Best South Poems

Moonless Nights over South Sudan

heartless Moon, don’t tell me
that you weren’t looking 
when soulless soldiers dragged me
from my mama’s terrified arms
in our village in Rubkona County

I know you covered your ears
so you wouldn’t hear
my screams piercing the fetid air
as those butchers dropped their pants
repeatedly ripping...

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Listen to the jazz instrumentals of Masekela,
as you take red wine outside a thatched
shelter in a beach in the Western Cape.

Enjoy a hearty meal of bobotie (meatloaf), 
chakalaka (a spicy vegetable relish),
tomato bredie (a lamb and tomato stew),
potbrood (pot bread), 
melktert ( dessert)......
and other forms...

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Summer Nights in the South


Green fireflies blink in the quiet of night

and our sleeping old dog heaves a sigh.

Dreaming, she sprints through a youthful blue sky

chasing delicate clouds, cotton-white.



A red-sunset tanager* colors the warm air

from a perch in the majestic oak limbs above

professing by lullaby,...

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~South Florida~
(Free  Flow ) 


The temperature is rising 

We're in the hottest days of summer 

Heat and humidity in the air are soaring 

Sometimes for days the rains are just pouring 


This is summer with all its days full of sun and fun 

People...

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It ain't the pork, it ain't the beans
It ain't the mustard on saltines
It ain't the redneck social scenes

I love about the south

It ain't the ice cold sweet southern tea
It ain't the way that we say please
It ain't the way we lemon squeeze

I love about the...

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South African lockdown 

Gone is the heave, the bustle and the crowds
The pavements are weeping like widows without sounds 
The governments are ruling with their heads in the clouds 
We should not be submissive wearing fear as our shrouds
Shops and small business are collecting dust,...

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Of course on this night we are supposed to be asleep so Santa 
could come, but we hadn't been home from Midnight Mass very long, and the 
invigorating cold was not conducive to sleep.  Even the hot chocolate did not do 
much to help...

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In 1957 I took my teaching certificate back to the land of my mother.  
She was raised on a cattle ranch in the north central area of Nebraska.  The 
famous Sand Hills.  It was there I found my cowboy and we ranched...

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c a n a d i a n 
  
                                 ...

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Never will I see pine trees,
or dream of whistling wind in leaves,
hear the moaning of the trains
in lonely nighttime southern rains.

Sunshine wakes a cross at morn.
Unsatisfied, I rise at dawn.
Moving to instinct unknown,
once claimed this foreign place my home.

Long ago, I dreamed of dance,
heightened form...

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Someone had left a scarf from South Africa.
It was on the table - a square one.
A lion was looking out from it,
its teeth on show.

My plane hadn't left yet,
so my eyes were drawn to lion eyes,
and how it stared at me -
a visitor.

I had loved...

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South Of The (United States) Border...
(Reigns A Welter Of Disorder)

Caravans comprising multitudinous
     peoples plodded a steady course
analogous to iron filings drawn by
     strong magnetic force
gravitational pull generated

     by North America
   ...

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THE LATE HUMOROUS MANDELA

The late former President Nelson Mandela,
Was known as an extremely humorous fella,
A respected freedom fighter and leader,
Referred to her Majesty as Elizabeth, amusing many a reader.


ENTERED FOR EDUCATE ME WITH HUMOR – LEADER CLERIHEW POETRY CONTEST

24/1/2019

Dear fellow soup readers and judges. Having...

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I was loving the sun, 
Not consciously doing anything
My gourds hanging sweetly,
Too big to move much
Dancing with internal mirth 
Because I was being picked today
It is always a relief to a calabash 
When the pickers arrive
I heard laughter and stood a bit taller
Glad I could...

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I
Wishes that you find peace, the Hebrew Shalom
For it includes well-being, being WHOLE-some
One need not have religion when one has Shalom
So my deepest desire this Covid year, for everyone
To heal by sharing how you love another, and pray:
For me and my ministry in Newtown, South...

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