Best Sloughed Poems
For a time,
I want to shed my earthly existence
Like the sloughed skin of a snake
To rise high and still higher like a bird
To sail beyond sunset, to fly far, far away
To soar into the seamless skies
To levitate in ether, to feel weightless
To float amid twinkling stars
To collide against constellations
To tour round on a magic carpet
And dive into the oceanic depths of space
There I would build a palace
Amid the clouds to dream in peace
With none to trouble or torment
No laws of gravity should pull me down
Let me rest awhile in that magic kingdom
Not for ever, but for a little while
To look down from that cosmic arena
And pity upon the poor earthlings
Who never realize how insignificant they are
Stuck in a blue luminous speck
Amid the vast enveloping cosmic dark
And keep sucking their habitation dry!
With all ignorance and misconceptions shed
With pearls of new knowledge garnered
With petty strife set aside, in greater humility
Finally to descend down as a better being!
May.31.2022
Poem Of the Day- June .1.2022
~Third Place Winner~
Resubmittecd for Marathon Mile.17. Poetry Contest
Sonsor- Mark Toney
Flight Poetry Contest
Sponsor- Chantelle Anne Cooke
Fancy Light (COLLAB) Dr Ram
by~ DR RAM:
Once her tumbled hair was bright with flame
That her eyes sapphire with twinkling stars
And her lips were never to be missed to kiss.
She accepted a man who offered her bounty
Knowing there was a beast in him though.
She thought he is a changed man now
And he has sloughed off the skin he wore.
As the time passed when her beauty faded......
by~ POET D:
She became one again, no longer a pair
Two strangers all over again,
Walking a path alone in her hall way.
Pleasure in the dark * alone * tonight!
A beast she became in her own world
Wakening to the morning bells of Spring
Unchained from a bounty without promise
Removing all doubt, the milk on her face begun to gain color.
A Collaboration with *Dr Ram
~MY COLLABORATION CONTEST~
My fingers grasp at the void, empty-handed...
My heart lingers at hollowness, emptied out...
reminiscent when time got wrinkled, worn
when night and day left,
and only nothing remained.
The embers of my burning words
wither into the palest of ashes,
it makes me think of dead skin cells—
they are nothing but dust
sloughed off, then piled up into dusty corners, forgotten.
Minuteness discarded, a lover’s crumbling skeleton.
A noise barrage invades my soul’s silence,
an onslaught of thought and reason—
A wailing, pounding, desert squall that drowns me,
shattering the dam of tranquility.
I plunge back into this abyss of loneliness.
Of course nobody’s there.
They have all been long gone.
And here I am, with only this vast void as my company.
It whispers, it screams
and echoes into my mind,
what they’ve all been saying all along,
that I brought this upon myself.
Maybe I did. Of course I did.
Of course I did. Maybe I did.
Back and forth, back forth it goes...
I seek sanctuary in dreams,
for it is only there that my sea of loneliness
becomes a sea of ecstatic happiness...
I seek sanctuary in dreams,
for it is only there that I am welcome.
Touch me Not! Noli me tangere.
Wake me not...
Silence has blocked your ears.
The shattering of my heart was unperceived,
so I am left alone to take extreme care of these countless shards.
I can’t afford to hurt anymore, as I have done to the others.
With my words. With my long-winding, droning and ever-boring words.
The death-inducing kind of boring.
And only nothing cared to remain.
I am left with no choice but to be one with this nothingness,
flow along its waves, imbibe it and become it. Nix.
Let me evaporate, let me join that cycle of seeming nothingness.
That nothing, that stark quiet before the storm.
Breathe deep into that void.
Inhale nothing.
Hear nothing. See nothing. Say nothing.
Then wait...
Can you feel me now?
As nothing touches you.
*** This was inspired from Catie’s “Nothing Remains”. In choosing this, in no
way am I saying that her poem needs improvement. It is brilliant as it is. I chose this poem of hers because it moved me and spoke to me. Thank you, Catie.
10181920121124p1243a
(not to take too seriously; I think I am immune
to my "enemies" by now!)
How near to us are foes we can’t resist
when cells, like terrorists that we can’t see
accumulate! What parasites exist
within our very homes! We can’t be free
of them, and even the perfectionist
can’t rid his castle of the enemy.
They have no need of camouflage. They breed,
for on those cells sloughed off our skin they feed!
Though microscopic, they are numberless.
For those with allergies, the “mighty” mite
can wreak some damage. Nasty, they possess
the air we breathe, the beds we use at night!
And they will never simply evanesce. . .
To kill them off requires a constant fight,
but no one, sadly, perfectly defeats
them, even vacuuming and changing sheets!
Inside the fridge, on counters, in the sink
lurk others. Do not be too much at ease.
The very sponge you’re using, which you think
is helping, could be spreading a disease!
Who knows what swarms in water that we drink,
on spinach leaves or just a piece of cheese?
How fleet is time; how bleak to have to spend
it on a war we know will never end!
Fancy Light - A collaboration
Fancy Light - Dr Ram -
Fancy Light (COLLAB) Dr Ram
by~ DR RAM:
Once her tumbled hair was bright with flame
That her eyes sapphire with twinkling stars
And her lips were never to be missed to kiss.
She accepted a man who offered her bounty
Knowing there was a beast in him though.
She thought he is a changed man now
And he has sloughed off the skin he wore.
As the time passed when her beauty faded......
by~ POET D:
She became one again, no longer a pair
Two strangers all over again,
Walking a path alone in her hall way.
Pleasure in the dark * alone * tonight!
A beast she became in her own world
Wakening to the morning bells of Spring
Unchained from a bounty without promise
Removing all doubt, the milk on her face begun to gain color.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I have reposted the poem a collaboration between me and P.D
sometime in Sept.2011. I dedicate my part of the poem to you sweet Linda.
First Place win
Contest: That's All Folks by P.D.
A Collaboration with * P.D.
Fifth Place win in the contest:
~MY COLLABORATION CONTEST~
"free from conditioned belief
no agenda on our shelf
vibrant as the light of Self
life flows on all by itself”
- Unseeking Seeker
All I wish is to be my genuine self
Free of all agenda, unshackled and free,
And flowing like a winding river
Over shoals, crags and boulders,
Carving its slithering way to the destination,
Until it merges with the mighty ocean.
There’s so much freedom in my roaming.
I don’t have to put on appearances,
Or don a mask, but be original
No agenda to follow, no canons to obey
I can live listening to the gentle dictates of my soul
Guided by the inner light burning in me
Glowing like a lamp in the night
With the oil, poured to feed on.
Retain my natural state without embellishments
Experience the unadulterated joy of being me
Renewing now and then, leaving aside
Old conformities like the sloughed skin of a snake.
I don’t have any deadlines to meet.
Like a square peg in a round hole,
I don’t have to struggle to fit in,
But accepting myself as I am.
I want to travel light, never letting the weight,
Of the world hang heavy on my shoulders.
I don’t desire for any laurels or badges
I don’t wish to fall victim to the numbing
Or dumbing cravings for power, wealth or fame
Never allow any hankering that plagues the soul
And muddle the mind with a desire to see my name
Placed in the list of victors of the world.
All I wish is to build bridges between man and man
Speak the language that connects one to the other
See everything as God’s gift and thank Him for it.
Love, laugh, live and let live, cherishing myself and others!
Nautdah
Nautdah, they called you,
In your real life they named you,
When you knew yourself,
When you lived out on the unforgiving plains.
As Nautdah, Comanche captive,
You Became Comanche;
Leaving behind the girl
Who was Cynthia Parker
Sloughed off like an ill-fitted skin.
You gave birth
To their greatest leader, Quanah
In a field of wildflowers on the Texas plain;
Forsook your language and embraced
That century of blood and pain
For the sake of a people who's way was dying
Even as you butchered bison on the endless sea of grass.
They recaptured you and made you a monument to what their wildness
Had made of you:
A woman of the Elements, a woman who would not be cowed
By the conventions of her time;
A woman who would never cease
Trying to return to the people to whom she really belonged,
To the people who belonged to the Sky, the Earth, the Wild Horses.
Before Quanah died, having lived with his feet in both Worlds,
He arranged to have your bones interred near his,
Where the two of you could lie together
To dream of wildflowers, and Freedom.
A year ahead my skull was taken by a diatribe- storm
Her face formed a bead in an invisible dorm
That was right I did feel with a warm wet street
They pressed their seeds into salamander kit
The first thing I did hate; “No, it was not norm”
I smelled a smell of thunder -short and thick
Played all knotty fingers a leprechaun trick
I went to the Iron Gate, the colour I must hate
Of that crippled stuff in me I shouldn’t overrate
And stopped the nerve’s cabal with an assassin snick
They said the sound of screech was a ratty speech
In the corner of a lizard and spider-web rich
Dumpled up near the bed with stiletto-eyes
To the bargain, my demon -self began to rise
My scroop and the shadow spoke each to each
I did nothing to spoil the fight; I did know I was right
I was cool in the argumentative pool while I was in flight
The moon-baked night shed her chill over the Carolyn Hill
In the jungles of cops, thousands of mops and the forgotten shrill
I did know in sloughed snow that it was not a stage fright.
I had my last straw to catch, darkness shrouded my face
Salt in blood played a evening tune, "I'm sure I have lost my space"
Now a derelict soul a barge I had nobody to embrace.
I could vanish without a trace but a crash and burn
Of thousand nights and summer wing's run
Had made me a shallow drone with a zip gun.
© Rajat Kanti Chakrabarty
13 th October,2014
Into space, a rammed ship the passing Star spewed.
Feverish, life into its bowels forever doomed.
Survival hopes by a tumefying Sun aerified.
The void, blindly the last ship hopefully roved.
About a new demesne the space travellers were excited.
From afar a blue planet, with alleviation, they sighted.
Secretly nearing, at dawn they furtively on the planet landed.
A new chapter in their civilization they had just started.
‘What a Shangri-la!’ bewitched, they all exclaimed.
Vast, green meadows that no horizon limited.
Here and there by splashes of color patched.
That small, clean springs generously watered.
The commander under the charm stooping.
‘ look ! Life in here is pullulating.
Each creature, its task dutifully executing.
Listen! Their sprightliness they are serenading.
It must be good to live here.’
Somewhere in the wild alarmed Geese ominously cackled.
A hellish plan the artful Aliens concocted.
Under human skin they concealed.
With unaware Earthlings they mingled.
Unnoticed, power they gradually gained.
Up the ladders they patiently climbed.
Ultimately, human fate in their hands they grasped.
The worldlings’ minds they totally captured.
With treasure and pleasure they baited
Vice and decadence in tellurians they reared.
Race inequalities they first prophesied.
Hate and disdain they tacitly stirred.
Family haleness they second attacked.
Males and females they confused.
Their innate assets they crucified.
Looseness and profligacy they skillfully preached
Rejuvenation off households sloughed.
ROBINS DESERTED THE SKY.
A rippling of shivered skin
Convulsing tides of sweat
Induced spasms of chaotic
Visions of cataclysmic madness
Choking down pharmaceutical
Faith in medicinal fists, full
Of killers
Of pain
Where writhing in torsions of hotness
Lapse fleetingly into delicious
Snatches of delusional sleep and
Dream; among corpses of influenza victims
Laid bare by blinding
Headaches splitting
Muscle mucus into
Coughing fits of
Laughter why me
To peel apart the cocoon
Of a drug sloughed illness
Where the silhouette of humanity
Sings your recovery
Over a beaten body
28 August 2014
This poem was inspired by the interviews by Earl K. Pollon and S. S. Matheson conducted with native Sekanni peoples who were negatively effected by the flooding of their communal homelands by the building of the W.A.C. Bennett Dam. “This Was Our Valley” tells that story of injustice. 640 square miles of riverfront and hunting territory would be flooded to form Williston Lake. The Sekanni peoples were driven from their ancestral homeland in northeastern British Columbia, Canada and dispersed.
The Shopping Cart Injustice
People, place and spirit
All were our relations
Biopeds, quadrupeds, winged or finned -
River language told us so.
Fishing rocks spoke the run
Where the riffles and the rapids talked.
Ancestors, dead and alive, told living stories where
Running the river banks, the children played.
The land was a book written in forms.
We made our mark with love, community
Fishing weirs, aspen dugout canoes,
Hunting trails, camps and sacred sites.
Always traders, we traded furs with
White settlers when they arrived
On the rivers Parsnip, Finlay and Peace at
Finlay Forks, Fort Grahame, Fort McLeod.
We added pack trains, teams of pack horses
River freighters, flat bottom ‘longboats’
For supplies and for mail delivery.
It seemed that we could live together.
Then one day a government agent said
That shopping carts were coming
They would flood our world
Water rising everywhere
Shopping carts with electric can openers
Full, fast to check out,
Shopping carts with electric hair blowers,
Full, faster to check out,
Shopping carts with electric air conditioners,
Full, fastest to check out
Shopping carts with electric stoves.
Check out, check out, check out.
They would make our rivers into a lake
We would move or drown.
Our elders did not believe it.
That was the only consultations!
Soon Saskatoon berries all under water
Next, the banks sloughed back to graveyards
Next, cliffs crumbled, and banks fell into rising lake
Houses of the villages slipped and floated
Coffins, bones and bodies strewed the shore
Where tangled trees, debris and more
Eddied with flotsam in the wind.
We wept for our ancestors!
We weep for our children.
We had to flee the destruction
Caused by tree grinders, D-9 bull dozers
The dam construction.
Now they want to take more
Another dam for more shopping carts.
Please stop Site ‘C’.
Bottomless slumber, tumbling,
Like a babe down the stair.
You sloughed off your wrinkly skin,
To iron out the wear.
The ugliest vestigial uterus,
Swallowed me up like a pill.
And I writhed inside as she opened wide,
And reached in to keep me still.
I slept for many a year, and then no more;
My eyes oozed off; my consciousness died.
And I was blind until I saw her;
She spat me out, and I mindlessly cried.
Pink and raw and ******l,
Her eyes bugged out of her head.
She swathed me in her sticky flesh,
And sent me off to bed.
Tumbled hair eyes sapphire with twinkling stars
Never to be missed to kiss were her pouty lips.
She accepted a man who offered her bounties.
Knowing there was a beast in him though.
She thought he is now a man changed
The skin he wore has been sloughed off.
As the time passed when her beauty faded.
She had to comb her hair artfully
Embellishing her neck & wrists with jewellery
But, alas! No semblance of the girl she was.
The heavy steps in the night she used to hear
With creaking sounds of the wooden stairs
Leading but to the bedroom of her daughter.
She broke loose one day to silence those steps.
=============================
Dr. Ram Mehta
Contest: Any poem goes
4th place win
By: Jeremy Aguire
Contest: Build Your Own Sand Contest
Date: 09/17/2013
I didn't measure up.
Within your plans, I wasn't enough.
My life was sloughed.
Back to the pencil and I'm rebuffed.
Now I've been scuffed.
These are imperfect stains,
They're complicated and they're erased.
You've scraped against my grain.
I was replaced just to imitate,
a chosen face.
You had to finish me,
covered in sawdust of apathy.
You've made a standard theme,
a clone life built up by makeshift beams,
your twisted dreams.
I am the centerpiece,
of your imperfect philosophies.
Humiliation cease!
Bring back my sanded identity,
my tendencies.
Please pry me off and toss.
I'm not that man that you thought I was.
Your sense of right is lost,
and there's other beams to look across,
another cause.
Our minds like leaves
Fall in brown and gold
Flickered green light
Before winds changed the old
Peel of skin
To dry lignin.
Thoughts sloughed and chafed
To hold a name in the safe
Crutch of a swaying branch;
The proper term
For things in the discourse of disciplines
Or a shifting season
That make the deep sap
Flows sluggish, and stop
The loquacious tongue.
Youth is past.
Memory is a leaf
It turns in the Fall.
Gravity touches everything with grief.