Best Shrouded Poems
Rippling waters moving
feeling hypnotically soothing
under our boat it rocks us
under its spell it locks us
misty fog slightly breezing
dampening the salty air we’re breathing
over our shoulders it shrouds us
silhouetting the masts around us
rippling waters moving
feeling hypnotically soothing
its rhythmic ride tells us
to give in and let it lull us
moody night skies
reveal nothing to our eyes
not the light of the moon or a star
but secrecy’s a seductress where we are
rippling waters moving
feeling hypnotically soothing
sultry sway hypnotizes us
as Eros glamorizes us
Susan Ashley
May 17, 2019
*In Greek mythology, Eros is the Greek god of love.*
Muffled dialogue ennui sequestered intimacy so distant,
smothered in ebbing surreptitious fantasy.
Musing how close is close?
Shh, surrender silent sorrows.
Subconsciously slip into stillness,
sedately surrounded in serenity's song.
Slumber satisfied, slithering softly between
silky soap scented sanitized sheets.
Soak up summaries of summers spent splashing at
seashores, sandles sifting through salt scented sand,
as sapphire skies shine splendidly.
Scores of silver seagulls soar stunningly
above saltwater seaweed scenery.
Suddenly snorkeling with seahorses,
you somehow become the studied subject.
Swimming in submarine schools, scarcely secluded,
you become someone's significant someone.
Spryly spinning synchronously side by side
someone special, sprinkled in sentimentality,
speaking shrouded sounds,
you shift seamlessly into sound sleep.
"Speak some sense slower," some seahorse shrieks.
Sensibly speak shrouded sounds slower, softer,
so she can sleep sometime soon.
2/9/2020
Hermia and Helena are ready to fight each other.
The same can be said for Demetrius and Lysander.
To keep this party of four from throwing a fist,
I will cover them all with a thick morning mist.
They will fruitlessly chase each other without a doubt.
Each one will fall asleep when they are all tired out.
Based on the play "A Midsummer Night's Dream" by William Shakespeare
Copyright © 2011 #307
9/Apr/2011 (0110hrs)
Dedicated to all Special Operations' Operatives Worldwide
Teams of Operators prepared for the call
honed and strong willed standing tall.
Shadows moving fearlessly in distant nights
these spirits never falter from death’s sight.
Back home, they’re not in headlines
etched in time behind foreign lines.
Year long deployments, and some dead
shrouded in secrecy the headlines read.
Seemed forever, did their loved ones wait
not sure of their Warrior’s return or fate.
Suddenly, from a sleepless night
shuddering from dream’s fright.
Hearing that doorbell ring
unsure of what it’ll bring.
One Warrior is finally home
downrange another gone.
Their Badge of Courage within,
carried with them until the end.
by: LP
April 9, 2011
shrub plants dot the sand
a quarter man stumbles.root.
the foot aches.now be
Shrouded in grey, summer storms seem mundane;
till wet leaves turn shades of emerald green:
ordinary's, redefined by the rain.
The lion roars; clouds morph into its mane,
and lightning flashes streak across the scene:
shrouded in grey, summer storms seem mundane.
Gusting winds spin a rusty weather vane,
testing the sturdiness of Man's machine;
ordinary's, redefined by the rain.
The river rises as soggy slopes drain
and electrified air smells ozone-clean:
shrouded in grey, summer storms seem mundane.
As the clouds disperse, a few drops remain,
and the leaves on the trees retain their sheen;
ordinary's, redefined by the rain.
The monstrous storm, once depleted and slain,
sullied skies shift back to aquamarine.
Shrouded in grey, summer storms seem mundane;
ordinary's, redefined by the rain.
Herein, laying dormant,
veils of reposed
secrecy 'neath
foamy seascapes'
frenetic passages,
languishing below
sunken treasures'
false facades of
reticently rolling
shrouded bluffs,
shaded of darkly impetuous
hued blood in
unceremoniously
bound convolutions,
a million ancient
undisclosed shadows hidden,
notwithstanding combative
rumblings of death's
unwelcome sycophancy,
depths of centuries'
old unparalleled stories,
whence hush-hush
undulatory influx
of defiant upsurges
and turbulence reside,
that of which only the
winds of indiscretion,
clandestine spirits
& gods could surmise
...whilst privileged moons watch over amaranthine skeletons
In a world shrouded in the mist of memories, time unravels like a silk thread
caught between the fingers of a hand trembling under the weight of the past, and I wonder who I was
and who I will never be again, for as moments slip away, I become a stranger
to my own story, a shadow that light no longer recognizes, lost
in the echo of a voice resounding from the abyss of times past, like a forgotten song.
What I had and will never have again, what I felt and will never feel,
for the love of yesteryear is now an extinguished star in the sky of my soul,
and the dead who loved me when I was a child are today just whispers in the cold wind
of memory, shadows dancing on the edge of a river of forgetfulness, and when I think
of them, my entire being chills as if I were an ice island adrift
on the ocean of time, without anchor, without lighthouse.
I feel like an exile from every heart, a lonely soul wandering
through the night of my own self, searching for that lost warmth that will never return,
and I cry out like a beggar at the closed silence of every door, seemingly seeking
an escape from the labyrinth of melancholy, but only the echo of my steps resounds in the darkness,
accompanying the unseen tears born from the longing to rediscover that lost world.
In this flow of thoughts and sensations, I return always to the same images,
the same beloved faces that are now just shadows and dreams, and I wonder if I will ever find
the way back to that lost innocence, to those days when the future
was just a promise and not a burden, when my heart knew neither the weight of regrets
nor the bitter taste of lost time, and thus I continue to search, to hope, to weep.
Early daybreak
The mountainous areas
Still shrouded in mist
The sceneries cloaked
The surroundings look ghostly misty
Sunrays blocked
By mountains and trees
Difficult to see the road ahead
With the car's light on
A thick light
Penetrates through the mist
To give us some clear views
Before the mist finally lifted
By the sunrays
The mist just looks like
The evils and sordid affairs
In the existing world
Blocking our views
Only with light like wisdom
We can be saved
From all these illusions and fallacies
Perhaps too often... we give up in life
Perhaps too often... we thought we could've done
Too often... if only we could be precise
Yet precision isn't only for champions to shun
We can always do so much more
Why the withdrawal... why the refrain?
We grew to robotically ignore
And to automatically push the blame
I do not think the many centuries has taught us well
I do not think the modernize world can change an innate captivity
The word simple simply no longer spells
The much ask for yet unattainable simplicity
We ask for love only to be too selfish too share
Yet we do share only if beneficial in absolute secrecy
We have a need to be nice not that we dare
We can't just be nice in this world of shrouded decency
Too often... much more we could've done
Too often yet...its much easier giving up in life
As bearers of our own uncovering truth we shun
We further cover with deceits to thoughtlessly survive
Moon was alike a diamond ring,
All thru the previous night.
She now unveils her flawless rear cling,
When uttering the world in sight.
Pale moon emerged from dark cloud,
Like a deep ethereal sight.
It soars at dawn and dark sky, proud,
It yields a harsh glare and faint light.
Moon on my bed jolts me awake,
Deemed the earth ready-shake.
Lush lovers are set by full moon,
It will be visible, soon.
Written: July 16, 2022
3rd Place Contest Win.
Subject: 4. The pale moon emerged from dark clouds
One In Five 2 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Joseph May
So I guess that I'm defeated
or will you tell them i retreated
Back to my own world I created
because this one is overrated
I've seen my share of peaks and valleys
been through corn fields and dark alleys
Everywhere I've been seems to teach me something new
and if I can say nothing else at least I can say I grew
And this growth in me continues now
never stopping, not sure how
Perspective gained through living everyday
and with all this new perspective I can pave my own way
But I find myself giving advice that I could never follow
I tell my friend be whole, while I let myself stay hollow
And I'm shrouded in hypocrisy
until i can find the rest of me
On the splendorous crown of my curtained heart,
shimmering amidst the tinsels of the cerulean night,
you gleamed suffused with the sequins of the silver moon.
I tried to feel the tempting touch of your elusive charisma,
but you glided away out of my sight like the autumn cloud,
across my articulated sky I had carved only for you.
Down the verdant vale following my cascading heart,
your footprints traced the turquoise trail of longing.
As I walked on the deserted garden path going nowhere,
the remains of my love glowed in wilderness, I discerned,
enthralled in the mesmeric embrace of the moon dust,
drizzling with the patina of your grace, I saw veiled.
From the ebony edge of the opaque night falling stealthily,
storm clouds surged with flashing thunders of tearing strife,
splintered the screen of my sky studded with shards of dream.
From beneath the dispersed debris of draped desolation,
I gathered the yearning fragments of my shrouded heart.
December 23. 2020
Contest : Your Best Free Verse 2020
Sponsor : John Hamilton
Yesterday's passing drifted shadow
Added to our eclectic collected hoards
A bittersweet cocktail of events and instances
Confined captured and tangled cobwebbed corridors
Of to the limbic labyrinth
The older the memory
The darker the recesses
The further back filed and stored
Within the canyon of the catacombs
Where piled high-skeletonised cognitions and permutations
Reside resulting in a sea of feelings and emotions
Getting deeper as time the thief moves on
Some memories are unwelcomed and dislike to visit
Too painful to view
Are confined to the back of our minds
Reside behind locked doors marked 'No Entry''
Bolted padlocked and locked
By a lost entry key
Some doors are open wide
Not only in our minds
But also within the album of our hearts
That makes our hearts smile upon reflection
Release warm cosy spreading soothing waves
Of a deep consoling of flooding emotion
Spreading through our souls and very beings.