Best Swooned Poems
Somewhere in a dream,
Serene and blissful from the start
It comes to me again
The two of us in love, and eagerly alone
Breathlessly naive', and blissfully assured
that we would be as one
...that nothing in the world outside, could ever be compared
Two bikes took rest against a tree
We climbed the nearest hill,
Through foxtails, deep and thickets, high
Along a creek bed, far and wide,
wading through warm granite stones
Slick and wet, with velvet moss
littered deep with autumn leaves, and the urgent tender years
My darling...do you remember...?
We were like children, we marveled and swooned
at the shapes of the clouds in the lavender sky
changing their forms in a wink of the eye
We were wild with love, that stirred the stones
Discovering firsts, and thirsts unknown
Layers of years, now whisper here,
Imprisoned in this hidden place, with every breath of air
Not a fluent time that bends or moves
...but time fully reasoned, with ancient eyes
Unwound of it's youthful eyes and loves
Where dulcet words plucked out of space
Have not been tinged by autumn's breath
And innocence is scattered like leaves upon the breeze
And lingers, ...with a sweet wistful sigh
We who once made love, ...a thousand skies ago
Have slept with tossing shadows and lilting cries
Still tremble with the memory
Oh, ...I know the subtle ways of empty dreams
And I shall go by silent lanes and leave this day....and you....
....timeless here
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Note : This poem is inspired by the artwork and we chose to focus on it from a mental health perspective and how inner demons can play a significant role in relationships as well as considering siren myth and legend.
I am the eclipsed dawn,
swathed in searing blooms,
hemorrhaging the heat of restless smoke
into perfumed thorns
and sighing thistles ~
whilst aching to be loved
beyond the damage I cast,
like the queen of darkness,
dancing with demons.
Let your exhaustion cascade into me,
all being healed between this madness and rest.
Incessant pull caresses insistent longing;
collapse and captivation fuse to desire.
Flesh and energy intoxicate these bodies
in the time before hunger evaporates.
Death charges on
as you follow me into the stillness.
And what if the first spark of stars
hardened our night into a kingdom
of ice and frost,
of hurt and hollowness ~
would we not remain infatuated lovers,
pouring poison into
the grass that breathes
in chronic colors of this doomed devotion?
Without surrender, we sing in silence,
yet our swooned hearts remain drowsy from swirling strings,
twisting and turning on a surface seared severely by the sun.
What better way to fill the air with the fragrance of our thirst?
Let us fade into the dim fog
as we cosmically flourish ~
a forest of lustrous chaos, unseen, unbound.
Hold me in a cluster of all your stars,
the delicate ones you’ve laminated and fear might scar.
I’ll cradle them in the softest scarves ~
but even roses carry thorns all the way down their stems.
With finespun fingers of silky words
brushed with passionate warmth cashmere,
fill my pillow here with your lush and luscious thoughts
so my starry-eyes may wander hushed sighs, as mere
sleepy sweet nothings whisper flushed forget-me-nots.
Dress my dreams agleam your soft sterling tiffany,
upon moonbeams of cream chiffon fly your mused rapture
in glimmers; so shimmers swooned stream’s epiphany
of silky words cashmere - dream’s cocoon you capture.
Susan Ashley
November 24, 2017
~ Fifth Place ~
Premiere Contest: Early Feb. 2018
Sponsor: Brian Strand
Poet’s note; In honor of my friendship with the wonderful and talented poet, Paul Callus, I would like to express my heartfelt appreciation. His lovely response to my comment on his beautiful poem 'Whispers of Love' lit the fuse to my muse, inspiring this poem...
Thank you, my dear friend Paul,
your artistry inspirits me.
I’d kissed at least one boy by age fourteen.
Disappointment was the taste it left.
Although it was short, it was far from sweet.
In contrast, my second kiss was lengthy.
Its honey lingered in my mouth all night.
Oh, Alabama summer of my 14th year!
The month was either August or July.
Visiting my best friend Sheila’s state, I met
her 19-year-old cousin Glenn
(a preacher’s son was he!)
Wearing a skort (I still remember it-
(a half skirt, half shorts outfit with patterns red and blue).
I got into the back seat of a car with Sheila’s cousin.
She sat in the front with the driver, her boyfriend Jack.
Glenn liked to tease and make me laugh.
I was a cherry red/raspberry blue popsicle
melting in the sweltering humidity,
but melting too with the thrill
of sitting next to handsome, winsome Glenn.
Jack drove us all around and up and down
so many rolling hills.
My stomach too was rolling with excitement
(Glenn’s arm had found its way around my shoulders).
Before sunset arrived we stopped to park.
I don’t remember where. I didn’t care.
Feelings I had never felt before
were now exploding! I only can recall
those soft, smooth, sweet, long kisses
into the night
and a song on the car radio, its lyrics crooning
“Marry me Bill . . . I love you so, I always will. . .”
YES YES YES my young heart swooned!
So innocent was I in my tight blue top
with the well-matched blue/red skort,
reveling in my youth's greatest joy
in that back seat as my friend Sheila
was in her own world making out with Jack.
Glenn must have been at least on his
hundredth or perhaps five-hundreth time around the block,
and there was I with him -
naive and dreamy-eyed
on that perfectly romantic summer evening.
July 21, 2021
For A Lovely Memory Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Regina McIntosh
Because Of Grace And Beauty Your Dancing Steps Made
Where bright red in your dance dress, shows truth in your heart
gold and silver lace my dreams of time spent with you.
Tho' fate sent dark storms driving us so far apart,
my memories are as bright as your eyes were blue.
This world, swooned in time with your hot, sensual dance
you sent waves of passion into my willing veins.
My dear, your body, sweet music was your romance
when your dancing stopped, we all felt such lonesome pains.
I knew, you would defeat crushing blues and return
to dance floor and sashay as only you can do.
For your great heart's loving truth will forever yearn
to dress as a queen and put on your dancing shoes!
This too, dances through all my wondrous midnight dreams
those red flashes and turns that your beauty displayed.
Such moments this dark world stops, peace reigns, so it seems
because of grace and beauty your dancing steps made!
9-24-2017
The folded corners and wrinkled pages
of catalogs that were tattered and ripped
From the first of October until late in December
we drooled,
we fawned,
we lusted,
we swooned and giggled
mutilating each page
until the pictures faded.
Sears and Roebuck,
Monkey Wards
JC Penny’s,
Macy’s, Mattingly’s, K-mart.
Our wish list grew long
more than one sheet could hold
tears welled up with each toy crossed out.
Until the list was whittle down
Though the likelihood of getting any was nill.
But still
That’s why we called it the book of wishes.
If wants and wishes were hugs and kisses
There would be no need
to thumb through the pictures
and dream.
Perhaps imagination was the best Christmas gift
Benjamin Franklin was known for many a-things
Longing for reality to spring from his dreams
On a wild stormy night made a discovery
A dastardly magic called electricity!
However I would bet highly you didn't know
Of Benji's hauntingly beautiful crystal show
Victorian lasses died and went to heaven
The glass armonica swooned even his brethren
Benjamin Franklin was certainly a legend
To live without his gifts is hard to imagine
I see him now and then if I'm super lucky
His noble face glued to artificial money
This is something other than unsure laced with heavy heart.
I'd love to change my mind, is this where you take charge?
When our play begins, the starring role I'm begging you to take.
Open your eyes, I won't sit around and wait.
Would you instantly be swooned if I could be your tin foil dream?
Would you cook me in a spoon, shoot me right through your blood stream?
A rush that lasts longer than fifteen seconds, a force that beckons for all of your attention.
I want to illuminate the dark corners, where you hide the secrets that border,
The hurt that you and I refuse to admit, the **** that resides far beneath the surface,
Those things that just never quite seem fit and yet we both allow them to exist.
Between a cut and a hole, is there really a difference at all?
Knowing what I know, why do I keep interest in something I cannot control?
She's got what you need and she's got you by the balls,
I have nothing that can compare to her thralls.
But this is just an embellishment of events as seen in my head.
This is my heart written on paper that cannot be read. Maybe if I do it like this, it will make more sense.
I hope you'll let me find solace in you because I know I can do better but I don't want to believe it is true.
This where I lose rhythm and ask you to lie and tell me you'll do anything, but darling don't take the time to try.
I was sixteen when I fell in love
with her soaring skyward voice
Smitten by the sight of
melting ice cream dripping down her hand,
the hand that held the cone
As she smiled, wearing her denim overalls
Had a perfectly shaped Afro,
this beautiful sonorous soul
Minnie Riperton ...
she had the voice of an angel
She had rare God-given ability;
she could raise her voice one octave at a time,
higher and higher ... so sublime
Stepping up the musical ladder to the stars
she would climb
Vocalese ... soul satisfying release
Birds of paradise flocked to hear her voice;
as lovers swooned in the sultry moonlight
on summer nights,
serenaded by her sensuous invite
Listening to the voice of octave love
Minnie Riperton ...
we all were Lovin' You
as her beautiful voice took us
to the Edge of a Dream
But she departed years ago,
so we sit Alone in Brewster Bay
treasuring the Simple Things
Hearing her breathtaking voice
sparks in me the inner flame,
as her songs take me down Memory Lane
Over forty years later,
I emerged out of my personal wilderness ...
guided on many a nights
by the heavenly stars up above,
and by the voice of her pure octave love
26th &27th January 2012
By Sashi Prabhu (zeauoxian)
Alone I sat on the wet sands,
Of the Sernabatim beach lands.
The sun reflected blue sky,
On the greenish grey waters it looked so dry.
A sweltering sunny afternoon,
With the heat I began to swoon.
Alone, I moved myself into the waters warm,
The breaking waves look to me like many a lifeless form.
Warm waters I sense splash unto my waist,
Cool salty breeze sting my moist lips and chest, sweat erased.
The frothy waters seem so white,
Feral imagination within me is beginning to run regressive and makes me feel all right.
Alone I am rooted on the sandy shore,
I have within me, coming to the fore,
Feelings… deep feelings inside ignite,
Need to hold on to them tight,
The feelings incite,
A poem in my mind’s eye I feel and now see, that I would have to write,
Without any spite.
Alone, I am in the waters warm,
The breaking waters lash against me and quickly change form,
To myself feelings that turn to spirity words I begin to recite,
As I cast my eyes on nature around me from within springs delight,
And in its own right,
The poem begins to rewrite.
Alone, I am in the waters warm,
My feelings have begun to rewrite,
In my mind without any spite,
I am now filling myself with delight,
As expression is flowing freely in its own right,
And will transcend on to paper in black and white.
Alone, I now sit, drenched,
To the sands entrenched.
Melts the noon,
And evening falls attune,
The sun reflected blue sky,
Has now swooned away and I turn a blind eye.
Alone, I now sit, drenched,
Content in myself and with no feelings wrenched.
Gratified….soothened…satisfied…pleased,
Relaxed…happy….at ease and contented……eased.
Take me away to a time when our moon
hushed the sounds of the night where lemongrass
eyes sent shivers inside and I helplessly swooned
Enter again where those warm cinnamon swirls
yearned for romance a hand to reach out
entwined with a beat a vision so sweet
swayed in each gentle breeze
How I would retreat to simpler days
apricot wine our world in your gaze
vibrant the look my heart you had took
enjoying the bluebird in May
I remember it well as the memories do swell
time why have you carried her away
1.
Mom
kept the perch
we caught in a bucket.
And when we took them home
She would clean and place them
In our twenty gallon tank
Where they bobbed in stunned silence
Eyes watching for any white movement.
Nobody cared
when they committed fishicide
on their domesticated tank-mates.
Even the little beta fish
Who had survived our six day pilgrimage from Florida, to find Mecca
was a cool whip container.
2.
Whenever we had guests for dinner,
Mom swooned they
were the smartest fish she had ever seen.
She bestowed upon them names - Jed and Lucy
tapping at the glass
with one extended finger,
feeding them fish flakes,
like porpoises fed from the teeth of a trainer in Ocean World
“You can’t keep perch in a fish tank”
the guests would say,
but
they lived for two years
bobbing and staring
in the vacant tank space.
3.
One crisp winter morning
Jed finished his breakfast of gold fish flakes, took one
last gulp of slimy tank
water
then hurled
himself off of glass
walls.
It went
over and over,
so hard
I almost thought
the glass would crack.
4.
Lucy
sat quietly and watched
him.
She too died a few days later
like aged soulmates
who often cease
to be after their amor
dies.
When someone left the lid open,
she plunged
her blue green skin shimmered
as she laid
making fish O’s in the dry air..
I often wonder
if the air that morning
smelled
like an ice floe
to a better place
somewhere Jed waited
with our beta and our angel fish
a place of worms, kelp
and dragonflies.
4.
Mom
emptied the tank of the murky filtered water.
Rinsed the ultra neon yellow fish gravel,
and placed the fake plants on a sponge.
Separating air filter, from pump
from clear plastic tubing
and put to rest
in a brown cardboard box..
She did it without a word.
she was internally bleeding inside
silent tears dripping from her eyes
falling blindly through cracked ice
stabbing her soul unintentionally,
over a thousand times.
she was crying herself to sleep
slicing across her wrist,
hoping for it to get deep.
lifting her hands to pray
closing her eyes, realizing
there was nothing left to say.
making her own selfish lies
screaming alone,
waiting for someone to hear
her empty cries.
She was internally dying
from her goreing pain
internally bleeding inside her veins.
giving up on her hope
she had once believed,
letting go of that rope
so she could feel relieved
she smiled for the last time
when she said good bye,
it was her last line.
stepping forth into an ocean
carrying suffocating waves
she walked deeper following
her own devotion.
her head sank in as the world went quiet
rolling back her eyes
performing her own riot
forcing herself not to rise
she held her self down
counting the mintues that passed
waiting for the second she'd drown
wondering how long she'd last.
inhaling, she swooned
gripping her throat swelled by wounds
she let herself rise
knowing she tried
floating to the surface
with her eyes closed
her thoughts running freely
feeling so exposed.
And when she gasped to breathe
her eyes opening slowly.
seeing people crowded
staring are her attempt
she knew there was no escape,
this was the end
she couldn't pretend.
And now as she looked into the mirror
I realized the girl staring back at me
had the same scars..
just like me.
Let Us Paint Stars in the Heavens
But first, you must come and carry me in your arms.
For human utterances, nothing to me, do they convey,
Simpy, the raw, bare, nakedness of us, sets me aflame!
Reflecting our stunning sexuality in that flowered pool,
next to Mount Olympus.
Where Pan, happily, his flute doth gayly, play.
In our Grecian land, where we have so many times have lain.
On God's verdant carpet of grass, Grecian gardenia mixed
with your manly scent.
May my last breath be only a swooming sea!
That is the very human scent of only desirable you and the
ever most wanton me.
How shy was I, that very first time, swept away by the site
of your haunting rippling flesh!
Embarrassed, oh yes, I wanted to look away!
But swooned at your virile manhood, nonetheless.
Captured was I, a total, forever, a prisoner of you!
Nothing innocent about us shall ever be written.
And yes, I wish it just to be exactly so!
For we are blessed to be passions' slaves in full glory.
We paint the stars in heaven without shame and no
faux romantic story!
A tale of us, most rare and divine, unspeakably delirious.
Where I can always feel your eternal hands, traversing
my naked spine.
I, your slave, till that final cloud takes me forever home.
To exist in the heavens, in our Orpheus star, never more lost,
eternally....
Within you, my eternal, celestial home, no more to roam.
July 29, 2020
Entered in Silent One's Sensuality Contest
On a beautiful afternoon, crisp and sunny, I set out on a trek to the nearby woods. Except my camera, intentionally picked up, I hadn’t carried with me any other goods. All along, I saw wild flowers and strange herbs and paused to take pictures, but kept moving. No doubt, it was a rewarding experience. The lure of the unknown seemed bewitching. From the cluster of flowers on a sprawling tree, the wind wafted a rare exotic smell which I inhaled to my heart’s content. All along, I heard the twitter of chirping sparrows and some other birds and could spot large squirrels with striped designs and bushy tails. Proceeding further, heard a gurgling sound. It must be a small cataract, I did suppose. My guess was right. It fell off a rock and ran into a stream with murmur enough to lull one to sweet repose. The whistle of a quail fell in my ears and the rhythm of the tapping of a wood pecker and the creaking of dry leaves under my feet…all familiar sounds to any forest trekker! Feeling happy over my progress without a hitch, listening to the soft cajoling of birds and the confused drone of honey bees, I walked playfully stamping on the weeds.
woodland paths unwind
bringing multi scenes in row~
joy to heart and soul
By the time I reached half my way, the forest fell into darkness much
earlier to sunset. It shattered my peace and blotted out my sight, that I started running wild feeling violently upset. I knew I had strayed off the accustomed path, saw the dark sky above and heard a foreboding owl’s hoot. My path was severely obstructed by a tangle of creepers. I felt so puzzled that I could hear the loud thump of my heart. Under a thicket, covered with brambles, I saw a sudden movement as that of a beast and was afraid to look over my shoulders. My teeth chattered and my knees smote. I swooned unable to think or act, hear or see. For how long I lay there in a trance, not sure. When I woke, I saw myself lying at the foot of a tree. To my great relief, I saw the sun beams filtering down and an orange tint streaming across the foggy sky. I couldn’t say if I saw heaven or hell. Better to say, I experienced both.
unexpected turns,
life takes, landing us in angst~
yet, add to our strength