Best Straggling Poems
As summer has briskly bowed and left,
The air has become crisp and moist.
Sky is clear, the wispy clouds straggling here and there!
The evening’s weak rays cut through trees, half bare
And a chilly wind playfully wings
Shaking the remaining autumn leaves
To fall awkwardly one by one with a soft hum,
Making a mosaic design on the ground
Under the trees, lies a massive pile,
Of cast off leaves the wind had felled.
Though laborious, it is fun raking them
Then jump over and toss them to the wind
See them fly about like embers from fire
How delightful watching them settle
Once more to the ground and listen
To the rustle of dead leaves under the feet
My heart beats to its joyful rhythm
And I long to float like them, weightless
Across the patch of empty ground,
Long shadows draw a series of grotesque graffiti
A lone bird atop a gnarled branch
Screeches its dismay over the change of the season
But my heart dances as I watch the leafless trees
Stretch their bare arms to the sky
And the chill of autumn sprinkles goose bumps all over
Sept. 2022
~Placed FIRST~
Fall Flavors Poetry Contest
Sponsor- Regina McIntosh
Subject Chosen- Raking Leaves
Rife with abstractions, and still just listening;
Leaning on pages, the night keeps glistening.
Ripping at seams, no intentions of fixing
As leaks spring up in the darkness of evening.
--
Hollowed-out souls fill the depths of this bet,
And mausoleums hold the ones straggling yet.
We're fighting ourselves over people we've met
Just to make up the ground in relieving the debt.
--
Knife with distractions, and I've stopped listening;
Meaning enrages; The light drips, glistening.
Slipping the reams, no ideas for fixing
The problems arisen on this summer evening.
I picked the house whilst floating down
After travelling to this country town
The air from the house was delicious
As the shouting voices raised were so vicious
The first one I saw was a little girl
And I touched her lightly with a twirl
She would become a victim so sadly true
Getting her taste as sweet and clean will do
Then to the kitchen I did float
Touching the mother as I did gloat
For she would be the dead one
When the deed so evil was done
Then I looked him straight in the eyes
Transferring all the evil to him to despise
And I whispered in his ear
All the nastiness I could say so clear
With the scene now set
I settled down whilst he got onto it
The rage within him I had planted
Bubbled and broiled as it was fed
Until suddenly he sprang at her
Beating and straggling as her death occurred
He sat at the table with his head in his hands
Sobbing uncontrollably wondering at his next plans
After a half an hour he went to the shed
And hung himself from the rafter until he was dead
The little girl tried to roust her mother
But her sleep was eternal as no other
I savoured the scene drinking the sadness in
Delighting in it all from beginning to end
And when I had drunk my fill
I left the house moving on to deliver my next pill.
© Paul Warren Poetry
How foolish
Humans seem to be
When
The Good Lord has provided them
With
Whatever it takes to become unique
They
Instead are desperately straggling
To
Resemble someone else!
© Demetrios Trifiatis
27 January 2019
As the light dims and dances on the horizon
A menace stirs from its slumber, slinks from the shadows.
The game move to and fro, staying sit means certain death.
The eyes of death blink with certain deadly cunning,
paws step lightly and then begins the running.
The cry goes out to all, Life is being written in tooth and claw.
Animals become scatterings in the night, dust and sand dance between their feet.
The sound resonates slowly steadily, like the first rains of the season, until lighting strikes.
The roar is deafening, tooth and claw bearing.
The cry goes out, the shadows of terror are about.
Tawny flashes move back and forth, distress and fear prowl among the animals.
Brown eyes stair into the blackness of the night.
Knowing that courage musters to challenge the assault on their fallen comrade.
STANDING TO ATTENTION IN RANKS OF HOOVES AND HORNS
BORN TO BE WARRIORS OF THE BUSH, BUFFALO STAND TALL.
FORGED BY TRAILS OF NEAR DEATH AND ESCAPE
NEAR MISSES AND SWIPES OF CLAW AND PAW
FORM SCARES AND MARES ON THEIR THICK HIDE
WAVES OF FEIRCE RESISTANCE RISE AGAINST THE TEMPESTUOUS TIDE
Bombardment of bodies against that tawny terror.
Horns heave, shove, push, and move.
The earth beneath them quakes, shifts, and trembles under hooves.
However determination of suffocating and straggling terror.
Grips, bites, and holds.
The ranks brake and scatter, did there effort even matter.
No one knows, which way the battle would go.
The battles have been decisive,
Now the law of tooth and claw,
It has been written, sealed, and decided.
Pounding seas, wind tossed spray
Cold North wind, blowing night and day
The ice gripping men in disarray
The convoy ploughing onward
The merchant vessels, shadows in mist,
Weave and wind, wend and twist
Then disappear when torpedo kissed
The convoy ploughing onward
The small corvette, the guiding hand
The leader of the straggling band
But cannot make a fighting stand
The convoy ploughing onward
The men washed into icy seas
The eyes that bulge, the limbs that freeze
The ship brought down upon its knees
The convoy ploughing onward
The submarine torpedoes roar
Explosion, seas rush through open door
Ships and men on the ocean floor
The convoy ploughing onward
Few are left when journey's done
Supplies got through, the race is run
So many lost, so who has won?
The convoy ploughing onward
The humble arch, so simple, so profound, so powerful
The arch is Pi in the sky, a curved concrete crescent
Supporting span of bridge or lintel
Inspired by rainbow, waxing and waning moon
Instilled by foot arch, caterary chain suspended
Upper segment of circle, Pi with curved bowed legs.
Compress concrete crush resolves, eliminates tension.
Keystone at apex of arch locks stack array of blocks
With Roman arch a symbol, old concept straggling time
The fading ancient sun casts long shadows before me,
as I shuffle slowly and sluggishly down asymmetrical lanes.
How age mellows me like ripe watermelon, squeezing me
until all my ambrosial juices run acidulously dry as dust.
Unsatisfied desire, mental torment and general malaise
conquer my better moods of love, devotion and quietude.
Straggling with widespread dishevelment and disillusions
I try in vain to set an orderly pattern to my straying aims,
hoping some guardian angel were to take my shaking hands
to lead me onwards steadily towards some well defined goal.
Mark my furrowed forehead, tap solidly at my potential energy
fill my withering wrinkles with some sense or empirical reasoning,
but at least give me one essential gift, that a grumbler I'll never be.
Imagination simply staggers with its grandeur
The beautiful, ever-changing sight on earth
Enveloped the earth in its colourful panorama
Golden glow announces the dawn in the east,
In the west, crimson sky bids the day adieu
Royal canopy of blue,
Royal canopy of gray,
Royal canopy of resplendent white,
A majestic canopy of ruddy hue
All giving a grandeur haven
A red sunrise presages a red sunset
A white billowy, cotton-like cloud says a fine day is here
A Gay featherlike cloud says the rainy season is here
Like children about their parents,
Straggling cloudlets surrounds the white cloud
How magnificent it is at night with the starry design!
Fluffy clouds! billowy clouds! fleecy clouds!
Almost daily across its broad highway
Parade clouds of every size and description.
Each cloud assumes an infinite variety of shapes
All creations of perfect art across its broad highway
Dazzling masterpiece of beauty
Its scopes are worthy of the finest carpenter.
The wonderful work of the one with perfect knowledge
This royal sky
Ripped out love.
Not nearly enough
Threads hanging left,
To connect.
Too many tears wept.
To repair me now,
Yank the rest out;
No evidence allowed.
Pull the straggling ends,
Till I’m empty again.
2/3/12
For Paula's "Thread" contest
Hail Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with you.
The Lord is with me too.
He whispers in loud soothing words
that resonate like
liquid softly fluent.
His watchfulness always lingering
in the pushing of
this steel plated city
where I am trapped.
Hail Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with you.
The Virgin Queen of Heaven
intercedes for all of us.
She intercedes for me too.
She prays in splendid atmosphere
anguishing over every
sin I am thinking.
Her once-flesh hands twinned in
ever steady prayer.
Shapes populate in my always troubled
daily life.
They upset and tangle the soothing
urgings I feel God placing
in my contemplations.
Hail Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with you.
The pleasing phasing of spiritual halo's
surrounds me in constant
reassurances.
I'm praying mental rosaries, intoning
words familiar, yet, so loved.
So firm in comfortable places where
I come to God.
This straggling pretence of reality
that we call human-kind;
is not as clear as the affable prayers
of Blessed Mary, my holy Mother.
Standing or sitting does not matter.
Nothing of flesh
ever does.
What is critical are the prayers of
faithful gathered
in presence in Christ's Sacred Mass.
I shall be there too, joining my voice
in time honoured assistance,
"Hail Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with you."
No bird perch on high boughs,
Merrily are straggling they,
As Spring invades the bay.
Across the azure sky,
High and high the blithe birds fly,
Nowhere a cry or sigh.
Now at dusk they glide fast—
Lo! Even the sun is tired,
And down the West he mired.
The trees are strong upright,
‘Midst the lissome cloud and clime,
They kiss the moon at night.
And when the ocean roars,
Fidgety waves play around
The pregnant shells earth-bound.
I hear that hollow sound,
As night with its thick, dark shroud
Smothers the sea and ground.
Pitter patter on rain polished pavements
Tears straggling down window panes
The rattle of ricocheting raindrops on galvanised rooftops
Spiralling eddies in bull's eye puddles
Umbrellas ,shields fending off the sharpness
Of blasts of non-stop water bullets
Insidiously a soft drizzle penetrates
Right through to the skin
Producing shivery limbs
And chattering teeth
Transformed by the sun into glittering diamonds
Which disappear with the welcome arc of the rainbow.
My heart is out for you
At the souk
My heart sits on the steps
Falling from sand to sea
Crying for you
At the souk
My heart whirls like a dervish
Around straggling lasses
Wending their way
To desert wells
Looking for you
At the souk
My heart flying high
With vultures circles the burnt siena sun
Sifting with dismal slit eyes
Mistral sands
Raging way down below
Leaping for you
At the souk
My heart
Whining to sleek rich women
Tries to sell them cheap pearl strings
Choking on you
At the souk
Staying by the sea, now at sunset
With the light slowly fading into greyness
And the waters lying quiet
A peace fills me as never before
Dismal fears barred entry into the soul
Mind freed of all disquietude.
Through the soft whisper of waves,
A low sweet melody finds its way.
Listening to the gentle sibilance of the sea,
A new insight suddenly dawns on me~
None but we are to blame
For all our angry bickering
With all swirls and whirls underneath,
Is an abstruse calm in the deep.
In this continuum of flux
Is a permanence – abiding and perpetual.
Staying by the sea at sunset
With its still waters glimmering in twilight
And the stray clouds straggling in the sky,
My soul undulates with the slow rhythm of waves
And in me fills a calm submerging all vexations
And breaks a light, luminous and clear
A glimpse of a scintillating radiance – ethereal!
July.22.2022
Submitted for 2022 Poetry Marathon Mile.9.Poetry Contest
Sponsor- Mark Toney