Best Sterility Poems
This bridge has arched the lake's narrows
for a century, flanked on either side
by Autumn trees shedding their faded leaves,
blowing with the first snowflakes
across worn gray stones of my spirit.
Six months ago you felt the first pain.
Now you lie in white sterility
of hospice care, continually exorcizing
the feeding tube, a final tether
binding you to earth,
where the morphine pump wheezes
every fifteen minutes
and missionaries advise prayer
to the strength-less living.
Your a**hole oncologist told me your suffering
was none of my business.
I told him to take his prognosis,
as suffocating as the pine cleaner
lingering like miasma
over hallway linoleum,
and get the f**k out.
From the corner of my eye
I spot a wild rose sprouting on the bank
at the base of a haggard maple,
an anomaly in bleak October,
glaring crimson as my resentment,
angry as the dream when I said,
I'll be your will when yours is gone.
Knowing full well it won't survive the winter,
I give fate the finger
from my dismal perch,
just as I gave you two dozen such blooms this Mother's Day.
I'll see you in Spring,
rises the phoenix from my Summer ashes.
The flurries thicken around me
like a gathering of angels.
With eyes stinging
I toss plucked petals of pennies
into the Judas lake
while wishing as hard as I can.
12/31/18
The world has screamed through masks
Of silent anxieties, hiding beneath
Liquid sterility and haunting innuendos
The world has prayed for a new dawn
To take the place of this fear
Locked up inside a heart who pounds
Darkness, dread and daunting
Deaths
The world has longed for a second chance
To color life in hues of hope
Yet it is blinded by tragedy and worry
Endless feelings of loss and loneliness
Left behind from the sorrows
The world has gone from bad to worse
In the hands of a distant horror
Found on the threads of shady thoughts
Which have left us all with a hopeless
Reluctance to go back to the place
Normal embraced
The world is ruled by fear today
And God is a God of love – He is love
So fight the blackness of dismay
And listen to the kindness and hope
Found in the One we all pray to
He will heal our hearts and our thoughts!
Global Reset 21 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Joe Maverick
June 5, 2021
Slow motion memories.
Street lit like a movie set,
outside the dance hall.
Muffler-less cars,
full throttle, then eerily quiet.
Self willed machines idling along the street,
flooding the night; flashing eyeballs,
headlining teenage girls.
A sashaying crush; glancing, giggling,
disdainful in stinging beehives,
plastic jackets, high gloss paint and oily pants.
Cruising crass flash
false virility in high gloss paint.
James Dean on Sunset Strip.
Hands on the stick shift; giving themselves the gears.
skinny boys glancing in the mirror, where dice and kewpie dolls hang,
squinting at astigmatisms of Steve McQueen on hunk steroids.
Nervous to fingered combs slink through their hair,
checking out the rear end drive,
outside the dance hall on a Friday night.
A curly haired boy,
red faced brother of my best friend, never owned a car,
pushes forward in the street,
to talk with sister and friends.
Asked a girl for a kiss.
Too easily dismissed.
In the science lab; class dismissed.
Counters gleam grade A sterility.
Chemicals stare coldly from spotless beakers.
Put his mouth over the gas jet.
A curly haired boy,
going nowhere on a Friday afternoon.
Bristling yet beguiling winds are
driving snow sheets through the dark,
and, secured by brick and lamp,
I draw a comforter to my breast,
one woven by humanity.
I sense that each quickening gust
is pulling through the loom of time
life's many multi-colored threads.
A hickory brown is borne to me
of ships defying depths and dangers,
carrying dreams and heartaches.
Glistening now--the lucent blue
of fertile, percolating minds
genome maps and software.
I feel the orange of affection,
hearth and smiles and homecomings,
the warmth of song and story.
The blinking silver of fantasy,
visionaries, piercing sterility--
castles, stars, utopias.
Here is a filament of frothy pink
comedies, dances and levity,
play and spontaneity.
The looming strands of swarthy black
necessities, death, and armies,
relentless in their marching.
The golden promise of sacred texts,
altars, candles, hope,
encoded and translated.
Emerging, the green of recent growth,
rites of spring and passage,
learning and inner progress.
With such a large and lustrous blanket
in which to sink, like a new-born babe,
I'll toss some folds to you, as they will
easily stretch from here to there.
On the edge of metropolitan midnight
he lays in a breathless silence
rasping the evanescing yesterdays to his windows
both open and locked,
while the unknowing below in stale smoke barrooms,
wait to sear his wounds and retell his life
in putrefied requiem.
Abashed metropolis
echoing of muted voices once adorning the streets
in practiced synthetic ritual,
the vile awash and seeping through asphalt cracks,
the scent of rot, old and new, smattered on old brick edifices
silences the ascending smoke plumes
belched from and within dirtied concrete towers,
the final endeavor from within a dying mans spirit
reaching out to no one
City’s voice wails from the antechamber in darkness
anxieties fracturing the panes amongst the downtown fire
of urban panic
lucidity congealing away within him, kept only in the moment
by metronome dripped medicine
exposing him to his damp streets, dirtied culverts, sewer ditches
chemically induced and maintained.
Fighting for his identity within this sterilized chaos,
whispering for the few of open mind somewhere below the window sill,
quicky stepping onward, over his newsprint life,
calling out one last time
There he lays in cold white sterility,
calling silently to his windows, both opened and locked,
watching his stories catch and fade in the dull humid streetlight
wisped away on steam grate stale winds,
the dying soul, eyes closed, his aged lined face
muddied, scraped, and walked over,
through the grime of progression left on sullied pavement.
Now that I have gotten that over with,
Being straightforward as a piss-ant on fire,
Telling you it just is what it is,
That behind all the frizz,
Is a beardless fake whose heraldic bearings
Are the arms of a sickly snake,
And that all this derogatory self-derision is decisively the result
Of a disease smitten assault by a prodigal bug
Whose virility is known to create sterility of poetic taste-
Oh what a waste to find oneself in such a caste,
Outcast in a landless mire of sea,
Where there is no Sea king to lead back to land,
Where seeking leads not to seeing
But only to being the miserly plot written by this poetasters hand-
Now, to repeat, that I have gotten that over with,
I can really try,
Once and for all,
To really get it over with.
Like really really real.
So here it is,
In medias res,
The big ordeal:
Merde! Merde!
J’ai oublié on this very day,
To have taken my ressurectine,
The nectar which this fool requires with some dismay
To not forget his pointless points.
Where is my medicine Edison?
Where is my pill?
How shall I cart this over the hill?
O’sir,
Dear sir,
For in the middle of this rabid petri dish of sheer excitement,
Close to moiety’s shribble,
With voice shrill,
Ready to take aim and avoid all shame,
I was, I was, I was, I swear
Almost there,
But alas,
I am,
Now out of gas,
With nothing more to gain,
A timid loveless swain,
A witless poet with no further words to amass,
A neutered puppy in a jungle,
Without a rumble,
To stumble upon just the right word,
To close off looking less like a turd,
Then this early morning bird,
Preferably one day,
Could theoretically mumble.
Did I mention that between finding Absolute Knowledge,
And miming Absolute Knowledge,
I would like to find myself snuggly ensconced in the arms,
Of not only Winnie the Pooh,
But surely Yogi Berra too?
Mired in muck. Appendageless.
Sinking in shadowy whispers.
Surviving is senseless.
Eternity is a marathon with no bathrooms, no water, no finish.
I pray for light, Satan pulls the shades
No hope, no truth, no tomorrow.
I need a friend to throw me a lifeline
But they are all busy avoiding the muck.
Spinning on their cotton candy bridges.
They spew their words gilded with silk and honey
Dripping from forked tongues.
It's not until the subtle meanings catch the wind and scatter that the honey turns dark,
And thick, and makes their teeth black and their hearts dull.
I wait for the splash as another like me has had her life's bridge eaten by the acid of jealousy and fear.
She screams, "THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE!"
And the muck bubbles and shifts exultant
As it silences her cries and extinguishes her fire.
Laughter falls like shards of glass from above,
Because they know the truth but never speak it.
An unwritten oath that all jail keepers vow.
Lock the truth away like a bird in a cage until its colors fade, its feathers fall, and music is only a memory.
A man dangles from a swinging cord
Halfway between the mockers and the muck.
His white collar hurts our eyes
Smooth words of redemption that almost awaken my sleeping emotions.
But then the cord breaks, and faced with the truth of our existence
The man flees back to the bridge
Our heads his stepping stones as he escapes to the sterility above.
His collar stays white,
His hands clean.
His memory is short -- he doesn't even remember why he came.
Or who sent him. He is the lucky one.
Memory haunts me. I long to forget:
How to love
How to hurt
How to breathe.
My cocoon of woe promises no future flight
It's a straight jacket of hate
And my prayers just bounce off the padded walls.
I need a knight; I get only night.
I need a hand; I get a slap.
I need understanding; I get overstepping.
I know three things:
1. Nothing will ever be the same.
2. I will never trust again.
3. You cannot will a heart to stop beating.
Sleep is my only friend, death my only goal.
That is the truth that will set me free.
Singing To the Choir
(Or is it preaching? You choose.)
My oh my oh my and much more my
(Seattle Mariner's Theme Song)
(How about Mine, Mine, Mine the
seagulls say at Disneyworld?)
God has given me ability to get by
Overcome awful old age and senility
By using composure with some sterility.
When I did write poems would realize
It was you my poems did tranquilize
With effects from God that are correct
So which one should I try to select.
Turned out to be love of my long life
Good looking creature and lovely wife
Them hands together started to wring
Hopes I join choir and there be singing.
Have you been in that position before?
Person you surely, truly love and do adore
Wants you to be preaching to the choir
When long poor life is about to expire.
James Thesarious Hilarious Horn
Preaching to choirs for someone to
come and pull out with pliers all the
songs I am poorly singing. Not only
do they want them to go unnoticed,
but also unheard to me it occurred.
What should they declare as probable
cause. Off of women, can't keep my
paws.
Sandpiper Pausing...Again
What times are these
where hearts run hot and cold
ceaseless conscience alerts
remind us of steel girders fallen prone
entombments sealed
their distant voice remembered well
Compassion's lens peers through
this fallen metropolis of micro-flesh
this glass transparency
engulfed by forsaken smoke
knowing today's ethereal
descends as heart's residue
embracing darkness recalled
clock hands stopping
media rushing to air-time
yet never to be out of date
Silence remembers
fused tragedies
crumbling worlds
bodies falling
hearts broken
Yet
learning comes hard
More violence breaks the silence
cacophonous pandemonium
empty shell casings bouncing
pop pop pop pop pop
children's pleas
teachers' bravery
first responder's sorrow
parents traumatized
grievance everywhere
Sterility reigns
Washington defers
barbarity's extended abyss
the next tragic moment to define
insensitive that irresponsible behavior
will spawn new memories
destined to awaken vanquished yesterdays
Like a video game of archaic gulosity
certain chameleon passions remain insatiable
indecisive apathy-driven appetites
fuel congressional obstruction
While at the shore
A sandpiper pauses
beneath remembered ash
echoed violence
unredeemable screams
floating atop societal trade winds
seeming to be never forgotten
Like other creatures of blood that flows
eyes that see
ears that hear
hearts remaining conscious
knows not cowardice
Even a bird understands that
And so...
Even as the sandpiper probes away
its discovered sustenance hard fought
its needs remaining small
congressional appetites of power and greed
continue sated only with constituency expectation
indulging in anticipated 2013's gluttonous reward
thinking the next tragedy but finger food
the next gun sales windfall a payback for re-election
answering the next challenge of moral impotency with...
Not a problem
Not a problem
And the leopard shall lie down with the kid
Isa. 11:6
My, my, my
Fancy meeting you here, kid
You're looking good enough to eat,
you got good taste, I can tell
Back in the day,
you woulda made a mighty fine leopard treat
But I'm a vegetarian now,
don't that make you wanna say, holy cow
Well, well, well
I'm flattered how you spotted me so easily
You see I'm stepping with a new look,
I'm not the same person I used to be
No more billy goat, stubborn and tough streak;
now, I'm just a nice, tender-hearted person,
no longer selling myself like a piece of meat
Indeed, indeed, indeed
It's a new world we're living in,
and all the changes look very good to me
No more predators, high brow
Puffy hearts, no elite
No more helpless prey,
or diseased minds
No more spiritual effete
Um, um, um
The purr of your voice sounds so sweet,
I'm loving the words you're speaking to me
No more cruel urban jungles,
or village mires of poverty
No more vacuous rural living,
no more suburban sterility
Let's give a non-fermented toast,
fare good riddance to the old way
Yes, let us come eat, drink and be merry,
refresh our souls at the new world café
You dont have to be moved,
we are already in a revolution
A different kind, one where futures are decided on couches in front of the television.
One which undoes it all
Implanting the seeds that usurp
men and women; both old and young along with their hot blooded ideals.
I make a imaginery toast to a time when we raised fists in unison.
While I watch in much intrigue and an impending sense of horror,
a tide wiping the minds of the free of all that is red
With the sterility of modern celluloid fiction.
The profane fantasies consisting of comic book superheroes fighting crime.
Morphed, rudimentary ideas of justice.
Just another vulgar display of neo liberal superficiality.
Meanwhile my mind wanders far away
To the remote and torrid jungles of nowhere
My comrade mothers her child
who is to be weaned off of her bossom,
It Blissfully titters at the breathtaking landscape now under seige.
As she cuddles her child, her eyes peer into the vastness.
Her heroes are dead, but not her resilience.
This is the day that flattened the city:
shock wave, clothes burnt off;
“This is what they have done, tell everyone.”
Radiation penetrating into sickness
> sterility.
That was the day when all was laid waste.
This is the day they stood up on the mount:
awed, as His clothes shone.
“This is my beloved Son, listen to him.”
Radiance transfiguring, three with One worshipped
> fruitfully.
That was the day which uplifted mankind.
Now is the time for faith to hold on:
declared to be heard;
“This is the light of the world, behold Him.”
Vesture of truth shining, penetrates, conceiving
> fertility.
Now is the time for peace rising.
unrhymed quatrain
The cutting wind that bellows and then whispers
deceiving in it's lull only to cut through and back when we turn
memories awakened and transported in irreversible succession
shifting the moments played out as unworthiness clasps the frozen images
Impatient as the sequence of events flashes in the mind
an inescapable prison with no jailer
the definitive continued progression of bygone sentiment plays havoc
part secret, part statement, the past truth haunts deeply dark
Redundant buying, selling, and bartering for emotions devitalizes
as the bully beats down any feelings for remorse
adulation becomes the bitter routine of nothingness
a new found path beckons with the dispassionate pureness of sterility
Rejoicing in the decadencey of not caring and pure unshakable freedom
the wind can blow never turning as the branches it breaks fall
mourning comes then anger in an unretractable moment blazes into light
the tree will remain long after the careless wind moves on
I APPEAL ME'LORD
Litigations against me
Carnal sins counted thrice
Insanity, sterility, concubines-
Concocted, hence
Baseless.
I can sing,
ëEvery night in my dream
I see you, I feel you
Thatís how, I know you
My heart will go on, far across the distance
And spaces between usí,
Celine on cape, dolefully.
I pray on my knees
My daughter, my blood
Honest to wedlock.
I read with reverence,
ëAsathoma Satgamaya
Thamasoma Jyothirgamaya
Mrithyoma Amrithamgamayaí.
My Pranam to Sun,
ëLet your rays be my guideí.
Plaintiff and accusations-
Why, why, I falter
Falsification of life
Pushing me, a muscle storm
Perched on unreachable heights.
I appeal Me'Lord
No bats with wickedness
No crooked defamations
No fake witnesses
Creep to your desk.
Let her place before You
Cool !!! CoolÖÖÖ
Her wish to move to poles different
Separation
Lift the pendency.
My flesh trembles,
Iím afraid of judgements.
I bow my head
Put my thumb.
Shower justice to see my daughter
Once in a year,
X-mas eves
When reindeers draw sledge
When Santa calls
My child and me
At our door-
I succumb
I yield
I fix my thumb
On my fate
I yield ÖÖ
As I searched the calm sunless afternoon sky- looking for the humming aeroplane;
piercing the layers of patch sky under the fie-
shade of undense orange sapling,
as the effulge plane became fainter-
the hum louder; and the pale trail less unseen;
my eyes and mind kept on searching the- colourless layers of patch clouds; untiring;
before a melancholy bird started in trance a- voluptuous song not far from my height
as she caught my gaze she became afraid- unstable, of even the echo of passing air;
but she didn't flew away, stretching her feathers- clunging the tiny branches in might,
undermining the large unknown evil in me that- even me wasn't aware, which is not fair,
I think with her size, and luster brown colour she- might be from the families of doves
In retrospecting forgotten past, she was inventer- of French kiss; body clung intimate;
as I picked a bolder to cause her harm, I saw her- feets adorn with glib of cut-off reeds
I think she had patiently walk the lather of- insidious love, and now becoming a parent,
in three days when I remembered her; I checked- for she had beautifully woven her nest;
she laid two pale-white colour eggs, and-
whenever I passed, she laid serenely on her eggs,
each time I sat under the tranquil shade of my- sapling orange; she watched me in haste,
till one painfully cloudy afternoon when rainstorm- came, and overpowered her experience
I was away watching Manchester, and Arsenal- play, coming home I meet her wet in farness;
exhaustion, and cold added to her despair as she- watched me picking her eggs on the floor,
I embroided her nest carefully; under the haze of- cold; medleying her stale reeds in freshness;
placing the crack undamage egg in company of- the merge damage shell; as my tears flow,
I ponderously watch as she came some feets to- her nest taking it maybe as derision travesty
she gaze longer at her broken eggs; timid to laid- on them, as we watch ourselves in sterility
without knowing what the other was thinking-
then she flew faintly high onto sky as rain jades
next morning I found her coldly dead, rigidly beside my stool under the sapling orange shades.