Best Smudges Poems
I write each letter by hand in careful cursive.
I want every sentence to be pretty,
to look feminine and delicate -
to soften the ugliness you face everyday.
After each line, I let the ink dry.
You don't deserve smudges.
You don't deserve any of this.
My words are foolish,
full of meaningless descriptions
of meaningless events.
But I can't sit here at this polished desk -
in this cozy room in this quiet house
on this peaceful street
and write what I'm really thinking.
I can't be selfish.
So I keep writing my careful cursive
on my pretty stationary.
I keep sending my meaningless letters
into the ugly world - to wherever you are.
And no matter how many times
I open the mailbox, I'm never prepared
for that hideous stamp,
that heartless phrase:
"Return to Sender."
Written: 1/27/2013
For Michael's "Boomerang" contest
Goth mood’s not right, not bright enough.
Fountain of sea, rapt in darkness.
Crepuscular ink blocks sunlight.
The cursive waves doth strain the wrist.
Fa-la-la rhymes, leaping and lowing.
Counting the black sheep - times not slowing.
Fountain of sea, deep in darkness.
Coarse keys, ivory black, musing.
The cursive waves doth strain the wrist.
Resist of playful sounds - thirsting.
Fa-la-la rhymes, leaping and lowing.
Counting the black sheep - times not slowing.
Coarse keys, ivory black, musing,
and refusing to budge - lines spurn.
Resist of playful sounds - thirsting.
The burn hisses and squeals; smudges.
Fa-la-la rhymes, leaping and lowing.
Counting the black sheep - times not slowing.
And refusing to budge, lines spurn.
Crepuscular ink blocks sunlight.
The burn hisses and squeals; smudges.
Goth mood’s not right, not bright enough.
Crimson's luster illuminates a brilliant bead
satin strokes of beauty a bottle bleeds
scratch softly across this barren chest
and along with moonbeams shall you rest
Silver streaks of goodness held in place
passion's pure pleasure soon will trace
circle past tiny smudges born in haste
where one more night we shan't waste
Starlit moments soar as solace sleeps
dear reflection of radiance forever keeps
in gentle arms of hope true love is staged
consoling promises from battle's waged
Alabaster bursts of heaven gently weave
Another night in comfort we shall receive
I am a super duper Gerber Baby
all I love to do is wee- wee
winning all the attention of my mommy
so that all day long, she’ll stay beside me
I love to loudly fart and burp
after taking my Gerber Baby Foods prepared by dad
all my tiny fingers in my mouth as I give them a crunchy baby’s laugh
they both run to give me their sweetest kisses and hugs
Oh, how I love to wear my soft baby’s diaper
I walk around my crib producing sounds, “ mmma pppa brrrr brrrrrr”
please bathe me in my lovely little bath tub or wash
the smudges of my “ poop” now I feel them on my ass
How I love to be an adorable baby
no problem yet nor worry
all I have to do is drink milk and sleep the whole night or day
cuddled in the loving arms of my mommy and daddy
In my cozy crib are colorful toys
feeling like sitting over the rainbow with so much joy
my picture books are scattered all around
I pretend to read them smartly as I look at the picture of a clown
Jan. 27, 2012
First Place
Contest: Gerber Baby (poem contest)
Judged: 2/1/2013
Sponsor: Greatest Poet, Linda/PD
First Place
Contest: #1 Poem Only
Judged: 17/13/13
Sponsor: My dearest Poet sis, Linda
The smoke is a question mark...
My view of you is covered in gray
You pause, look back, then walk away
You’ve neglected to open your umbrella…
Tomorrow, under a different sky
I will listen to the songs of yesterday
The world leaves behind a sign language for broken hearts
It is cloudy, it is beginning to rain…
Goodbyes are bitter ales we drank today
I look again, through the smudges of the day
We are going to leave behind a trail of smoke
A sound like a tired mother calling in her child
The train whistle rings in the dusk
I take a last look through the window
I have said my goodbyes
The train begins to move
We are leaving the station platform
Tears weep down the window
Spilling over the imprints of my hand
I found myself dry eyed and my throat too tight to speak
Finding a place to put the carry-ons
People are chatting, settling in
Happy, excited, anxious to be departing
A thin straight lift and a gray, silvery curve
Like a sickle for harvesting the first star…
The smoke is a question mark
___________________________________________
"Write A Backwards Poem"
Blessed are those that before already knew
the living ark for in him they
found Heaven one day Boo.
His light casts no shadows — it goes right thru,
all tears will be wiped away in
God’s Heaven one day Boo.
Angelic songs comfort animals too,
nothing will ever die again
in Heaven one day Boo.
Find sweet Smudges among the flowers blue
and tell her mother is coming
to Heaven one day Boo.
I have already started to miss you,
tomorrow always comes too soon,
til Heaven one day Boo.
She is not defined by poetry alone
born a dreamer in a realist family of drones
they made her adept, at many things ;
Patchwork designs of beauty she did make
with quilted fingers of youth and vigorous eye
Lattice thoughts that mounted to the sky
were crushed by patriarchal smudges
still, she balanced the beam and walked
on a tightrope everyday singing out her song
of sweet belong ;
Dipping her tears in the quiet lake of solitude.
she heard the soul quake "Bring it home girl "
and so she did. Picking up her favorite pen
she hid in her room and practiced her
signature until it flourished without grit.
No she is not defined by poetry alone
but, she sure knows how to bring it home.
Dec. 23, 2018
Sponsor: John Hamilton
Contest: you are not defined by
I am at the edge of nowhere.
Salty tears slowly
Dribble down my hollow cheeks.
Darkness is all around.
Where is the silver lining
That decorates black clouds?
Why is my spirit trapped
In a vacuum of prolonged time?
Why do I cry alone
Though all around me
I hear the cries of perished souls?
I am at the edge of nowhere
Unsure of what is or is not.
Destruction reigns supreme
Thousands of voices mute
And silence is deadly.
Insane, atrocious, vile and treacherous.
All around is smoke and darkness
Thick fog swirling all around.
I am at the edge of nowhere
My head is befuddled
Smoke smudges my sight
And echoing in my ears
Sleep will come no more:
Scattered by screams,
Violent and weird,
Echoing as I lie in darkness
Trying to achieve some sanity
Knowing none will be reaped.
10 January 2021
Home is not merely made of four walls
Home is not merely made of roof and room
Home is where the love and affection calls
And the home is where the heart can bloom.
What it needs is something to endear it
Where formally there's no one to welcome us
But where is only kind lips to cheer it
And where there is someone to love us.
Home can never be quiet, polished and neat
But where tiny smudges of fingers small on walls
Tell the stories of far more sweet
And strewn toys, tell of kids’ play and calls.
We may roam and roam places on the earth
But home, sweet home is the place of mirth.
+++
January 29, 2015
Cant lift my eyes beyond half past seven anymore
Nay! I do not wish to see...
Past hyphens and inverted commas
Lies and more catastrophe
Ambidextrous clock with appalling brevity
The second hand throws away society
Caught on the hook of an apostrophe
Hit and run humanity
With what shall I beseech thee?
Amix with soot and grime am I today
I painted me....! I mascara'd me!
Not this... warpaint for smudges
A discard of society
Sunk in dank mediocrity
Left to dream on the periphery
Sacked and sold with all their niceties
And pensioned off into obscurity
Cascading through the fingers of our hands
Groans the running Namib sands
Camel plods along ignoring facts
Dali's clock is molten wax - a mystery
Certain as Terrabyte and Megabitten memory
Omits to call- forgets to visit me
Golden are finite grains of sand, running smoothly through
The hour glass of time, tiny precious moments of reflections
Treasured gems, captured in thoughts of the shifting pages,
Of the ever turning calendar months.
Against the frosted goblet of remembrance, lie champagne
Lipstick kisses, impressions left overs of smudges residue
Of love's betrayal.
Celebrations bursting bubbles of memory, turning into frothy foam,
That slides downwards, off the empty bottle of regrets broken vows,
Of the New Year's promises sensed past.
A clicking symphony of tiffany tears, shed upon the satin pillow shams,
Dried are the rose petals of passion, cold embers burn within the
Hearth of the tender heart.
Bold is the youthful yearling, whom stands upon the Oedipus of
Emergence, strong is the inner being, a blossoms flower yielding,
Yearning to sprout, to feel the warmth of the sun's loving grace,
Yet banished beneath the weight of truth's injustice at the end.
But in hopes faith it grows, lighting up the box window pane of reality,
Climbing upwards towards the heaven's enlightenment of
Tomorrow.
Ripple do the waves of the timeless, one more waltz to dance,
Another romance to enhance with their devotional trance, a
Lingering flickering flame moves across the ocean of the broken
Hearted lover, who listens only to the music’s rheum.
Oh in desires high pitch moment of consequence does not
The innocent victim lie slain, at the footsteps of lusts threshold
Of adulthood, evergreen is the tree of the New Year, and
Loneienesses vines, creep along the life lines of the
Devotional heart.
BY: CHERYL ANNA DUNN
MY CRAZY CREATURES
This rhyme's about creatures of various sorts.
Creatures with fangs, hairy bellies and warts.
They cause lots of mischief all day long.
Mum always blames me but I’ve done nothing wrong.
These creatures are crazy. They’re not what you'd think.
Turn over the page. Find out more in a blink...
The first is Belcher. He really does stink.
He lives in the toilet and plays in the sink.
He likes to be naughty when nobody's in.
He cannot be found when you're searching for him.
Dad always moans when he sees all the stains.
I tell him it’s Belcher, “He’s done it again!”
Two thinks that she’s pretty, but really she’s not.
She has warts on her face and is covered in spots.
She has a big bottom and six hairy feet.
Her name is Ghastly. She’s really not sweet.
She steals mum’s lipstick and paints her mouth red.
She tries on her dresses, throwing clothes on the bed.
As soon as mum enters she’s so quick to flee.
I guess that’s why my mum always blames me.
Number three is so quiet but I know that he’s there.
He smudges my face and puts glue in my hair.
I call him Hush Monster as he follows me round,
Putting mud on my clothes without making a sound.
I aim for the paper but the pen marks my face.
Mum looks at me glumly, "You're such a disgrace."
I try to tell her that it just wasn't me.
"It was Hush monster, Mummy. Why can't you see?"
The worst of them all is a creature called Doom.
I'm always in trouble when he's in the room.
He often burps loudly when we're eating our food.
Mum frowns with disgust. "Now, don't be so rude!"
He cackles with laughter whilst spilling my drink.
"Be careful," shouts dad. "Don't you ever think?"
You may well wonder why he's never been caught.
Well…he's the size of a pea and he’s very well taught.
He rolls under the sofa after doing things bad,
And I look to my parents who seem really mad.
These crazy creatures I like the best.
I’m glad I could share them with you and the rest.
Belcher, Ghastly and a monster called Hush,
Then don't forget Doom. They all make me blush.
They live in my house and like to cause bother,
Driving everyone mad, especially my mother.
They’re experts in mischief. They get me in trouble.
Now I’ll tell you a secret that may burst your bubble.
Whilst these creatures are crazy it has to be said,
They don’t really exist, “They’re all in my head!”
Wrapped in somnolent skin
Deprived
Of any sensation whatsoever.
Dispassionate,
Insensible.
Vacant eyes dissolved in smudges
Of weariness.
And behind, deep inside – a secluded life.
It should be careless.
True, it is indifferent to
Material world,
External disturbances,
Even to its own
Body – as if the body is a foster child
Molested by the malcontent
Father
Neglected by the mother who's tired
Of it all.
But inside, deep inside there is
Its preoccupation with itself.
It feels the external
But doesn't feel
As a part.
Inside life is lived
Truths are revealed.
It breeds, it grows, it protects, it nourishes itself.
It loves.
Secluded – because able to be constructed
And expanded on its own.
AND because it is in its nature
To be secluded.
Revisiting our ancestral farmhouse
I feel this certain tinge of aloneness,
Which smudges the lively remembrances
About a big clan huddled together
Under narra trees, each Sunday…a frolic kindled
By Grandpa’s recycled stories about literature,
His passion for Cole Porter’s music,
And the grace of old jazzy temperament…
Oh, we would feast on homemade shrimp balls ,
Roasted calf, an array of fragrant tarts
While infants and elders jiggled
Under the chain-link glow of skyscape,
Where my childhood, teen-hood heart
Pulsed, was even fed with many a summers’ delight.
Then…in a dash, this rustic view quelled us—
It was a terror we called a slap of reality
An impertinent fire flattening our homestead,
Just like that, like that: How bitter this pastoral thieving
A madness of doom I need not wish to recall--
Except for a torn violin retrieved among cinders
Leaning now around my grownup arms:
I kneel beneath moonshine, singing myself to sleep.
-----------------------
Remembering What You Want to Forget Contest
Sponsor: Kim Rodrigues 10/7/2018
"Poetry is just the ash"
voices clearly purged though
boldness of inky ash laden passages,
echoing that which most
words cannot convey,
pen cleanses sins & fortifies the soul
speaks in volumes of verbose spirit
weeping in smudges of tearful metaphors'
bloodied and effervescent on the page,
outpouring pathways to sentiment's reward
& emotional translations' endeavor
amid transcribed tribulations,
piercing the eye for all to seek
reflections smattered upon poetry
within prerogative's freedom
& simply usurped realities
“Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.” ? Leonard Cohen