Best Stiffened Poems
O April
how I’ve longed for your return
to breathe new life
into this gnarled body..
for these roots to be unfettered
from the grasping earthen frost -
the past season of fanged nor’easters gnashed
me bare - leaving me mauled and dulled
alone with stiffened limbs
lifted to face
the hard glower of old man winter
with not a morsel of mercy to be gained
but April
now that you're here to share
the innocence of the daisy
and the honeyed scent of the sweet pea
I feel inspirited like a sapling young and tender again;
mild is the fog’s embrace in early morn
as I taste your sweetened rainwater
and gentle is the rhythm of baptizing
showers bathing dark days away..
and ever grateful is my grayed heart
as it begins to beat
with the fresh pulse of verdant rebirth
oh April
how easily you inspire
my shy imagination to fly
with the zephyr's muse
to expand my artistry
in an afternoon’s brushstroke of forsythia light
dreams once frozen now thawed and golden
eager to flourish in bloom
awakening the poetry
in a new leaf’s unfurling whisper -
a whisper that grows a praising wind-psalm
as choirs of bursting buds
celebrate revival
with a rustling alleluia!
star-shaped sails rouse in swishing sounds
their leafy lyrical breath one with the breeze
my green-laden boughs now a wellspring
of exuberant born-again voices
a thronging rejoice lifted
to the heavens on the whisk of the westerlies;
supple is my sweep and sway ‘neath
the soft-bellied skies of Spring
dear lady, April
how I revel in the glorious abundance of your Nature;
your nurture enlivens my humble woody being
and though gray may shade my weather-beaten heart..
evergreen is my soul
Susan Ashley
April 12, 2021
~ First Place ~
Premiere Contest: April
Sponsor: Regina McIntosh
*Based on Plato's Allegory of the Cave
Numb fists with bloody wrists
chained to crumbling walls.
Glazed eyes that never spy
a single truth or fault.
Dim light impairing sight
in spaces dark and shallow.
Stone walls where lies are scrawled
by murky phantom shadows.
One breaks free on frail knees
stiffened by disuse,
to leave behind the dumb and blind
who welcome this abuse.
He climbs in pain against the grain
toward a distant light.
With bloodied hands, he finally stands,
exhausting all his might.
Dazed at first, he's cursed by thirst
beneath the blazing sky.
The sun is bright and plunders sight
from eyes too dry to cry.
Lesions crust as eyes adjust
to find a foreign land
with greenest grass and sea like glass
caressing strips of sand.
He stands amazed before this maze
of truths he's never seen
and vows to save those in the cave
whose ignorance demeans.
When he returns, his words are spurned
by those chained to the wall.
They have no will to brave that hill
or risk the chance to fall.
He cannot go back to this show
of living shadowed lies.
Now that he knows the truth below,
he needs the open skies.
And so he climbs to search, to find
the knowledge that he craves.
No more a slave to the dark cave.
He's left that mindless grave.
She said, if I correctly recall,
That, for her, a sustaining love is an
Absolute prerequisite for what
Would be a total commitment of the
Coupling bodies...and all that
Constitutes the essential parts of the
Eternal Soul;
And I not so assuredly competent
In this - the practice of such a higher
Art!
Adding, some little time later, that
Being so chained, in what she described
As an unfortunate consequence of a
Most regrettable thrall,
To a domineering Harlequin who,
When mindlessly exercising the upper
Whip hand, had neither modest restraint
Or any amount of unimpassioned
Self-control,
Was, in fact, just a flagrant excuse
For a base lust;
Of course this was not to be confused
With the laudable and gallant actions
Conceived within the inner workings
Of a steadfast and more openly honest
Heart.
And was I convinced that I was indeed
Sincere in all my avowed pledges?
And did I truly understand that all her
Troubled life she had tirelessly
Searched for one such as I purported
To, somehow, seemingly be?
How I instantly can bring to mind
Those obscure and doubting mutterings...
Still carrying upon an ill wind I
Should not wonder;
I think of them like the songs of the
Naiads: what woefully remaining
Sounding endlessly above the glassy
Tinkling of a mystical lakeside's
Stiffened and shuffling Sedges;
You a modern-day Danae, infant Perseus
Clutched to your swollen breast, your
Little box, in all its abject
Loneliness, now set adrift upon some
Desolate and open sea.
What turned out, in the end, to be a
Pointless charade. Perhaps; but that
Which, despite shortening periods, whilst
Enduring felt almost timeless.
Then of course this shared guilt...
That will, shamefully I fear,
Forever bind us.
Unrequited
The things i think about,
never settle below
they float instead
and fester inside
as I pluck your name in the air
a sacred memory folds over
foaming layers, floating vapors
Creating a chill and then a stupor
the last draw of my breath
I slipped again, I stripped
you tripped in the end
Even if you stay in your lane
But you’re driving insane
so much distance between two cars
its impossible to hear
Muffled by the wind, carried away the fear
I tried to speak, but the sound
Never carried over
It rises an ache in my throat
nerves are calmed, noise is stifled
legs are stiffened, feet planted
hands firmly gripped
elbows abutted
in a world prone to forget
my memory stays etched
in your fractured mind
my taste stayed on the lips
of the one I've left behind
a fleeting moment
Betrayed by lust unveiled the trust
between the blinks of my eye
You remain a distant memory
The pain has abated
the speed is indeed fleeting
Forgotten with the past
in the throes between two fires
the faded lines, the dying embers
Looms over like the sun
So I say, you cannot stay
Isn’t that off-putting?
A broken soul
With a spirit so agile
My body so fragile,
with just one touch,
you peel my layers
like the sprouting weeds
between the pavement
the truth wants to be known
My touch so brief,
and yet it lingered
Overstayed its welcome
And in the horizon
It stretched, it lagged on
And with your imagination
My skin rubbed raw,
My voice cracked, I cringed
I become unhinged
My heart will always be disquieted
Your love forever unrequited
As we step closer to our final door,
when words succumb to days of restless sleep,
and dance retreats into a stiffened creep,
I wonder, will you love me even more?
For I will answer with my final breath,
that I will love you more on coldest night
as outer beauty dims to inner light
when aging hands entwined do embrace death.
Tis easier to love in summer heat,
while springtime of our love does not yet slip
from thoughts and dew still moistens our warm lips.
Our June days liven blooms beneath our feet!
But autumn days will fade to wintry snow
as surely as my love for you will grow.
White like the snow
Ice stiffened limbs
Reaching out
No saviors about
Snow flakes in the wind
I reached and reached and reached
Towards deaths cold hands
Never to see her again
I looked down
Wine of bloods holocaust
Flowing from my hands
Unto the devils abode
Whitest of Pyrenees days
I died beside her departure
Railroad tracks empty
Bloodless heart
Ashes black
Butterfly born
Gradually the crystalizing dawn -- more hardened
Than folded steel --- more sharper than
The blade that cuts!
Wisps of thin vapour, once loitering insidiously
At the steps of each staunch door,
Swirling away -- seemingly almost alive!
Coiling and uncoiling. Has all the litheness of a
Dancing girls weightless silken ribbon.
Until, retreating back, high, into some lofty,
Inaccessible mountain...
Dissipates as if just abandoned dragons breath.
The trees and streams are no longer so solemn.
Circling over the temple, above the brittle lands
Frosted chill, red-beaked choughs noisily engaged
In agitated clattering...
But now the temple bells are commanding those
Monks to prayer.
The blind and withered monk, who sits alone
In his unassuming corner, reminds us:-
"An emperor who abuses his power unsettles the
Equilibrium of the whole nation, the workings of
Nature,
And the livelihood of all people;
His responsibility is to maintain harmony in
Himself and the empire...
By acting in accordance with Confucian principles".
It is for them to contemplate what we cannot
Comprehend:-
We are peasants and it is not expected of us
To understand such wise things; nor should we.
We understand the fish and their ways, and the
Ways of the Blue River...
Just as monks understand our gracious lord Buddha.
Rouses the sun. Slowly lifts an enormous sky.
Glistening hoarfrost spun from bramble to
Bush -- strung from bough to branch like
Giant spider web;
Stiffened grasses that so pleasingly crunch
Underfoot;
And from these grasses, droplets of moisture
Ready to be released like slow weeping tears;
They will join with and sweeten the vibrant
Spring waters -- clearer than quartz --
That stream in tripping rivulets over yellow rocks
To splash from shallow cup to pouring pool...
Once you have tasted these waters you would
Have little more need of wine.
Wine is for idle men, or for our warring masters
To drink when celebrating great victory;
What use have we of intoxicating wine?
It is better kept as an offering...
Lest the river Gods grow angry and
Spoil our catch.
Savage whims of winter
that bring freezing rain
unrestrained
in a sky re-grouping
flaired forceful with the cold
Ice coated, leaf-less trees that bend
like old men over their canes
Trees from an underworld,
frigid
brutally hobbled by their rich, new coating
Maple trees,
heavy
that seem to weep with worry
Glaze baked into branches that gleam
in sober sunlight
like a church lit by candles
Ice that flickers with sorrow and beauty
a crystal knave
inviting awe and repulsion
for sheeted frost that veils the landscape
Refracted light,
glistening
to fill the cramped chill of winter
Still life stiffened that crackles and hisses
when the wind blows
An icy, lush world that loiters in our minds,
stealthily
to shimmer in our slumber
Poem composed: December 17, 2020
Silent in its violence
the sun lays ancient fire-fingers
on the heat-scoured concrete of the promenade:
boxy seafront chalets tilting and creaking at angles,
scorched, salt-stiffened gardens,
sand dunes, a screaming blue sea.
It is so difficult to accept a loss, a deprivation.
Innocence flaps its winding sheet behind me,
its mummy cloth of myth.
As from an isolated moon I see
the first cold breaker rush to engulf me -
an underwater undulance,
undercurrents of menace, of malice.
The sand-strewn strand stretches into infinity,
shimmering with the visions, the voices, the echoes,
the faceless departments of government and society.
I watch the insouciant people around me,
they possess a flatness, like blank paper.
They hump and lug plastic picnic paraphernalia,
ridiculously, all beach grime and blistered backs,
reduced to a red cindery glow.
Ice creams, scooped from the freezers
in trinkety seashore shops,
are clutched in sunburnt hands.
They are spreading striped sunbathing mats,
snide and smiling slyly.
Is it a mirage, a delusion,
dredged from the desert-dry air?
The air snags in my throat: the flat summer stench
of warm wood, sun lotion, billowing cotton -
blank but expansive. The creaking, the flapping.
A strange wind howls and banters in my ear
and the train shrieks through its station,
the station of my brain -
a riddled red abyss, poker-hot.
The sun is sinking -
a disc of fire, a blood clot.
Water floods the ridgy shallows,
eddying into treacherous pits.
The black gun muzzle of my mouth
blasts the oxygen from the air.
My nerves a hive of wires suffering
the scarlet atrocities.
Pokers put out my eyes.
Squeezed by the forceps of agony
I see nothing, there is nothing
but a mirage of wavering dunes closing in
and the sea splintering; a multitude of glass glittering.
A wind, sharp and cold
Leaves the trees shaven,
Of such colors bold
Yet, in my mind are graven
Come November days
Less sunlight remains,
Where it stayed and plays
Filtering, as it drains
Through amber waves
Leaving my heart warm,
In my memory saves
Before the first snowstorm
Be it white by morning
No more gold and red,
Be it winter's warning
That autumn is almost dead
Come November nights
Stiffened by the chill,
The dappled sunlights
Cling to my soul still.
an emptiness and coolness just
in the midst of the chest, unease
my corgi terrier, black and white
watches me and stares with her dark black eyes
she paces back and forth to my bedroom and
to the sofa, back and forth looking at me
trying to herd me to my bedroom down the hall nothing new from this disease that I feel of
just a stiffened neck, vertebrates that ache
sharp electrical wires stinging - nothing new
but the emptiness and icy aching heart
with the feeling of dread and fatigue
no time to create something wondrous
a legacy — no famous name to be left behind
no children, no good works
my quiet husband my quiet emptiness
I am weary of this futile fight
my dreams gone into the clouds
frost covers aged rose
petals stiffened by falls chill
sun makes it like glass
Dear, hold me in your heart she breathed
as he caressed her earthly frame;
she held his sword, as yet unsheathed
for though I not yet know your name
nor ever recognize your face
each night between the eve and dawn
you do descend, and we embrace
my Oberon, and I, your fawn.
The days too long till bliss of night
when sleep does, longing close my eyes
and I can feel your stiffened might.
Now, hold me in your heart, she sighs;
and let me never wake again
just sleep, in pleasure and in pain.
The wind freshened and~
the briny sea stiffened
in your hair,
until my fingers swept it free
~ but not totally, nor
would I ever want it to be,
because, to flirt with your demons
is to rearrange your endearing quirks
~even the angry ones...
I need to be left in your glare-because
I bathe there...happily.
A promise of foreverness is
eternity wrapped in wishes -
infatuation left to grow into
something more than just
a simple affair...
Disaster is imminent
shout the popular press
and the anointed
from lofty pulpits. Wars,
pestilence, earthquakes,
divine wrath are about
to be visited
upon a wayward world.
Meanwhile, a lovely still
has settled on the surface
of the river and has become
a canvas for a pair
of swans on which to trace
their brief passage across
a mirrored morning.
Beauty seems so fragile,
tethered to a moment
when the sublime manifests
itself through a tear in time
and gives pause
to the march of armies,
the self caused calamities
that rush towards
our little, insignificant lives
and illuminates
the sad distances we have
opened up between ourselves
and what burns brightly
at the centre of things -
these lovely mirrored mornings
to which our stiffened backs
are turned.