Best Spoor Poems
The knots have knots…God?
Threads of needing, want, desire;
passion spent on barren sod
left to burn on flaming pyre.
God, the knots have knots?
Nodes and nodules, full of spoor,
planted upon poisoned plots
hoarding, warmth, desire and more…
God, the knots have knots!
Pulse, and pump; push, and explore
lose the beastly cankerous clots
excrete angst, open the pore,
Free the knots, God, please…
By root and rote, the seedling pleads.
Contest: Me Against Myself
Date 6/30/11
D. Guzzi
Paradise
I ramble and marvel on the alluring paradise I reside
Tall green pine trees spear to reach to the heavens gratified
A Few scattered pine that have lost the will to survive
Sounds of the wildlife the forest obscures and they thrive
The wondrous mountain range with tall timber surrounds me, enticing to explore
Lush green, brown grass and enchanting flowers in bloom I spoor
The crystal clear rivers and ponds stocked with a rainbow of fish in sight
The clear blue sky with scattered clouds and birds in flight
Through the high brush, I saunter enjoying my paradise, below
I catch sight of a couple, midway in a wallow in the meadow
Feasting on salal and brush
I rush to the underbrush
At a distance I hear the bugle of an old elk calling and gathering his harem
I wonder if I should challenge the old elk but his way up on the rim
By: Eve Roper
1/24/2015
The Bitter End of the Road
Travelers coalesce as if from as dense fog
about the grounds of the retreat.
The lodge shimmers silver-gray
amongst the changing autumn woods.
The gravel way diminishes in rearview mirrors
with the pinging sound of pebbles against
the metal horses of the day.
Civilization, ever trampling,
encroaches upon what ages ago
had been a pristine forest, now swarms
to the Lodge’s gates:
ants to the picnic
late comers in search of the scraps,
the leavings,
of much abused nature.
Slamming car doors, buzzing cell phones,
endless chatter accosts the forest’s skirt.
Beaten paths awaited those stalwart enough
to venture in, rushing ever forward
and upward
through the crunch of fallen leaves,
the snap of branch,
the distant warble of unseen birds.
Water, when near, adds
its own rush, and babble.
But, the smaller critters seem to have vanished
tracks and spoor, trampled
whether in reverence or disregard;
it matters not.
In our ever onward rush to enjoy,
the sounds of cricket,
cicada, the squirrels chitter,
the owls call;
we by our mere presence
destroy.
First Published by Poetry Quaterly
old towns
drenced in yesterday's
spoor of idleness
why repair broken
panes in the window
Who could have known of their watch
Who could have told of their suspicion
Who could have told
That they were the harbingers
To my resurrection?
Me, I sat there
Plummeted
Engrossed in my ingratitude
Occasionally
Languishing
Betraying the illusion
And I remember, too,
Lingering in the thirsty
Emptiness
Mummified
Entwined in my solitude.
Sometimes
Before the Eolithic era
Which refracted by dioptric
Prometheus moulded his man
There were no leaves on branches
No bark on the trunks
No undergrowth in the forest
No sweat on the pores.
I opened the cataract
on my veins
the silence of the stars
surged forth
down the rivers on my palm-
leaving deserts behind.
Sensing disturbance
In my oblivion
Reproaching my rebirth
I reached out for the present
Leaving no spoor.
Centuries after
I arrived at the end of my hibernation
At the beginning of their quest
I had not solicited, I swear!
Mother, they said
These cracks on your face
In the shape of nations
Who will mend them?
Those aliens
Who daily defile your rivers
Make love to your beaches
Shitting on your mountains
Who will excoriate their oddity?
Those derelicts
Shaking your constellation
To balance the ecology:
Who will indite the epilogue?
Those dirty mercenaries
Who raped your plains
Plundered your joy:
Who will expiate the outrage?
Who will resurrect
Your majesty?
Who will deflect
The holocaust?
THE TASTE OF YOU
The taste of you thrusts in my blood
my spirit longs to burst and soar
I feel you nipping at my heart
While my feet eat both sand and shore
I smell you through the dancing nights
When sea borne fog plays hide and seek
When Salty white --complex in joy--
Glorious fragrance-- bold and meek.
To you I give my hidden scent
Your flicking tongue finds me in flames
I'd find you if my eyes were blind --
Your spoor forever calls my name.
V. Anderson-Throop 2013
I will inform you once the shells are spoor.
When they're timorous around the seashore,
Just as mushrooms will grow around a grave,
If they shine like slight candles in a cave.
So, you and I will devour the beach dunes.
While a pearly moon sails the ocean tunes,
Listening to the meek growl of the waves,
Because of the eyesore, the seagull craves.
Leave the prospects of the moody era,
To the pinnacle of warm chimera,
Entirely all the measures we will climb,
Unwinding vexes will raddle each rhyme.
When the billow came to express goodbye,
Moon dimly veiled as if it were a sigh,
If love isn't exciting and no tears fell,
The ripple then needed to say farewell.
I will contact you when the seashells bloom,
While they dance with brittle light at my tomb,
We will play the doom game in parody,
I will call you when the shells grow quickly.
My deprived brain couldn't accept a farewell,
I wrote the last and final verse as well,
Like birds, you'd return to the nest at dusk,
Retrieve my typed quill that I'd drop when busk.
3rd place contest winner
Written: July 02, 2022
FAREWELL theme rhyming contest Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Lisa YY
Checked by HMS.COM/ 10 Syllables per line
She saw the face of Judas in him.
The bearded kiss festered no truth
and the metallic breath
exhaled putrid faithfulness.
The trampled petals spoor no lusting stares,
redolent no more
even as the tongue creeps by the shoulders.
The razors have summoned from the stinking room!
A slit in the neck
could rhythmically go by the thrusts unnoticed
But the chorus of the beasts
as shrill as the gongs of hell
maimed vengeance yet
not in the loss of blood will you die.
Not in my hands.
His demonic pleasures went on as the voodoo doll
resurrected in the beat of my own gongs.
Keep stirring as this spindle rouses my anathema!
his chest hairs
pint of blood
vulture’s beak
stallion’s tails
bobcat’s eye
dead evergreen
Deborah’s tears.
Stir and stir and stir!
Murmur satan’s prayer
mana mana mana boo!
ruba ruba ruba hoo!
Count the sands of the transient hourglass
expiring ‘fore tic tac sound.
Now her man froze,
bulging eyes, blackened pulse!
‘tis freedom, Deborah!
Free.
Doomed.
©03-06-13
When you're hurt by someone you love and trust
You become sad a jumbled mass of nerve- crushed
You cover your bleeding self with a crust of smile
Heart aches tears roll and you knock him a country mile
It is easy to hold a grudge and on flame with anger
You are swallowed by bitters and cannot muffle the banger
You are wrapped up in blues and sun is hellish moor
You feel the chill of life and monsters on the spoor
But you see the other end they are bent out of shape
They are in pain and act up in the minute of scrape
Put yourself in his place and think of deadly hours
You can find a ravished land where is no heaven-showers
So forgive him be one with him it'll cure your scar
"I forgive you brother let us enjoy the morning star"
Forgiveness - Poetry Contest
Sponsor rob carmack
The era of darkness is near,
I can smell the ground starting to rot.
The penetrating scent of Fetidity
Assaulting the nostrils of pure souls.
With the putrid scent goes along,
Your last uncontaminated Exhalation.
There goes the only hope you had
For by tomorrow all this will be dematerialized.
The sulphuric spoor consuming nonstop,
Leaving behind traces of what once was.
Vast Emptiness within the dark realms,
Something is missing, but nothing to be found.
Unseen corpses embalmed in raw eggs,
Reaching out through the increasing pressure.
Flesh and blood mixed with perturbed fear,
Despair, Misery and an unruly urge to imbibe.
Sulphurous Aroma caressing your Aura,
You’re holding back your spirit; but it’s gone.
You’re all alone and you know where you are;
The New Age of Darkness, has begun.
In the coastal forest at Odiorne Point
Paths meander under and over
Bramble so odious as to create an impenetrable wall
And distant sound of swell and surge
My nose recoils from the endless spoor of sea
Where upon a rustling of leaves drew my attention
To the vain wanderings of a scant grey squirrel
If I were a meager rodent of the furry tail persuasion
I would have purpose, direction, and courage against the iron horse
However, I am just a man of no resolve, course, or valor
Therein lies the rub
And coastal jaunts should never be made by depressed men
There is a man named Roy Moore
Who 'dated' teenagers by the score
Their schools he would call
He was banned from a mall!
Now he wants to be on the senate floor!
There is such a thing called a 'spoor',
an animal scent to be sure.
When Roy got to the mall
on all fours he would fall
and sniff out the girls on the floor!
Dale Cozart
Feel free to add a limerick
Where has your mind gone, mirror man?
Can I call you my creator or my craft?
Your gaze awaited my unman.
Yesterday's raft is today's raft.
I can't find you any longer.
"Do you likewise?" a youngster asked.
His heart would glisten at the center.
What couldn't mumble satisfied?
I'm guessing cries are powerful.
As a result, I was running in a haze.
My ultimate goal is to be a fire fuel.
The child's goal was to blaze.
A runaway child leaves his imprint.
The wrapped double braid is stunning.
Shrunk and bark in a couple of rate.
Were these his etheric dropping?
The windswept over his sight
His earthy eyes betray his naivety
His genuine condition has blight.
Even when he was quiet, he had a glee.
I can feel myself collapsing to the floor.
No man in the mirror in my universe.
I have a child within my spoor.
I sobbed and hugged; it's getting worse.
I was suffocated by his adoration.
Until I had the option to cry or shed a tear.
I'm 54 years and have only discovered the sun.
I was always lurking, waiting for you to veer.
Written: September 6, 2021
Your Inner Child Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Chantelle Anne Cooke
Why so much drama in these words that I pen?
What about the happiness I had back when?
Was my life never full of those beautiful things?
Sunshine and flowers and butterflies wings?
No kisses from Daddy, just too far away
The hugs from my mom, no love they convey
My memories faded, maybe just suppressed
Where was the love they promised to profess?
Don’t judge yourself based on these poems I write
My mind tends to lead this chartered flight
But sharing with you all these feelings of mine
Invites criticism, such a very fine line
My despair is not yours, nor yours to endure
Consider these words my personal spoor
I’ll come to a place in my heart that is free
Just allow me to be, for me to be me
Because…
I write down the words I know to be true
I write about hurt and the things that I do
Often that connection too strong to deny
Like the one between you and the reason I cry
spoor tracks
imprint
the virgin snow-
footsteps of yesteryear
echo in my mind
Copyright © Brian Strand | Year Posted 2007