Best Surveyed Poems
Biting winds and swirling flakes of snow had finally abated
We surveyed the deep drifts, which lay on the fields
The silvery moon peeped through the clouds and lit our way
It was bitterly cold, but the pitiful sound of bleating spurred us on
Some friends and neighbours had joined us – we had no time to lose!
Grabbing our spades we worked tirelessly throughout the night
Digging out the sheep and tiny lambs one by one
Their fleeces were matted with tiny icicles
As dawn broke we had rescued all but one of our precious flock
Suddenly our trusty sheepdog Shep started barking
We trudged to where he was frantically pawing at the snow
Our hearts lifted as we pulled the final sheep out alive
At last it was time for us to return to the farmhouse
In the distance I could see gold and silver lights sparkling
and scintillating on the Douglas fir tree in church in the village.
I raised my eyes to heaven and gave thanks.
A Winter Poem
Sponsor Shadow Hamilton
Required words
silver, gold, sparkling, flakes, icicles, drifts and spades
12~02~16
In the flickering light of the lamp,
Despite the chilly night, air so damp,
She surveyed books so avidly read,
Studied the guidelines now in her head.
Time came: she departed for the war,
Sure she'd care for all those wounded sore.
Many followed as she left her stamp,
At night she'd be the lady with the lamp.
When doves on evenings, calm and still, call out a hollow tone,
They rouse a medley, old as time, so few have ever known.
The whispered lines of its refrains resound of yesterday,
In ancient tales and bygone trails that man cannot portray.
I’ve rode and worked along a trail throughout my many years.
I’ve heard the tales the sages tell of raging Longhorn steers,
Of soldiers marching single file or mounted days on end,
Of Indians, conquistadors and Rangers tracking men.
Mackenzie Trail is not well known for time obscures its fame,
But high regard is placed on it by those who know its name.
Its story’s scribed in black and white, its remnants etched in stone,
Its way was marked by sweat and blood, by grave and bleaching bone.
The broad frontier that it traversed had yet to be surveyed
And danger seemed to lie in wait at every turn and grade.
From Fort Clark Springs to forts on north, it led Mackenzie’s men
To risk their lives out on the trail, then brought them home again.
A mound lies near Mackenzie Lake, where horse thieves met despair,
For Rangers tracked their hurried trail and hung them then and there.
And near a barn not far away, in Live Oaks’ blissful shade,
The remnants of a camp still lie where soldiers often laid.
I’ve rode the trail and damned the rock that cost my horse a shoe.
I’ve crossed its draws that filled with rain and made my lips turn blue.
Its rugged paths have tested me and all who’ve come this way,
Yet, it remains my trail through time, my bond with yesterday.
Mackenzie Trail will long survive, a monument to will,
That I recall when I ride near on evenings, calm and still;
When doves exclaim in harmony, their lonely, hollow tone
And rouse the medley, old as time, so few have ever known.
(for Virginia Woolf)
She wanted to buy some flowers but drowned Herself instead,
drifting along the ebbing flow of time, with warm
water cracking Her slim figure and airless lungs.
‘will I freeze the river?’ She thought, wondering if the trees
would still rustle in the wind if She wasn’t alive to notice it,
thinking if Her man’s heart would still beat if She could
no longer shock its rhythmical thump-thud-stop with kisses.
the wood was chopped down around Her home. The
veranda from which She surveyed the world was but
deafened by cruel hacking chopping and sawing at the
hands of men whom took Her feminine beauty away.
She became the water as She died, became the weeds,
became the bark that broke her own back, the pen and the phallus.
‘this isn’t purgatory’ She realised, ‘this is revenge and reward’.
‘I am a sacrifice to literature. I am a sacrifice for the word’.
from writer to death to glory to ink
to the lies under rocks uncovered,
to god to me to the taking of Her own life,
She is the paper in our very hands.
I laughed and the world was silent
For it seemed the joke was me
I wished to be a comfort
Yet, it was not meant to be
I stood upon the broadest shoulders
and still in the end I felt quite short
I couldn't see past lonely mountains
What goodly news could I report?
Those things I saw off in the distance
Raced towards me with a blinding speed
I dreamt of how they'd satisfy me
Yet sadly they did not meet my need
Within broken mind, I searched for justice
The lady outpaced by quite a bit
She said "If you really want to catch me,
You have to do oh so much more than sit!"
I chose to climb, the highest of mountains
Surveyed the majestic valleys below
Expected I'd be warmed by the sunshine
But Instead, I felt the fridgid winds blow
I shifted my gaze towards the heavens
Wondered deep down, why I felt all alone
As I sat cross legged I tried to listen
Felt a deep aching within tired bone
My greatest lacking was understanding
Until God's Mercy allowed me to cry
Temporary would lead to forever
The cycles of life connected to why
So my tears flowed into rivers
Down the tall mountain into the sea
It seems, I was always connected
Yes, the whole world was crying with me
The good earth!...ahh! its beauty
sloping down to golden river’s bank,
where trout and dreamy summit play
their game, a contest of who looks
longest, passers by or the tickled fish
and cumly eagle in her fortress nest
Yet is there a winner, who feasts off such
delight?
The latter in leaps and bounds astounds the
cornered eye: feathered lord of all surveyed.
Then smell the scent of bracken on the wind….
the eagle’s feather and crafty trout’s scale
intertwine, for pleasure and delight…no contest
to amend.
All’s well on the good earth!
Shoe, shoe, boot
Shoe, shoe, boot
This surveyed
In solitude
Acquainted
Just for fun..
Form:
She slipped into the single’s club,
where an assortment
of horny guys and lonely hearts had assembled.
Some were there hoping to find that "special" someone
and some had come to chase away the blues,
tinkling ice in cocktail glasses soon to be refilled.
Others, who might be labeled commitment phobic,
had simply come to case the place for an easy lay.
Swinging svelte, mini-skirted hips lasciviously,
she strutted over to the counter
on legs that looked their longest and most shapely
from being hoisted on high red heels.
Every pair of eyes was trained on her.
Some in the club gawked
with eyes that hid beneath mascara-painted lashes, flitting envy.
Others leered with pupils dilating lust
from ogling the two soft protrusions in her tight white turtleneck.
Then with pink champagne in hand,
the goddess turned and surveyed her audience,
most of whom by now had looked away.
One remained, mesmerized, with eyes riveted on her.
He quivered when she caught his gaze
and strolled over to where he sat.
As she approached, he marveled at her face -
the chiseled cheekbones strong and high,
the dark eyes, luminescent and immense,
and curiously, an upturned nose so delicate
it seemed almost too perfect,
like one acquired from a sculptor’s hands.
He gulped when she asked him for a dance,
and as he asked this intriguing lady’s name,
he wondered at the timbre of her voice,
so provocative and low as she tossed dark brown locks
and said seductively,
“My name is Lola. L-O-L-A , Lola.”
Inspired by an old song from the 70's and
used now for Skat's the Premiere Contest number 10 Poetry Contest
The sheep stood on the burning deck, when all but he had fled
Someone had placed the captain's hat upon his woolly head
So bravely stood the sheep upon his first and last command
Promoted to high station and to duty's dire demand.
Beyond the ship to starboard, he surveyed the churning sea
And the crew, all in their lifeboats, working furiously,
To gain a good safe distance, they rowed both fast and well
So they would not go down with the ship beneath the final swell.
Comes the moment, comes the sheep and, as the captain on the deck,
The sheep stood in command, but with a rope tied round his neck
As the waves came lapping up and all the flames went dying down
It sank beneath the waves with the sheep and his proud crown.
"Who wrote dese legs?" Said Milligan in Puckoon *
As he surveyed his nether limbs with distaste and dismay
While Jessica Rabbit gave the protest of every 'toon' **
"I'm not really bad. It's just that I was drawn this way"
I share Milligan's discontent with legs and other appendages
As I guess do others, save those narcissistically vain
We seek to have some correction and make 'amendages'
Or at least find some creator whom we can blame
So God, while receiving His due credit when we pray
May be on the receiving end of much lamentation
"Oh why did you give me such faults? why make me this way?
If only you'd done better job in my creation"
Then since it's not our fault, but the way we were drawn
It's not fair! Therefore those better sketched must make reparation
Thus comes about entitlement; enforced welfare is born
Correcting errors? Or just causing more enervation
But in life's dramas do we not each play some role
Maybe having some choice of the part and in writing the script
With a character choosing a purpose, determining a goal
As we stumble through props and scenery and trap-doors tripped
Regardless of who was the author of our book
Whether our lives are our own or in hands of the fates to make hay
The role we have whether hero saint or crook
Determines right now the game that we have to play
Looking to the future if given that I have a voice
In my next life if not made from mud or other dregs
And I have the good fortune to make some personal choice
I will write myself a better pair of legs
From afar only
I have surveyed the things once known,
now decayed and crawling
slowly, yet inexorably,
toward a time I’d rather not see.
I have not stood with you
in the desolate places we knew,
places we knew before their desolation,
I fear to stand there
and I fear to be forgotten by you.
I remember them well
and I remember you too,
and you lead me, and chase me,
through mourning and mournful places,
places not known until now.
I may have feared you, loathed you,
or neither, or both,
and perhaps I loved you
or didn't, but should have,
but I could only have loved poorly, I think.
You lead me through unknown wastelands
and chase me through crushing battlefields,
always in the dead of night
when we cannot see
the things that so merrily tear at us.
We dare not see them,
and dare not see our wounds, we needn't,
we feel more surely than we’d see,
and surely they are real,
I fear they may never mend.
24th April 2019
Once upon a shiny polished day, the sun shone bright as golden ray
and in the park where the children played the puppies danced ballet
The kittens meowed from their outdoor yum cafe
and the birds chirped from the trees while they surveyed
the pretty ducklings waddling in the pond, hurray hurray !
Once upon a starlit night the moon smiled sweetly at the sea
and in the river all the loons echoed across the lake, woo wee
The owl gave a hoot and the foxes slept tee hee
while the rabbit stretched and caught a snack or three
Once upon a fairytale a little Pixie cast a spell
and all the sicklies of the forest were suddenly made well
each precious creature went pell-mell at the sound of a Fairy's Bell
while all the ogres, trolls and elves, tap danced on a chanterelle.
Sponsor BJ Legros Kelley
Contest Name Write a Sweet Fairytale For Children
a gnarled olive tree
surveyed the scene --
tender saplings soaring skyward
regal oaks basking in glory
majestic cedars 'midst the clouds
--under her breath
~ I’ll outlast you all
On a barren mountain top,
boulders gray and strewn with rocks,
thermal winds that rose and dropped,
sat the Raven, head half-cocked.
The Raven watched the butterfly
as it softly fluttered by,
he heard the gulf wind's gentle sigh,
as soothing as a lullaby.
He fluffed his feathers, began to preen,
so black, they're blue, his feathers gleamed,
high above the great ravine,
he stoically surveyed the scene.
The Raven cherished shiny things,
like Reynolds Wrap and Christmas string,
one time, he found a tiny ring,
another time, a ballpoint's spring.
Sunset found him in his nest,
among the treasures he loved best,
head tucked into his feathered breast,
content, he took his final breath.
From the top window of the tower
I surveyed my vast kingdom
sprawled far and wide,
a patchwork quilt of
rubble-walled fields
adorned in vibrant hues
matching the glow of my soul
and the glint of my regal sword.
An introvert at an early age
relishing the sound of silence
leading imaginary friends into
battle against foes and dragons.
Time had little or no meaning...
till grandma’s shrill voice
spiralled upwards, shattering my
daydreaming and, reluctantly,
I shed my thoughts and armour,
then hungrily followed the aroma of
her cooking down the winding steps
of grandfather’s windmill.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[20 lines max ~ free verse]
My Youth Poetry Contest
Host & Judge Craig Cornish
Placed 2nd
-------------------------------
A Personal Fav Poem of 2018 Contest
Hosted by Carolyn Devonshire
Placed 2nd
© 9th December 2018