Best Swore Poems
I grew up shooting pool and dancing on the bar
Mama said with enough buise anyone could be a star
Daddy was in the back room chasin' skirts
Mama was in the parking lot dancin' with Mary Jane just to mask the hurt
I've spent my life walkin' around in a cloudy haze
I'm taunted by the memory of my early days
Daddy spent alot of time drivng an eighteen wheeler
Each night Mama brought home a new "sexual healer"
I didn't usually get a chance to catch his name
But it almost always ended the same
I heard her scream as glass would break
My heart would stop with each breath I was scared to take
Sirens and lights flooded our streets as I approached another long night
As I dried her tears and cleaned her blood Mama swore it'd be alright
She forgot to mention that it'd happen again
Both my brothers had thier own bed in the federal pen
Cancer took Granny's last breath right about then
My sisters and I weren't strangers to rape
As we grew older we each seeked our o0wn escape
I guess I chose the hardest road
Somehow I thought drugs and men could ease my burdened load
While hiding from myself I lived a life of crime
I earned a reputation and did my time
I heard her scream as glass would break
My heart would stop with each breath I was scared to take
Sirens and lights flooded our streets as I approached another long night
As I dried her tears and cleaned her blood Mama swore it'd be alright
She forgot to mention that it'd happen again
(Written for Jim Eslinger )
DEVOTION POEM 5, “Unspoken” ***** (for Jim Eslinger)
Young and new to each other,
There was always too much to say.
Glancing around in restaurants, we’d notice
What so many friends remarked on when seeing
Those older couples staring at their water goblets
Or their fingers and never conversing —
What seemed
Not a breath spent one to the other...
Thus, we swore, we’d never ever be like that.
Until now, we are as the telepathy of time
Often does story — full with unspoken exchanges
And kindnesses, like when I want more coffee
And Jim has signaled a waiter before I signaled him,
Or there are things regarding our surroundings:
The commotion and din; or notes about raindrops;
And the phases of the moon; points of quality;
Jabs of conflict; moments of pain; and expressions
Of known love between us. Thus so,
Our lives joined
Evermore outside of dictionaries and essays,
Even overtopping poems...
We speak in being:
Together.
********. ********. ********
(c) sally Young eslinger 2020
Thanks be to God
Do You ever just get tired of Being You?
Up there on The Highest of pedestals as You rule...
Is It You feeling selfish or alone as an unhinged fool?
I care of Your most inner thoughts and about You often...
May My remarks make Your Strength become more soften.
Do You ever get tired of Being You?
Even with All Your Money or possibly Self for filled greed...
I can't help You understand for I only have Me to need.
I hope I can Be of Your Beckoned Service when You actually want to See.
For as I share this marking wound of Your deepest fear I hide inside Me.
Do You ever just get tired of Being You?
The Children captured in Their different varieties of worlds holding pain...
Wondering if Their Next Meal or life matters that may or will ever Be obtained.
I'm just trying to hit Our common grounds to Our Survival...
We are just mismatched in A Huge Puzzle yet unsolved as We form rivals.
Do You ever just get tired of Being You?
As The Richest of People plummet into cesspool of remorse over My thoughts...
There Doors locked for discussion as Wars are created from the shadows taught.
Do You ever just get tire of being You?
The Length of A swore is vast,thicken with Evil Doers,and blood drenches are filled.
The firmness In My Words silenced;I have spoken from My small mind as willed.
All left for concern of Me;is silent,disheartening,as Your sunsets go on for now... All is red and done;Seemly to reflect empty words dusted underneath A sad Brow.
Lately, when I look in a mirror
I see what I swore I'd never see.
For there's the image of my father
shamelessly staring right back at me.
I see the fat belly, I hated
hanging profusely over my belt.
And those droopy bags under his eyes:
now sag under mine, as the years melt.
I see the scars, time etched on his face,
in every wart and worry wrinkle.
And I see his empty, hollow eyes,
that, over time, had lost their twinkle.
I see his gaunt face and balding head,
where old age pulled out most of his hair.
And with his crinkled cheeks and false teeth:
I swear it's him, not me, standing there.
Yet I've grown fond of my timeworn look,
I know how every blemish was earned.
And noting, I look like my father:
is the most humbling lesson I've learned.
He
Didn't swear
On "Bible"...
But "Moby Dick"
No!
From the movie "Fried Green Tomatoes"
06.08.2009
"The heart that swore fidelity"
After I'm gone
You may not cry for me
You'll find the truth
Engraved upon my door:
"Here lived a heart
That swore fidelity
Through peaceful days
And through the nights of war"
Go on and feed
Your youthfull soul with pride,
With awe you wake
In all those lost and cold
After I'm gone
You'll come back just to find
This secret pledge
Written upon my door.
Though years have passed,
Though I have known them all -
Pale breasted loves
Aiming to steal your light
I let you sail,
And if such is your choice -
Than silent waiting
Becomes the choice of mine.
There once was a lass named Hortense
When she spoke she didn't make sense
An interpreter was needed
But the interpreter cheated
Swore like a trooper, made the air blue and intense
© Jack Ellison 2015
Thought I saw you when I was working the window
Turned out to be a dream, what do you know?
Some times I think back to those times and then I laugh
Imagining how life would be if I took another path
I realize that I've spent the last month wondering
Wondering how you have been
Seems after our war you left without a trace
Ever since then I think I'll see your face
Hiding within a crowd but I know you are long gone
I had accepted it, even though the lines were drawn
Somewhere within my head, I just can't stop wondering
Wondering how you have been
Suicide, unify
Seems like forever ago
Suicide, unify
Seems like an eternity ago
My memories are mysteries
As to why I still miss you
When you died, I'd confide
Unto your grave, I still miss you
And in the years to come
I'll still be holding on
To the promise I swore to keep
Not to join you early in eternal sleep
I have grown tired of violence over love.
I threw my cautions aside when I felt this for you,
and I swore I would not be a punished woman.
You will not be the exception to this any longer.
I cannot believe I thought I could find love in this pain,
as if I deserved to sift through your eagerness to anger to find what love you could spare for me.
I do not know when I will actualize the reality of where my heart is now,
but I cannot pretend anymore that you did not break me.
I do not know when you first said you did not love me,
I don't know why I let you take it back.
But I do not love you, because I cannot love you.
Not when you don't love me.
Heart Swore An Oath, Never, Never Again
When the joy overcame the epic pain
Heart swore an oath - never, never again
Letting life and love's great loss break this heart
Torn asunder, lost and ripped apart
Where love only exists as in a dream
A tragedy, drinking from a dry stream.
To see her eyes that inspired our lives
She with heart's true beauty that yet survives
Hear her sweet voice say, "good morning my dear "
Wake to morning sun's golden rays of cheer
Alas! Such paradise has now been lost
To regain it, I would pay any costs!
When the joy overcame the epic pain
Heart swore an oath - never, never again.
R.J. Lindley, Sept. 3rd, 1978
Sonnet
***
(Haiku Trilogy, Thoughts and Views)
composing pre-dawn hours
(1.)
Life, Contrasting Views
doe and fawn grazing
radiant sun beaming down
night cries, city born
Robert J. Lindley, 5/23-2020
haiku,
(2.)
The Camp And The Hope
fire,dying embers
tent and gear snow covered
dawn and hope rising
Robert J. Lindley, 5/23-2020
haiku,
(3.)
Remembered Times
home and winter's hearth
chilling winds whispering deep
white sands, vacation
Robert J. Lindley, 5/23-2020
haiku,
i think we all swore,
way back an before,
it was time to get us some manners,
the 4 letter words don't bother the birds,
just upsets the sad social planners...Don
re: Sara Kendrick
"Young Man and the Older Man"
.
thus did she
and mine
not
seed
some witches swore allegiance to plant induced electronics
Wilma Higgenbottoms swore by produce hydroponics
Her tomatoes rivaled the size of a giant’s enormous toe
Her pumpkins were larger than the neighbor’s lawn to mow
When Halloween came around she could barely be found
We looked all over the town, over, through, up and in ground
She was celebrating her garden bounty, trick-or-treating on the loose
Her confidence was hale and hearty, she was named the Garden Goose.