Best Stubbornly Poems
(Inveniam viam)
Far beyond these eerie things, where limits have no scales
Fish are replacing gills, with turbine aerated tails
Sea level’s losing all meaning, for the humpback whales
Ships piggyback them, harpoons syphon wind from their sails
Today I woke up early, lately I’ve let dreams flow
Into an abstract yonder, where visions often go
A wave came over me, up from my downy pillow
When tidal forces passed away, many moons ago
As the ocean waved goodbye, I called for an encore
Behaving like a poultice, the beach drew back old gore
You could’ve bowled me over, sent ripples to my core
Never again I’d sleep soundly, near this bloody shore
After a fretful lie-on, facing truths with each turn
My sundial running on empty, stars can’t always churn
Moribund in dimness, til an old spark can return
Reigniting glory days, (let supernovae burn)
Overhead the vacuum grows, just to make more space
Stretching my dysmorphia, to align with gods face
No one knows for certain, who enhanced his human race
Gave an artful hand, outsmarting evolution’s pace
As life spirals forward, in a world out of control
Entropy dismantles, stripping back our maker’s role
The poet in me keeps goofing, digging deeper holes
He’s a junkie rhymester, overdosing on this soul
So hail all billionaires, who never walk down my street
Flying above fake cripples, with power in their feet
Prodigies of bad and worse, scheming to make ends meet
Leaves an aftertaste of smugness, one that will repeat
As for those big questions, some take a straightforward twist
Two things I thought might go away, stubbornly exist
Not death or taxes, I’m already over that list
Each day I arise, how come lies and bullsh!t persist?
First there was oblivion, til I woke up and saw
Now fully awake, dead ahead looms a fatal flaw
But so long as I can dream, and able to guffaw
It only hurts when I laugh, Don’t you think? vents my jaw
By David Kavanagh
Hms
Dark And Tragic, When Fate Sets Its Black Hand To Decide
Icy cold had invaded, her heart became a hard frozen tomb
Never again would she allow love to penetrate its new armored shells
That night she had seen one of death's many tragic and ugly faces
Its ancient mask, the one that crushes love's fever and kindness in a mere blink
Now she flows through a vacated life, on wings of sorrow's eternal flight
Awaiting a doom that her crushed soul welcomes in its dark and sunken state.
His death had been tragic, yet made for some of the most interesting news
All the clever twists and turns of an old Hollywood mystery movie script
So ghastly, his head found in the graveyard, atop her lover's white tombstone
His bullet riddled body found miles away in a cheap and tawdry motel room
Perhaps now he knows, how it feels to find Fate's eternal and deadly hand
In his well deserved doom, devil that had sent her into her dark and sunken state.
Robert J. Lindley, 6-30-2018
Prose, ( Tragedy In One Of Life's Screams)
Not For SilentOne's contest
Note : I rarely ever do Prose. Started with the plan to write for SilentOne's new contest but my muse took me ever onward and this became too long to enter.. Giving thanks for the inspiration but it does not meet the eight verse contest requirement.
So I post it now as it is and wonder why my muse so stubbornly refused to stop writing... She vexes me to no end sometimes.....
I Did It My Way
I did it my way, not for the applause but because,
failure was not an option and I became a rebel with a cause.
I wanted higher education and was told I couldn’t have it all,
so I had to prove them wrong even if I had to creep or crawl.
I was accused of having a stubborn streak,
just because I wasn’t mild and meek.
Challenging every obstacle placed in my way,
and all the negative things that people had to say.
In spite of all the “You can’t do that,” that I was told,
I stubbornly did it my way and confidently smashed the mold.
Marching to a different drummer and dancing to my own tunes,
I kept my eyes on the prize ignoring all the nay-saying buffoons.
To keep on track, I learned to juggle tasks knowing I wouldn’t be derailed.
To keep my ducks in a row, I learned to haggle knowing I wouldn’t fail.
With dedication and hard work, as sure as night follows day,
success was mine because I certainly did it my way!
06-07-2014
Contest: I Did It My Way
Sponsor: Shadow Hamilton
Placement: 1st
I stood as though reborn on mounded dirt,
which seemed so moist it strangely could assuage
the ache from bowels that howled from so much hurt.
Would ground then be my cure or a mirage?
Enticed, I deeply pressed each foot through soil
till they took root and fixed me to a spot.
My ever-thickening trunk served well to foil
the plots of those who’d cut me. . . . they could not!
My limbs, though mighty branches, could not bend;
stubbornly I fought my transplantation.
I weathered storms that God or man might send,
sightless, living long in desolation.
Self preservation did this much for me-
old loved ones passed and I remained a tree.
Love is that enticing roller coaster ride we just can’t resist,
and no matter the danger we stubbornly persist.
It scares and excites us all at the same time.
It’s a feeling totally sublime.
We relish its many new thrills
but we cry when it suddenly chills.
Yet we’ll happily buy another ticket
and run to it lickety-splicket.
We never ever tire of its heavenly bliss,
craving its passionate kiss
as it makes our hearts beat faster and faster,
'til it has become our Master.
Yes, love is the ride of a lifetime
and worth every single dime.
By: Carole O'Terry Duet
Copyright: 3/2/2019
“All Rights Reserved”
It's so cold in this cauldron of sadness.
I'm drowning in a cesspit of darkness.
When will it rain to wash these sorrows free?
Before wicked waves drown me in the sea.
Emotions naked like an Autumn tree,
yearn to taste warm nectar from the queen bee.
Stubbornly silent, buried in past pride,
content to remain, till the soul has died.
Hollow heart hungers for a soothing voice,
so this solemn soul can dance in rejoice.
Bitter silence leads to further despair,
no words are left for this bond to repair.
Tears flow like floods, creating an ocean,
immersed, life flashes by in slow motion.
Silent One
Simple sonnet musings
15 December 2017
I sense and feel mystique of its appeal
In vibrant, verdant, blossoming spring,
Splendorous prairies undulating breeze,
Resplendent falling of autumnal leaves,
Glacial winds bemoaning a frozen sigh,
A cerulean terpsichore of ocean tides~
I sense and feel, yet can’t cage its wings.
Purposeful, evocative, musings unwind
When elixir of missives invigorates mind
In tears of joy glittering mother’s eyes,
Holding hand of father, an innocent smile,
Hungry bawls tearing impoverished lands,
Cheers echoing hopes of clapping hands,
Grievous calls unleashed by fate unkind,
An uneventful existence berating its grind.
Though I pretend to reign world of words
And impute resonance to songs of birds
And conjure kisses from lovelorn woes
And dare personifying feelings of stone,
I struggle in thoughts to stage my show
Striving to rhyme verses stubbornly prose
Dawdling daydreams of poetic meadows
Attributing forms to shapeless shadows
Clueless of the exit from wordless throes.
Ah! dear reader, the poet in you knows,
Much alike an eagle boundless in freedom
Flight of artistry I’m unable to control,
Passions of its symphony, I do not own,
Depth of its ocean shall remain unknown.
August 12, 2021
I saw fingers severed
with comically large scissors
and heads near severed
with an even larger pair,
or crimped stubbornly halfway.
I contemplated with some hurt
what I might have thought
to be my earliest loss,
and thrust myself headlong
into my first descent.
The darkest car I’d ever not seen
carried me effortlessly to my future
across snow and water at once,
in love with a girl I’d never met,
I think she loved me too.
Darkness enveloped me
in my vast empty room,
and I’d swear I killed a man
and dropped his lifeless reproach
in a dusty, uncertain old cupboard.
I wrestled the nasty black swan
and found my hero of the moment,
smaller and stranger
then I’d ever thought him to be,
and I swore to God it was him.
I dropped by the bank,
a hero of earlier moments
mirthfully gave me the gears,
as we argued the toss
he couldn’t help but have a giggle.
A giant came bearing down on me,
then went weepy and forlorn,
wailed about the love not known,
the city lights and the city streets
quietly frowned with dismay.
I stared down enemies unknown,
I was afraid and they were sure,
but I found a greater wrath,
I don’t think I killed any of them,
but I guess I probably should have.
And to this day, still not seen,
I don’t even know if it matters.
31st October 2018
Of this, I've always wanted to write
How hard it is to grow up white
The very idea makes people uptight
Enough to cause a gigantic fight...
In this, the age of the diverse
There isn't much that could be worse
White skin's a plague, a veritable curse
It almost seems to be perverse...
So I've put this off as long as I can
Knowing the flames that it would fan
And how it would be roundly panned
If not utterly and completely banned...
Yet now's the time for a principled stand
This is the moment; here is my plan:
I stroll every day 'neath the sun in the sand
~ To turn my stubbornly white skin tan
September 05, 2019
Write the Poem You Have Always Wanted To Contest
Sponsor: Caren Krutsinger
Can there be beauty in my toes,
Where stubbornly a fungus grows?
I never thought it could be true.
I try to hide it with my shoe.
Its purpose, not yet discovered—
I try hard to keep it covered.
From large toe to the next it spread,
And now I look at both with dread.
It wants to grow against the norm,
My toenail with misshapen form,
Knows the wild ways it wants to grow,
And now it has a mate in tow!
I’ve vowed to make a sacred oath
To kill this hated fungal growth,
But I now see the beauty of
My wayward toes denied of love
Are like the people we might hate
And I’ve learned to appreciate
Diversity against the norm,
Well taught to me through my toes’ form;
That each of us must be unique,
And there’s the beauty that I seek!
As my fungal toe and its mate,
Which I condemned as reprobate,
Conceals within their ugly form,
Their freedom’s right against the norm!
© 1-18-15 ~First Place~
For Hidden Beauty Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Rhonda Johnson-Saunders
*Meant as a metaphor for those who don't appear as normal looking!
What folly is fancy free and footloose
Please don't be fooled, tis but a ruse
If you think about it you will deduce
Freedom's never free, you silly goose
Fancy free beneath a flag of truce?
Cling to liberties while still profuse
Avoid the ropes hanging from a spruce
Those knotted and dangling in a noose
Stay clear of those who tout fancy-free
and the falsehoods in what they decree
They complain and whine like a banshee
with an attitude to stubbornly disagree
You can take your Debbie Downer attitude
stuff it if you think you've been screwed
Don't enter contests. You're not pursued
to write if you don't have the apptitude.
Comparatively you will never be like me
You do not have the necessary personality
Your judgements about me are undefined
Being equipped without the stronger mind
Jealousy is the ugliest character defect
To hate on me does not earn you respect
People like you are societies negative breed
Never a helping hand just one held out in greed
Trying so very hard for your voice to be heard
But there is no substance behind your word
Stubbornly you just continue on trying
Everyone else already knows you are lying
All that you do just makes me stronger
I doubt you'll even be around much longer
So next time that you may decide to attack
I'll be right behind you so better watch your back
11/15/17
Written for contest: "Judgemental People & Haters"
Hosted by: Brenda Chiri
Placed 4th in Contest Results
Heavens are open to view in the late night sky.
Celestial bodies spinning in orbit, moving
Light years away, exploding out of our sight,
Some on the same primordial path our
World once took; inviting travelers who
Roam the infinite universe, because they can!
How shallow minded to think we are alone,
To scoff at proof and stubbornly cling
To antiquated concepts of the past.
Visitors walk among us, though we
Are not aware of what we share. . .
They know the id is filled with fear and
Programmed to annihilate that which
We do not understand.
The times of enlightenment are at hand. . .
A special gift for those willing to let go of
Their egos and open their minds and hearts
To embrace the destined future.
Too long spent in deep shadows
prevented my eyes from seeing
why the lights were so dimmed
why I had the need for freeing
Verses written by candle light
but not signed with my name
with one step out of the shadow
my first poem went up in flame
No lack of inspiration to fuel
a captive poet's sensitive ire
he reached for my written words
I torched their corners with fire
A ray of light through a small crack
the dungeon door he didn't close tight
stimulus kept me awake and writing
penning until darkness of the night
Words of anguish and freedom I wrote
morning shadows danced on my face
he came once more to taunt my soul
he who buried me in this tomb-like place.
He reached for my writings on the table
I stubbornly shook my head, turned away
clutching my night's work to my breast
I bravely said, "I must see the light of day."
Carried from the cavern's earthen ground
I looked at him near the edge of the river
he reached again for my treasured verses
into the rushing water, my writings deliver.
Hands covered my face in fear of reprisal
his strength brandishes strikes with clout
eyes shielded from the sun's blinding rays
I waited for him to take his thrashing rout
No clobbering fists or slaps given in anger
no harsh threats to bring forth my cries
no monstrous shadows looming over me
freed from my shadow by opening my eyes.
Some things I thought would never change -
it would always be "us three",
I try so hard to understand
why that wasn't meant to be.
The smiles, fun, and laughter;
the jokes we'd throw around,
Are now but distant memories
planted in the ground.
Only unlike seeds they do not wait
come spring to sprout anew,
They're trying to hide in the depths of my mind;
this year no flowers grew.
I had thought it would be like a rubber ball
and bounce right back to my grasp,
Yet I never had known that this friendship of ours
was made of fragile glass.
So when it came crashing down that day last month,
I almost didn't care,
For my perfect life had that perfect ball
that wouldn't need repair.
But the glass it cracked so harshly,
flinging pieces once so strong,
Could these sharp and hurtful shards
have been here all along?
I'm trying not to blame you,
but blame you I just might,
My pride is stubbornly in the way;
if I'm wrong I still am right.
For fairness we'll say we were both at fault,
clearly misunderstood,
And it could've ended there with a sorry that said
"I tried the best I could".
But the hurt took residence within you
until it overcame your heart
As the best friends since first grade
began to drift apart
I tried! I visited!
I texted! I called!
Only to receive unfriendly coldness
in the face of it all.
Not once did I text back a rude response
though I, too, ached with hurt
I forced on fake friendliness
while your remained curt.
Why didn't you inquire
about things on my end?
One who takes, but not gives,
do you call that a true friend?
Now instead of "us three",
I'm left with "us two"
But what's sadder than that
Is that you're left with...you.
You got lost there, in the place that whispered
"all is being lost",
But avoiding me just didn't work-
our paths were bound to cross.
So as we try our best to reconnect;
change craziness to sane,
I just want to say I'm sorry
for all the hurt and pain.
So the smile now, it's real today-
I'm not angry or upset,
But no glue in the world can fix up this crack
for I simply cannot forget.