Best Struggled Poems
Our lives are not immune to the impact of time,
nor is our mind between the tensions of love and hate.
That's why I curse this wanderlust heart -
still searching for that wandering star.
without a guide - without a love to call my own.
I try not to look back, but sometimes certain scents,
remind me of things that saw me as a minority.
A summer heart misplaced in winter's wickedness,
a child frozen in the passages of a stolen childhood.
Ingredients of my life are a juxtaposition of flavours,
finding purity among diseased hearts,
fighting against principles of corrupt minds
and I hurt nobody - until they pushed me,
it was never about the physical - but the mental.
Silence is different in adolescence -
suppressed into a protective bubble,
you reject the harshness of existence.
My small hands could not hold the burdens,
so I was mute as demons slayed my father,
his anger drowning my brothers into darkness.
Tears of my mother, dehydrated my soul,
so I grew like a tree with broken branches -
sometimes naked, sometimes an abundance of green.
Even in an obscure world of nightmares,
my heart was a light bulb, full of dreams -
but misplaced in a place of misunderstanding.
I adopted silence in the violence,
because I struggled with reality's fabrications.
Fatherless,
I found acceptance in the war on the streets,
where love was poison, but hate brought prosperity.
Only surviving due to my father's name,
yet I knew it was an unwinnable game.
My hands were pacifying guns,
so I learned to exist without bullets.
I was a black sheep in a strange white herd,
opposing shepherds who couldn't tolerate me.
A clean soul in a dirty social order -
a peaceful heart seeking a place to call home.
Silence is a choice in adulthood.
I used to ignore the pain from unhealed wounds,
but today the inner child screams and shouts,
because oppressors can no longer mute my tongue.
Death taught me not to be bitter,
stubborn fingers how to bleed ink onto paper -
showing compassion in an ugly world.
If life was so simple, we wouldn't look at it differently.
Our perceptions are based on what we have learned,
what was, what is to come and what we search for.
Where you end up depends on how you deal with the past.
Categories:
struggled, emotions, introspection, life,
Form:
Prose Poetry
Tonight my ink is mute
and this quill rests in silence.
I’m searching for the perfumed poem
you’ve placed in my aching soul,
when I found a home
within your aesthetic embrace,
whilst, the honeyed tip of your silvery voice
sketched a sea of flower-patterned stars,
across somber skies, whispering sweet carols
to the evening sun that wanes and slumbers
within crestfallen dahlias.
Was I ever a poet before I saw initials
of your celestial name scribbled in violet vines
across the pearl face of the blue moon?
I never knew words could weigh heavier
than dancing diamonds
glazed in gold,
Until I heard your riveting rhymes
echo rose tinted tunes of lilac feathered longing.
I love you for the way you thaw
frost kissed petals into streaks of
pomegranate prose-
flowing in crystalline compassion.
I love you for the way you’ve painted faceless ghosts
of my bitter cold past with acrylic glitter,
showing me that every thunder-struck meadow
can grow greener blades of faith.
I love you for soothing lucid nightmares crawling within darkness to suffocate my bleeding ink.
How you’ve held my onyx heart
while I struggled to weave silken threads
from emerald tears of angst.
But how can I harmonize the gravity of your spoken serenades
that linger across this cosmic canvas?
Must I steal every jewel from its rightful sphere,
just so that you can see vibrant colors of vehement verses,
reflecting through all that which flickers?
Would you feel me if these metaphors no longer flow in coherence?
Would you be the Emperor
to my throne of darkness
even if I am just an Empress without a crown?
What if I were nothing but a blurred black dot across a constellation of chaos?
Would you still love me If I wasn’t a poet?
Maybe these questions will forever
remain as endless equations
within fractions of no closure.
So tomorrow, if there’s no wind
that can carry these unsent letters to you,
remember my heart is yours till we meet
our unwritten tales,
before the last twinkling twilight fades into sheer nothingness.
And I will still love you even if
butterflies would betray the fragrance
of our undying romance.
Categories:
struggled, deep, devotion, feelings, for
Form:
Free verse
there's too much sorrow...
don't you know
we are all going to die
a starting point always beckons a finish
sooner or later
no matter how
peaceful or painful
that final moment may be
you see...
it will come
for you
for me
There's too much sorrow
war
betrayal
so much I have seen
sickness sapping away
the mother-daughter moments
meant for me...
She struggled bravely
to set my fears free
But MS wouldn't let her be
My Mama left me
There is too much sorrow
the pain of being unloved
of trying to fit in
of trying to play the game
of success and fame
it all comes at a cost
so much is lost...
sacrificial moments
meant for family
There is too much sorrow
refugee misery
nowhere to be
no home
no destiny
just abject poverty
hearts left hungry
for a love
that the world
will not let them see
There is too much sorrow
tonight my heart is heavy
I'm tired of goodbyes
I'm tired of trying to fit in
I'm tired of pretense
I'm tired of...me
There is too much sorrow
Eyes are blurring
I can't see
the last lines I'm meant to write
Too tired to fight
Survival more than it's pumped up to be
Sleep....obliviousness of a dream
sweet it seems to me
you see...
There is too much pain
So write...
write for me
of happy
of make believe
of heaven
and eternity
of no pain
or misery
of no abuse
or fatality
of no tears
or cruelty
no more death
for you
no more death
for me
can't you see?
Write of happy...
Please, there is too much sadness here
for me....
Eileen Manassian Ghali
Categories:
struggled, sad, truth,
Form:
Free verse
oh ...
Gustav, how you pique the senses
captured passion's plural tenses
lovers twined in percale folds
caught supine with spattered golds
porcelain dolls in fetal slumbers
brushed sublime in tans and umbers
bold, the bleeds of Burnt Sienna
stippling scapes of fair Vienna
Yellow Ochre, Prussian Green
Cadmium Yellow, Blue Indanthrene
trees like soldiers, lilting boughs
abstractions spun of silken vows
ceilings meant to thus adorn
gilded graces - Heaven-borne
waters, tranquil - tresses, bare
a world composing textures, rare
you struggled long to e'er refine
your critics and uncommon line
subjects some then found appalling
yet, remained, your faithful calling
imbibing absinthe, sans a chaser
life you sketched with no eraser
and while we mortals can but dream
you left the world your gauzy gleam
so death would not define the worth
of genius meant to shake ...
the earth.
~ 2nd Place ~ in the "Klimt" Poetry Contest, Anthony Slausen, Judge & Sponsor.
Categories:
struggled, art, beauty, history, humanity,
Form:
Ekphrasis
Plunging, lifting, plunging -as wind blew ashes all around -
the shovels' blades incised the cold and black encrusted ground.
Attached to shovel handles were the arms of skeletons - of men,
who pausing, hacked and wheezed; then bent and smote the dirt again.
With bruised decrepit bodies - and coerced - they struggled on
beneath a sky from which the sun for them had long withdrawn.
And seeping into nostrils came that too familiar stench
when shrieking had died out, and still - they toiled at the trench.
Perhaps they dreamed of tunnels; that the cracks within the earth
inflicted by their shovels formed a path to their rebirth.
What horror in the knowing there were no more tears to cry
or that their bodies - shoeless - might, in graves they’d dug, soon lie.
First posted 5/6/10
Entered in the '2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 8' Poetry Contest of Mark Toney
Entered Feb. 5, 2023
for 2022 Poetry Marathon Qualifiers' Final Placement Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Mark Toney
Categories:
struggled, history, sad,
Form:
Couplet
I was once a little twig with dreams of being a mighty tree
So people would come from all around just to look at me
As the years started to come and go I fell in love with the wind
I would open myself big and wide swaying to the music of my friend
My rings became many and my bark was as red as red could be
Then the day finally came I was the tallest of the tallest trees
I stood tall and I stood proud and everyone knew my name
As my rings continued recording my destiny to fame
Then the fateful day it came my friend and I had a fight
Looking back I can't recall who was wrong or right
I said, "You are but the wind something people can't even see"
" And I'm the king of them all the tallest of the tallest trees"
That night the wind started to howl she really started to blow
And I the tallest of all the trees learned we reap what we sow
My roots struggled to hold on tight but without a soul around
She who had been my dearest friend knocked me to the ground
The loggers came and cut me up then shipped me away
To my soul that truly was a sad and lonely day
Torn from all I knew and loved wishing I didn't have to feel
I was cut into boards and post down at the local mill
Now I'm back here at home just a few feet away
From where my friend the wind and I used to dance and play
I'm the deck on which you stand I lay below your feet
There is a bench made of me would you care to have a seat
Sometimes in life our roles change just take a look at me
The trick is no matter who are what you are be all you can be
See I was once a little twig who became a mighty tree
And now I'm a redwood deck as proud as proud can be
And of my friend the wind she visits me everyday
So I can thank her once again for helping me find my way
Categories:
struggled, forgiveness, friendship, imagination, life,
Form:
Personification
Have I been one among the chain
of those who come to gawk, then strain
to point a finger, poke my nose
into places I don't own?
To claim I understand the pain
that's covered by the winds and rain?
One who awes and talks in rhymes,
without a glance between the lines
A stranger to a sacred shrine
ignoring reverence and the trace
of those who toiled, laid the stones,
to make this place a home?
Am I the one who stakes a claim
Who borrows someone's history?
Travels here in tourist clothes,
as if this spot were mine to own...?
Who stirs the dust and tramps the grounds,
hearing nothing, but the sound
of my own ego echoing...
Simply here to frame a spot, quickly take a selfie shot,
to prove to someone back at home
what matters not to them at all
Text someone far, who doesn't care,
that I've been here or there...?
Have I been one? So far, so near?
Never conscious while I'm here,
of those who struggled long before
The grief, the loss, long overgrown
where someone lived and made a home?
Who leads me to a crooked tree
once planted by a family
to mark a grave. Perhaps a child,
perhaps a spouse, and all the while
I smile, then carry on my day
Compelled to come....yet,
I did not own the years that tell
Nor did I own the tears that fell, ...
two hundred years ago?
Categories:
struggled, appreciation, feelings, introspection,
Form:
Free verse
On the eve of All Saints Day known as Halloween
We've a night where nothing is ever as it seems
Abraham, Martin and John hosted a grand ball
In heaven’s huge castle, a white marble town hall
Dancing and singing just like every other day
One old soul grew weary of celebrating this way
She found nothing special in the harps and trumpets
A more exciting venue she had come to covet
St. Peter partied, his gate was unattended
So to a room below the bored soul descended
A place where heavy metal was all the rave
Deadheads converged to stomp violently on graves
She was tempted to join in their revelry
As demons eyed her with curious envy
One grabbed her halo, howled when it burned his hands
Others confronted her with obscene demands
Only then did she recall escaping this place
When God sacrificed his son, mortal sin to erase
Although hands of the wicked tried to hold her down
She struggled, pushed forward and made her way uptown
Fearfully she cried while knocking on heaven’s gate
St. Peter found her in this emotional state:
“Why didn’t you learn to resist temptation,
During your tenuous Earthly incarnation?”
At a loss for an answer, she pled for mercy
And Peter felt inclined to deem her unworthy
But the Master heard her prayers, granted a reprieve
He blessed her and uttered, “Welcome home again, Eve.”
Her departure from Eden seemed so long ago
And now most certainly one thing she did know
She should have stuck with Adam when he first said, “No”
Instead of bobbing for apples with the demons below
* For Tony Brooks' “Halloween Hustle” contest
Categories:
struggled, holiday
Form:
Couplet
shade of vermilion encompassing sky at dawn,
pure fragrance of delightful jasmine in summer,
luminous dew drops quivering on lotus leaves,
an almost-forgotten melody from my childhood!
all these and many more…
bring the memory of my mother!
I remember her illuminating smile every day,
I remember her pray…
her eyes closed, her hands folded,
her lips uttering lovingly everyone’s name.
she struggled through a war-torn difficult time of the country,
worked hard for raising her own children…
and she supported many other children as if they were her own.
she didn’t sleep until the sick and the elderly were taken care of,
she didn’t eat until no one was starving around!
every dainty and softest petals of flowers,
carries memory of my graceful mother,
her body was fragile, her mind was strong,
she inspired devotion and dedication to minds around!
she is gone from this world…
but she has left her soul in the ethereal colour of the glowing dawn,
in the ambrosial scent of her exotic special flower,
chimes ring, soaring from the tranquil temple,
and reminds me of the peace and serenity
I witnessed in my mother.
Categories:
struggled, dedication, devotion, mother,
Form:
Free verse
Like a creature hibernating in its burrow
Waiting to come out with the first verdure of spring,
The seed of a poem lay dormant in my heart
Through the long winter awaiting another spring
After staying torpid inside for long,
At a time I expected it the least
Timidly came out the first word,
As shaky as a calf getting up for the first time.
Then another came and word after word in a row
Like pellets of rain on the window pane
I boiled them in the crucibles of my imagination
And finally dipping them in the ocean of my emotions
But rhyme came to set constraints
For the right alignment I struggled
I had to decide on its texture and format
Pondered if it should be a sonnet or an ode
I might have kept the door open for long
Alas! All my words and fancies flew away,
Like birds taking on wings into the sky
From a cage where they were imprisoned for long
I stood so helpless with my mouth shut,
Staring blankly out into the airy nothing
Like one lost in the doorway of his own threshold
Unable to call back those winged words lost in the void
________________________________________
~Placed Fifth~
Submitted for Marathon no.10. Poetry Contest
Sponsor - Mark Toney
~Placed First~
31. March .2022
A Brian Strand Standard
Poetry Contest
Categories:
struggled, analogy, betrayal, birth, growth,
Form:
Verse
I hear the voices you once bequeathed to me
Enchanting concert music in symphony of love
But I left the theater before the show was over
Walking all alone in the missteps of contempt,
Endorsing the reticence of unspoken words.
Deep in my psyche these memories now reside
Where devoid of fond smiles, blossoms have dried.
As I refuse to accept that I’ve lost you forever
Echoes of outcry from the unsung emotions
Poignantly evoke the saddest lines of discourse
In conversations espousing laments of my soul,
Within backstreets of mind amid chaos of thoughts
Having lost directions to dreamlands of the past,
For I refused the promise in winter’s goodbye
And rejected fiery passions of autumnal vibes,
As I squashed the dreams in flights of monarchs—
Never kissing fragrant lips of doting ambrosia.
Though you guided me through twilight of romance
I struggled in ineptitude of lovesick night of dark—
Oh, how I missed my mark beneath the northern star!
As my storm keeps churning, hosting a cyclone,
The rivers, once calm, have flooded my crops
And gusty winds ravaged dismantling my farm
And tall weeds have now occupied my sidewalks,
As dissonance of our love remorsefully squalls
Within indecisive nomenclature of my timid heart.
September 25, 2019
Placed 1st: In the backstreets of my mind poetry contest
Sponsor: Silent One
Placed 3rd: Strand select C contest by Brian Strand
Categories:
struggled, love hurts,
Form:
Free verse
Her persona is like
a portrait
of picturesque perfection,
embalmed in
bittersweet lavender,
unseen within depths
of tributaries of elixir.
If only they knew
the chaos that flows,
constrained in
a confined
gallery of grief.
Not everyone is
a master painter.
Some brush with brutal
bruised strokes,
provoking timeless
streams of
implicit secrets,
from crimson stains
on ivory satin,
where scents of juniper
evoke phases of
unpredicted phenomenons,
oblivious to chronicles
of forsaken tales,
which hide
beneath barriers,
many have struggled
to venture within.
But there is an artist
with a
pastel on his palette,
that can correct
her disfigured pigment.
He holds cryptic
calligraphic engravings,
veiled behind the inflamed
chamber of her heart.
He understands that her
spirit drowns when
winds are forceful.
How her
delicateness has
been sleeping
on withered roses,
wilted by
cruelest rays of a
summer
mourning
morning star,
Where bedtime stories
were puppeteered
by hurricanes
feeding on
fenceless vulnerabilities.
yet when
sleepless silence sings,
it can disturb
in reverberating
heavy metal screams.
So she echoes her trauma
through hurtful hisses,
poisoning with
vicious venom.
Her aura alters in
acrimonious attitudes
from serene sunshine
to furious gales.
She remains without
a grip on untamable
seasons of
unholy torture,
Only he knows the poem
in her eyes is the
last train home,
so he calms her
tempest temperament,
enabling hidden rainbows
in her mind to reappear.
He is a soothing
gemini night-flower,
even with outcries
of midnight thunder,
his patience resembles
raining jasmine water,
purifying
her murky waters,
into a crystallised milky-way
of kyanite desires,
guiding her
to swirl and swoon
into
whirlwinds of closure.
Categories:
struggled, dark, deep, devotion, i
Form:
Free verse
In nineteen eighteen there was an outbreak of flu
Caused little concern, only affected a few
But it returned with a vengeance later that year
And the world over it caused widespread fear.
First reported in Spain, and around the world spread
When it was over, fifty million people were dead
Hospitals were stretched and they struggled to cope
For both young and old, there wasn't much hope.
It affected the lungs and caused skin to turn blue
Only comfort was given it was all they could do
In effect it caused people to suffocate
And continued to spread at an alarming rate.
People advised to avoid crowds and to wear masks
They struggled to perform even basic daily tasks
Remote areas in the world were affected too
By this airborne killer virus, the great Spanish flu.
Effort's were made to slow down this disease
But slowly and surely it brought the world to its knees
Shops opening times were staggered all over the lands
People strongly advised not to shake hands.
Undertakers were struggling to cope with demands
Families' buried loved ones with their own hands
Healthy men and women and children too
Were all falling victim to the great Spanish flu.
Because of World War One, doctors were few
And those that were available, many fell sick too
Temporary hospital's set up in schools or church hall
With many brave volunteers answering the call.
They closed many schools, services were hit too
With workers struck down by this merciless flu
Late nineteen nineteen the virus reached its peak
Immunity grew stronger but it still struck the weak.
Sadly mankind had suffered and paid a great cost
To the great Spanish flu with millions of lives lost
The pandemic was now over, survivors started to thrive
But were mournful of the millions who did not survive.
Written 4th April 2018.
( Dedicated to the fifty million people who died
in the Spanish flu pandemic in the years 1918 to 1919. )
Categories:
struggled, natural disasters,
Form:
Rhyme
T'was freezing cold and I struggled in the heat
I was pleased I'd put warm gloves on my feet
I shouldn't have been out on such a cold night
High in the sky was the sun and shining so bright.
Not far to walk home now just fifty odd miles
Minutes later I'd be home, my face full of smiles
My brother was with me and she felt the cold too
Shouldn't have worn shorts, her hands had turned blue.
Went into an ice cream parlour for some yummy ice cream
It was served piping hot and gave off clouds of steam
I fancied some cold soup and it was served up on a plate
And I used two left handed chopsticks, it tasted great.
Then my cell phone rang but the battery was flat
It was my wife who wanted me to buy her a cat
She said don't tell me which one, I want a surprise
But get one with four legs, a tail and green eyes.
Called to the pet shop and asked nicely for a pet
The man said sorry we've no live ones in yet
I've got two stuffed dead dogs or a puffa fish
If you don't want it as a pet it will make a tasty dish.
I got out my credit card and paid him with cash
He said don't handle the fish it will give you a rash
Me and my bro left the shop and went off on our way
I was so worn out, it had been an eventful day.
Written on 8th September 2021
For The Nonsense Rhyme Poetry Contest,
Sponsored By Charles Messini.
Categories:
struggled, humor, nonsense,
Form:
Rhyme
Too many years spent in depression buried beneath a pile of regrets
pills of every color aside my glass, cuts of every size scabs included
Broken pieces of my heart scattered from Newfoundland to Toronto
I'd forgotten the taste of content and the sound of jabbering friends
They tried to help me by taking me to therapy but I cried myself to sleep
every time I spoke to him, about my childhood pain and the awful abuse
One day I decided to go visit an old chapel that kept their side door open
this kind woman let me in and ushered me into a back pew then left
I felt a rush of panic, all I wanted was to run but then I began to talk
the words spilled out of my heart, onto a crucifix of pewter and gold
I told him all my secret fears and all the things my mind struggled with
gazing upon that cross I suddenly realized that he'd been broken too
On a crumpled piece of paper I scratched out three words " I choose life "
then I left the chapel door open and walked out into the sun, alive...
Its not like I cured myself all at once it took time, but I finally did it
one day at a time , first I crawled, then I walked, then I saw the light.
December 9th, 2020
Sponsor: Regina McIntosh
Contest Name: "The Light"
Categories:
struggled, confusion, depression,
Form:
Free verse