Best Simons Poems


Premium Member Phantom At the Foot of the Bed

Normally, I'm not one to be alarmed by things that go bump in the night,
But the other night I saw something that gave me a most dreadful fright!
I awoke to make a visit to you know where (as us old guys are prone to do)!
As I lay there half asleep, a very eerie figure came into my field of view!

Still in a sleepy stupor, at the foot of the bed, I saw a spectre peering at me!
I pulled the covers over my ears yet kept one eye open so that I could see,
Who this interloper could be that so rudely interrupted my peaceful rest,
And could surely be the cause of a potentially serious cardiac arrest!

A ray of moonlight shone upon the scary apparition causing me more alarm!
My spouse was serenely snoring and I hesitated to poke her with my arm.
I moved and it advanced toward me - it was a most fearsome sight!
I saw that it had several appendages, all glowing ghostly white!

Things were looking rather grim for me on that dark and stormy night!
To make matters worse, the clock struck twelve reminding me of my plight!
The shaking of the bed and chattering of my teeth aroused my wife to wake!
I cautiously pointed to the spook that caused her to do a double take!

Now the bed was really shaking due to her uncontrollable guffaw!
She pointed out a startling fact that caused me to drop my jaw!
"You addlepated nincompoop!  From you I don't want to hear another peep!
That spook you saw was your foot so shut up and let me get back to sleep!"

Entry for Brendon J. Simons' "Hallucination" Contest

Working Mothers

Working Mothers | By: Maeve Simons |     | Category: Poem - Children Bookmark and Share
Working Mothers

Working mothers are in a class of their own.
Maintaining a house and paying off a loan. 

Schedules to follow, deadlines to be met. 
Doing it all to keep out of debt. 

Children and bosses all demanding your time.
Type this ASAP! Please just one more nursery rhyme?

Driving to the sitter, practice and school.
Your new black suit is covered in drool.

Diapers to change, clothes to mend,
buttons to sew, meetings to attend.

Doctors, dentist, teacher visits galore,
ballet lessons, soccer games and you work until four!

Your desk is cluttered with pictures of the kids.
At home your cabinets are filled with sippy cup lids.

Scratches, bruises, cuts to heal,
lately mom’s cooking is a Happy Meal ®.

Boos-boos to kiss, big hugs goodnight,
to scare away monsters, we’ll leave on the light.

There are dishes to be washed, laundry to be done,
put them aside and have some fun.

When Friday comes and your work week ends,
visit grandparents, neighbors and friends.

Go to the library, park or zoo,
you will surely meet other moms just like you.

Read to your children, teach them right from wrong,
play with them, dance with them, sing their favorite song.

Children need love, discipline and praise.
(The boss needs to be reminded of that well-deserved raise.)

Enjoy your children now for jobs come and go.
One day they’re babies and the next you’ll know.

They’re off on their own thinking fondly of the past,
trying to make all their memories last.

The rewards are grand and it is so much fun
to see your son hit his first home run,

Seeing your daughter in a pink tu-tu,
hearing those words "I love you."

When is your job done? - Never they say,
Thank goodness! This working mom would dread that day!


 
Click Here for more stories by Maeve Simons
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Premium Member What's In My Name

What’s in my name? It’s Candler,
A name as old as English tax.
If you’re of English descent, yours may be too.
Let us take a short trip back.

The Magna Carta united Englishmen,
But created a need for government.
Now, that government required some funding,
So, across the land, tax collectors were sent.

Too many Williams, Simons and Johns.
The tax collectors’ records were a mess.
Ideas were tossed around by the King’s advisors.
“Give them surnames. That would be best.”

So, if John was a carpenter,
Carpenter was assigned as his surname.
John Carpenter of Holbrook would identify
From whence his taxes came.

And so it was for all taxpaying men:
Fishers, Farmers, Smiths, and Wrights,
Thatchers, Tailors, Wellers too.
No man escaped a name and taxes…not even Knights.

So, “What’s a Candler?” you might ask.
Well, there’s more there than meets the eye;
A maker of candles seems an answer quite plain; 
But the tax collectors had other Candlers to identify.

There were also those who ‘candled’ eggs;
Held them to a candle:  are they fertile or ready to eat?
You see, a fertile egg would one day be a chicken,
To lay more eggs or provide tasty dark and white meat.

Now, if a Candler came from Holbrook,
He later may have taken Holbrook as his name;
But if he chose to stay a Candler,
We’ll likely never know which was his game.

But whether my forefathers candled eggs
Or made candles to light the eerie nights;
They survived and made their meager mark,
And I just love two over easy with toast….. by candle light.


Gecko

Did you know the Gecko cannot blink ?
No I did not, but it sounds alluring that image
Of a focused lizard reptilian in glorious intent
From hide bound tail to protruding cheeks and jowl

So I blink, too tired to contemplate the enemy who stalks
Unruly neighbor holding night long juice jointed jamborees
Where alcohol steams the atmosphere with its truth venom
Inhaling vapours that create this courage that carries cowards

Yes I will blink, sleep deprived laborer courting reluctant pens
Refusing to yield hidden gems and buried treasures like jade
And tanzanite blue rhythms that accompany melodies and dirges
Legend has it that only the cry of the lion is met with sympathy
That of the lamb actions firing coals and flaring wood piles
Eager to consume flesh of the flesh returning it to the soil
Crosses are only temporary and sting in Easter
If carried by the many Simons that dot our unholy lives
Mother was the first and most enduring taken for granted
Only Gecko’s know the patient denuding effects of focus

Turning this pages that refuse to yield riches
And daily only seem to offer me
The menses of aborted dreams

Expose of Passion

You ask me now to sum the beauty in sun's eyes
And make of love the distinction that love despise
And all figures come only to my praise of the gift
God gave to Adam, when he unreplenished, adrift
Midst loneliness and impotence, found sleep blessed
To wake and find his rib enclothed with loveliness

Would you call the virgin mother frigid, cold
Who felt God's heat and furnished men his gold
Zeus too often imitate and did not once procreate
Beyond the fiction of the mind. All flesh fornicate
That cannot yield like Mary did to quiver and moan
To bear the first command to all; all pleasures groan.

The stigma then maligns my rib and cuts my breast
For only truth is beauty in all her virgin comeliness
Undemured, undefiled, stained by circumstance, and pure
The heart aches for beauty and found in Eve no cure
Just Mary Magdala, my passion's patient bride
Goddess of the penitent, queen of desire's tide

That like the moon brings sweet glow upon my bed
She copulates with the sun, and trees that naked shed
Themselves, like arthritic Simons, pay in rich spice
To luxuriate in the pleasures of her passion and vice.
What then her breached external form a little stained
The rich stream of heaven kept not disdained.

Measure this then against rebellious Eve, who crave
Man's pleasure but disdained to concieve;  the rave
Of her autonomy to be as god, and provoked the earth
To crown an Astarte, Anat, Venus, Aphrodite as worth
To which some like Delilah or Helen made men bow
And worship in wine drenched mud the grovelling sow

Think of it, I never thought my mother panted or sweat
To shed a seed, for her purity repudiated such a threat
That I was concieved by the pleasure that first the pain
Mother is too chaste, and stainlesss all mothers remain
The mind rare permits sister or daughter expansion of gene
And yet unweb the stigma projected unto the queen

And where the stigma sits their lolls the brooding heart
Aflamed, the loins deep ocean longing to break apart
The solid rock that love strike to feed the egg athirst
The tongue languishing to bulge night's breast in verse
The hand to strip the curtain from the flesh, the skin
To meet as one, joy in joy, and love in love enmeshed.

Premium Member Grave Mistreatment

“Imagine a lovely garden, tea for two, and this story...”


GRAVE MISTREATMENT

Yeah, Doc, it really was a long time ago
But the emotional scars are still there, you know
He came into my room while I was away
And scattered things in complete disarray

Why he chose me, I still question
Perhaps just to teach others a lesson
He moved me to an empty dorm
It was like the calm before the storm

“Welcome to Jenny Barracks”, the note he left read
I'll never forget what that note said
He had classified me as a female ass
 A degrading thing, a lowly class 

I spent my nights in solitude
I was humiliated and treated rude
Every day, he'd strip my bunk 
And call me names – I felt like junk

Tossed aside like a filthy rag
For him to torment, debase, and nag
I felt it my duty to let it go on
In just three weeks, I knew I'd be gone

Nights dragged on in great despair
Why had this man put me there
Then the day of graduation came
But I would never be the same

I left Texas, bound for home
Nights of solitude were finally gone
Forty-eight years have passed on by
Yet I still have nightmares and often cry

To think someone could be so cruel
And treat another like an utter fool
Causing such hurt and emotional pain
When he himself had nothing to gain

Now, Doc, let me tell you this
I live a life that's filled with bliss
I'll not forget those days gone by
But on the nights I start to cry

My tears are never cried in vain
Jesus Christ heals all the pain
I know He hears my every plea
And I thank Him for delivering me

The things I told you made me sad
To tell the truth, they made me mad
But thank you, Doc, for listening to me
Would you care for another cup of tea

For contest sponsored by Brendan J. Simons

This is based on a conversation between a Vietnam Vet and his psychiatrist


Premium Member In the Middle of Nowhere

The highway was pitch black ahead 
and I had been driving for hours,
I was tired and my gas was low.
Then, in the distance I saw bright lights . . .
    it was a gas station and it was open!
        I pulled in and connected the gas hose,
when my tank was full-   I went inside,
there was a man organizing boxes on shelves,
    although nothing looked out of place.
        In fact, it was perfect and it was real bright!

He smiled at me with teeth dazzling
his smile seemed to me just wrong,
I'll be right with you- he chirped like a bird.
I went to the cash and waited for him . . .
    when he got behind the counter,
        he just stood there staring ahead!
I waited, then saw a sign with instructions,
if attendant not working plug in here.
    I noticed an extension cord on his back,
        so I plugged it into the wall behind him!             

Oh, that's better he chirped in his non-voice,
my battery must have gone dead.
I stared, speechless, then handed him payment.
have a nice evening Miss, he sang . . . 
    I walked back to my car puzzled,
        what to heck just happened back there!
Anyways, I drove off into the night feeling odd,
suddenly, my car was beeping that my gas was low.
    Had that been a mirage- a figment of imagination,
        was that gas station in the middle of nowhere
                                  a hallucination . . . ?

I turned my car around to go back to the station,
              but I drove for a long time and it was gone!

________________________________
March 8, 2018


Poetry/Verse/In The Middle Of Nowhere
Copyright Protected, ID 18-1002-219-01
All Rights Reserved.  Written Under Pseudonym.


Written for the contest, Hallucination
sponsor, Brendan J. Simons

Honorable Mention

Delirium Dust

Delirium Dust


In the corner of my room you’ll find many a decentralizing delirium dust
Where my mind does consume peripheral visions of malevolent distrust
Deprivations that entomb metabolic disturbances of cunning combust
Temporal lesions loom of psychotic disorders in a state of thriving thrust

I see you but can not touch thru nociceptive nightmares nurturing night
Hallucinogens that will crutch frantic neurons paleocortical penal plight
I feel you but can not clutch a dimensional dementia in a demons fright
Denunciative delusions a monstrous much external images in fetal flight

I sense you but can not taste chemoreceptic catacombs a pernicious smell
Stimuli distortions of waste proprioceptors penetrating the gates of hell
The love I give is displaced impalpable illusions within a condemned cell
The love received defaced from a schizophrenic defamatory defunct dwell.




March/11/2018
Hallucination
Sponsored by: Brendan J. Simons

The Black Hunger

Two vagabonds
With a dozen of dogs
Around the half eaten bread

A boy and a girl 
With the school bag and pink smile
The beggar boy and the pigeons look blank

Her boyfriend Collin
Has sent a letter that she
Cannot read with her darkness of illiteracy

Along with the letters
Send some light too in the envelope
Shabnam says

The hunger for the alphabet
The thirst for the sounds of music
All in the sparkling snow beyond their closed window

Through the window
In the thatch roof of the shanty
the moon laughs at and the rains soak the bed

The life remains a tattered shirt
The hungry stomach and empty mind keep filling
The multiple holes 

We seek the buds of democracy
We stoke the fires of the wars alongside
The persona at the core of the personality

With the two hands you
Loot our flowers and the carrots
The hunger of the fists never satiates

Still we wait for the morning
Some Che Guevara will come and say
Come with me for the pigeons in the blue sky

We will recognise the wall
We will demolish the deliberate divide
A  black boy will hold the hands of a white girl

The blue pigeons in every courtyard
The yellow roses without discrimination
The dreams of reading together the poetry book
__________________________________________________

April 2, 2018
For Societal Discontent - Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Brendan J. Simons

Premium Member Hale-Bopp, 1997

Hale-Bopp’s fly-by
midnight stroll St. Simons beach …
lovers gently kiss
© Mark Toney  Create an image from this poem.

Premium Member Overdrive

How pedestrian of you
not to think
outside your box

I understand
sketchy neighbourhood
being too afraid to stop

I don't mean to be insulting

pedestrian has more meanings
but not one of them
speed bump

and as you rock it
in your three ton
cozy bassinet

mind two wheels
despite your vigor is not
a speed impediment

and don't believe 
that that last text
is truly a matter of life and death


I'd rather be late in this life
than early for the next.







18.03.30

Composed for Brendan J. Simons'
Societal Discontent

Premium Member Life's Golden Rules

The National Science Foundation (NSF), 
in partnership with the Simons Foundation, 
has launched four new incubation centers 
to bring mathematical Left/Right Brain bicameral perspectives 
to the biological/ecological ZeroZone search 
for the CoOperative Rules of 
Golden WinWin EgoEcoCentric Life.

The NSF-Simons Research Centers 
for Mathematics of Complex Biological Systems 
will cooperatively explore 
how bilateral information 
encoded in DNA YangThymine
with YinHolonic Cytosine 
results in complex four-seasoned organisms 
with diverse ecoflowing habitats, 
Yang fractal forms
 
Yin-enlightening feeling functions 
and WinWin mutating co-acclimating behaviors 
when in/exformation is WinLose manipulated 
and even LoseLose competitively repressed
by changing YangUracil/YinCytosine synergy
red/green environmentally suboptimizing tipping points 
across multiple spiral dynamic time-light 

HereDeductive NowInductive co-enlightenment
SpaceTime 4D integrity conscious bilateral scales
of and for healthy-wealth optimizing futures.

Premium Member Juicy Fruit

St. Simons Island
beached Juicy Fruit gum wrapper. . .
flotsam and jetsam






***
Poetry Notes:

Juicy Fruit gum wrapper surrounded by sea foam bubbles, found 2 hours after low tide while walking on St. Simons Island beach on December 4, 2011.  Photo taken with my iPhone 5 or my iPad 4.  I can't remember which :)




Copyright © 2018 by Mark Toney. All rights reserved.
Published 2018 in "Up In Smoke" via wattpad.com
© Mark Toney  Create an image from this poem.

Premium Member To the Slanderers

Oh, the folly of words, false!
     Lies, rumors, hate, jealousy ...
          Anyone who utters or listens to gossip,
               Or takes it to heart as the truth, (forsooth),

     Is doomed to be the fodder for such themselves ...
          For by accepting its laurels and consequences,
               They are condoning the perpetuation of hearsay and falsehoods,
                    And letting others know that they're of questionable motivation,

          And highly questionable character.
               Those who believe bad things about you,
                    Simply on the word of a third party,
                         (Even those things, arrows and slings, that are in opposition

                         To the kind of person they KNOW you to be),
                    Shall be reserved their own special place of judgment.
               No mistake, the Universe is in perfect balance ...
          Chaos is simply a disguise for all that is unknown,

                    So the "friends" who smile to your face,
               But spread deceit and hatefulness behind you,
          Are not only no friends at all ...
     But are the kind of people that grease the gates of Hell ...

               The kind who shall someday find their sorry selves
          On the tip of their own vicious, spiteful spear,
     Twisting in the wind of dire consequence,
Their lies and evil intent bleeding out ...

               Into a pool of karma ... cold.




~ 2nd Place ~  in the "Karma" Poetry Contest, Line Gauthier, Sponsor.

~ 2nd Place ~  in the "Societal Discontent" Poetry Contest, Brendan J. Simons, Sponsor.

Premium Member Tell Them We Care

Killing occurs in front of kids on crowded streets
When every conflict ends in senseless violence
And fear takes stage as death becomes routine
Looking for a meaning where one does not exist

It spreads far and wide jolting every corner of life
Inside churches, schools, and spaces in between
Where unthinkable happens attacking humanity
Probing each time why guns are sold like candy

Hearing their cries, tears reign saddened eyes
Those who didn't die asking why they survived
As the nation drowns in grief one more time
Immobilized, witnessing end of innocent lives

Friends they saw that day left without goodbye
Conversations interrupted filling in the blanks
Words unsaid cower listening to heart demur
Repulsed by ugliness, clinging to solemn faith 

Protests mount louder in the halls of Congress
Students deploy eloquence to confront inaction
Hearing again falsity nation has heard before
Fear gets replaced by a resolve to find answers

Millions have been counted as vocal protesters
Speaking intelligently to challenge lawmakers
Awakening goodness of freedom loving angels
Looking for our voice, to hear how much we care

Every movement relies on the goodwill of citizens
Its success originates in a rational conversation
Decipher again the words of second amendment
Nothing there envisions a bullet ridden nation

April 1, 2018
Social justice contest by John Hamilton
Societal discontent by Brendan Simons

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