Best Stymied Poems
Utterly helpless sometimes I feel
and utterly sad for no remedy found
to fix my conditions which seem so surreal.
I’m utterly stymied and tied to the ground.
Utterly thankful, however, am I,
for what gives me joy and for friendships that thrive.
Though utterly hopeless . . . I’m still getting by
and utterly happy for being alive!
Nov. 14, 2021
Categories:
stymied, angst, appreciation,
Form:
Rhyme
Unshakeable groggy state
plagues mein kampf
impossible mission to awaken
this comatose zombie
drugged horror - by potent
self manufactured narcotic -
oppressive tantalizing
nightmares indistinguishable
when supposedly conscious,
eyes cannot differentiate
dusky "reality" from
twilit zoned lifelike slumbers
confused with medication
induced hallucinations ferrying
me to lands unknown
lack proper visa to allow
this migrant citizenship,
cannot escape tangled web
spun since birth
threads tensile strength
beyond realm of destruction
incredibly dynamic force
defies sophisticated
contraption to measure
even against most
powerful dynamometer,
no contest when utmost might,
sans primal scream
regarding non anesthetized excruciating
spinal tap daily visited
on this beastie boy,
no matter summoning every last ounce
of mine (billeted) willpower
foregone conclusion collusion
effectually ranked less
than lame duck effort
defeated, jackknifed, stymied...
every step of the weigh
I loathe forlorn doomed curse,
a worse fate than death,
no life worth living when bereft
of interpersonal, "normal",
relational... trappings,
yet death not available
for this walled in hostage
imprisoned within inescapable Alcatraz
every blinkered instant nsync
with pseudo fictional
realistic psychedelic dreams
mocking (this bird – dodo)
man cave existence, a mere
abysmal charade, facade, jade
did minimalistic functionality,
where suicide an irrevocable
unfair punishment to Shana Punim
precious daughter, whose caterwauling...
would wake grateful dead!
Categories:
stymied, absence, bereavement, betrayal, conflict,
Form:
Free verse
Help Me Lord, I’m On My Face Again
Sad events bring about a move of the Holy Spirit within me
and cause me to fall down on my bedroom floor and weep,
groanings that cannot be uttered in English
and sometimes a lack of rest and my sleep.
I cry out to Him the One Who is able to bring about
an answer by His Word or certainly by His deed,
bringing solace to the injured soul and a calming
and finally for them a pure and restful sleep.
I have told the Lord that I would gladly be one of His prayer warriors
and to do that you will have to submit,
submit to His Will and submit to His timetable
and if need be, willing to miss whatever meal.
I call upon Him and when I do,
I know that my voice He will hear,
but still His perfect timing must direct my prayer and for me not to feel neglected or stymied when I don’t hear from Him yet knowing that He is near.
He is near to the problem He has assigned and He is near to my voice
and in knowing that I will surely rejoice,
rejoice in being able to sing out His praise and sometimes the battle cry or prayer itself will cause my hands to Him to raise.
Sometimes in being a prayer warrior you feel like one of the Jewish people who marched around Jericho to cause those walls to fall,
for there are times when you to must be quiet and wait on Him to let you know when to make a sound so that He will be willing to hear your call.
I can say without a doubt the Lord’s prayer warriors
have a tremendous job for Him to do,
for as His Word states, all things are accomplished by prayer
and He has many items that He will assign to me and to you.
Written by: Marilyn S. Jennings
October 2017
Categories:
stymied, blessing, dedication, trust,
Form:
Free verse
Sweetest child in the school
5th grade
Giant puppy
If you said the sweetest kid ever
I could name him
And I would
Cry Cry Cry
I feel horrible.
Bring him to my office
Who hurt him?
What did they say?
What did they do?
In Mama Bear mode
I am going to take no prisoners
They can lie in cages eating wallpaper
And will want to after I get finished with them
Many tears later I discover
The trickster told him that he said that they said that he said that she said.
I am horrified.
I have taught six million lessons on
Not being stirred up by he-said-she-said nonsense
We discuss my lessons
Which he forgot in the heat of the moment
I know the instigator. He is a piece of work.
Can stir faster than me even, and I am pretty good at it.
Finally change subject
What will he do tonight for fun?
He finally says play ball.
A bit of a smile
Tears start
Then tears up again.
His bat is lost.
Wait a second, I say.
In the house?
Head nod.
It has to be under
something long, a bed
or a couch right?
He is stymied
Not sure now what
emotion to feel
“Do you mean I am going to have
to come to your house tonight and find our bat?”
He gives me directions and his address.
I smile.
“And what would your mother say if an old woman
Came to your house to help you find our bat?”
He stares at me a long time.
“Thank you?” he whispers.
I love sweet supersensitive
Innocent 5th grade boys
Before they fall into
the clutches of the 21-year-old
6th grade girls.
Categories:
stymied, anti bullying, bullying, school,
Form:
Dramatic Verse
Sitting at her bedroom desk late one night,
a woman looks out her window.
Night has fallen a glorious midnight blue,
and stars, like lofty glittering thoughts,
pulse for her their confessions in the depths
of nightfall’s essence.
With her muse having been stymied now
for many days,
the poetess reaches deep down
inside the indigo of her soul until,
immersed in her thoughts,
she searches for only those that shine
with the beauty of profundity.
Ignoring old memories of bitterness or pain,
she starts to move her pen
upon a slate of white – a page in her writing journal.
She looks a while longer out the window
reflecting on night’s background of brilliant stars.
It comes to her then: they are stars of clarity.
Her pen is now moving rapidly over the poetry page.
Immersed in inspiration, she lets words tumble from her mind
until, by sunrise,
she has completed her poetic endeavor
with verses as sublime as the lapis sky of night.
Feeling utterly fulfilled, she realizes
the poem is one of her best,
for its words shine like
stars of clarity.
Categories:
stymied, poetess,
Form:
Free verse
Stymied by stygian thoughts
On a moonless, murky night,
Black is this chasm of soul's severe sorrow,
Midnight hues paint their negative musings
In somber shades of non-inspiring rhythms;
Inky gloom pervades the mind,
Bleak are the beats of darkness,
Notions conceived at this hour are dreary,
Transforming into tormenting nightmares,
Nagging the heart with worries and unease;
Drifting off to troubled sleep
In soul-sick state suspended,
Till the heart holds tight to Haven of Hope,
Flooding the grim recesses with sunshine,
A tentative smile plays on faith-filled face;
A glimpse of glimmer appears,
Shadows give way to rainbows,
All's well with the world of woven wonders,
The joy of The Lord strengthens my being,
God-granted grace dispels dismal despair,
Encompassed by Christ's true Love,
Light shines through and I find rest.
Categories:
stymied, anxiety, conflict, dark, faith,
Form:
Verse
Questions are proliferating,
people search for answers
in old pants pockets
in long discarded purses.
The scampering feet of baby philosophers
can be heard from the moon.
The media is stymied, they are manipulating,
confiscating and hiding behind the backs
of massively overgrown ballers,
willy-nilly they scribble an alternative reality
upon indoor swimming pools.
The manic mayhem of our daily grind
is wearing our hair thin,
Somebody should take control of the truth,
but it keeps dodging questions
and slamming doors behind it.
Mark my words with invisible ink,
scratch a cat behind its ears,
somersault all you like
but we are all getting overrun
by imperfect pontifications
by the indecent Doctors of spin.
and all this endless self-questioning
keeps replying over and over again
but only in unbreakable code.
Categories:
stymied, poetry,
Form:
Free verse
WRITING POETRY WITHOUT RULES*
I thought I'd write some poetry
Just for the fun that it would be.
So I went to the web to see
what it said
about how to write poems just for me.
I ran into words like iambic and tercet
and other ones that I had never met.
There was even a thing called a quatrain
that confused and corrupted my brain.
Stanzas are neat if they get the right beat
with the meter which I'd no doubt delete.
You also have tetrameter and pentameter
which are terms I don't think are neat.
Long ago I did write in rhyme
but just to friends who didn't mind.
I'd write some limericks or lyrics to sing
that were not important
and didn't mean a thing.
But as I write now and look into how
I find myself stymied by words to allow.
I read such things as trochee
and anapest and even dactyl.
They are words I just read
and don't really feel.
Those words belong to meter,
a measure in feet.
With stresses on heavy or light
and then they repeat.
They do form the meter
which makes the poem complete.
I may just give up and write more in prose
My friends will give thanks and I'd smell like a rose.
But I do get such joy with the lines in a verse
So I'll just continue, and the poems I'll disperse.
I could go further and write in free verse,
which doesn't make sense
and just makes it worse.
Free verse would just boggle my mind.
It really won't matter
what rules I would shatter
as long as I make the words rhyme.
* I actually learned all the technical poetry terms as an English major in college. This is just a satire on their usage and the way I enjoy poetry.
Categories:
stymied, on writing and words,
Form:
Light Verse
Skagway, Alaska in the late 1890s was sure a rowdy place alright!
It was seethin' with humanity a-raisin' hell all through the day and night!
'Twas the gateway to Chilkoot Pass beyond which lay Klondike gold!
Why! You could scoop up nuggets by the bushel, or so it was told!
Jefferson Randolph 'Soapy' Smith 'owned' the town and was so very brash.
He came up with nefarious schemes to relieve newcomers of their cash!
Madame Gertie arrived with her soiled doves and set up houses of ill repute.
Among the ladies were Ethel the Moose, Mollie Fewclothes and Maude the Mute!
Tinklin' pianos and screechin' fiddles played in saloons invitin' boozers in.
Hordes of horses whinnied, dogs howled and mules brayed addin' to the din!
The Home of Hooch, Red Onion and Mangy Dog saloons flung open their doors,
To sate the thirsty sots before they tried their luck at diggin' by the scores!
Hawkeye Blevins, notorious gambler, grabbed a table at the Hungry Pub Saloon,
And with slight of hand relieved many gullible rubes of their moolah all too soon!
Even preachers tossed aside Bibles and grabbed shovels to join the endless queue,
To foolishly struggle up Chilkoot Pass in the dead of winter with that motley crew!
A few hardy stampeders found their Eldorado but many more came to naught!
Death, disillusionment and starvation stymied the quest for which they sought.
Many a hapless feller lies beneath that frigid land never more to roam.
Infamous Soapy Smith lies at rest in Skagway Cemetery, there, his final home!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
(c) All Rights Reserved
Categories:
stymied, adventure, humorous,
Form:
Rhyme
Stymied synergistic stoolcumers synchronized
of gifted glib galb garbage run of mouth
nicotine rings of one night
no promise quickly spilled
ever taxed gestured pocket
pool. tandem coulpling random
access eye spew askances for a
tainted night glow. Weak whitewine
whispers office yupslugs curtaling on a
Friday nnite feeding rampage
cock'll doodle do ya, hopefully, fixed
******l trans plant stilted blue
libidious carneverous ego ectascies
exaggerate trip the gonad fantasy fantastic
click, click, click, scrape,
click females ina crowd leave ina crowd
***** puffers everywhere cancer
croonies suck lips with sunken jaw
jumping jill frenzy paste posted tooth
smiles--only gum grin where prohibited
white collar/blue collar share a
once beer of sorts, while linley smoke
figures haunt backwards in a sitdown dismal
denial comedy for the no show waitresses
geese gatheing empty of poignant personality
through bar riers of in-finite age range ripe
rituals for meta phor women to the restroom!
The plot hair thickens. my lungs hurt from watchexisting
Blue suit sancturary slugs offer office onslaughts through
oppulent openings via perservance in a temperate tampon
express meal head long into a pubic partisian oblivion?
True bar tintilation touting tempting tidbits of tumultious
temptations tilting time, tantilizing tremors, tracking
tricks of professional preference and sexosocial sinny
secular satisfaction. Gomer Pyle just pissed by.
Judy, Judy, Judy. Poor Judy.
occular preferences occlude
Categories:
stymied, change, character, culture, emotions,
Form:
Free verse
Outside my window is a papaya tree,
loaded with fruits mostly green
awaiting maturity for consumption
while smaller ones ripen from corruption.
One papaya fully matured almost yellow,
camouflaged by leaves and nature 's halo.
Ever noticed that the papaya when ripe
exudes translucent light, dancing to entice?
Fascinated I was when staring at the fruitlink,
golden yellow changes orangey, then reddish pink.
Like space beams unseen by bored bland eyes,
blind to the fanfare and the dance of the fruitflies.
Of courtship romancing every minute of the day,
nature's breath forever throbbing in sexual play,
Vital as of birds, the bees and all God's creations
reproduction is the essence and seeds proliferation.
Incessant intercourse is nature's scheme in union
with foreplay imperative for nectars ripe for fusion.
Mesmerized, the dance of birds honed in on erotic colours,
as fruit blushed, birds stimulated created chaos in palours.
Tweeting, wings flipping, screeching in agonizing pain,
Agitated in delirious arousal, little hearts beating under strain.
Synchronised flying directly at the yellow flirt,
birds eye view they flew, all aiming 'neath the skirt.
Oh! the fate of them which ripen before their time,
sickly, watery coloured babies, pricked and stymied.
Nature's errors, good only as food for pests and waste,
ripen before time so no seed for birds to propagate.
Fallen prey to imitating droning of the bird's courting cries,
greenies inveigle arousing only the Dance of the Fruitflies.
Categories:
stymied, analogy, beauty,
Form:
Unjustly stymied, down by law,
The good citizen balks, throws his -
Monkey wrench into the grinding gears of society:
"They all be damned."
But freed, aided,
The good citizen (Way, will) makes straight that path,
Turns forward the Great, Lasting Wheel of Society,
For the benefit of all.
Categories:
stymied, freedom, society,
Form:
Prose Poetry
I was my hands of it all, Translation of Pierre Emmanuel’s Je m’en lave les mains by T. Wignesan
And what could we have done in his place
Who in this century would dare to judge him
he belongs to you and you are me-myself
A tiny cogwheel
An average individual
Someone responsible neither for evil nor for good
Who merely transmits
For others to execute
I am not to blame
Even if these things are not the makings of anyone in particular
they just happen
When such things happen I’m never around
It always takes place elsewhere
It’s not my fault I’m just a soldier
They’ll tell me Yes you’re not to blame
A command is a command
I am a soldier I obey orders I‘m given
I merely pass them down the ranks
It’s not my duty to be concerned I wash my hands of it all
All this then just drains through my fingers
There are other hands to own up to all this
Replete with a hangman who’s one of them
More cowardly than Ponce-Pilate
Who at least kept saying I wield power
Who did everything thought he could really do anything
Excepting the impossible and hence did nothing
To save him
And Jesus said You wouldn’t have had this authority
if it weren’t handed down from up on high
Everyone of us is a grain out of the stock
Each is stymied by all
One’s implacable spineless There’s nothing I can do, I’m helpless
This’s the unending wail rising from humanity
He who alone agrees to bear the burden
Of all the others which none can bear alone
Is capable of the impossible
(from Piere Emmanuel’s “Les Jours de la Passion”, July 2011)
© T. Wignesan – Paris, October 10, 2014
Categories:
stymied, power, spiritual, , cute,
Form:
Dramatic Monologue
We The One Who Die
There you have it, something marvelous that is nigh impossible to achieve…
A small country hamlet that has completely banned smoking, you better believe…
Somewhere in an offbeat location in Indonesia, people there achieve an impossible feat …
There, in a small country hamlet, or kampong by local slang, everybody has smoking beat…
The people that live in this unique hamlet or kampong exhibit remarkable self restraints…
How else can you explain this impossible feat of successfully achieving a No Smoking ban…
Of course there are visible signs from the local authorities declaring this smoking ban…
There, at the very entrance to this unique settlement of country folks living simple lives,…
A simple sign reads “Thank You For Not Smoking, Say No To Cigarettes” for every visitor…
Another says “You The One Who Smoke, We The One Who Die”, what a grim reminder..
Tobacco related economic s are stymied here in this hamlet of simple country living…
Unlike in the rest of Indonesia where as high as 30% of adults are hooked on smoking..
For a country with 200,000 smoking related deaths a year, this hamlet is setting the lead….
Nearby kampungs, villages and communities are working hard in trying to emulate…
The seductive lure of the tobacco related economy and monies are insignificant factors…
When the individual, and the community, are resolute and determined to prosper…
For the monetary savings from not smoking daily are very significant to better spending…
As evidenced from the comments gathered from those who have stopped smoking…
This little piece of writing is my salutations for the people who are residents in that area..
Where fresh country air is free of tobacco particulates and life couldn’t be any better…
I could imagine in my mind the simple lifestyle there on offer, a simple country hamlet…
Off the beaten route, away from the din and bustle of modern high paced hassles….
Bravo to the residents of this rustic Indonesian village called Kampung Bone Bone ….
Bravo for their collective success of promoting and prospering health to each home…
http://www.star2.com/health/wellness/2016/03/18/this-tiny-kampung-did-what-authorities-couldnt-ban-smoking-completely/
Categories:
stymied, appreciation, community, education, encouraging,
Form:
Free verse
Pantheon of obtuse glorifications
Hallways confetti bile stymied soldiers smile
'Incomiiiiiiiiing!!!!'
Waves and waves of the nation's slaves
Wave your flag
The few
The proud
The crippled and the dead
Categories:
stymied, angst, betrayal, career,
Form:
Elegy