Best Sputters Poems
I was born into a world that does not see me.
My body tells the story of absence;
The hollow of my stomach,
The jagged outline of my ribs,
My fur, patchy and damp.
I learned quickly that to want is to be ignored,
And to ache is to exist.
As a puppy, I thought someone might see me.
I thought if I wagged my tail hard enough,
If I tilted my head just right,
The world might open its hands.
But it did not.
It only ever closed its fists,
Turned its back,
And left me with scraps,
Too spoiled to taste.
Now I roam alleys slick with rain,
My nose pressed against the cold pavement.
The air sharp with the tang of rust,
The faint sweetness of a bruised apple
Rotting in the dark.
Even the light avoids me
Street Lamps flicker,
Shadows curl against my skin,
Like they, too, are ashamed.
I am no monster,
Though that's how the world perceives me.
I am just a dog that takes up too much space,
Whose hunger speaks louder than it ever should.
And yet, I keep searching.
I follow the smell of bread I will never taste,
The sound of footsteps I will never reach.
I chase voices that don't belong to me,
Hoping they might turn and see me,
Hoping they might call for me.
They do not.
So I sit beneath a streetlamp that sputters and hums,
And I imagine what it would feel like,
To have the weight of a hand on my head,
The sound of love spoken softly in the dark,
A belly heavy with food,
The sharp edges of my ribs fading into softness.
I close my eyes and imagine,
And for a moment,
I am full.
Categories:
sputters, angst, animal, beautiful, grief,
Form:
Free verse
He's strumming the guitar strings as if they weep,
near a warm campfire on a cold December night.
Sad chords of his song hold many secrets to keep.
Through Ponderosa pines, whistling winds sweep
while a silver moon hovers, lustrous and bright.
He's strumming the guitar strings as if they weep.
Visions of her appear. Each cutting cruelly deep,
memories that should never be brought to light.
Sad chords of his song hold many secrets to keep.
The fire sputters, causing golden flames to leap,
crimson embers and dark ashes rise up in flight.
He's strumming the guitar strings as if they weep.
Over rolling plains, echoing cries of coyotes sweep.
His heart fills with regret and he's gravely contrite.
Sad chords of his song hold many secrets to keep.
Serenading Andromeda, too restless for sleep.
Fingers picking the fret as he sings about his plight,
he's strumming the guitar strings as if they weep.
sad chords of his song hold many secrets to keep.
November 8, 2022-Third-Person Villanelle Contest
Sponsored by L Milton Hankins
Categories:
sputters, betrayal, lost love,
Form:
Villanelle
This brutal March wind
that bellows and bullies
tearing through trees,
and assaulting roofs
as it pounds against
my window’s glass
and rips away expectations
of long awaited spring
Even as it brings frozen drops
and sputters of snow
pushing trash cans
scattering life’s remnants
though I am forced to
hide under woolen blankets
and stir the coals
of hickory logs
I bow to its greatness
and behold the beauty
of its power
Categories:
sputters, seasons,
Form:
Free verse
**“Those that respect the law and love sausage should watch neither being made.” –
American Humorist/Author Mark Twain (real name Samuel Clemens)
Prestigious lawmaking bodies are comprised of solons*
Some find it hard to refrain from comparing them to cons
Few legislators know the ramifications of bills
And the way they’re rushed to passage can give the public chills
We don’t know what’s in bills or how they strip away our rights
And if we ask our lawmakers, they provide few insights
Piles of amendments are thrust hastily in political machines
Objections are made; no one successfully intervenes
“What’s that?” we ask later when we realize what has been done
(In Kennesaw, Georgia, all citizens MUST purchase guns)
Try to blend the conservative and liberal viewpoints
You’ll find the machine sputters with fat spewing from its joints
It’s like taking hunks of pork and grinding them into links
The process is messy and the outcome usually stinks
No matter! We are supposed to smile and just eat it up
Then we wash it all down with a sip from the lager cup
Pork barrel projects like Alaska’s “Bridge to Nowhere” confound
As on nebulous values of bills lawmakers expound
So beware if for common sense in these bills you forage
And remember old Mark Twain’s analogy to sausage
*Solons are members of any legislative or lawmaking body.
Categories:
sputters, funny
Form:
Couplet
Red Sun
The engine coughs and sputters
Then roars and shows it’s ready
To catch the sun at Hilo
Rising from the sea.
Written 06/24/13 for Russell Sivey’s
Red Sun Contest....
Remember Pearl Harbor
Categories:
sputters, betrayal, conflict, december, horror,
Form:
Dodoitsu
An old gal applied to join Mensa
Gee she couldn’t be any denser
She went in the wrong door
On the thirty third floor
And there she enrolled as a fencer
When attending her first fencing class
A man scored a hit on her huge ass
She screamed out so loud
It drew quite a crowd
She cannot abide failure – its crass!
WRITTEN BY JAN ALLISON
She hollered and screamed for a medic
I swear it was worse than a dead duck
one without any wings
oh the horror she sings
she's much more than dense she's pathetic
WRITTEN BY TIM SMITH
She swore that she really could spell
And in math she did surely excel
But once she felt pain
All she did was complain
And whined as her sore butt did swell.
WRITTEN BY CHRIS GREEN
That old gal then became a method actor
but one thing soon became a huge factor
she forgot all her lines
her mentality declines
now she sputters like a John Deere tractor
WRITTEN BY LIN LANE
Her butt was so sore she bought leeches
Gently placing them in her breeches
To suck out the bruise
We could hear her oooh's
I felt sorry for the poor creatures
Her butt was so big like a whale
all that was missing was it's tail
so they stuck a flag up her ****
called it the new Khyber pass
she went a whiter shade of pale.
WRITTEN BY SEREN ROBERTS
"Am I smart?" is what she kept asking
In glory she hoped to be basking.
Suddenly she farted.
The whole room departed.
Now finding fresh air is their tasking.
WRITTEN BY DALE GREGORY COZART
She sat for the test with all smiles
Filled out the forms and the files
But she spelled her name wrong
Became twisted of tongue
And was thrown to the crocodiles.
WRITTEN BY RICHARD D SEAL
07-17-17
Seems the old gal was a talented tart
Clearing the room with but one single fart
Wiping their eyes
All those wise guys
Soundly applauded her flatulent art
WRITTEN BY LIM'RIK FLATS
07-18-17
Categories:
sputters, humorous, irony,
Form:
Limerick
Late night summons madmen,
madams, bold streetwalkers,
picking pennies from the gutters
as the merchants close their shutters
and the homeless crouch in doorways
in their rags, against the cold.
Black or white, no compromise,
no colours clothe the empty streets,
as Bobbies tread their lonely beats,
the watchmen rub their crusted eyes
and settle into vigilance,
no accident, just circumstance.
Midnight passes.
Leila in her bursting bodice
lingers, guesses who I am
and flaunts her body, all the same
to her, a customer who'll pay
for twenty minutes' satisfaction.
Dressed in taffeta and lace
she'll never even see my face,
night's sweet anonymity,
the very definition of her name.
Later, as the moonbeams shift,
and cloudlines disappear and drift,
come images in stark relief
of twisted metals magnified
that catch the eye, suspend belief.
Abandoned building, hollow-eyed
and squinting in a death mask grip,
skeletal, once filled with pride,
now empty, and for ever tongue-tied,
cadavered, and condemned to drip.
Still later, the street-lamps spot
the cats a'creeping worldly-wise,
and rats along the quayside waiting,
ready for the avalanche
of waste into the yawning dumpsters.
I have seen the children sneaking out
before the dawn comes crawling,
dirty little ragamuffins forced
into leftover clothes,
weepy-eyed and snotty-nosed,
playing with a rotting carcass
or a broken bicycle.
Pre-dawn, and the street-lamp sputters,
merchants come to raise their shutters,
regard the fading moon, and mutter,
'yet another day.'
Begone, O Bride of Midnight!
favour us with not another glance,
put your spells away,
you'll not lead us in our daily dance.
Behold a wrinkled substitute,
a crone who likes to think that she's a queen;
with as much grace as she can muster,
she flusters, fidgets, lonely in her room,
feathered and be-furbelowed
and plays with her decolletage,
she's mutton dressed as lamb.
The smell of stale tobacco
and a whiff of old perfume,
no longer with her entourage
she dances out of rhythm to the tango,
rusty and unconstituted,
wraith-like, a phantom in her tomb.
At twenty past I'm home at last,
the brass plate spells my name;
come inside!
familiar and gratifying,
slippers by my bed still lying,
dressing gown and cap are crying,
here abide!
The sheets are turned and ready.
I leave the night and take a final bow,
grateful for the here and now.
Categories:
sputters, on writing and words,
Form:
Verse
False cheer shines through the glittery red ink,
Letter after colourful letter,
Hopes and dreams are drained down the sink,
Letter after colourful letter...
Dead inside is this empty life of lies,
Letter after colourful letter,
Woods are filled with broken cries
Letter after colourful letter...
'Tomorrow' will never come, hope will never shine,
Letter after colourful letter,
I will never be fine-
Letter after colourful letter...
A flutter of hope, sputters and dies
Letter after colourful letter.
The smiles of the gel-pen always lies
Letter after colourful letter.
Categories:
sputters, allegory, angst, depression, sad,
Form:
Rhyme
...inspiration from 'Preludes' by T.S. Eliot
Loose leaves rustle.
The grey light of evening dips and sways.
Evening birds bleat
their lonely tattoo.
Gone are the jays and the wagtails,
the burnt-out end of smoky days.
No fancy gadgets,
just a jar of pencils newly cut.
The clatter
of a typewriter
haunts the silence, like a 'pecker
jonesin' for nutrition, finding squat.
Curtains flutter.
She's shabbily dressed and thin.
A lonely candle sputters
and she struggles.
Notes and erasers jostle for space,
still no inspiration will brighten her face.
Coffee and cigarettes,
vodka and tears, and none will curb her fears
of ever grasping
white from black,
light from limbo, the curse of the damned,
the neverland that has her clammed.
One word, one spark
of enlightenment nudges her back.
Exhilaration wracks her,
electricity whacks her
like a sharp evening breeze,
and her fingers are dancing all over the keys!
Categories:
sputters, inspirationallonely,
Form:
Verse
Grieving, I shall rue the day when atop the hill I stand,
alone with my memories, grasses swaying in the breeze.
Tears on my cheeks, he'd once so tenderly caressed.
A groan will escape my lips and I will fall to my knees,
wistful, yet blessed for I'd held his love within my breast.
Days to follow shall be visited with shadows and grief,
the only smile 'pon my lips will come with thoughts of him.
Too brief the moments when they'll linger and grant respite,
for when our candle flame sputters, my world will be dim.
Then, I'll beg the moon to help me through each lonely night.
Lambent light to my eyes, each time he entered my door.
We had a love unlike any ever kindled inside me before.
We ran through tall blades of grass on that verdant hill,
hand in hand, laughing like children, teasing and taunting.
Every word he'd ever spoken, I will hear in his haunting.
I'll hold one line sacred in mind, recalling when he wrote,
"I always return to you," and thus, his love was bared.
If that he could, I have no doubt indeed he would
and find me waiting atop the trysting hill we shared,
yearning for one more day, pleading for one more hour
to lie beside him, savoring our splendor in the grass.
There was innocence in our budding
Revelation in our days of blossoming
Jubilation in our weeks of blooming
Mourning on the day of our withering
Categories:
sputters, sad,
Form:
Rhyme
The deception of “free verse”: Dreams II, Translation of Etiemble’s “L’imposture du vers libre” by T. Wignesan
“Free verse, free not to be verse” – Audiberti
My love is not blue like a lake
my love is not blue like a sky
but red swollen with blood
and of ire
No lapping sounds of oars
playing out a nocturne
Bienne lake or that of Bourget
ever beat out the loping of my heart
My love’s neither blue nor like a lake
nor like a sea of oil
In the cauldron of boiling oil
a witch throws in a thumb
and the formula
My witching love
sputters and bursts out
stinging these busts and this lip
red
Vehement like a she-demon
it dances in a mad whirl
My left temple
wails
with the furious ocean
which rumbles under my pillow
What ships wreck in this sunken heart
still bleeding
of all the hearts it peeled
bleeding bodies of the young girl
And this heart weeps over its deaths
Like those on All Souls’ Day
the old hoary woman weeping
twisted up into wailing somersaults
which pad the cries of skeletons
clinging to rapacious granite
My heart beating on the pillow
muffles the voice of the friend
which begged the evening gone by
“Tell me it’s not over yet!”
And like the ocean cowardly
I collapse into my bed
to better listen to the tolling
of my temples and my heart
a delusionary
song of joy.
Signed: Jean Louverné (pseudonym)
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, 2014 (Translation
Categories:
sputters, heart, love,
Form:
Free verse
HOPEFUL TRIO
the first hint of spring
cannot be put into words
no special color
it is the song of the wind
softly breezing warmth and hope
hint
of spring
gentle breeze
come from somewhere
stings but warms your cheek
the northern god is tired
labored very hard this year
there is no pity in his voice
sister sun has weakened him with age
he coughs and sputters round the neighborhood
the first hint of spring
subtle change of attitude
breeze instead of wind
Categories:
sputters, nature
Form:
Tanka
Without fiery passion,
there is no poetry – Oh,
there are jingles of sorts!
jingles of naughts –
Limericks so on, and on
and on – Rhymes two
three and four, or as many
more; but, for a lyric to
soar, or heavily sink to
depths fond hearts dip
and taste-tally together
explore...there must be
great passion, smothering
smoking, burning passion
or nothing at all:
passion above, passion below
as well as within – to the core
of earth-center while breaching
sky tall...or the poet's words,
the vehicles of his being
the reasons for his feeling
the scopes of his seeing
without such divine-juice
his soul-output sputters
and stalls – spent projectiles
from
conforming
passionless
balls –
Categories:
sputters, passion, perspective, poetry, poets,
Form:
Free verse
O tiny, dimpled sphere, virginal white,
Whooshing on your preordain-ed flight:
What motivates your Lord to curses spew
When you've done naught but to his swing be true?
Slice, and down he calls the wrath of God
On you and those who made you;
Hook, and here he whines you failed to heed
His clear intent to fade you.
You moved, he reasons, at the bottom of the downswing of the shot
(As if, inanimate jot, you have the power to move, or not).
“You’re old,” he mutters when a feeble, graceless effort
Sends you only laughing distance off the tee.
“Too bold,” he sputters when a misselected iron
Flies you over green to rest behind a tree.
Err as physics dictate, and Lo!, you are to blame;
Perform as he expects of you, no credit's due,
Only commands that you do more of same.
You are twice cut by lethal hacks that scar your face with "smiles.”
(“Grimace” is the better word.)
While the acid words he throws at you,
The vitriol he blows at you,
Drain his duffer's bile.
Injustice is your lot, bedeviled wretch, until you cease
Behind a bush or in some pond find peace;
For when you’re lost in water, wood, or shrub,
The cretin will commence to fault his club.
1/5/2016
Any Poem Contest
Sponsor: Broken Wings
Categories:
sputters, golf, humorous,
Form:
Ode
Continued from Part 1
The Beggars ’neath the balustrades,
and broken Children, Chambermaids,
are running wild from wraiths, afraid
of dreams where death redoubles.
They fritter time with tattered threads
(from ragged clothes they’ve left in shreds),
crocheting hoods to hide their heads
and faces, full of rubble.
But many things will not remain
the Morning of the Hurricanes,
when goblets filled with cool champagne
evaporate in bubbles.
The White-Robed Maid adorns the trash
with charnel urns awash in ash,
then fumbles with an untied sash
while pacing in the Palace.
Her hopes congeal in coffee spoons
with memories adrift in dunes;
yet, still she smiles with teeth like prunes
and lips of painted callus.
And long before the midnight drains,
the Saviour wakes, the Loser gains,
the waters of the Hurricanes
will fill her empty chalice.
The storm (behind the clarinets,
the silver flutes, the castanets,
the foghorns belching in quartets,
the bagpipes, puffed and swollen)
is keeping time to tambourines
while Tom Thumb and the Four-Inch Queen,
pick up the shards and smithereens
of moments lost or stolen.
They’re trekking through the Dim Domains
(where fountains weep, the mountain wanes),
yet can’t escape the Hurricanes
with trundling eyes patrollin’.
The Crowds (arrayed in jewels) in jails,
stoop, peering through a fence of nails
while light behind their eyeballs pales
with plastic flame that sputters.
They huddle there because they must
(with eyelids hung like peeling rust,
their tears, palled pellets in the dust),
behind the bolted shutters.
They’ll reawake without their pains
the Morning of the Hurricanes,
without their sores, without their stains,
their agonies will fill the drains
and overflow the gutters.
End
Categories:
sputters, fantasy,
Form:
Rhyme