Best Slacken Poems
soft, soft, I ring the bells
soft, the bluebells blooming
softer tho' her pleading eyes
with each breath, consuming ...
hark, hark, I call to thee
hark, so blushes morning
hearken to her linen cheek
crimson as the borning ...
haste, haste, alas the years
haste to cut the bracken
hasten to her dimming gaze
'fore the shadows slacken ...
hush, hush, I whisper yet
hush to bide the nether
hushing now, her angel voice
gone, my love ... forever.
There exists no more certain
assassin of joy than that of
anger turned within.
Guilt’s grim scepter,
harrowed mind thus firmly wields,
and this with deft uncommon,
to bring renewed complaint
at slightest urge.
Senseless ruin whose
vapid tongue hisses
only self-derision’s name,
nobility to confound.
Slacken then this twisted cord
and in its place benign regret,
for guilt condemns the soul.
Foreboding of a tempestuous storm,
it blackens as it draws near,
a cumulonimbus in towering form,
extending to the troposphere,
So cast off mooring and slacken the line,
break free while there's still time,
'cause I'll pull you under if you don't let go,
Save yourself and abandon ship,
I'll take on water and sink too quick,
in gales of winds the swells arise,
these waves will break and so will I,
Roars of thunder and screeching wind,
sheets of lightning and pelting rains,
walls of waves will batter within,
until our stability wanes,
So cast off mooring and slacken the line,
untether your heart from mine,
'cause I'll drown us both if you don't let go,
Save yourself and abandon ship,
I'm taking on water and sinking quick,
in gales of winds the swells arise,
these waves are breaking and so am I
A time to exit the race
A time to slacken the pace
A time to inter the clock
the car too – take a walk
A time to savor every bite
to eat healthy and right
A time to call on old friends
to thrill to the good times, to make amends
A time to bounce grandkids, nieces and nephews on the knee
A time to play Pattycake, Pattycake, Pretty Please
A time to treasure, like no other
with your partner, spouse, father and mother
I live where angels fear to walk
Don’t ask questions, no one’s gonna talk
Another kid’s innocence is being take
Their thirst for blood will never slacken
Love is something only found in a fairytale
But those don’t comfort, when home is spelled H E L L
Left alone for days on end
Nothing else to do but play pretend
Trying to get lost in a dream
But when that doesn’t help, all you can do is scream
I’ve called the devil by his first name
His eyes are cold, mine are the same
I live where angels fear to tread
By the time you find me, I’ll probably be dead
My reflection is too heavy to bear
alone, it’s easier to look at myself and my failures
through the amber liquid, tears
through my system, warm and sure.
You left me gracefully, lackluster
Shutting the door on us softly without a word
Void of fireworks and battle cries, with blockbuster
neglect, taking your shattered armor and rusty sword.
This battle you have won with each tip of the bottle,
in the direction of my throat is a rifle.
Will you be the trigger to my gun?
My stomach twists into slipknots.
Escape is too easy at this dangerous hour
But I am no coward and I face my
gallows though the vision of a bottleneck
to slacken the rope.
I have waited for you to
steady these trembling hands with the power of the sun.
Please stop my shaking fingers
with laugh that I miss the most.
I crushed what I could of what remained of your smiles
into the glasses I pour my vices into, just to have you around.
You shine, its easy to mistake
your human actions for a divine intervention of a false god.
My faith is weak.
Shattering with every blink,
I can see the thousands of mistakes
that I have made, and it cuts into
everything.
You cut into everything.
Shattering me after every swallow
You cut into everything.
My liquid love.
Dust rises thick with grim, sweat drips from rims
of drug-store eyes he wears to spy.
A parting of the slats, which dangle by twin hooks
This Moses at the sea
will look, and count, to see who's home, who's come, who's gone
Behind a brick façade, what makes one hide
in a beehive's nest of shopworn lives?
Where sorrow turns to peevish glue
in a Hitchcock room that feeds his fear?
Where wind says, "Come outside"!
Should he pull the string, raise the blind
maimed of grime and years? Then what? Then what?
Slacken the cord to scan the scene?
What if the wind asks, "Come outside" ?
They come and go, come and go
Who knows when or why they go
Where do they go, where do they go, where do they go go go
His breath escapes, from thin lips, pursed,
against the glass. as if rehearsed
His youth entombed by flocks of loss…
Thoughts tossed, will rise, then bounce and drift,
within the rift of fear and dread
Webbed with soot, popcorn, and tunes of
long-lost schemes, long lost dreams
He watches those who never cross
an empty hallway, disturb his peace with knocks,
or bells, or locks or smiles
Who never cross discord's threshold,
hold a dish, lend a hand or take the chance to know such cold
Wind whips the trees and claims his mind
and yells again to come outside
Sun's shaded by those leafless chances, slats that sever
all the dreams of ever after…
……and the wind screams stay inside
_____________________________________________________________________
For the contest: "Poe In Plath Style"
Sponsored By July Morning
2/11/18
The road to my backyard is long and straight
Evergreen trees abound and provide welcome shade
Home to myriad birds, butterflies and the bees
Last summer their branches were sawn off, without notice
The orgy with power-saws lasted barely a day
The trees shorn of foliage, the limbless torsos remained
To secure the safety of a VIP on a state visit
To a smog-laden metropolis, labouring hard to breathe
A few years back, we moved house to an oasis of green
But now, the storm of development is relentlessly closing in
Razing and levelling with electric saws and bull dozers
And a host of equipment used by modern day builders
Pile drivers mounted on rigs clump through the day
Unrelenting even at night, when the elusive foxes bay
Grieving in the darkness with plaintive howls
For a vanishing habitat where his endangered kin prowls
They have acquired fish farms and farmland
And even encroached on the protected wetlands
Which naturally dispose tons of city waste
In danger of destruction due to greed and haste
Truckloads of rubble are dumped every day
The pace is frenetic, even in sweltering May
Toiling hard for masters, who’ve deadlines to meet
And citizens to house, from whom votes they’ll seek
A haze of dust now covers construction sites
The pace doesn’t slacken here, even at nights
Construction materials arrive here daily by the truckloads
And given shape by workmen, as planned on drawing boards
What was once green cover and blue sky
Will be concrete monoliths, stretching up very high
With parking lots and asphalt streets
And billboards and neon signs, ready to be leased
No longer will fields of mustard flowers sway sinuously in spring
Nor ripe ears of golden corn bob gently in the wind
The sounds of frogs and crickets are a memory of the past
Songbirds have fled, deprived of their natural habitat
Slowly the memory of winter’s migratory birds will fade
Never again, the razed canopy of green, provide cooling shade
As I walk through my ravaged neighbourhood, I wonder why
Impotent rage pervades through me and I silently cry
***BEWARE***
I saw the eyes as they called for me,
I felt the nearness as she
Smiled at me,
With undying love for passionate bliss.
Carried away by the moonlight in her eyes,
"another Adam to me you are"
She whispered quietly in my listening ears,
As she drew me to her sweating, swollen,
Crystal chest..."Eve?" my conscience
Asked me within, yet overwhelmed by
Her milky fleshy lips... i ignored my conscience.
Now am deep deeper in, deepest in
Her adamant capturing Eden....
I ate her candy, really sweet and spicy,
But am no more the best among the rest.
The Eve has slacken me to a slave,
Am no more brave,
Am starting from the cradle,
Oh! my conscience...
"where are thou?
For in this hole, i hardly see the light".
FOR JOHN HECK'S POETRY CONTEST
(JADED PARTITIONS).
================================
FOR EVERY SHE AND EVERY HE, SHINE YOUR EYES, BEFORE
YOU BITE THE APPLE.
I am sailing upon open waters. The wind, in my face,
thrashes white sails and casts briny foam into flight
from churning seas. My boat is buffeted by mighty waves.
I stand at the helm with salt-stung eyes on the undulating horizon
where it blurs into storm gray sky as if a single encompassing terror.
Then I think to myself, "I cannot win this fight."
But what fight?
The wind is the wind - not my foe. I can lament the injustice
or wait for its course to change, but both of these choices,
in the end, will only serve to repel me farther from my destined port.
The fight lies within me - not without.
I choose the course, steer the rudder, and trim or slacken the sails.
So with patience - and perhaps great effort - even opposing winds
and tumultuous seas are harnessed to navigate wherever I am willing to go.
And that is living...
9/20/2016
Based on the form (and theme) of "Gone From My Sight" by the poet Henry Van Dyke
i
Rising and falling all
These while,
Do cast out your burden
Or your world keeps breaking,
You know where it pinches
Blow it out like ashes
Or it remains and scratches
You like some rashes.
ii
Today you stand on your feet
Tomorrow you fall off your feet
These come and go
Because of your uncertain decisions.
The verbal menace you mention
Are all attributes to your
Horrible reception.
iii
If you must shine then you must rise,
For in down fall you find doom,
All around,gloom,like in dark room.
Upright upright like a star...
Far above to be a star.
Apply healing curing faith,
All to keep your mind alright,
All these do,your heart will be bright.
iv
Now stand up and walk
If you please,
But if you choose to remain slacken,
Then you will have your self to blame....
The overhasty mind gets cluttered
often losing concentration,
not doing chores or things
rationally, but overloading
itself with unneccesary thinking;
it happens to me sometime,
leaving the car key inside the ignation!
Imagine my grumpy mood...
I get very skittish and to get that out,
it'll take a sleight of hand!
Once I made a delicious
barbacue chicken,
and left it on the grill
on low heat, because I liked it
well-done; I went back
and my yummy bird was gone...
the hungry sky-larks
snatched it away,
ate everything, but left
the bloody bones!
Absent-minded guy,
how can you slacken
on attending the most important things?
Sometimes you slip and shuffling
there's a chance you'll lose control...
that's when trouble comes in!
When was the last time
you scrambled off a ladder,
and landed into the coldest water of a pool?
All the kids watching...surely thought it was cool!
Another way of saving lots of money
is not excessive frugality,
absent-minded guy!
Get rid of the parsimony
and allow yourself to spend it wisely,
not forgetting to check the balance
in your checkbook...before going
on a shopping-spree!
Absent-minded guy,
be attentive and be aware of forgetfulness!
What’s this heavy weight? If I could see it,
I would launch it from my chest.
Do I not deserve a reason for cradling such a thing?
Do my shallow breaths not catch your attention?
When my arms begin to slacken,
Could you not offer a deterrent?
Do you observe me with a biased gaze?
A wry smile at your lips, for the final heave.
Tell me why I suffer, you created me,
I can not fufill a purpose that eludes me.
How many years? Can you not give me that?
Am I to stay subjugated?
When my arms begin to crumble,
Will you ready a noose in their stead?
And when that begins to splinter and break,
Will my heart be next?
Do you think it fit to anchor it to my soul,
When all else fails?
Can I get a reaction from you?
Or do my words fall flat at your feet…
Would you strike out at them to knock the wind from me?
Is that what I just felt?
Why is my load so heavy and unyielding,
When people around me breathe so freely.
Am I to balance the weight of the world?
Joy- I understand the concept,
But is that all I paid you for?
Can I not sample it, or would you cut out my tongue
And leave only the metallic taste for me to savour?
Still… You say nothing.
Well enough of your silence, now it is I who am bored.
Watch, as I free your claim of me.
If I die, I’m blessed to be rid of all.
Can you feel the strings go taught under my grasp?
Can you feel the chaos, soon to be a promise.
No longer will I let my questions be unrewarding
I gave you faith and carried your burden,
Now have it back.
long before I rolled out of bed
the shame on the bathroom
floor had dried like day old snot
winter nights we played
hockey at the dominion store parking lot
last pick, you played goalie
spring mornings, the blue
herons left their nests on the island
cast off, you followed them down the shore
summer afternoons we played red
light on macgregor's hay field
first out, your brakes never worked
falling to the cold tiles, you slipped
away as the coke turned toxic
no one saw your eyes empty
no one saw your jaw slacken
no one saw the stain spread
no one saw my baby brother cry
Pelted forth, hanging strings of moorland curtains,
Endless rains, tart and stinging nettles,
Drive the icy pitons, needles of frozen spite,
Through the scalp into the mind where it unsettles.
God, I hate this land, this patch of grub and blight,
And lachrymose faces, grimaced at their bitter sups
From cloudy glasses, smeared with last nights lipstick,
The dying dreams of women drown men in their cups.
Ah, but when the heather was young and moisture slick,
She lay with risen hems in gorse and bracken,
Below her lower belly rose the urgent scent
From the penetrative flesh so soon to slacken.
Thrown upon the graceless moors of cold descent,
Whatever garments I once held for her in moistened pockets,
Oh, if I am not to see her again, I might as bloody well
Tear my very eyes out from their sockets.