Best Surefooted Poems
Virgen de Guadalupe
scrape her roses from the floor
The lighted path shimmers
in the mountains
as we walk like goats
surefooted and into high
places
Lofty dreams encompass
the transitions
and splendor shakes a tail feather
peacocked into cries for
water, light and love
Challe in the toilet stall
Hands clenched, mouth moving
She could not shout
Shall the world let her fall?
Offer her soothing
Help through this bout?
Shall we notice at all?
Her sad self loathing
Draped in self doubt
Challe head against the wall
Her mind is roving
Confused, distraught
Challe
Orphaned child
Witnessed mother’s murder
Never able to cry
Numb
La Pieta
hold open her new door
The best is yet to come
We whisper as we
stick our fingers down
her throat
Virgen de Guadalupe
scrape her roses from the floor
holding her slashed wrists
until the ambulance arrives
and extracts
her overdosed pills and
her nightmares
into visions
of the ever present gift
that even murderers
could not take away
Rocking her like
a baby we sing
to her of a new
day and a new
song where she
will cry no more
and we assure her
with our lips to hers
that we will breathe
for her for a while
until she births her
new self all green
and rare like a
butterfly thought
extinct suddenly
appeared
No matter how deep the sadness or wide the pain,
I vow to live for a brighter day will come again.
No matter how many mistakes I’ve made in the past,
I vow to live and in the future avoid them, surefooted and fast.
No matter how many tragedies beyond my control take place,
I vow to live and stay my course within this race.
No matter how poor or rich I may ever be,
I vow to live and aspire to search for the dignity in simplicity.
No matter how much a lover may pierce the inner core of my heart,
I vow to live for like spring I’ll get a new start.
No matter how isolated and alone I may feel,
I vow to live and do something for someone else to heal.
No matter how hopeless my situation my appear,
I vow to live and reflect until my viewpoint is clear.
No matter what happens in this life – good or bad
I vow to live, do my best, and just for living – be glad.
My man from youth grew
Your life was full of superiority;
You dazzled and demarcated,
Who does not belong must be sacrifice,
And laughter were the mystery of your horror tales,
To all animals not wild should cut their tails,
Freudian legacy that governed the tribe of the bookish
And trickles down to wild youths,
The Mafioso cum in our midst
As he found landlocked in:
This is a, that is b and those c, d, and e,
Alphabetically symbolize the allies
Who seemed not to care;
We washed different hoe-hands
Together into the same potluck,
But I decided to follow the king;
It is an experience, whatsoever or whatever,
Expressed what I looked for,
And clapped a song: immortal invincible God only wise,
In the conclusion of the matter
All that needed done was half done,
And tomorrow packed belongs and begone,
Gone on mission and came back with some spoilt,
The pathetic sweet–hearts you hate to remember
The one there and here and lived with in ransom,
And terribly pity, the one discarded, multi-distressing,
With all diseases in her mouth and in belly,
The executioners used darkness to mask
And covered up in shielded shadows,
With weapons drawn and the meat
Surefooted walked into the trap,
The in humans unleashed the superiority tussles:
A dagger slit esophagus,
Knife carved out eyelids
Axes butchered wrists,
Cutlasses designed gothic gashed all over;
Sliding and growling the pain shoot in his vein,
And tore through him the devastated dream,
Soon it was time to go as he lay
And the juice poured out of the vessel in torrents,
To perish, eyes and mouth agape, surprised;
To the moon looking down terrifying,
O! God we lack and want,
O! God provide us our daily bread,
O! God we are crying for injustice,
Mother cried of crushing, crashing heartbreak for
The lamentation of her killed beloved: 'Jealousy inflamed brawled'
Poor mama, she has not been there
Even when she went there,
In agony, sorrow and deep mourning, merely comforted;
But, Eman story had been contorted.
This Satanophobia makes me fear more
A jobless framework like a rust armour
From the arsenal of an old strong warlord
Surefooted to cut down a long strong rod.
Its an aframomum melegueta
Which its pungency hurts than a cutter.
Idleness; a caustic abstract worker
Bow in the hand of evil chief archer.
Seest thou an idle man; devil's abode
Activates arch injurious spirit mode
There, every evil venture was acted
To destroy good works that was created.
The master of mischievousness is good
At making an unused hand as his food.
He puts evil on an engage-less man
Like ao dai on vietnamese woman.
Ye idles away like a falling leaf
While others toil to earn a coin for beef
And ye rip off them of their hard labour.
An idle man, a devilish harbour.
My heart pounded in my ear as I ran, stopping periodically – silent, listening. Was he coming? Had he figured out yet that I’d runaway. Was he behind me or would he be waiting behind the next tree or bush? Where was he now? Or was he only inside my head, that throbbing sound that penetrated through my hopes, my prayers, my faith, so that I couldn’t quite breath and so that I couldn’t quite find the strength to do much else but run from the arrogant weight of his darkness shadowing all my good, all my light, all my chances.
I took another step and stopped again to listen, checking the silhouettes of branches with leaves dancing a waltz along the path where my feet pressed into the rich, black Appalachian forest. I was surefooted on this trail since I’d spent most of my mornings walking these very tracks with my favorite partner and canine, the little white cock-a-pooh named Yogi who knew me as his person and friend, his comrade until the end. That was then, though. Yesterday, before the darkness had betrayed my spirit and set its claws into my presence, awakening the dread, the anxiety, the fear that was so strong it seemed to cling to the tears welling up inside of me, pouring rivers of sorrow upon the mountains surrounding me.
In just minutes I found myself wading through the creek where the clear, cool water whispered, laughing at my alarm, promising my thoughts that the terror would soon be gone. Only, it would not. It was there, a lasting dismay, treading the waters of my prayers, hollowing out a hole inside my mind where it told me I was about to learn what it means to live the nightmare that has haunted me for all time. He was alive and as long as he lived I had the fear that could not be calmed, the fear that was like a vine clinging to the blossoms of my hopes, my dreams, my needs. He was alive and he wasn’t about to relax his hold on my yearnings and let me go free.
Chapter 1 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Matt Caliri
September 18, 2022
EVENING
Evening falls and wings are folded
Darkness clothes the weary sky
Birdsong awaits the daybreak
And rest descends on all
The battering hammer of the smithy
The barking blade of the lumberyard
Have led their surefooted dance
Of sparks and spelks in ugly reel
Silent, and uncertain now, the night creeps
Chilling the ardent blade and ember.
Distant dawn intones a dirge to the far
Tumbling circles cold around each remote star
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Other poems of mine, similar to this, are available at
https://www.fictionmagazines.com/magazines/five/
Surefooted, sure fisted,razor tough
If I should fight that war again
I would want one for the going rough
Like yourself,
Fair and fractured
When the friendship slough
No claim to be a paragon of anything
Just an average man in your own eyes
While I hoisted you like a kite
Above naseberry trees and bush
Above the gormandizing sea
Above the Compound's red mud
Carrying the archeological memory
Of man's life like a sud
A mere consequence of a theory's lie
It was your mating urge that first
Lured you into the systems net
Thereafter your life became troubled
Wandering around the wilderness of regret
Framed like a pirate's ghost
Stereotyped and labeled
I still do not think you guilty of their crime
Your demonization came before your destruction
And when you died
I cried and cried at such a useless end
My fearless friend would never be at my back again
But tears will water pain, and still brings nothing back.
Hide,
Scorched like gauze
Moving slowely and surefooted
A path no longer blazed yet
Bridges behind still burn
An opening,
A thousand eyes turn to stare
Fruitless in its search,
Faces no longer there
Disgruntled and aged
Grown shorter in its decline
The Dinosaur walks out of the
forest,
Onto the edge of time.
Silent Fit of Rage
In a silent fit of rage, she sat still and soundless
Evaluating each of her decisions and all that surrounds it
Not a bit shaken or even surprised, to say the least
She is all too familiar with betrayal and the scars it can leave
She is a decorated warrior, no stranger to the battlefield
She’s mended many wounds and been to great lengths to have them healed
So once again on the threshold of new opposition
She finds herself in a dilemma, just how should she handle this situation
Her paths are copious, littered with an assortment of direction
Surefooted she is not, she needs guidance and protection
She goes to her Captain, her Commander in Chief, in prayer
When she is looking for sound advice, she knows she’ll find it there
Awells-2012
When western winds in my ear sing
The memories of rivers bring
A horseman
Cut of rough land and bronze timber
Surefooted walk, lean and limber
Horsepower
I fumbled where he was at ease
Our hands would touch in flirty tease
Of horseplay
Through golden grass, me and my guy
Galloping free to chase the sky
On horseback
Now, in my city life, I keep
Over my bed, to grace my sleep
One horseshoe.
5/09/20
For "Compounding the Verse" contest
Sponsor: Joseph May
Surefooted men work hard on the roof.
Their job: to make sure it's all leak-proof.
But in the heat, they're baking
and the work is back-breaking.
Of their travails I'll not be aloof.
If I walk a path with you
I will be surefooted
And I will leave footprints
So that we may know
How far we’ve come
And remember where we’ve been
And as I walk a path with you
I will steady your direction
I will secure the road
And I will keep you safe
Till we complete our journey
And together, we find our lives
Winds blow, soft, insistent
knotting my hair, tugging my clothes
begging me to run, swift
and surefooted as the antelope.
Rain falls, tumbling down the
hillside, filling the creek
until its swollen currents roar
by, banks overflowing.
Feet pound the earth, blindly
seeking solid footing, pushing
past the pain, pressing on
until the body is worn.
Scents of sage, wet earth,
and stone fill my lungs
as my chest heaves, smelling
of things both old and new.
Wind blows, rain falls,
water roars, heart pounds;
amid the voices of nature,
my mind is at peace.
PEP squad
Hello, let's cheer for the ones to hear
the gladness of our souls
The voices of the ones who speak
surefooted, strong and bold
The PEP Squad shares enlightended ways
together they bring gladder days
But many wish to keep them down
Crowd them with disdain so loud
Owens, west and wiley know and
Tatum, Scott and Owens glow
with light and grace that can't be drowned
by wicked souls and misery frowns.
The PEP squad shines and brings us hope
Denouncing those known misanthropes
This the land of free and of brave
the PEP quad needs spportive way
For though they do not ever cave
this country is slammed with depraved
Let's cheer them on as they speak and try
PEP quad, PEP Squad detoxify
the nation and the world from strife
Caused by those of of malicious life
Many, many more names I know
who are truly PEP but for space I showed
only a few of the proud people to know
that without them we will NEVER grow
to be as we are enshrined to be
with blessings and tranquility
The core of me intently listens
to that which, in your absence, I merely
imagined having heard;
Once again, I speak eloquently
of that which, when you were away, I only
mumbled to myself;
And, surefooted, I pick my way in the dark
where, without you, I tumbled and fell.
Thank you.