,
put us down as a dangerous mistake.
“I knew once they figured what I really was
they would all be coming for my head,
rather than wait to be jailed or cut down
I stole myself a spaceship and I fled.
“I wandered the stars for three hundred years,
where I could live freely, anywhere,
but there's little life in the universe,
and intelligence is incredibly rare.
“I search to other whole galaxies,
found sentient life on time within each,
both were as tyrannical as my home,
fear no safe-haven would I ever reach.
“And when I came here to the Milky Way,
I admit I was running out of hope,
this galaxy hes less life than others,
despite the vastness of size and of scope.
“But then in a backwater spiral arm
I stumbled upon radio transmissions,
traced them back to their source, this planet,
and found a world that was truly a vision.
“I'd never seen so much life on one world,
and a species just entering space...
I landed in the ocean near Long Island,
I just had to go explore the place...
CONTINUES IN PART III.
Categories:
shifting, earth, freedom, journey, love,
Form:
Cowboy Poetry