Best Snaring Poems
Do not tell me anymore of mythical mermaids lurking
In the fine gradient of the sea, eyes heavy with a snaring desire,
A monalisa smile framed on their faces or of
Sexy mermen and smiling salacious simpletons
To stereotype the smile mystery of the swahili of diani;
Their courtesy charms me like their taarab in the moonlight;
Their light-skinned women with lessos wrapped around
Their hips, flowery with petals like butterflies, carrying messages
Emblazoned in rich swahili proverbs and poetry, or in pitch-black buibui,
Silvery silk hijabs on their heads, the all encircled face radiant like sunlight,
Their disarming ubiquitous smile, proud seeming and confident
With their polite dialect even felt in the soft tread of their feet...
Swahili women do not just smile to strangers, they greet them too:
''Here we neither buy nor sell salamu, we give it for free!'' one elderly
Woman in msambweni tells me one day when I pass by, stone-faced,
A typical bara man demeanor with courtesy only reserved
For the familiar face. I feel the surge of culture shock creeping
Into my conscience, a creepy confusion like in a stormy sea;
A reflection of a sojourners new baptism. I bowed my crest-fallen face and said,
''Shikamoo mama'' she answers ''marahaba mwanangu.'' I was amused and
Warmed up by the sustained, sweet matrix of her mouth.
Their henna art is spell-binding too. Breath-taking. A love of femininity,
Seem they have all the time in the world to spruce up, to be women:
Smart, sexy, sassy, their feline grace unlocking the manacles of man;
They know their place in this man world, an aura of a social panache,
A tapestry touch of a culture that soothes the soul, a kind of social philosophy-
A humble humanity born of the light of love with life
Like fish in their natural element.Their laughter lacerate the sea,
Make marks on the beach sands, build dreams in the fine gradient
Of the waves, hearts entrenched in the soul of the sea.
My father's Roger Maris mitt
Was kept in perfect health.
It showed no wrinkles no blemishes
Nor flakes of skin.
Its limber fingers were sheathed in leather,
Its pocket was well stretched
As it yawned with each breath.
Bathed in linseed oil,
It was a dark jersey cow
As it slept like an oyster
With a pearl cradled in its palm.
My father's attention was precious as gold;
His time was well spent with little to spare.
He was my coach, he was my father
Playing catch on our field of honor.
Years passed by with a blink of an eye;
His fraying attention became unraveled
By his job, by money, his family's health
And his aging body.
His golden mitt seldom saw light;
Snaring a baseball was wishing
Upon a starless night.
With patience and compassion
My father guided my life,
By catching a baseball my self-confidence grew.
But, his life was snatched by death
His game forever ended.
He was part of my foundation
Which will never fade from sight
As long as I remember, a baseball
Caught on an autumn night.
Standing in my backyard, I see my father's mitt
Cradling me;
Like a baseball I recline
In his loving arms forever.
At dawn the bay bed glows peachy yellow.
The waters above blue-green and gleaming.
Further out a grey shroud of ripples entraps the yachts
with lace nets en-snaring a flock of hulls.
Yet farther out still, the sea surface glistens and sparkles.
Then, the bay yawns and stretches, waking up, refreshed.
The first breaths of wind seep in like fingers
grabbing to get a finger hold to pull
the windy gusts in, with big blow coming.
Soon the sea is a field of grey ripples,
which grow to wavelets lipped with flecks of white spray.
Now the yachts wake up and jostle like horses
pulling at their moorings, dragging side to side.
Listen, you can hear the dash of splashes prancing
on wave crests as the winds build up in the bay.
Sea's morn color and transparency now blurred.
Dawn's calm serenity and beauty now forgotten
Koala Bay's agenda has shifted to: Up anchor, Set sail and Play
The boat skippers and crew flock bayside to make it happen.
Both sailboats and sailors love to rock and roll in bay streaked
with gusts driving white horses with jockeys wearing white caps.
Hoist the sails, drop the mooring lines, tighten the sheets.
The yachts surge forward, like race horses, with muscles and sinew straining.
They leap through the waves with leaps, bounds, thumps and jumps.
The spray flies, flung by the wind against weather beaten faces
It is noisy now, with bash and splash and skippers yelping and barking at the crew.
Koala Bay loves the performance, loves to entertain.
Tonight the bay will be calm and serene again.
Time to herald the bay's softer underbelly of shear stunning beauty.
Tomorrow the wind will conduct and conjure up another day of rollicking fun and adventure.
A golden pen of silken quotes that rhyme .
A quill in ink on dusty vellum sheets
That stand the true and tested span of time
Like the wondrous words of Wordsworth, Gray or Keats .
Some convoluted sentences of prose
Sit high on alters snaring the absurd.
Venerated in their awe that never knows
The tranquil beauty of the rhyming word .
Time's not just a healer who'll endure
The pious presentations of new writes
Like modern texts, illiterate and obscure
Being quenched by rhyme's illuminating lights .
This is for all of you , who like see their poetry structured and rhyme , like the " Old Guys" , and is NOT meant as a "downer" on all other creative presentations .
Songs found together,
Lost in the ether,
Never again to be heard.
Back in their cases,
Tied up with laces,
Memories captured , like birds.
Turn radio off,
A flame for a moth,
Sad, genial melodies.
They fissure my heart,
And hold me apart,
Snaring with sweet harmonies.
Anthems of love,
lost like a glove,
Just one half still listening.
These tunes heard alone,
Don't have any soul,
They no longer mean a thing.
31 Aug 2011
Awake beneath a blazing, pulsing sun
as ocean waves continue slapping shore
against my naked, bloody, tired feet.
Need to widen search for cleaner water
quenching thirst tomorrow thru tomorrow.
Alone I craft robust and treeless hut
yet lacking binding metal - paste to seal.
Without the use of tools, I stack and stack
the brush against a slope of sod and rock.
Voids allow incessant pests to enter;
then discover use of lilac warfare,
by and by the suckers cease invading.
Establish snaring food from calm lagoon
that feeds the roots of ripened nuts and fruit;
surviving on a tiny sultry isle.
I befriend a vivid flying mimic,
feebly flying against the wind of strength,
to sea of slayers; within chilly depths.
Parrot quick to mock my voice with language,
giving friendship - creating lasting faith
for hopeful rescue - seeing social world.
Unearth required flint to discourage
sleepless nights; to fashion knife and spear for
shield against unknown and what was needed
when, caring ruled in free and thriving land.
Recalling hatred all throughout the globe
and timely choice for making journey to
escape the callous worldly turmoil force;
until a cyclone capsized lonely yacht.
Tonight a fire ignites my soul with warmth
protecting life and shedding light to see.
Must rescue come to me; imploring not …
Copyright © 2017 By Caryl S. Muzzey
1/23/17
Sixth Place Winner ~ "Tropical Island" Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Shadow Hamilton’s
Feb. 6, 2017
“What is this strange place we find ourselves in
Trapped in the open, we are free within”
In the snaring landscape of entangled existence,
I traverse my captive life on the path of illusion,
chasing the mirage of endless desires,
I wander disillusioned in the wasteland
with false sense of belonging to the outer openness,
I am trapped in the sordid mire of mortal being.
Trying to get released from the earthly clasp
of karmic destiny, leading to the loss of essence,
the perception of divine conscience pervades me,
and I transcend the limits of time and space,
beseech God to show me the path of inward journey,
for the patina of perpetual peace I yearn to embrace.
As the pristine petals of my soul serenely unfurl,
blooming the divine lotus of blissful awareness,
I perceive the shower of His graceful endowment
saturating me with aura of freedom and happiness.
I then discern the beauty of the enlightened life,
blessed by the bequest of the absolute supreme.
In the sanctum of tranquil heavenly consciousness,
as encompassing as the seamless sky of His benevolence,
I soar like an un-caged bird on wings of ardent devotion,
float in the boundless cosmos of eternal peace,
my liberated soul flies free in fervent firmament,
suffused with the euphoria of ultimate salvation.
_______________________
March 29, 2022
Contest : The Matrix
Sponsored by : Unseeking Seeker
What is your temperature?
The doctor asked
During an ordinary visit.
I left the examining room
And walked through
My palace
Skin and hair
Nails and tissue,
75 years of growth.
Ivy wild
as a Venus flytrap
Snaring an insect.
Tendrils curl and cover
Cages of ribs
Prisons of my own making,
Arid and Dry.
Soothing rain
Falls from mouth and nose
With nowhere to go,
Pores clogged
With regret.
Breath shallow
In and out
In and out.
No escape.
Chest
Rising and falling,
Rising and falling.
Dry air moving
Dry air moving
Over parted lips.
Teeth clenching
Unclenching
Teeth clenching
Unclenching.
“Temperature is normal.”
I respond.
I return the next day
Where is your pain?
The doctor asks.
I reenter my
Pulsing, beating, breathing
Palace.
A child moves further
Away on the bed
From an adult’s
Meandering hand.
The hand disappears.
The touch remains.
Blood pressure rises
Breathing becomes shallow.
Fatigued,
I relax
By aqua blue
pools of bliss.
75 years of blessings
Fill once arid spaces.
Adventures daringly dreamed
by a South Chicago kid,
Raised by parents
of the Second World War
“Roosevelt knew the
Japs were coming.”
He did nothing
To stop it.”
A ticky tacky house
By the tracks
Is our Gardens of Babylon.
I say good-night
To the whistling roar
Of a mighty steam engine
Ever so lightly
Shaking my foundation.
I return the next day.
Cheered by
Yesterday’s excavation.
I meet Seven Brides
Carrying oil lamps.
Their light
brightens once-dark corners.
Castle-like ventricles
Arch into stairways
Leading to
Magnificent towers.
Pink, baby skin
Warms a Mother’s heart.
Three children grown,
Now parents.
Six grandchildren,
Hardly children.
I look closer.
The pain evaporates.
Geysers of Gratitude,
Mist fills deserts.
Orchids of pink
Violet and gold.
Bright Pink Flamingoes circle
Capture and close.
Childhood scars,
Covered by mossy
Sponges, soak up old anger,
Vacuuming the shame
Of innocence.
I know now
Why the ivy
Meanders, clings and binds
To new cells
And old bones.
Its tendrils give
Eternal life.
Evergreen,
It breathes
Forgiveness
Fidelity and constancy.
Ivie Twombley
1884-1913
Lottie Gordon and me were always together.
Joined at the hip, most folks would say;
You never met two ladies quite like us.
If you had known Lottie and Ivie,
The two of us at age 21,
If you had gotten to know us for our real selves;
Wild bachelorettes in french garters,
Roaming the Quaker streets and alleys,
Of Greenleaf, Philadelphia and Bailey,
Seeking out young mammon, and innocent kisses,
As we did quite regularly in 1905,
Why, you would have summoned our parents!
And the Elders of the Friends Church to boot!
Lottie and me were soulful sisters,
And best friends, especially in the snaring arts,
Trapping both wild men and civilized beasts alike!
It didn’t seem to matter one way or the other really,
Not after what happened to Roscoe.
We all knew someone murdered him.
As we both knew everyone hated him.
My Lottie, she never recovered from losing that man.
It seared my soul to see that girl so broken-hearted.
…I think of her all the time, even now in death.
She’s buried across Citrus Road in Clark Cemetery,
Over there by the old toppled stones,
And the high, giraffe-like, desert palms…
…The earth moves, my friends.
It moves without ceasing, without slowing,
We dead people can feel it rumble and grind and twist,
Rumble like an old machine in winter...
… I met my demise at age 29.
I died like Lottie,
Drowning helplessly,
Without being in the water.
And that is that.
Tragedy! That’s the word -
Enough to put silence on every lips.
It’s become famous to today’s clumsy world.
Shuttering hopes, wincing shallow glimpse
To see beyond the walls of tomorrow.
Tragedy! It weighs tons -
Enough load for the heart to fake tears.
It is an unfolding switch of pros and cons
A villain undermining the triumph of nations for years.
A snaring dragon falsifying a sleep in the meadow.
Tragedy! It’s a hunt game on chase -
Where its hunters pray for a catch of their prey.
A mystery and puzzle case,
That take decades to solve I must say.
It’s become a deadly troll’s barrow.
Tragedy!A graveyard -
Where scavenging vultures feast.
A political creed of corruption, what a retard?
A greed infestation – a global heist,
A canker – that knows nothing of sorrow.
Tragedy! It’s become the orphanage cries,
A tormenting plight,
And the preachers lies.
A darkness to fight – by light,
Put all vanity to a shape – narrow.
Stony gray clouds of Winter’s night
Spurning Spring’s arrival
Snaring hearts in the darkness of hibernal chasms
Stubbornly rejecting wretched souls a rival’s kiss
Seasons of Doubt lasting beyond hope
Swiftly shackling yearnings of youth
Softly whispering slanderous words—
Surely all is hopeless
Steadily sinking toxic barbs
Surrender your foolish prayers
Serenades the Shallow Liar
Shall I lurk endlessly in my secret place
Surrounded by ashen walls of uncertainty
Stumbling blindly through dubious grime
Snagged by roaring reticence
Silently anticipating a response yet to come
Shall you withhold your words until I succumb
Submitting to bristled taunts
Subliminal sneers of unseen foes
Sauntering scoffs scarring my soul
Should I stand from upon bended knee
Surrendering my incessant pleas
Seeing with unveiled eyes at last
Sensing with tingling nerves the
Silence of my God of past
Spurning the end of
Seasons of Doubt
BROWNIE the DOBERMAN
"I'm looking at you"!
"Why, you wining"?
"Why, ya blue"?
"What's you lookin for"?
"WHY, YA BLUE"?
"Wining, sniffing exploring, what's you lookin for, boy"?
"Sniffing round all over the floor
What's wrong with you"?
Brownie, talk to me
Something up, why ya down
Sniffing around
Why, you snaring, wining
Pining
Talk to me boy!
"I'm still looking at you"!
"Why, you wining, boy"?
"Why, ya blue"?
"What's you lookin for"?
"WHY, YA BLUE my dog Brown Doberman"?
Ah!! yes this my tale of Brownie the Doberman
08/01/18
In the Horizon Blue
Soars a lone Kite
Hope rises anew
Ascend of the sun
Pale Soft Hue
Snaring all unspoken words
Awe-inspiring dream
Of your captivating beauty
Open your heart
See through your soul
Merry Christmas love you all - Ashek
The children come to visit
once or twice a week
and they are fine, I'm sure,
but not the ones I seek.
Though tall and fair and handsome,
not who I'd choose to meet:
those grubby-kneed and tousled,
the freshly apple-cheeked!
Oh, what I'd give to see them
running in the door,
coats and hats and mittens,
footprints on the floor.
Cardboard forts and castles
and the day they tried to take
sand buckets full of water
to make a bedroom lake!
Another trip to the E.R.
Superman has tried
(with a towel for a cape)
to fly above the concrete drive.
My daughter's arm is up around
a Great Dane's hulking dome.
He's all alone, she said
and declined to take him home.
The toaster that they took apart
to see how it was sprung,
signal beeps from bedrooms
where a net of wires was strung
In hope of snaring messages
from Tokyo or some Hong Kong,
lipstick on the bathroom tiles
when guests were due to come.
I play my games with memory toys,
pretend they're real again,
but something of it's gone;
It's time, time is the stealer of children.
As moonlight threatens
the night's ebon cloak.
A blistering thought
has kept me woke.
This thought so vile
so terribly grim,
yet so fulfilling
to my every whim.
I leave the warmth of my bed chamber
and into the cold damp street.
To quench this gnawing craving
deep in my heart so deep.
As I pass strolling strangers,
I turn up collar to cutting air.
They seem oblivious to dangers
and look through me, as thou I were not there.
I walk with purpose like a hunter,
deep in the dark wood.
In search of a sacred something
so sweet, delicate and good.
Finally I duck into a small cafe,
where I have had success in past.
Snaring unsuspecting prey,
to star in this role that must be cast.
I slide so stealth into vacant booth.
Where I'm forced face to face,
with this moment's
moment of truth.
My waitress smiles and pours
a tall, thick cup of Joe.
I find myself blowing and sipping
very carefully and very slow.
And there one of Zeus' daughters parked
with one hand playfully twisting her golden hair.
The other gently cutting with a fork
a delightful chocolate Eclair.
I watched ever longingly
as her lips caressed every delicious bite.
It was then and there I knew
my chosen victim of this night.
Then she stood up
so regal yet so fair,
paid and looked at me,
with a pure endearing stare.
She then walked out the door
and gently out of sight.
Disappearing like a sweet vapor
into the misty mystic night.
As her perfume soon left
the now sad lonely air.
I asked my lovely waitress
for a tempting chocolate Eclair.
So she sorrowfully informed me
that the lovely lady had had the last.
I then had to alter my well laid plans,
and alter them rather fast.
With heart frantically beating and beating,
and the search of the menu repeating and repeating,
for a substitute to satisfy.
And there for my appetite at last
the words "Lemon Meringue Pie."
Now so graciously placed before me,
this heaven's little slice.
With every taste teasing and pleasing,
I decided to try it twice.
As I took the last bite stalling,
I could hear my conscious calling.
I told self we'll pay Piper tomorrow,
but tonight I'm feeding gluttony and drowning sorrow.
9/25/18