Best Sojourns Poems
I long to fold my eyes and softly creep
beside the brook of fancy, as it flows
to tumble off my trundle bed and sleep
and dip the stardust with my drowsy toes
within the world of reverie and dreams
I cast my cares, like nets, upon the sea
so woven as the moon, within its beams
imagination's breadth, now comes to be
with all the dreamy pathways that I stroll
the routes are always varied, always new
and still, each destination brings its toll
as all my sojourns find their way ... to you
but I would ne'er deny my heart that ache ...
if only you'd come with me ... when I wake.
~ 2nd Place ~ in the "Most Comments Received Poem 2018" Poetry Contest, July Morning, Judge & Sponsor.
~ 1st Place ~ in the "Sleepwalking" Poetry Contest, John Hamilton, Sponsor & Judge.
~ 5th Place ~ in the "Contest Number 470 Any Form Or None" Poetry Contest, Brian Strand, Sponsor & Judge.
The fact of losing you wasn't that much devastating. You evaporated too fast like water. And so it didn't give me affright. I know you're like water, you'll precipitate one day.
And so, that one day came by destiny. I was in my room when it rained pieces of you. I went outside and felt the touch I've missed for somehow a long time. I enjoyed your every drop, the petrichor and the moist.
I badly wanted you back. I longed for the water which drowns me in love. The water that gives me life every time I'm dehydrated. The water that forgives whoever I am. Only if I could collect all of your pieces and bring you back to my life forever, without you being gone once more. But I know, it will never happen.
For now, I enjoy your unexpected visits and perchance sojourns. I relish your every coming. In that way, I still manage to have you, even though I know you have to evaporate again.
beckons darkest day
offering a farthing of
moonshine and starlight —
coupled flesh warm beneath quilt
Winter wine keeps spirits’ bright
beckons darkest day
coldness of the Christ’s sealed tomb —
tears and fears presume
the worst of ebon, the death
of life and healing; breathing
celebration of
the birth and rebirth from God
at the darkest times —
star of Bethlehem sojourns
to every bootlegged corner
celebration of
all sons and daughters of King
haloed in moonshine —
silent nights prescribed, roaring
hearth and candlelight; pristine
12/9/2020
Love the oldest,
Love the youngest,
The smallest,
The broadest.
Imperfectly perfect,
Proudly humble.
Endlessly end,
Peacefully troubled.
Quietly lousy,
Uncountable counting.
Pleasurable painful,
Ungainly gainful.
Resurrecting in killing,
Smiling in weeping.
Coming in going,
Abiding in departing.
Truth in lies,
Open-mindedness in sly.
Elevation in humiliation,
Built in destruction.
Unity in separation,
Honesty in temptation.
Standing in tribulation,
Thanking in starvation.
II
Love a burning fire,
But never to consume.
Even though she wonders,
But she never get confused.
Love is the source of life,
The fountain of light.
Love, so above death.
And she has no end.
The she's highly immortal,
But she in love with the mortal.
She is sane,
But love the insane.
She is so peaceful
But she's found in a troublesome place.
So careful,
She sojourns in this careless cave.
In an offensive place to pardon,
In sinful house to forgive.
Descending to comfort the abandoned,
Coming so low for poor to give.
Going blind to see,
Far away to come near.
Hardened heart to believe ,
Becoming deaf to hear.
Pleading in rejection,
Blessing the prosecutor.
Hunted but growing,
Hated but reigning.
Too real to the fools,
Because is so true.
Erred men don't believe its free,
Because is so cheap.
So abundantly, but only few has it.
The people she love are rejecting.
If you find one you're lucky,
Because she's one blood thing you can't just inherit.
My solemnity
Oh! I need you thou love,
I wonder if I can in men find one.
I can trade my eyes for it,
Because I know in her will I clearly see.
Really, men are so many.
But how many can truly love?
Marriage can be done within ten minutes,
But are mostly grounded in lust.
If you say you're true lover,
Show it to many like that pauper.
Don't only love your rich husband,
Show love to your maiden servant.
Preaching and boasting of it on the pulpit,
Have you ever have a meal with the poor?
Show it when sad and when happy,
Accommodate your enemies' daughter and son.
Tis easy to love our family,
That's not in the dictionary of we lovers.
It is easier for us to love the whole country,
And those that has once make us suffer.
Wide, this grand world, with occurrences, rife
On the foam-capped blue, for a seafarer's life
Rich, the adventurer's sojourns shall be ...
Launching deep dreams on a mutable sea.
Daring, the soul who can take to the sky
Cast off the weights of this marble and fly
Rending mundane for the magic of travel
Undreamt-of mysteries await to unravel.
In sky or on rail, on surface or sea ...
Savor the journey and all it should be
Enjoy, as scores don't, the gift ... to be FREE!
~ 1st Place ~ in the "World Cruise Acrostic" Poetry Contest, Kevin Shaw, Sponsor.
As long as stars have dotted nighttime skies
Has man sought to unlock their mystery.
We gaze upon their spark with marvelled eyes
As others have throughout all history.
No other sights their beauty can discount
In waves throughout the cosmic sea arrayed.
They're splashed across the sky in rippled founts
That bathe the heavens in their pale cascade.
Each star a diamond sentinel of light
That with us sojourns on their astral track.
Their winking eyes watch over through the night.
I look to them as they look, staring back.
Though looking up I see them bright and clear,
They won't see me for several hundred years.
9.17.18
Contest: Beautiful Mystery
I am the reminiscence of you, since you were once me –
stirred among the strings of sense.
I am the reminiscence of everything you love,
since the vivacity of things you praise most.
I remind you of dark of the sky enlivened by stars, blue,
Or grey miasmas scurrying towards the horizon.
Or I remind you of undaunted tide of time clenching fist against you,
Or perhaps, I remind you of the marionettes of dead
Danced by twisted delusions.
Perhaps I am horror to you, or joy
Of trivial surprises which you long for with avidity,
But cannot quench your insatiable thirst.
Perhaps I am your reminiscence, really,
Of stardust slowly fading somewhere in your past sojourns.
Yet I could have been me apart from your reminiscence,
Instead of an endless strive of hauling eyes above the sea of us,
As I know, the corpse of poets’ floats for a show
While the living ones are dragged down to be trampled.
He Weeps
By Dane Smith-Johnsen
Holiness harnessed haughtiness.
Heaven's honor hallows humans.
Heavenly hopes happily hail.
Enemies, earnestly enchant.
Endless errors evoke evil.
Exhilaration empowers.
Wait with God while wild wiles weaken.
Whisk away wrath and wretchedness.
Weep whenever wonder withers.
Enemies endeavor evil.
Empathy erases errors.
Exalted ethos enlivens
Endure. Esteem eternity.
Enjoy ecstasy endlessly.
Exalt essence everlasting.
Prideful prancing produces pain.
Particularly preceding
Pretentiousness pomposity.
Sagacity seeks soul's sagas.
Subliminal soothing sojourns.
Sweetest souls’ salvation survives.
Quarantined
Waking up to this strange dream
First sight is the checkered ceiling
Then the antique bathroom mirror
I see old age and worried red eyes
I see another drawn day of breathing
My beard is out of control with grey
I am home now and not going out
I hear helicopters often in the sky
The morning time is escape time
The missus and me watch another one
Another end-of-the-world imitation
Just like ice milk; not the real thing
We sit and netflix the hours like sharks
Devouring phony time with no incisors
As with a glass vase holding heartbeats
We know dinner time is the best time
As another anxious nothing day slinks by
There will be kitchen trips for comforts
There will be basement sojourns for spirits
But no afternoon excursions to the shops
No possibility of even meeting stone statues
Inside this wooden box is where we must hide
Out of this window is as far as I can see
Listen
There is hopeful music in the distant rooms
There are praying voices behind the closed doors
Gentle wind blows slow from tree to tree,
rustling a question, asking of me,
secrets that lie buried in my dreams,
of kisses and love through hazy beams,
birds join in to coo, echo their views,
of my romance if any fresh news?
trees convey through silence their concerns,
have wisdom of ages, season’s sojourns,
Frost will blow, a new day will be born,
Flowers will bloom, darkness will be gone,
Love will flow again from fresh new spring,
Dreams will fly, coloured feathers and wings,
I walk through dream forest in a daze,
for ribbons of love lost in a maze.........
Written 14/04/2021
Mystic Rose sponsored
In the Forest of my dreams poetry contest
9 syllables each line 14lines
An unforgotten depth,
An unreached ground,
Answers haven’t been found,
A dim lamp stands in the corridor.
He sojourns with a vague understanding,
He seeks to know the reason for his troubles,
To find the path out of the gloomy bubbles,
He has searched the deep for a reap.
He has walked out of the night,
He has sojourned to the light,
The tendrils of the night still trail him,
He has seen its different sides
The book hasn’t answered all his questions,
The sages say it’s a purposed intention,
He still journeys to redemption,
Until time and age bring him completion.
Eternity
Many times, I saw my spirit.
Many times, I felt my soul.
In life, I lived courageous.
Now it is time for me to journey home.
If you cry, that is fine.
If you laugh, that is better than a cry.
Rejoice in my life and shout praise.
For I am
Therefore, I shall be
In peace, I leave this world.
To my love ones, I am with the Lord.
Sure happy to have lived
Not sad that my time has come
The benevolence of the spiritual realm is a breeze from a waterfall.
The Lord is my keeper.
He called me home.
No more sadness let us all rejoice.
Ms. Carrie Mae Sexton is now reunited with Jehovah God Lord. A woman of statue...
A woman of worth... All that knew her will truly miss her.
Never a life lost but one done with the world and because she walked a virtuous path, her life is shown. The Lord knows best and we must know the same. Our mother sojourns and in peace, she lays.
[“Be assured that just as an hour is only part of a day so life on Earth is only part of eternity.” C.L. Allen]
User Name: Verlena
Psuedonym: Oblivion Dark Sunshine
Motif: Grief and Bereavement
-Contest Enter: Space & Time - Metaphorically written... Eternity is time in space... February 2014
The Three Islands Sleep!
Sleep, sleep, the islands asleep!
Sleep while the winds blow on her face,
On her trees, and on her mountains and hills,
Sleep when the thieves dressed in suit come in,
Like the befuddled man sleeps in his own vomit,
Or like the overworked farmer, who in his bed creeps.
Sleep! Sleep! The islands sleep!
Sleep with unclosed eyes, like he who can’t sleep,
Sleeps to the sound of alarm, the fight for her life, and her sea,
Sleeps, when the red crimson blood from her vain shed,
Like anesthesia in flesh, make it numb, feel no pain,
Or like the brain hypnotized, would not think for itself.
Sleep! Sleep! The islands sleep!
Sleep when the foreigners come, move her out of her bed,
From the kitchen, living room, on the trees she sojourns,
Sleeps, though her offspring bewail, for some bread and a rest,
For schoolmasters that left, with no school nor recess,
And the peril and risk that play daily on the streets.
Sleep! Sleep! The islands sleep!
Sleep, the three of them sleep, when they empower the fiendish,
To keep the ball rolling, the robbing and defrauding,
When the ballots that are twisted, in their hands feel no different,
Sleep when the liars can lead them, but the truth doesn't reach them,
Or when death sentence upon them, they hear, neither see their grave ending.
Sleep! Sleep! The islands sleep!
Sleep when the corrupt one comes, with false hope to promote,
Like better jobs, new buildings, profuse gifts are given,
Sleeps like the reefs and the cays in the deep,
When the hurricane sweeps, still they all in deep sleep.
Sleep! Sleep! The islands sound a sleep!
Sleep! Sleep! The three of them sleep, when rain water falls and seeps,
Seeps through their pores, deep down in their souls water leaks,
With thorns, wild trees and tall bush growing from underneath,
The Cassava, plantain, watermelon, sweet potato, food produced choked and killed,
Like invaders our land destroy, but we sit and daydream, since our islands sound asleep.
Sleep! Sleep! The three islands asleep!
BIRTH came to me without my permission
possibly doomed to spend my life
no questions asked with strict submission
various sojourns from breast milk to sweets
then pubescent hair begins to sprout
I cannot figure my parents out
they call it a rebellion
of an immature child but I am immature
but what lay in store is wisdom
that comes with each winding year
to encounter a feeling or sensual dream
that one day will inhabit a new scene as it seems
To wed or elope and to cope with my life
to raise children in the midst of
love hate and joy as I recall
a generation ago
But as generations change it is time to renew
the changing colors of their state of mind
with a new world order they are left to imbue
to sneak in and out of chaos with a lollipop
to indoctrinate them into societys fold
and the vicious cycle goes on and on
continually with each aching breath
until you say hello to DEATH
September 7, 2014 ©Ralph Sergi
If you knew that you’d be leaving soon
And had but one last poem to write;
What might you pen as you begin
To say your final, farewell good night?
Would it be addressed to those who’ve blessed
Your world with all good things?
To someone close you love the most
Or perhaps, a song of spring?
Of changing winds that swirl and spin
From cradle to the grave;
If you had but one last poem to pen
What would you want to say?
Would thankfulness surround you
For every breath you’ve ever breathed?
Or will you write before losing sight
Of past regrets and shattered dreams?
Will your pages be filled with all the thrills
Of memories made with laughter?
Or will sadness remain despite all the gains
Of riches you’ve chased after?
And I wonder will the darkness fill
Our minds with somber sojourns;
Or will instead we find we’re led
To God’s gigantic, love-filled ocean?
If we have but one last poem to write
Before leaving Earth’s atmosphere;
What will we say that just might stay
In the hearts of those still here?