Best Sodden Poems
Would you still love me ... perchance I was half a man?
My carnal, physical core torn from me like ragged raiment,
Off to war in courage and heroic sacrifice ...
Returned by God and country, as barely half of what I'd been -
The half that could never again join with you in passion ...
Would you still love me?
Imagine I was a monster ...
Deformed by happenstance or accident,
Still a man in the technical sense,
But with face and sinews that repulsed even himself,
Though the heart and spirit you adore still thrummed inside ...
Would you still love me?
What if the day came - a reality as viable as any,
When I lost everything of earthly value and worth -
All possessions, comforts, conveniences, and financial securities - gone,
The talents and abilities and experience to support even myself,
Blown to the four winds by careless fate or folly ...
Would you still love me?
Consider if I were human, inside-out ...
The abyssal and dark, troubled corners of my being
Worn on hapless bones like sodden skin,
The fearful ids and psyches, thus laid bare by illness or substance -
Free to dance like a demon for the porcelain moon ...
Would you still love me?
And pray, what if I were YOU ...
And you were the reflection of all that your dreams dare weave,
The horror and ecstasy that awakens you in the night -
Shivers and turns to ice on your faultless, barren skin,
Choking the screams from your chest ...
Would you ... could you still love me??
~ 10th Place ~ in the "2019 Poetry Marathon Mile 25" Poetry Contest, Mark Toney, Judge & Sponsor.
~ 1st Place ~ in the "Would You Still Love Me?" Poetry Contest, Edward Ibeh, Judge & Sponsor.
You blossom too soon dear snowdrops of spring
Secluded in the cold dark earth;
The white flakes that fly still haunt the sky
Too weary with sorrow to salute your birth.
One warm day awakened you from sleep
And sang with springtime’s soft breath;
Caressed your eyes with the lips of spring
And you awakened to winter in the arms of death.
Where is the due she pledged to you
The passion of sun and song of the breeze;
The frilled hyacinth with heavy perfume
And the robin’s merry note in the trees?
Birds are yet hushed and the branch is yet bare
The snowflakes fall on the crest of the hill;
Your sodden petals lie pressed on the ground
Without warmth when winter kept his chill.
The snowflakes conceal the spot where you lie
Living too soon in a winter's cold noon
They are covered with snow so no one will know
The grave of the snowdrops that flowered too soon.
The graveyard, shrouded in pale mist, so hauntingly eerie,
dampen spirits as the full moon loses her glow - dreary!
I float, like a vapour, amongst lifeless, inky shadows;
solitary yew tree, groaning with age, as the wind blows.
A ravens cold, chilling stare, shoots shivers within my soul
as I glance at fresh earthly mounds next to an empty hole.
Decaying flowers, leaves, disfigures forlorn, relic graves
as melancholy whistling heralds me in mournful waves.
I wander past headstones sheathed in mould, epitaphs long gone,
This sacred place seems familiar to me as night draws on.
Movement beyond a mausoleum - am I all alone?
I feel I am being beckoned to something to be shown.
Hypnotic, ethereal sounds now on this Halloween Eve -
I am guided to a grave where I shall lay down and grieve.
For, as I kneel against sodden turf, horror upon face,
An inscription enlightens me - I dwell - at this resting place!
Abuses hurled and Alcohol gurgled,
In the vortex of confusion
And blurred vision.
Intoxicated pleasure from surreal leisure.
Fooled senses and numbed conscience.
Wiped existence of love and kindness cuffed.
Lashed at the one he once loved.
Cringed and clung to her faint faith.
She and her cursed fate.
Exploding paroxysm of hate.
Her whipped ivory skin and bleeding lips,
Eyes with teary tinge,
Has the harvest moon singed.
Stillness of the night, pierced
By memories of bitterness-sodden years.
"Hurt me not", she trembled with fear,
"let me live for my girl, dear".
The cries colored skies crimson.
Just one reason--Her little girl.
As her daughter stared
With flaming locks and eyes that flared.
By Angom Amy (15)
The clock chastises me,
as painted petals bloom brilliance
in illuminated wonder that attempts
escape from the hidden crevices
deep within my beleaguered mind.
The beauty I seek is but an allusive dream,
flowing rags of worthless chattel
that fill me with words, heavy, like stone,
my rhymes but pointless emotional prattle.
Yet, still my need must pursue that dream
to create another verse so sublime as to define
me as me in a world filled with poetic doppelgangers
and, so, I write just one more sad, lonely line.
"Extant nectared incense she lit, burning inside, slow but alone,
Arrogant me, let her leave, as here I sit, awaiting the unknown."
Clever, perhaps, but are my words,
like the melancholy song of the lonely Lune,
beautiful?
Geez, or should I say jeez, no Cuneiform here,
shall I try once more...
"crystalline sparkles
achromatic winter jewels
spring paints with colors"
...to bring out in me that which,
through these many years of seeing
my world ravaged with emotional upheaval,
still, in its turn, allowing me to experience
love and enchantment from eyes
that held me in the warmest embrace.
"I see the storm as rage engulfs those lovely eyes,
the blue intrepid sea of passion's lost release.
Inside, the tears of torment flow to sooth the lies,
yet, pain remains in every moment's wish for peace.
As burning anger seethes inside of you
the path it seeks obscures your point of view,
and leaves the ragged scars of bitter love
left blurred like mist in sodden clouds above.
Emotional, these moments steal your gentle heart
and eat in to the darkened void that once was you,
but misplaced hate can not keep you and I apart,
when, with my shroud of love, your heart I will eschew.
I hope you'll see just how I feel for you,
for you are why I do these things I do."
Crap!
Total
crap I read!
and I chuckle
as I re-read it.
In a single sonnet,
iambic hexameter
and iambic pentameter,
the Bard must be turning in his grave;
I guess I'll have to try another day.
08/15/2018
Sly low tide sneaks up to smooch the smooth shore
that holds old footsteps left behind us
and lends itself to sand castles
standing guard until high tide
plovers dart on fleet feet
across sodden sands
spindle-legged girls
hunt conch shells—
starfish
found!
Blue
waters
glistening
aqua appeal—
white-horse sea magic
spindrift manes rise from crests
awakened from lowest ebb
high tide arrives on thunder hooves
body-surf Neptune’s steeds to the shore—
my wet hair dries to sun-bleached beachy waves…
Each day as she gazes early morning sky
with sips of coffee and memories gone by,
horizon blushes like staring in lover's eyes,
just as she remembers when he sat next to her
in embrace of winds and rising orange glow
as birds flew over the shining meadows.
How hard it must be to conjure up such emotions
when today is not much different than yesterday
and sun kisses horizon just the same every day.
Yet, she aspires to behold sentiments long gone
hoping for renewal of evocative romance
sitting on her deck reminiscing ardent past.
One day she ventures out in drenching rain
as darker horizon manifests her stark loneliness
and sun hides in clouds, devoid of its charm.
In pouring rain she stays sodden in reflection
when tears join discourse of bleak emptiness
as remnants of fervor and passion wash away.
First Place
October 25, 2017
Standard Contest No. 45
Sponsor: Brian Strands
With accompaniment of rain, the tweets pour into my ear.
Saturation of sound, mottled bark and sodden moss.
Must be the downfall of civilization, heavens tears.
In God’s house, psalm’s blessing; outside, purging the dross.
Hues of watercolor diffuse, darkness rippling on wet canvas.
There is beauty in mankind, to read between lines of tension.
Push and pull of dripping thoughts, the undertow madness.
A leviathan of sin’s proportions, the levity and dimension.
You can’t escape the weather, its steady beat above the brow.
The sweat beads seeping, harrowing adventures of sound.
Inspecting inside and outside of self - what seeds to sow.
Don’t be too hard on yourself, though you nearly drowned.
Floating alone in a boat, the sea takes me on a journey.
It is dark and lonely, the slip and slide, the ebb and flow.
Comes walking on the water; appears, heaven’s attorney.
Suddenly I’m on dry land, head bowed, to my knees, I go.
Christ reigns. The closer we are to his gates, we long to serve
Him only, yet we still stomp in muddy puddles with bare feet.
We can hide our feet in socks, in rain boots, hide their curves.
The Lord washes feet, cleanses with His Word ‘til we’re complete.
“Over there,” yelled the Helmsman
“On the Starboard side.”
Though when I looked from left to right
Nothing caught my eye
“Over there,” he yelled again
“On the starboard side.”
And again as I looked from left to right
Nothing caught my eye
But I knew when I saw her
For she was not water nor was she beast
That she had come upon us
To rest us all in peace
Her fingers rattled the rigging
As all hands fought to stow the cloth
The helmsman lashed himself to the wheel
We faced the worst of her wrath
Then she brought the main-mast down
The crow’s nest crashed upon the deck
Fear eclipsed all conscious thought
For we floated upon a wreck
Our lives so fully in the hands
Of nature’s primeval fury
We prayed to our mystical gods
For their heavenly mercy
Lo she ignored our desperate pleas
As she drove us beneath the waves
Relaxed and confident she left us
To our watery graves
Then the helmsman free from his shackles
Pulled us with all his might
Dragged us by our sodden collars
Toward the watery moonlight
The helmsman of defiant strength
Pulled us with all his might
Through our aquatic graves
To freedom’s shining moonlight
Somewhere downriver, among thrushes and the swallows,
Ducks in hidden hallows have silky, satin wings
Among the reedy shallows, swim ducks in hidden hollows
rest awhile where willows lean, and haloed twilight clings
Summer's been forsaken. Now the leaves are drifting
A constant current takes them to where the sun resides
Dreams are carried with them, in waters ever shifting
Without much hesitation. a few are cast aside
Sodden leaves are drifting, to where the sun resides
I watch the streams meander, and I hear the seasons call
Water soothes the jagged stones, and sparkles in the sun
The moon arrives and sun goes down, as if from earth it falls
Then it melts into the river's flow, and seams blend into one
I hear the seasons call, as the seams blend into one
_____________________________________________________
Contest: 255
Sponsor Brian Strand
They're getting old now.
They congregate only a few blocks south of where I live.
40 to 50 years ago they were in Vietnam.
Among the homeless they usually move slower,
The weariness of age and of other things,
of drug use and alcohol,
lost loves and families,
bent and broken paths.
You hear about the "thousand yard stare,"
where blank verse and silence show they're not actively seeing,
though now most of the immediate trauma is gone,
they are just lives forever changed,
eyes both hardened and softened,
former aspects compromised,
the hand of war still upon them.
My family had a big house in Youngstown, Ohio,
with a room rented to a nice young guy named Dale.
It was cool because he would throw the football
with me and my brothers, and talk to us.
He had short hair and a little bit of acne.
In 1967 he went to Vietnam, killed within a week.
They tell stories of night patrols, moving through water,
streams rivers rain, mud and sodden clothes,
100 degrees in the shade, bugs, infection, panic,
running through the jungle firing their M-16 behind them,
of the Vietnamese people suffering, the dead lying along the road.
Arriving in-country, the heat blasting you
when you get off the plane, you are told
look left, look right, and then that one of the two men
you just saw will not return.
Our country was then conflicted, and it was harder coming home,
even though the orange fires and the smoke were far away,
you lost a limb and they didn't appreciate it.
There were a lot of booby-traps set,
by the enemy, by the bureaucracy, by the times.
I wasn't old enough to go and I'm not sorry.
Shallow edged with twigs, and sodden leaves
The odors of the earth, green moss and peat
The roots of quiet trees and rotting logs
The crumbling bank where cattails wash their feet
Where tiny minnows dart with lightning speed
Among the roots where wild ducks come to feed
The very core and essence of the earth
Born of melted snow, and sleet and rain
Of birds who roost amid the tree tops high
And breathe the wholesome fragrance of the sky
Trees that sway and swoon along the bank
Shedding leaves of amber, rust and gold
Like ashes left from burning autumn dreams
To listen, standing guard on either flank
O'er twig and stone, with watchful eyes so keen
While shading coves where angler poles have been
Across it's face, a restless ripple seen
Where tangled grass and weeping willows lean
Upon the shores where struggles soon will cease
This place to spend in nature's splendid peace
In dreams I see you just like you are here,
the lonely years fade pale and drift away;
we are together in a distant sphere
beyond life’s disappointments and decay.
There, enjoying happy times we once knew
before death’s greedy sickle swept the grain
and left me longing for love’s rendezvous
in some glad tomorrow beyond earth’s pain.
I wake to mundane days as they are now,
blank and persistent sameness to my way;
I acquiesce to fate and humbly bow,
accept no partner in my sad ballet.
I shall wait; sodden skies must someday clear.
In dreams I see you just like you are here.
Copyright, May 8, 2022
Orphan Sonnet Poetry Contest
Emile Pinet, Sponsor
As I lay on sodden ground
Silence reigns,
There lays no sound.
I feel no pains
I have no displeasure
My heart interlocked by chains.
I feel great and euphoric leisure
I am in control I’m proud to say
Nothing can stop this pleasure.
I am feeling no guilt and no sorrows
Am I kidding myself to the actual truth?
Because even small ants cast long shadows.
I have passed the fountain of youth
I also been removed from past glory
Nothing is equable and nothing is smooth.
In truth this is not all my story
It belongs to another sod like me
We’re are not hunky dory.
One side of me is totally free
The other confused and fouled up
Both in me yet they never agree.
I can feel them but never see them close-up
Yet even small ants cast long shadows
So do I and I am going to shut up.
Seaweed, fragmented shell as cannonballs
in maelstrom hurled upon the shore.
The bellowing wind cast all asunder
as Summer’s shoots from shifting sand were torn.
Such was Autumn’s storm.
The sleet was blown in horizontal sheets
as figures double-bent fought step by step
to make but little progress, homeward bound.
The sky was lost in billowing grey, forlorn.
Such was Winter’s storm.
Relentlessly the wind swept off the ocean
with yet more rain to swell the sodden peat.
A daily deluge on embattled land,
with hope yet stirring seeds of life newborn.
Such was Springtime’s storm.
The grey skies shift to blue, and now a breeze
is heralding a longed-for transformation.
With rainbow colours Mother Earth is blessed
and all the islands of the west caressed, reborn.
Sweet Summer knows no storm.