Best Submerging Poems
I remember the day I became a poet.
In the magnificence of the submerging sun,
I glanced upon her admiring its majesty.
Amidst hues of clementine and lilac,
her image cast a shadow so serene.
My heart began to flutter like a butterfly,
floating towards her -
finally free from the chambers of my cocoon.
Like a silk scarf, scarlet petals wove a path,
aromatising footsteps that led to her.
Who could this mysterious lady be,
that had humbled such a hardened heart?
Although strangers, it felt as our souls
had known each other for eternity.
In twinkling twilight, I could see
pieces of the moon illuminating through her eyes.
How could I forget how the reflection of her smile
invited me to wander willingly into her heart.
Like nocturnal nightingales adrift in the night,
we sang sensual melodies not heard before.
Sensations felt from her soft satin skin
remain a euphoric timeless memory.
Seduced within the substance of soulful desires,
her enchanted essence became my first poem -
the purity of her existence my eternal poetry.
Silent One
19 March 2018
As sunrise silently
marinaded morningtide meadows,
our lips flowed like two streams,
merging within an exclusive estuary
so we set home upon the river bed.
At first we floated like butterflies in Babylon,
deaf to the squawks of mercenary crows,
blind to the creeping weeds,
which wandered amongst delicate petals
nor did I notice our submerging embankment.
As our estuary began to evaporate,
you left me stranded in the silt and mud.
My heart, once a blossoming garden,
evolved into a wasteland of sedges and sludge.
Still I wait for soothing streams to return,
but all I am left with is marshland of regret
and the silence of the butterflies.
As born again blossoms bloom,
who am I to wilt upon the dawn of spring,
as I can see morning robins gather
to bless me with the melodies they sing.
Their once melancholic lullaby,
disappears with every drop of rain,
in cloudless, bright blues skies,
they have sang away winter's pain.
I watch them collect fallen twigs,
nimbly, creating their new nests,
rebuilding something that was once broken,
fighting valiantly against nature's tests.
They're aware that predators lurk,
so when sunset sinks at silent twilight,
I wonder where do they seek shelter,
so they don't become prey of the night.
With philosopher eyes the mind ponders
what if birds were born without both wings.
How would they fly to freedom when trapped?
Would we still hear the melodies a robin sings?
When bewildered in the wilderness,
some slither softly, lost in melancholic motions,
submerging slowly in shallow streams,
unable to control their erratic emotions.
We are blessed with spiritual wings,
but some prefer to remain within their cocoon.
Unable to learn from the homecoming of birds,
their authentic-self, struggles to hum in tune.
In the migration of misunderstood minds,
we can become lost among unknown silhouettes,
like dead petals ignored by butterflies,
our inflictions turn us into marionettes.
Darkness will always consume our horizons,
so as I arrive upon illuminations ledge,
I revel in the belief my spirit will fly
if my foundations crumble at the edge.
chances of me leaving home
chances of me donning blues
chances of me wearing a flight suit
chances of me being chosen
to carry the sports flag
chances of me staying
what chance do I have to find love
chances of living a life apart
from what I had known
chances of being whistled at by ships
chances of the greatest adventure of my life
chances of boogie boarding the Pacific
chances of kittens
yes, kittens…mom wasn’t a fan
chances of tempura and teriyaki
chances of children in muumuus and leis
chances of sunshine and rainy season days
chances motor pedaling a bit far away
what we won’t do when we are pinch-cheek young
chances of wading, submerging, merging
with (parrot- butterfly- trigger- trumpet- ) fish; and tangs
chances of Hanauma reef and frozen peas
chances of being half a world away
chances of my son finding love in Guam
chances of my daughters marrying Southerners
chances of happiness
chances of me leaving home
Swaddled in frozen silence
In a weather so dolorous and damp
The pores of her mind sweat painful memories
Which take a headlong flight
Faster than the beams of light
At times shaking their fearful manes
As unbridled steeds, they come
Raising dust behind
Making all sanity blurred.
Often, they rise from their indulgent stupor
And spill over, submerging all extant thoughts
They never care to stand in queue
Jostling each other with no manners
They bump on one another, breaking all decorum
Like an unruly mob on impatient wait
Caught in the vortex of a whirling current
Her poor body begins to lose its equilibrium
And she plunges into the bottomless depth
To be choked there in whirling gloom!
Oh, beatific lotus flower, blossom of my pious soul
How brilliantly you ascend, sparkling in sunrise gold
Being the emissary of divinity ancient tenets behold
Invigorating spiritual vibes unwavering beliefs extol
Oh, tender touch of angels, purity of enlightened life
How mystically your petals divulge esoteric delight
Kneeling for mortal beings, submerging into the night
Yearning renewal upon cleansing unwelcome strife
Oh, sage of wisdom, imperial emblem of knowledge
How you rise again and again, edifying life and death
Heavenly spirits you elate awakening human intellect
Illuminating senses in revelations of Buddhist texts
Oh, symbol of rebirth, essence of pure revered faith
How prayers of sacred words in your epiphany toll
Where rhythms of my heart in tenor of nirvana echo
As you grant eternal peace to mortals lost on earth
Oh, beatific lotus flower, blossom of my pious soul
January 1, 2021
Placed 5th: Lotus of my heart poetry contest
Sponsor: Mystic Rose Rose
Placed 5th: Your choice (43) contest by Brian Strand
born under the sea, an irresistible force
two bodies reluctantly embrace, shunting, shifting, tectonic drifting
alongside the southern Iapetus Ocean
equatorial deep-time child of Laurentia and Avalonia
journey northward, surfacing, submerging
surfing the waves again, a colder Hibernian dalliance
precariously perched on Eurasian plate
old bedrock confused, youthful erosion above the ancient order
darkness entombed around channelled winter light
early New Grange civilisation, the Boyne valley before the blood
river mouth vikings, raiding, assimilating
birth of the coming capital, eastern stronghold, Baile Atha Cliath
chain-mail Norman conquerors castle-building
appointing pious supplicants with sword, cloth, crook and cross
wholly unholy alliances unravel
rival hierarchies sharing ill-gotten earthly reward from overseas
saintliness, brutality, men and women
expanding Christendom, pagan kingdoms adjusting to defeat
Patrick, Brigid, Columba, Columbanus
Irish civilising roman catholic conduits, Dalriata to Lindisfarne
outreaching, a strand of Irish character
yet to encounter future revisionary metaphysical thought
protestant rebellion, mainland overspill
praying elites competing, preying on the island's god-fearing people
avian watchers on Skellig pinnacles
warm ocean currents well-up, catching the southwestern gale
enduring the ill-will of nature and man
supplanting, subjugating, saving souls, the power of might and fear
treachery within or well beyond the pale
fair and dark hair, ginger genetics existing on the edge of life
tossed thin people hanging on, many leaving
scraping blighted ground, returning to the sea, promise of the unknown
When Neptune's
nostalgic sighs,
weave ruffled rosaries
of brocade ink,
bleeding from
blackberry wrinkles
in torrential time,
I wonder if
herculean eyes
of my earthen heart,
are afraid of being
abandoned by the
electric rhapsody
of life's alienated
aroma.
Swinging on the
translucent
parabola of a
frozen rainbow,
my fate is
skewed as a
cantaloupe
silhouette, of
helix-shaped
maple pamphlets,
where, bluebirds
feast on decaying
seeds of love
and sing
hemlock-croons
in those magnolia
gardens.
But,
what if stars
were edible and
I devoured their
ivory scintilla,
submerging
cosmic potions
in my arteries,
iridescent with
clusters of
quasar's quivering
rays and pulsar's
pistachio glitter?
So now,
I collect
volcanic ash
from rust-orange
ruins of dahlia's
dreamscape
and embalm
them with
paradise-pink hues
of distilled empathy,
for my swan-white
halo of faithful
silence, is still
glowing with
sombre yet
glossy shine
of the linen sun
and I inhale
the fragrance of
my marshmallow moon.
Earth health-love resonance
is bird song
contrasted to dissonance
of non-ecologos
decaying cars
and non-theomythic truck technologies
of terror
and mismanaged motorcycles
flowing incessantly by.
Optimal resonance lives inside an eco-forested bird sanctuary
before and after a WestWind storming toward East
contrasted to challenged resonance
of living every WinLose day
next to a bird-nested tree
and a State HighWay.
These influence our polycultural health-love outcome potential
hearing Either-Or deductive contrast
as Left-oppositional and Right-appositional,
bipolar egocentric and dipolar eco-harmonic,
and see Both-And induced comparisons
polypathic wonder of ego-health potential
with polyphonic awe for eco-wealth integrity,
And not so monoculturing mundane much
as simply and always Win-Lose fundamentalism,
Either deductively successful
Or reductively impossible;
anti-inductive mistrust.
Future Search of a newborn child,
Both-And Elder RightBrained,
regardless of species
or multicultural seasoning,
is boundaried by DNA-RNA's historical
holonic iconic meaning
folding-unfolding fractals
in emerging-submerging bilateral Time.
In this same way,
Future Search of post-millennial Real 4Dimensional Time
regeneration
is double-boundaried
by WinWin PositivEnergy
historical and ecological confluent memories
and LoseLose NegativEntropic
dissonant
absence of Future WinWin ReSearchers,
whistling birdsong favorites
after climatic WesternDominant storms.
BeLoved Resonant
mythic mystery
lies within wu-wei cusps
Tipping Points of Left-nature with Right-spirit,
secular experience of and for sacred iconic memory,
ecologos and theomythos
reweaving
reconnecting Left with Right,
Yang with Yin,
EgoPatriarchs in healthy love with WiseElder EcoMatriarchs
inside as outside,
within as without,
below as above
Zero Health-Articulating Zones
for Win-Win love.
Poetry often starts outside
of one's self – on a distant hill or near
greenhouse shelf; our-cultivations
as the consideration of a grafted rose
goes; the meandering, dripping of a stream
or nose; submerging of our toes in
chilling clarity – we see to the bottom,
sometimes fooled by depth –
or that of a winged flight, wingtips tossing
sparks of light, dipping and scooping
winged ladles of air, unseen but yet
we see them there, pouring out there,
back into our fanciful sky, our fanciful
eye -- in a heart's invested sigh -- up
high in the atmosphere, sighted unseen
spirit -- looking and listening for the echo
of angels -- turning us more inward, where
deeper observation and motion begins,
the pen is lifted, and the paper stained
finally, fondly into lyrical submission –
I walked the garden path holding all the intimate hands,
nurtured in the impermanent world the hope of durability
of me loved and belonged, and me owning and retaining.
Times changed, didn’t know why storm of dismay surged.
The garden got ravaged, the trodden flowers tarnished,
I now walk a lonely walk in the garden turned wasteland.
The crushed thoughts rise from debris in the void mind,
blankness drags dreams down to the edge of extinction.
With the submerging spent sun in my melancholic sky,
the twilight colors of my listless life slowly sink to oblivion,
night waits for my moon at the fringe of the hazy horizon
to ascend across the insurmountable span of the onyx rift.
The wisps of disappearing cloud tinged with fading hues
weave for me the fading tapestry of the departing day.
Behind the shroud of the nocturnal gloom my stars hide
beyond the edge of the immeasurable distressing gulf.
The dust of despair drizzles in darkened supine skyline
from the descending night enveloping the ebony future.
My mangled mind can’t recover the dwindled dreams,
lost in the unfathomable depth of the agonizing abyss.
In my splintered mind at the edge of hope I search,
discover the inner light showing the reality of reason
God has given me to subsist in this life so beautiful,
there’s no cause greater, no motive better than to live.
My fragile footprints fade in the threshold of ashen dusk,
as in lengthening shadow of obscurity I walk the last mile,
hoping to feel God’s grace in the rays of the new sunrise,
I stand too close to the edge of the unbridgeable chasm.
The cruise ship charged
Whistleless at my sail boat
In a narrow channel
Between Islands
Of The Salish Sea.
I was powerless with sails up
Tacking against a current
Knotted against me.
The water boiled.
I recoiled
In dread
I could see them
Cosmetic lazy travellers
Lounging unconcerned
Tending to their looks
As the mass
Of their moving Carnival
Careened
At my destruction.
Two glaucous winged seagulls
Preening feathers were
Unconcerned
As the submerging emerging hulking
Tree trunk and roots
Surged at me
Consumer act
Consumers consuming and submerging till they are consumed and spat out when they die
Isn’t it funny to think consumerism is all about tomorrow and when and why?
Consuming effort to think what people want is the defining point of an era of buy by buy
Immersed in a struggle to want only the best of things until you realise what crap is on a skip near by
Do we really need all of this in our lives or are we a bunch of wankers wanking to get high
I think of the globe as one big shopping mall and in some countries they have precious things on their shelves to sell as they’re not shy
A lot of countries have realised that being friends with the bigger boys’ means that they can borrow these things for a while but the cost will cripple them then they will cry
Never mind little country I’m sure someone will help you if your people start to starve or begin to realise their government was a big fat lie
Keep on consuming that’s what I say because one day the Earth will ask for its goods back or we will all go to heaven as long as you haven’t consumed anything you shouldn’t or to hell with you which is a bit like living in Dubai.
Form:
A time ago I walked the long road
Lost any memories of stories told
Fog so thick I could not be found
Landmarks foreignly placed around
A cold wind carried an empty song
Resonating like some echoing gong
Raining can carry everything away
Submerging footpaths of yesterday
In a strange way, this love cannot be named or understood.
It’s sacred yet resisting of all rational reasoning and integrity.
A love that is so pure with an intense spiritual connection of my soul with your soul.
A love of minds from opposite sex, yet free and unmixed with carnal desire but bonded with a burning passion.
You gave me your naked body and in return I gave you my naked soul.
We both gave each other our vulnerability and trust but I gave you wholehearted, fierce depth of my heart.
I shared with you my deepest, darkest inner thoughts and you maintained control and held your emotions close to your chest.
At times I felt your yearning for my time and my interactions too.
This love is free from desire of sexual union but I yearn to sleep close to you to smell your body scent to knock me out of insomnia.
I undressed my thoughts to you and appreciated your naked body in an artistic way.
I made love to your consciousness and mind which you will never know about.
I felt orgasmic force through our submerging intimate conversations.
Intrusive thoughts don’t leave my mind day or night that is the reason for my farewell.
I am strong but you become my weakness.
Underneath our platonic love lies a mystical passion beyond my understanding.
No complexities lie in my heart now but certain clarity that this love is a connection of my soul and mind. I am glad to have experienced it, only a very few are privileged of a bizarre intoxication aspect of love.